the cat, the birds and the winter... to be continued

what we expected all the time has happened! saar has been hunting at night over the ice (her hunting grounds have grown bigger and more attractive with all this ice). and an innocent crake deep asleep was her victim. we don't know how she managed but she took the crake through her cat door into the living.
and that is how we found her.


she still does look as in a deep innocent sleep.... but we know better! stupid cat!

winter birds

in my former blogpost I wrote about the oliebol I gave to the hungry birds in the garden. this fat food is not so healthy for birds as well. so I will stick to the more prefered bird food in winter: peanuts.


lots of little birds are visiting the garden on their search for a nice snack. we see robins, all sorts of titmouse and wren. off course their are other species as well but I'm not so good in all these bird names.


they are very brave (and I asume very hungry) because they keep visiting the garden although cat Saar is on a hunt.....


I will not show a picture of the little bird that we found under our dinner table (or what was left of it).

more snow, and more and more and more....

did we think we had lots of snow on thursdaymorning? that was peanuts compared to the snowfall on sunday. when we woke up today it was snowing just a bit but during the morning it turned into a real snow-show.

the thick snowflakes and a good crispy snowpack were unresitable and we had to go out. dressed up in our wintersports outfit we went for a long winterwalk to friends for a warm coffee. we took the route through parks and the 'edge' of the town and had the feeling we were out there on our own, throwing snowballs and having fun.


cat saar looked very surprised and didnot understand why the white fluffy stuff was so cold. but she also liked to play. hesitating for the nice spot near the heater or being outside for a cold adventure.


walking back from our coffee break (which turned into a lunchbreak and finished it off with a glass of wine as well) we bumped into our neigbourhood x'mas drink festive. which also looked perfect in the snow and we had another 'gluhwein' before we finally returned home.....


with the taste of a yummie day and a snowflake.... or two!

dead little creatures

as I wrote earlier, our cat Saar is a true co-user of the garden space and beyond. it is paradise for her. she is queen of the neighbourhood and has hardly any enemies. there is just one big male cat; when he is around she escapes inside and expects us to send the guy away (which we won't be doing, we think she has to be strong enough to face him as well).
in daytimes cat Saar can look so quiet and peaceful and lazy but at nights she just turns into a murderer. in the morning we see in the kitchen or on the carpet (and these days on the grass) what she has left for us as her trophees. this morning I found two of them in the grass, hopefully not a couple with a nest full of little ones left behind.


mice we can handle (they fit in the carbage bin). a few days ago she almost caught a duck. so we are prepared to find a dead heron or goose one morning....

cat in the garden

cat Saar loves this time of year where she is queen of the garden. she has so many spots were she can go ......

when it is too hot....

or a where the last sunbeams come in the evening....

and just to roll and be happy with the space and warmth of the tiles!

adolesence grass

One of the little changes I made in the little garden was taking away a not so useful path from the 'main terrace' upto the 'back terrace' at the waterfront. It was crossing our four square meters of 'lawn' and it looked so silly that finally this winter I had the energy to take this stone path away. We did a few months with just a stripe of Dutch clay in the middle of the green (cat Saar loved to take that route before entering the house taking the mud straight onto the couch), when finally it became warm enough to do the miracle with the grass seeds. After two weeks we had this little fellows saying 'hello, we're ready!' and they left me with the thought 'this will never turn out into grown up grass'.
And now in middle of summer we have a zone that looks like a green landingstripe in the middle of the garden. The new born grass is in the puberty fase and is growing much harder and greener then the middle aged green.