Kittens and Clouds

This light and fluffy blog post brought to you by Mother Nature.

We have a very sweet cat here who lives in the kitchen and pantry and does wonders for our mice problem. Or at least she did until she learned to beg from the table. But I don't see mice anymore, so I think she's still doing her job. Last week she had 3 kittens! I had somehow failed to notice that she was pregnant (?? I don't pick her up very much, and she's so skinny to begin with. I guess I'm used to fat American cats and just thought she was finally approaching normal cat weight.) So now there are three white and black kittens living in a box in the back of the dining room. They mostly just look like blind rats at the moment, but they're still pretty cute, and we're very excited for when their eyes open in another week and we can start playing with them.  

Mimi and her 3 kittens

The other big event of the past week is that dry season is officially over. Hallelujah! It has rained several nights in a row this week, after nearly two months of no rain at all, and it is such a welcome relief. Thursday night a huge storm came through, and Friday morning we woke up to clear blue skies and amazing clouds! I had forgotten what it was like to be able to see the mountains on the other side of the city, or the island (Île de la Gonâve) out in the bay. Sometimes the mountains here remind me of Ireland, because they are green, but covered in brush, not trees. The first thing I noticed when I woke up and looked out the window was how vibrant all the colors were when not seen through a thick film of dust hanging on the air and coating every object. "Oh right, this is a Caribbean island! It's gorgeous here!"

After breakfast I went up on the roof to take pictures of the incredible clouds. I've always been a fan of clouds, but thanks to my friend Maria's amazing cloud blog (The Accidental Naturalist) I've started noticing them a lot more on a day-to-day basis and I have quite a collection of cloud pictures from our roof. But these clouds were making everybody do a double take and say "woah, awesome!" I know because the girls asked to borrow my camera, and when I looked later to see what they'd been taking pictures of, I found nearly 30 pictures of the clouds. Not the bay and the clouds, not the mountains and the clouds, just the clouds, they were that captivating.

I think part of what made them spectacular was that they were very close.

Clouds hovering just overheard, and churning above the opposite mountains.

Clouds over the bay, this is so delicate it looks like a painting!