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Hey y'all!

I live in Jackson, MS, a city historically defunded and under-invested in, which has resulted in collapsing infrastructure, poor educational outcomes, and extremely poor health outcomes. We also have a lot of feral cats.

Those are not unrelated sentences. If a city doesn’t have the money to pave their streets or make sure the water is safe to drink, having a robust animal control department is seldom at the top of the budget. I am unable to pave my street, and I cannot fix our water system, or provide healthcare for mothers. At least, not single handedly.

But I can work on the feral cat problem. Lest you think feral cats are not a “real” problem, be assured they are. Cats - a cute but invasive species - kill more than a billion songbirds every year, upsetting ecosystems. More feral cats means more cats in shelters, where thousands of them are put to death daily.

If, like me, you like cats, know that the life expectancy of indoor cats is more than 15 years, while that of outdoor cats is more like 3. And cats can have multiple litters a year - one feral momma cat can produce 100 or more kittens in just a few years.

So, we feed and neuter the feral cats in our neighborhood. We are the current caretakers for a group of six kittens and their feral mother. The goal is to socialize the kittens while they are nursing, and then get them in good homes, and then get the mom neutered and then returned to her colony, where she can live out her days without becoming a kitten factory. Once they are feral, like this moma cat, they can’t be brought indoors as pets. But if they are socialized as infants, they can.

Just like with human children, the early lessons are important.

So right now, a feral calico and her six offspring are living in our garage. The kittens are extremely adorable - as kittens are. There is a reason our ancient ancestors adopted cats as pets and not, say, opossums. We took the kittens to the vet, we gave them dewormer and other medications, and now we are weighing them daily as we begin to wean them and transition them to regular food. We’ve rearranged vacations around these house guests of ours, and in exchange, we get to play with kittens every day.

It’s not a horrible trade off. 🙂

I don’t delude myself into thinking that our intervention will change much, overall. The world is still at least half horrible, but six kittens will have good homes where they can live long lives, instead of short brutish ones. Dozens of ferals won’t be born because Moma will be altered. And thus, many songbirds will get to sing without fear of those cats.

It’s not healthcare and safe water, but it’s not nothing. We are not powerless, you and I. We cannot change everything, but we can change some things. And sometimes, you also get kittens.

Five Beautiful Things

Audio from 1959 of Flannery O’Connor reading A Good Man is Hard To Find. Growing up in the south in the 70’s, most of the adults I knew sounded like this. Plus, the story is amazing, and a must read if you haven’t.

I love these botanical woodblock prints from Tugboat Printshop.

​What my Dog Taught Me about Mortality, from the NY Times. A beautiful graphic visualization, and a bit of a tear jerker. I don’t even really like dogs, and I loved this. (via kottke)

From the ever-excellent The Marginalian - Befriending a Blackbird.

I love the watercolor art of Dean Crouser. His paintings of flora and fauna get the colors so right.

A Bonus:

Saltwater, by Finn Butler

Check this out

The company Berkshire Hathaway owns, among other companies, Geico, and is best known for its most famous shareholder, Warren Buffet. But what I love most about it is its website. No fluff, no pretense, no catering to expectations. It looks like it was designed in 1998, and probably was.

I have a hard time writing in silence, but also can’t listen to things that have much in the way of words or lyrics. These days, I spend a lot of time with this jazz playlist on Amazon music. If you have music for writing recommendations, send them my way, please!

TCB

The most clicked link last issue (~14.3% of opens) was this Pride flag made of images from NASA photos.

This is the last week of Membership Month, and so, this is my last big appeal to you. If my work is important to you, I encourage you to become a member. Your ongoing monthly support will enable me to keep writing, keep sharing, and to keep this publication both free and ad-free.

Not a week goes by that someone doesn’t ask me why I don’t do this behind a paywall. I’m really clear I’m leaving money on the table by not doing that, but I don’t want beauty to be something only available to people who can afford to pay for it. And thankfully, my members agree with me, so I can afford to not paywall my content.

You can learn more about becoming a member here.

Thank You!

For more than 9 years now, I've been writing these notes, and you keep reading them. You have no idea how much that means to me.

I really do hope you will consider becoming a member, to keep this project going. Other ways to support me and this work include buying me a cup of coffee, share the web version of this letter (see the link at the top of the page) on social media, send cash via a half-dozen ways, send a note to the address at the bottom of the page, or just forward this email to your friends. But however you do it, I'm grateful beyond words for your support over the years.
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Take care,

HH