Posted on 01/11/2013 9:35:24 AM PST by Slings and Arrows
PITTSBORO, N.C. - LIKE her name, Siglinda Scarpa seems to be from another world. And not just Italy, where she was born. But one in which you can hear the animals speak, and everyone gets along.
Ms. Scarpa, 72, lives in a wooden house painted robin’s egg blue, in the middle of an open woodland, with old oaks and pines rising over sandy soil. With its second-story porches covered with the canes of Lady Banks’ roses, Carolina jasmine and wisteria, the house could be something out of a children’s book.
Some people come here to adopt a cat from the Goathouse Refuge, the animal sanctuary she runs, tucked back in the woods. Others come to buy her pottery or ceramic art, which is displayed in the sunny showroom on the first floor of this whimsical house: abstract pieces that evoke storms brewing in the sky; clay roasting pots shaped like squashes, with frogs or artichokes on their lids; or teacups molded like the face of a cat, the lines of cheek and jaw, nose and mouth drawn by a knowing hand.
For there are real cats everywhere.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Thanks to Gefn for the story!
“And she worries about who will take her place when she can no longer care for them. But who else would have such an uncanny way with the animals?”
/Salamander volunteers
she uses a grand old wood stove for cooking it looks like....I don’t particularly like cats but to live in the woods with bird houses everywhere would be very nice indeed.
“Nice”?
Paradise!
Oh me Too!!!
Can we share?
Best thread of the year so far, thanks
My pleasure.
I’m in too. That’s 100 cats apiece.
The women born in the 60’s and 70’s under the tyranny of the feminist movement are now in their late 30’s and 40’s. Many of them were taught to wait before marriage and children. Now they want to settle down, but it is too late. The pandemic of spinsters and crazy cat ladies is upon us.
A great story, makes my day. I love this quote:
“I always felt that people were not seeing me,” she said. “That they were talking, but never to me.”
Then one night, after she was in bed, her father brought her a tiny gray tabby.
“He lifted up the blanket and put this little frozen thing on my chest,” she said. “I held that kitty with such love. He changed my loneliness. I could understand everything he wanted and he could understand me.”
That was when she really started talking. “I had to explain to my mother what the cat was saying,” she said.
Sure.
Y’all tend the cats and I’ll get everything else...LOL
My cats talk too, but most of what they say is “FEED ME!”
Can I share as well? I’m planning on doing something like this-I have cats, a dog and a kiln for the pottery making already, and live among tame deer...
I’ve got a cat who sits on my wife’s hope chest and when he sees me move, he starts meowing loudly for food and then another chimes in. If I get up and feed them, they then try that trick on my wife fifteen minutes later and act like they’re starving. I think they’re smarter than we are.
Time to try out the new super soaker.
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