A Carmen Update
Little Carmen is adjusting well to her new life as an indoor cat. “She loves to play,” Rob says. “She just wants to play and play and play.” It’s so true. The other night, we were playing with Carmen with her wand toys, making a …
Author: Leslie Kimel
Recent Paintings and Some Old Family Photos
On November 18, I finally found a foster for Famke’s kittens. This was a great blessing for them, I know, but it was hard for me to say goodbye. The yard is so quiet and still now, without them here. Famke’s gone too. My mom, who is more giving than the Giving Tree, adopted her!
In the days since everybody left, I’ve tried to stay really busy. In my free time after work, I finished a couple new paintings and restored a couple of old family photos. The photos are of my paternal grandparents, a portrait of Granny at age 18 and one of my grandfather in his 40s.
A Sunny Sunday with Famke and the Kittens
On Sunday morning, at about 11, I was weeding the meadow and Rob was loading the weedeater with some new string when we saw Famke leading her kittens out of the garage, their cozy, messy (temporary) home. We knew she was taking them on one …
Famke and Her Kittens
In my last blog post, I mentioned that my sweet stray-cat friend Famke had had kittens and that she’d hidden them somewhere in our yard. At that time, about a month ago now, I was wishing that Famke would trust me enough to show her …
Sugar-Free Vegan Baked Oatmeal and More
I’ve been eating a lot of baked oatmeal lately. It’s so satisfying and easy to make that I decided I’d share the recipe with you. Of course, this meant that I needed to get a blog-worthy picture of oatmeal, a tall order.
I did the photo shoot on Saturday morning, heading out early, before it was even quite light, to set up the scene. The air was refreshingly cool at this early hour as I squatted among the oxeye sunflowers by the breezeway, tinkering with china plates and my vintage orange-juice set painted with oranges, trying to get everything just right. Pretty soon, Famke, my little stray-cat friend, joined me. I went inside to get her some Fancy Feast, and in a moment she was nibbling and purring beside me. She’s so cute, probably only about nine months old, dainty, with a tiny pink nose and tiny pink mouth. She’s white with silver tabby splotches. On Monday or maybe in the wee hours of Tuesday, she had kittens. They were hidden somewhere, and I hadn’t seen them yet.
I kept fiddling with my photo props, squatting near the little table I was using and moving a plate or a glass a fraction of an inch. When Famke was done eating, she came and stood very close to me so that her warm side was touching my thigh. She purred and rubbed against me.
Then another friend entered the scene: Shelby, my favorite box turtle! She’s small, very petite, a yellow stripe running down the center of her shell. Her face is sunny yellow and always has a little smile! I rushed inside to get her some organic blueberries. She ate those, even though I was right there, watching. She wasn’t scared of me. But what she was really interested in was Famke’s cat food (Famke hadn’t quite finished it). I went inside to get her some more blueberries, and when I came back out she was stuck in/on Famke’s bowl! She was truly stuck, her head in the bowl and her butt on the edge of the bowl. She was flailing all her limbs, including her adorable little tail. She was flailing them in the air, trying in vain to get out of her predicament.
“Oh, no! Shelby!” I cried. And I rescued her from the bowl. She started eating the new blueberries I’d just fetched.
I made a mental note to serve Famke’s cat food on a plate from now on, just to prevent any more mishaps with turtles, and to try to remove the food as soon as Famke is done eating. Turtles shouldn’t be eating cat food. I’m sure it’s not healthy for them.
Later, I told my sister Bunny about Shelby getting stuck.
“She was flailing her little . . . “
“Oh, her little flippers?” Bunny said.
“Yes!” I said. “It was sad but so cute. She was even moving her little tail! She was trying every tool at her disposal to help get herself out of that pickle.”
“Luckily you were there to save her,” Kris, my other sister, said.
Anyway, after rescuing Shelby, I went back to taking pictures of my baked oatmeal as Shelby ate her blueberries and Famke rubbed against my thigh. Then Famke ran off. I kept taking picture after picture because I wasn’t satisfied with the lighting. I kept hoping a sunbeam would hit the little table and add some razzle dazzle to my shot. (None ever did.) I was snapping away when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It was Famke with something in her mouth! A little gray fuzzy ball! It was one of her kittens!
She was coming toward me with a kitten! But as soon as I realized what was going on, she froze, then turned around and started running away! By the time I got to my feet, she was gone and I couldn’t find her.
I think she had wanted to show me her kitten but then got scared and changed her mind. I had to leave (I was going shopping in Monticello with Mom, Kris, and Bun), but I was so excited and happy. As soon as I got home, I’d find her kittens, I thought. I’d spend time with Famke and take care of her and she’d show them to me.
The morning had been so wonderful and so eventful. I love going outside very early, when the air is still cool and fresh. The early morning is a magical time in the yard, and I’d felt marvelously un-lonely hanging out with my little friends Famke and Shelby.
I was terribly excited about Famke’s kittens. All day I was extra giddy, because . . . because I felt I’d been witness to a miracle—a kitten, a brand-new being, a precious thing. I was full of awe at the great mystery of birth. And I felt special because Famke had trusted me and had been about to show her kitten to me until she got scared. I made happy plans to win her full trust.
Anyway, it was the most delightful few hours out in the yard. It set the tone for my whole day. When I got to Mom’s house (where we were all meeting before going to Monticello), I announced, “Oh, my gosh, you will not believe the sh*t I’ve been getting into this morning!”
Oh, well, here’s the recipe for the oatmeal:
Leslie’s Sugar-Free Vegan Baked Oatmeal
Ingredients:
3 very ripe bananas
1 cup almond milk
1 tablespoon melted coconut oil
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups rolled oats
1 tablespoon ground flaxseed
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup sliced almonds or chopped walnuts
2 cups fresh blueberries
Directions:
Mash the bananas in a large bowl. Then add the almond milk, coconut oil, and vanilla and stir to combine. In a separate bowl, mix together the dry ingredients—the oats, flaxseed, salt, cinnamon, baking powder, and nuts. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and combine. Then stir in the blueberries. Grease a 9-inch square baking pan and pour the mixture in. Bake for 30 minutes at 375 degrees.
Lisa by the Meadow
For the last month or so, I’ve been spending all my free time painting this picture of my teddy bear Lisa posing by the meadow garden. The whole process was so much fun! For two or three hours every day after work (and longer on …
New Patio and Paths
After years of dreaming and planning, Rob and I recently had a new brick patio and paths installed in our backyard. The work was done by Mark Clark Construction and, boy, did Mark and his team do a great job! The patio and paths are …
Blackberries and Biscuits
Last Friday I took the day off work and made blackberries and biscuits for breakfast. I whipped up the biscuits using this lovely recipe from Holy Cow Vegan, then topped them with a warm blackberry sauce containing no added sugar.
The sauce got me feeling nostalgic. When I was little, Mom, Kris (my sister), and I would go blackberry picking in a vacant lot in our Tallahassee neighborhood. We’d ride our bikes there and fill old coffee cans with ripe berries, which grew wild in the sun.
The vacant lot was a sprawling, hot, brambly place, bordered on one side by a shady, quiet dirt road. The road and the lot were always deserted. Mom, Kris, and I would be the only people anywhere around. As we picked, we’d sing to scare the snakes away—”She’ll Be Coming ‘Round the Mountain,” “Goodnight, Irene,” and hymns we knew from church.
We weren’t supposed to eat the berries while we picked; we were supposed to save them for a pie. But I never had any self-control; I always ate a ton. Luckily Mom was really disciplined and good at picking (she grew up on a farm), so we ended up with plenty—at least one full coffee can. With the coffee cans perched in Mom’s bike basket, we’d ride back home. Then Mom would stir up some limeade to cool us off, and we’d start in on our baking. In addition to the big, main pie, we always made some little hand pies that Kris and I were allowed to eat right away, as soon as they came out of the oven. The hand pies were half-moon shaped and topped with glittering sugar.
Blackberry-picking days were some of the best days of my childhood summers, and eating blackberry-topped biscuits now, fifty years later, brought them back to life for me. Instead of having just one chilly Friday off of work, I felt like I was in the middle of a long, leisurely summer vacation.
Sugar-Free Vegan Blackberry Sauce
Ingredients:
16 ounces frozen blackberries
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon agave nectar, optional
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 cup water
1 tablespoon vegan butter, melted
Directions:
Place the blackberries in a saucepan, then add the lemon juice and agave nectar. Cook on medium heat for a couple of minutes. Mix the cornstarch and water together and add it to the blackberries. Simmer on low heat for about 8 minutes, or until the sauce thickens. At the very end, stir in the melted butter.
