burnt embers

Meet Siyah. She is our new cat. We couldn’t live without a cat for very long – there was too big a hole in the household. Siyah is about 9 months old and reminds us of all the joys of living with teenagers. Her energy is impossible to contain which is a major change from a quiet ailing old lady cat. But we are getting used to it, and finding a lot of joy in the rambunctious careening that punctuates the days. Yesterday I was having a nap until she started hunting a fly in the bedroom, crashing behind the blinds and onto the floor and across the bed and around and around.

This photo shows her first trip out of doors. She is not ready to be outside unaccompanied, so only gets to go out for short times during the day. We know when she wants to go out because she flings herself at the door handle, so far without success. Her method is to leap two or three feet higher than the handle (which is quite astonishing) and grab at it on the way down. She has the right idea because it is the kind of handle that levers down to open the door.

Her favourite thing is stalking the neighbour’s chickens when they wander into our yard. They just give her the beady eye and send her packing when she finally reaches their space. A close second favourite are crane flies, which seem like so much fun, until they turn into a nice light snack.

The only problem, from my perspective, is that she is really hard to photograph, being a light sink.