The Cat ate my Asphodels
“The nation is divided, half patriots, half traitors and no man can tell which from which”………Mark Twain, sometime in the late 1800’s?
The greatest act of treason I have experienced, something akin to January 6th has been taking place right under my nose.
I stood in the door of the Alpine house, Sam the cat sauntered in. He casually meandered through the rows of Androsace’ whose buds are just plumping up, and past a flat of the tidy little pom-poms of yellow that is Draba hispanica, now in full bloom. Without pause or flinch, he went in for a huge bite, I stood in disbelief. I had been seeing the damage on the Asphodels for a few weeks now, it looked like the typical late winter damage of voles or mice that often make their way into the bulb house this time of year as the winter stores have no doubt run out and the sweet, tender foliage of emerging crocus is often the first victim of these ravaging grazers.
Sam sat back and munched the now severed leaves, much like a desultory cow standing in a field chewing it’s cud with the detached look distantly focused, past me and onto the cars whirring by on the interstate at the edge of the farm field. The shock of watching the betrayal live and in person paused me with such vigor that I stood stock still for a moment trying to comprehend what I had just witnessed. The hired hand, the mercenary gunslinger, the made man that keeps the balance between vermin and plants always in check had stabbed me in the back. Flashes of Michael Corleone leaning in to give his brother a kiss flashed through my head as I stumbled to purse out a “PSSSSSSTTTTTTTTT”, “PSSSSTTTTT” and shoo this turncoat out of the Alpine house. Sam hopped a flat and fled, a clump of the beautiful, silver grey linear foliage of Asphodeline lutea still hanging from his perfidious mouth.
The first of many Fritillaria pudica opened, they seem to love these hot summers much more than I do.
Sam the cat, aka Samwise Gamgee, aka Salmon, Samwell Tarley, aka Samson, aka Sammy the bull, it reads more like a police APB now than a list of affectionate names for the mouser that has been faithfully leaving tails on the patio steps for something like 8 years now. How does one come back from such betrayal, such treason? If you think I’m making this up, click on the gallery, he was caught in the act, as red handed as any traitor could be. Much like January 6th, I consider it an act of domestic terrorism.
A white pepper dusting now coats the flats of Asphodels, hopefully they grow out for the spring sales. I haven’t had to resort to this sort of control since the neighborhood ferals decided that raised Juno bed was the best place to bury the scat. Sam and I eye each other with caution now when approaching the Alpine house. My trust and faith in this institution now shaken.
The Checks and balances are here for a reason, the white pepper dusting on the Asphodels was a necessary evil. Makes me sneeze when I walk in the alpine house now.