Marco Polo and Scarlett.

Mickey Kitty (my little Marco Polo explorer cat) went missing last night. For nearly three hours, I had no idea where he was, and even though I tried to keep calm about it, my husband said I didn't fool him for a minute.

Mickey was in the yard just before the chickens went into their coop... Mickey scattered them all over the yard as they were making their way towards the coop in their nightly chicken conga-line. I was watering the vegetable patches at the time, and I called out to Mickey to Let the chickens be, for goodness sake! Mickey looked at me and then sat in the courtyard with his wide-eyed you-yelled-at-me?! expression on his whiskered face. I went on watering the vegetables, and Mickey just sat there pouting.

By the time I turned off the hose, Sweet Pea was sitting by the back door waiting to go inside, Gatsby was in his chair on the back porch, and Mickey was nowhere in sight. I fed the other two cats and started calling out for Mickey Kitty. Usually, he will meow in response when his name is called, or he will just start walking towards me. Last night, nothing. Not a meow, not a sign of Mickey. I even checked all over the inside of the house, because Mickey can pry open a door when he has a mind to, and unless a door is latched, he can get it open.

All around the outside of the house I went, half a dozen times, calling out his name. I did the same thing around the garage, the cottage, the barn. I even looked inside the cottage and the downstairs of the barn, thinking he might have gotten in there somehow. I went back into the house and upstairs and looked out over the fields from the balconies. There wasn't even a hint of a breeze last night, and I figured that if Mickey were out in the pastures, I would be able to see the wildflowers and grass swaying as he moved. Nothing. Not so much as one flower was doing anything more than standing there pointed towards the sky.

Back downstairs I went... outside again.... walking around everything, even walking down the hill towards the pond, thinking that Marco Polo Mickey might have wandered down there. By that time, it was getting dark. The snakes... the coyotes... the raccoons... the armadillos... the possums.... and heaven only knows what else comes out in the dark around here. I asked my husband if I should call the three closest neighbors. "Wait till morning, " he said. "Mickey knows where he lives, and he'll come back when he gets hungry."

We had taped "The Amazing Race" so we could watch it afterwards without the commercials, so we watched the program, with me jumping up to look out on the porch every time I thought I heard a noise outside. When the show was over, back outside I went, turning on the porch lights around the house, calling out for Mickey. And there he was, walking towards me in the courtyard, as if he didn't have a care in his little cat-world. I scooped that cat up and cried into his fur and he buried his head in my neck. And there I was, asking him where he had been, and why didn't he come when I called him, and why did he make me worry so much..... all these stupid questions that mean absolutely nothing to a cat but meant everything to me.

As much as I keep telling my husband that I am all catted-out, that I'm tired of the litter boxes and the heavy boxes of cat-litter, and the responsibility of cats (and house pets in general), the thought that Mickey was out there in the dark just broke my heart last night. This time, Mickey had a happy ending. There is going to come a time when there might not be a happy ending for that little adventurous cat. That's how we found Mickey in the first place-- wandering near the bayou in the park close to where we used to live. He was a tiny Marco Polo then as my husband carried him home, and he hasn't changed one little bit.


And Scarlett--- she was in her favorite nesting box today, and when I saw her in there, I got to thinking that maybe she had "gone broody" again and would stay in the nest for another 40 days. But Scarlett surprised me. I was in the kitchen and I heard her cackling and clucking, which is what my hens usually do after they've laid an egg in one of the nesting boxes. I went outside, and there was Scarlett, out of the coop and in the courtyard, cackling her little chicken-heart out for all to hear. I went inside the coop and there in her box was a brown egg-- Scarlett is the only hen who gives us brown-shelled eggs. Perfectly shaped, a small egg compared to the other hens' eggs, but the same size as Scarlett always gave us every day before her broody stage took over.

Scarlett waited in the courtyard... she saw me with the egg, and I thanked her for it... she tilted her head to one side, stared at me with those yellow eyes of hers, and then went off towards the barn to find the other hens. She didn't care that I had that egg of hers, so her broodiness is officially over and done with for now.


It is another glorious day here today....... bright blue skies, not a drop of moisture in the air, crisp and clean and sunny and warm and you can still smell the wildflowers. And the roses-- there are four rose-arbors around the property and they are filled with blooms and when you walk under them and that rose scent hits you, it's like heaven on earth.

There is a cafe in town called "It Must Be Heaven." Indeed.