the fairy tale

I sat back on my haunches and looked about the room.  "It's the weirdest thing," I said to myself.  "I know I left that ball of yarn out here last night.  I KNOW it!"  I peered under both the chesterfield and its matching chair, thinking the yarn might have rolled - or been kicked - under one of them by mistake but no, there was no sign of it under either one.  "PEEPERS," I called out.  "Have you seen..."

"The peep is busy upstairs looking for something."  It was my brother Rushton who answered my call.

"Is she looking for my ball of yarn?" I asked, hopefully.

"No," Rushy answered.  "She's muttering about some of the laundry she did yesterday having gone missing, and I doubt she laundered your ball of yarn.  And since when did YOU get a ball of yarn, anyway?"

"Since I took one out of the peep's knitting bag," I replied.  "Thing is though, it's gone missin'."

"Maybe Peepers found out you stole her ball of yarn and took it back.  Did you look for it in her knitting bag again?"

"Of course I did," I said with a sneer.  "Uh..." and I hesitated, "but maybe I'll a take another peek.  You know, to be sure."

Rushy rolled his eyes, obviously not believin' me.  MOUSES!

"Nope, not here," and I pulled my head out of the knitting bag.  "But there is a half ball of forest green yarn that would look really good with your fur.  You want it?"

Rushton sighed.  "I do, but I don't.  The peep says we're not allowed to play with her yarn, and I don't want to get into trouble."

"Suit yourself," I shrugged.  "But I still can't figure out where my ball of yarn went."

"When you were looking for your yarn," Rushton began, "did you happen to come across a big lump of orange-coloured fur?  That loose fur the peep got out of my coat when she combed me last night?"

"If I had, I would have left it right where I found it.  I'm not touchin' your fur."  The very thought disgusted me.  "The peep probably put it in the garbage or the compost bin or somethin'."

"She didn't," Rushy said.  "She was going to, but I snatched it out of her hand because...  Well...  Well because it was mine, and winter's coming, and I might need that fur to keep me warm."

I shook my head and went back to looking for my ball of yarn when something white caught my attention.  Was that a scrap of 100% white cotton peeking out from behind the armoire?  "How did that get there?" I wondered aloud.

I pawed my way over to the armoire, grabbed onto the fabric, and gave it a good pull.  Something - or someone - was holding onto it at its other end.  I gave it another tug, this time leaning back and using all fifteen pounds of my weight as leverage, and...  And...  And...

SPLAT!!!

Okay, so it wasn't so much a splat as a...  Uh...  Um...  Well I tumbled backwards and landed on my tail, okay?  It hurt, too, but I had hold of that piece of fabric.  I, Seville the Cat, had won.  MOUSES!

I took a good look at the fabric I held in my paw and saw it was a white t-shirt kinda thing belonging to the peep.  Was this one of the tops she had put in the laundry yesterday?  One of the things that Rushy said had gone missing?  How on earth did it end up behind the armoire?  And a better question was, why on earth were there a whole bunch of...

"Are those rectangular holes cut out of the peep's top?" Andy asked, interrupting my train of thought.  "She's not going to be pleased when she sees that."  He put one front paw on my shoulder, and used the other to hold up the shirt to get a better view.   "Sivvers, my boy, you're in it up to your whiskers."

"I didn't cut those holes out of the peep's top," I said, grabbing the t-shirt out of Rushy's paw.  "But someone sure did.  Someone cut a bunch of teeny-tiny rectangular holes in this thing.  It's totally ruined, for sure."

I went over to the armoire again and leaned up against the wall behind it.  Closing one eye, I attempted to peer between the chunky piece of furniture and the wall.  Oops!  Wrong eye.  Hehehe...  My bad.  But never one to give up, I closed the other eye and took another peek.  What I saw made me stagger backwards in shock.  Turning around, my mouth hanging open, I said to my brother, "Rushy, you're not gonna believe what's goin' on back there.  MOUSES!"

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Remember to return to Nerissa's Life, the blog, on Sunday December 1st for the conclusion to my latest adventure.  MOUSES!

catnip and fairy dust

Nissy sauntered into the kitchen to find his brother up on the table.  With a mug of nip beer in one paw, Seville was studying various equations he had written down on his board. Scattered about the room were various books, pencils, a calculator and a couple of St. Patrick's Day inspired hats.

"Whatcha up to, bro?" asked Nissy.  "You workin' on some teleportation physics equations or somethin'?"

"Actually, no," answered Seville, sounding somewhat distracted.  "These are chemical equations, Niss."

"Really?"  Nerissa looked at Seville's board and then glanced over at the kitchen counter.  Seville had obviously been using several of the peep's mixing bowls along with a wooden spoon and a couple of spatulas.  Nissy hopped up onto the counter to inspect them and found bits of sticky goop in the bowls and on the counter.  "Looks more like cookin' to me, Sivvers," he said.

"Cooking, chemistry...  All one in the same, Niss."

"Well whether you're cookin' or performin' chemistry experiments, you had best wash this stuff up.  Ol' Peepers is not gonna be pleased when she finds this mess you've made and that's a fact, for sure. She's gonna freak."

 Nissy lifted a paw and sniffed at the green, sticky goop he had accidentally stepped in.  "Hmmm...  Seville, this here goop smells like milk.  Whatcha makin'?"

"Breath mints," answered Seville.  "Feline catnip-flavoured breath mints."

"Interestin'..."  and Nissy sniffed the goop again.  "Nip breath mints for cats.  Seville, you're a genius!  A genius in disguise but a genius nonetheless.  Why didn't I think of this?  And what exactly made you think of inventing 'em?"

"No offence Niss but lately you've had a bad case of tuna breath.  I heard Peep #1 mention it the other day."

"There's NOTHIN' wrong with havin' a little tuna on your breath," exclaimed Nerissa with indignation.  "Nothin' wrong with that at all.  Happens after you eat the tuna."

"Yeah, well it smells fishy to me," exclaimed Seville.

"That's 'cause tuna is fish!  Mouses, Sivvers.  If you're gonna start cookin' and whatnot, you've gotta know your ingredients.  Besides, you like tuna, too."

"But I also like nip," began Seville, "and I'm thinkin' that a catnip-flavoured breath mint is the perfect thing to follow a plate of tuna.  Havin' some issues with the equations though."

"Equations or recipes?" asked Nerissa.

"Same diff, Niss.  Bottom line is, my mints aren't nippy enough.  Do you think you could help me out?"

Nerissa jumped down from the counter.  Heading over to the table where Seville was working on his equations, he stopped dead in his tracks.  There on the floor sat two large clay pots filled with shamrocks.  "Uh Seville, are these what you're using to make your mints?"  Nissy pawed at something flitting about his ear.  It was tickling his whiskers.  Growing annoyed, he pawed at it again.  "And what's this fairy doin' over here?"

"Oh her?  That's Aoife.  She came with the plants."

Nissy rolled his eyes. "Of course she did. Whatever was I thinkin'?  Why else would a little green fairy appear in our kitchen? Silly me..."

"Enough with the chatter, Niss.  I need some help over here.  How can I get more nip in my breath mints?"

"Well for starters," and Niss picked one of the shamrocks from a pot. "These here plants aren't nip.  They're clovers. MOUSES!"

Seville stared at his brother.  "Do you think I don't know that?"  He hopped down onto the floor and padded over to Nerissa and the gigantic clover plants.  "You ever try to order nip plants in March? No one sells them.  Everyone wants to sell you clovers.  Shamrocks this and shamrocks that. Everyone is trying to cash in on the whole St. Patrick's Day experience and there's nothing to be found but clovers!  So I figured I'd order up some gigantic ones and just make do."

Nerissa threw his front paws up in the air.  "But..  Seville...  But..."  He was at a loss for words.

"I know what you're thinking, Niss.  You're thinking, clovers aren't nip."

Nerissa continued to stare at his brother, his eyes growing wider.

"Well you might have a point there but hear me out.  Clovers are green.  Catnip is green.  Clovers are a popular food with cows and cows produce milk and milk contains cream and cats like cream. Plus, with every order of two plants or more, they were throwin' in a free fairy.  You did meet Aoife, right?  She has magical fairy dust," Seville added in a whisper.  "I think that's why these plants have grown so large."

"Well maybe she can use some of that magic fairy dust to turn these shamrock plants into nip!" Nerissa cried.  "For mousin' out loud, Sivvers, these here plants are your whole problem.  You can't make nip mints without the nip.  You need nip!"

Nerissa turned to leave in disgust.  "And I'm takin' back that comment I made about your bein' a genius, Seville," he added.  "Any genius would know that clovers aren't nippy.  MOUSES!"

"And what if I were to tell you that I have some essential nip oil?" Seville cried out.  "Some nip oil to add to my mints."

Nissy swung around.  "Now you're talkin', Sivvers.  That's a totally different story.  You have nip oil?"

"Uh, no," and Seville pawed at a recipe book sitting on the floor.  "I said what if I were to tell you.." his voice trailing off.

Nerissa rolled his eyes and let out a big sigh.  "Okay, Seville.  You are my brother and I do love you so I'll see if we can figure somethin' out.  Maybe you can use the shamrocks to make the base of your mints and then if we can get our paws on some nip oil..."

"I knew you could figure it out, Niss!  I knew that if anyone could, it would be you.  So I have my clover base.  Tastes kinda milky like you noticed.  That's due to the whole clover-cow-cream connection.  Now to add some nippiness to the milky goodness that is the sticky goop."

"Speakin' of that, Sivvers, we need to work on the texture of your mints, too.  I don't think breath mints are supposed to be sticky or goopy.  They're not supposed to stick to your paws when you eat 'em."

"You might have a point there, Niss.  But first things first.  Put on your thinking cap," and Seville handed his brother a leprechaun hat to wear, "and let's get started on making some nip oil.  Do you think we need nip to make that?"

"Yes, Seville, I think we do but perhaps Aoife can help us out with that. You said the fairy was magic? Oh Aoife...  Come on over here.  Let's see if some of that magic fairy dust of yours can turn some vegetable oil into the essence of nip.  Now how do we do this?  Do I need to make a wish?"

And with that, the boys started working on their next great invention, Catnip-Flavoured Breath Mints for cats.

        HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY TO ALL!!

this is gonna be great

Looks like Bird TV is expandin'.  This is gonna be great.

The other day, Peep #1 was putterin' around in the garden, not doin' much but makin' a mess, really, when she finally made somethin' worthwhile. She made a discovery.

Nestled in and around the big multiflora rose in my bark yard, were a whole bunch of baby multiflora roses.  Only, they weren't really babies.  They were actually quite big.

You see, this particular rose bush, arches.  Yeah...  it makes arches.  Its branches or whatever grow up and then out and then arch right over and down until the tips of those branches touch the earth. This bush is one of the many sources of my faerie bowers about which I blogged a couple of summers ago.  Those branches arch over like a bridge but the rose isn't that big so peeps can't cross that particular bridge.  Neither can cats.  We're too heavy.  A squirrel might make it over. Maybe one of those little red squirrels but not the big monstrous grey ones.  Perfect sized bridge for faeries though, I should think.  But I digress...

We were talkin' about how the branches arched over and how the tips of those branches touched the earth or in this case, lawn or somethin' tryin' to pass itself off as a lawn.  Anywho...  the peep discovered that in a whole bunch of places where the tips of those branches had touched the ground, they had sprouted roots!

These baby roses probably took root last summer and fall, says the peep, but she never noticed 'cause of all the leaves and flowers and whatnot on the bushes.  Not to mention the faeries.

So after makin' her great discovery, Peep #1 got out the spade and some plant pots and potted up a whole whack of those rose bushes.  About a dozen of 'em, I believe.  Some will be donated to the plant sale for the animal shelter but five of them are gonna be used in the design of a new set right here in my garden.  That's right...  Bird TV is gettin' a new and improved set for its 2015 season.  Yoo-hoo!  YOO-HOO!

You see, those multiflora roses - or Rosa multiflora for those who wish to use their botanical name - are of great interest to the wildlife livin' in my garden as well as the peeps livin' in my house.  In early summer, the bushes are covered in flowers with a most heavenly, honey-like scent.  Peep #1 walks about with her snoot in the air, breathin' in the delicious scent of the roses and the bees come for the pollen, in droves.  Those bees pollinate the flowers so that in the fall, little rose hips form.  The birds love 'em.

Once, I think I saw a pheasant over by the big mama bush but I'm not sure that he was actually after the rose hips.  Might have been after somethin' else.  And yes, the rose bush is now a mama on account of her havin' all those babies and whatnot.

But the Robin Channel!  The robins who star in the Robin Show over on the Robin Channel....  they LOVE those little rose hips.

Okay, I'm not actually sure that they're robins.  Everyone 'round here calls 'em robins except for my second peep who calls 'em North American thrushes.  They do have red breasts like robins but it's quite possible they're actually thrushes in costume or somethin'.  Those Bird TV make-up artists might have put some blusher on their breasts or whatever.  Who knows?  Could Peep #2 be right about this? Stranger things have happened...

But whether they're robins or thrushes disguised as robins, they love the little rose hips that grow on those bushes. Earlier this year, I watched 'em absolutely devour every single rose hip on the multiflora rose in the back yard and the one in the front, too.

The Robin Show was extremely excitin' this year on account of all the robins, or whatever they're callin' themselves these days, eatin' those rose hips and then flyin' up to the old oak tree which does not have a yellow ribbon on it and then flying back down for more hips.

MOUSES!  I just had a thought.  Maybe...  Maybe the Robin Show is starrin' North American thrushes pretendin' to be robins.  They're actors.  Actors do that kind of thing all the time, right?  I mean, did William Shatner really fly around in space in a starship or was he just actin'?  And how 'bout that Garfield?  Did he really eat all that lasagna or did he really just act the part?  You decide. Oh, and how 'bout those peeps starrin' in the Senate scandal?  You know, that show filmed in Ottawa.  Wait a minute, those peeps weren't actors.  Those peeps were politicians.  Silly me.

Anywho...  back to the Robin Show on Bird TV.  Looks like they're gonna have a super-duper nicely expanded set for upcoming seasons with all those new rose bushes goin' in. Bet they'll expand the cast and everything.  Bet they'll expand the season!  Oohhh....  I can't wait.  Bet it's gonna win an Emmy, for sure.