Today, my Miss Tallulah turns seventeen. 17 years is a long time to live with another creature and we have been together since she was a dusty, flea bitten kitten.

Tallulah was born under the house next door to my studio on Peachtree Street in Nashville, Tennessee. There were a few stray cats that my next door neighbor, Aubrey fed. One was a kitten who, at a week or two old in April, had been carried to Aubrey's back door by an older cat. By fall, I decided that the strays should at least be fixed and vaccinated for Rabies before winter and Aubrey agreed to split the bill.

The kitten was more interested in food than being shy so was the easiest to trap. As she turned out to be a female, her recovery time from surgery was at least a week. Aubrey's son loaned me his dog's carrier.

The short story is that I released the kitten after her recovery then trapped the extremely feral cat we thought was her mother. That cat, who saved the kitten's life and doted on her, turned out to be male and positive for Feline Leukemia. The veterinarian did not want him released back into the "wild" and as he was not a cat who could be domesticated, insisted that he be euthanized. It was one of the worst things I have ever had to do and he is buried in the yard under his favorite hunting spot.

The kitten had to be isolated and tested for Leukemia at three and again at six months. I had two healthy cats in the house and the original plan was for the studio to be a cat free zone. Well, I thought, okay. Six months. She sat at the front door and watched for her parent cat for weeks.

But here she is still at large, scrawny and nipping at fleas.

As her months in the studio wore on, she learned to entertain and help with art history research.

And then, of course, by the end of her six month quarantine, she was as much a part of my heart as she was of the studio and she's been within feet of me ever since.

A few years later, Tallulah moved into the house and was warmly welcomed by Ginger Ale and Alonso and they lived peacefully and happily together...

Until the day came when it was just the two of us left together which didn't seem to bother Tallulah much. She looked at me as if to say, Now, you are all mine!

A perfect comfort and companion she has been and quite the impressive traveler. She's accompanied me to California and back, to South Carolina, from Asheville to Raleigh to Beaufort to Lake Gaston, NC, Falls Church, Roanoke and Lexington, VA, Pennsylvania, Cape Cod, and rural Connecticut. I'm exhausted just thinking about it. Here is a random photo log.

I almost lost her twice. Once to raging hyperthyroid disease alleviated by surgery. Another time to a saddle thrombus from which I managed to nurse her back from paralysis. Neither of those incidents would have been manageable without the generous help of my dear friends and members of her fan club. She and I thank you all very, very much from the bottom of our hearts. We love you.

Tutti has always been a good sleeper but these days she sleeps many, many hours on end and very deeply. She is on medication for high blood pressure, supplements for arthritis, and eats home cooked meals prepared by yours truly.

I used another image by Cory Richards' portfolio of Franz Josef Land for these Arctic Terns.

I'm happy with the way this one turned out.

I can't stand rooting through scraps of paper in search of a subject to draw and watercolor. I have enough pieces of paper all over my studio and office.  They drive me crazy. No matter how many times I straighten up, the pieces of paper pile up and so I have to surrender at least somewhat.

About a year ago, I acquired a large stack of relatively recent National Geographics via Freecycle. These bound pages offer a much more orderly reference than miscellaneous scraps. Plus, I learn things.

For example, the reference photo of this Polar Bear comes from an article about Franz Josef Land. I'd heard of Franz Josef Land but was not sure where, exactly it was or that it is part of Russia.

My reference photo for this entry is by Cory Richards and the caption reads, "Polar bears eat mainly ringed seals and bearded seals, captured on sea ice. On land they scrounge seabirds, eggs, even grass. This animal grazed for days below Rubini Rock—then chewed up the remote camera."

I turned around the other morning and spotted one of these darling Red Efts on my screen. Naturally, I had to go meet the thing and look it over, up close and personal. Yes, I picked it up and held it in my hand.

When I was a child at camp in the Catskills, we would catch these what we called Salamanders in the woods and probably took them back to our tents for pets. Then, I had no idea but just learned that this is not a Salamander at all but a juvenile Eastern Newt who spent its larva stage in the water, lives on land while a bright orange juvie and then returns to the water as an adult. These creatures live for 12 - 15 years! Amazing!

I had to commemorate this only find of my adult life in an illustration. I am so impressed and delighted that once again, so many, many years later, I am living in the vicinity of the Eastern Newt and that one came to visit.