View of the Sound in Bellingham Garden

A few weeks ago, I visited friends in Bellingham, Washington. They have a fantastic garden despite the deer that use it as their main thoroughfare (and their snacking gardens). It seems the humans and the deer have come to an agreement that the deer stay on the upper hillside and the people keep an uneaten garden near the house. I always like it when these “agreements” work out.

Tuffy-the-cat in her Birdhouse Palace

While I was visiting for just two days I saw several families of deer, including a few spotted “bambi’s” trot through the garden. I also saw a black squirrel, which was new to me. But, probably the most interesting “wild animal” in the garden was Tuffy, the family cat. Tuffy is a sweet old girl who decided that a bird feeder, placed on a Big Leaf Maple stump in the hillside, was not for the birds. No, this birdfeeder is Tuffy’s personal sunshine palace. Apparently, as in this photo, each evening she climbs into her palace to take a shaded, but sunny bath and then nap before catching a mouse or two on the hillside. I suppose if someone built a napping gazebo like this in my garden, I might adopt it as Tuffy has. And what a way to make the eye-sore of an oft-whacked-back, but impossible-to-remove stump look great in the garden. Usually, adding something like a little birdhouse to the top of it would draw the eye to it in a way I wouldn’t recommend, but when a kitty like Tuffy is perched inside, sunbathing at sunset, what a great visual to enjoy!