Sometimes I think that my relationship with Amazon (or any of the online shopping I use) is less about buying things and more about getting things in big cardboard boxes. Cardboard—especially the brown, uncoated kind—is a boon to a “no dig” gardener (see Charles Dowding primer). Lay some down on a weed and grass covered patch, mulch generously (about 4 inches) with compost, wood chip or bark mulch, and you’ll have far less weeding, more organic matter and, over time, more fertile soil for whatever you want to plant.
However, I have competition for any cardboard that comes my way—Mouse, the cat.
Minutes after I have taken out whatever I have ordered and towed the box and the packaging outside to put paper or straw in the compost and strip off any tape, especially the non-biodegradable stuff, I turn around to find the cat has taken possession.
He does this with little piles of dirt and detritus I sweep up on the path as well as newly cleared and composted VegTrug beds and potato bags… even my “potting bowl”! (See below for a gallery of places he has overtaken.)
I’m not sure what the attraction is. Himself (Robbie) says it’s because these are things I’m working with and that Mouse sees me as his “mommy”—heaven forbid!
But maybe he has a point… because the other day I turned my back on a selection of fabric for a quilt I was planning in order to contemplate my “almost neatly stacked” fabric shelves of scraps and pieces for possible additions. When I turned back… behold! He had, yet again, taken possession of my stuff! I call this his Mandarin Pose—and I think he knows it.
The Cat Who Would be King of All Cardboard
(and straw and dirt and planting places)
