Buff the Cat

Back home, Liesbeth joins me for lunch.  We shed vests and jackets needed to say warm in the garden.  On the patio, a small banana plant looks anemic and windblown. I bring it indoors and place it beside six-packs of tomatoes, peppers and eggplant I took pity on last night.

I harvest lovage leaves for tuna-melt sandwiches.  This perennial herb reappears in early spring and combines the tastes of parsley and celery.  It gives a nice edge to fish.  In the 9th century, Charlemagne encouraged early economic development by circulating an approved list of plants for his subject to use in French gardens.  Lovage appears on his inventory, along with two better known and more pungent herbs -- garlic and mint.

After lunch, rain resumes and brings fog with it.  Suddenly I’m in Dr. Watson’s London.  Outside my window, an even shade of gray spreads from top to bottom.  No horizon reveals itself as a boundary of darker color.  I abandon farm work for the day and stay indoors. I clean the insides of cabinets, wash floors, and polish furniture until the Buff the Cat’s fur no longer skitters along the molding of the front hall. 

My well-loved cat is a perfect garden kitty.  She always stays in the pathways, never steps on a plant.  Buff was rescued by a lobster fisherman.  While waiting out a winter storm on Block Island, Richard found a kitten abandoned in a dumpster.  He named her after a deck paint (Barnegatt Buff which perfectly describes her ginger patches), tucked her into his pea jacket and brought the terrified creature home to his mother.  The first time I met Buff, she was skinny and scared and hiding in the Nelson’s bathroom.  When Bert Nelson retired to Pennsylvania, Buff’s care fell to me.