On the Importance of High-Altitude Bogs

This is kinda a continuation of Saturday's post on A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold.  This is adapted from an email that I just sent to my brother out on the left coast.

Along these lines of the importance of things wild and free, I am reminded of a thought I had waaaaay back in college in the early 70s when I was young and idealistic, and had just for the first time read the ecological classic A Sand County Almanac (Aldo Leopold). The bride and I had been backpacking at Otter Creek WV, northeast of Elkins, WV. Otter Creek, which has since been granted wilderness status, is a pristine watershed about 5 x 12 miles, and empties into a fork of the Cheat River a short way downriver from Blackwater Falls. 

[Gary's note: I was trying to insert an Otter Creek image here but the Blogger software seems to be hosed at the moment.  Click here to see some cool photos!]

Anyway, by around 1920, the entire state had been logged, including Otter Creek. But the old logging railroad grades still remain and are perfect for hiking even today. We had hiked one of the old grades up to a "hanging valley" within the watershed, wherein are found several high altitude bogs. These bogs contain more boreal plants and animals, ecological islands if you will, left behind when the last glacier retreated. 

In pondering the screwed up state of the world at that time (which, unfortunately, has not improved), I distinctly remember then having and writing down the thought, something like "If more people truly understood the significance of high altitude bogs, we would have no more wars."

I still kinda believe that today. If, say, the U.S. neocons who gave us the Iraq war, or ISIS, or the Boko Haram kidnappers in Nigeria, knew about and truly realized what gem this planet is--as exemplified by the small treasures of high altitude bogs--voila!  No more wars. 

The return of gray wolves to CA is another such treasure. And one that if fully understood in the context of a stressed and overpopulated Earth, should halt all of us in our destructive tracks and unite us in a full court press to literally and figuratively swap our swords for plowshares and stop our planet-destroying madness. 

These wolves and high altitude bogs should be sufficient wake up call, were we only to listen.  So that's why I still need to believe in the importance of high altitude bogs...and wolves. 

I'm sure that's more than you bargained for but we all need a bit of naive idealism, don't we?  We get it, and are wondering why the rest of the world doesn't.

Waves in Art: Images by Aivazovsky

Sundays here at Mister Tristan (the blog, not the seven year old human being) have been devoted to Cats in Art for several years now.

However...today I will take a 1-week detour and instead do Waves in Art.  This week I ran across some absolutely stunning images of the sea, paintings by the Russian artist Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky.

These images come from the site Bored Panda, in whose debt I will forever be.  I'll show just 2 images; you should go to Bored Panda to see an additional selection.  Here's BP's intro:

Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky loved painting the sea. A Crimean native, he was born in Feodosia, a port town, and thus had great waters as a constant companion. This 19th century Russian Armenian painter had real knack for depicting waves. Light and translucent, they perfectly capture the essence of the real thing. Many of these paintings featured a human element, too, with ships showing the struggle between man and nature.

Cats, the ocean...what's not to like?

Cats in Art: Cats Being Instructed in the Art of Mouse-Catching by an Owl (unknown artist)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I am using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.  

This week's Cats in Art post and next week's will feature a couple of bizarre paintings that would both seem to spring from the same unknown Flemish artist, circa 1700.

Image credit here.  Cats Being Instructed in the Art of Mouse-Catching by an Owl, unknown artist, circa 1700, oil on canvas, within a painted lunette, 33" x 44".

What's not to like: cats and an owl?  But then it gets stranger...whatever is that perched on the top right side of the music book?  From the detail blow-up it looks like a quasi-human form bent over and playing a musical instrument out of its butt:

A Sand County Almanac...and Ultrarunning

Earlier this week, whilst the bride was away with her ladyfriends, I spent a couple of days up at "my" shelter, the Reese Hollow Shelter, a backpacker's shelter which supports the Tuscarora Trail.

Typically when I go there it's all about chain saws, weeedwhackers, trail work and maintenance.  But last year and now this, I have resolved to just go there, perhaps putter a bit on a  couple of minor projects, but basically just chill with a good book, an adult beverage, and solitude.

I didn't see another human for two days.  All trail maintainers should be required to do this annually.

Anyway, the good book was A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold.  Here's what I have previously written about it back in 2009, actually the first post I did here at Mister Tristan (the blog, not the 7 year old human being), upon which I cannot improve:

Like a recurring pilgrimage, I have just completed my annual re-reading of the ecological classic, "A Sand County Almanac" by Aldo Leopold. My initial reading was prompted some years ago by a college biology professor who recommended it. I became hooked, and for each of the last 30+ years, Leopold, who has been in his grave for 60years, speaks to me and touches me with new and different insights into the nature of things wild and free. I now see Leopold's writings in a way which he never anticipated, but would certainly have approved of--from an ultrarunner's slant.

I continually examine my motives for endurance running (since I spend so much time doing it), and have for some time held the belief that we as a "civilized" species are now so far removed from the moment-by-moment struggle for survival that formerly ruled virtually every waking minute, that we now create for ourselves various means to simulate that intensity. I presume we do this because of some deep-seated need to experience life on the edge, to grab for that gusto and intensity. Thus I run ultras, to physically and mentally go to the edge and see what I can learn there about myself. And I like best to do this running in areas that are preferably wild and remote because there I somehow feel more connected. Simplistic, perhaps, but I suspect not far off the mark for many of us.

The tie-in with Leopold? Here are a couple nuggets: "Physical combat for the means of subsistence was, for unnumbered centuries, an economic fact. When it disappeared as such, a sound instinct led us to preserve it in the form of athletic sports and games...reviving, in play, a drama formerly inherent in daily life." Also, writing about outdoor recreation: "Recreation is valuable in proportion to the degree to which it differs from and contrasts with workaday life."

And on wilderness, Leopold wrote: "Ability to see the cultural value of wilderness boils down, in the last analysis, to a question of intellectual humility. The shallow-minded modern who has lost his rootage in the land assumes that he has already discovered what is important; it is such who prate of empires, political or economic, that will last a thousand years. It is only the scholar who appreciates that all history consists of successive excursions from a single starting point, to which man returns again and again to organize yet another search for a durable scale of values. It is only the scholar who understands why the raw wilderness gives definition and meaning to the human enterprise."

Anyone who values the notions of wilderness, solitude, self-reliance, and of communion with nature that many of us ultrarunners seek, as we use the backcountry as a route to our psyches or souls, should check out Leopold's book. It's commonly available in paperback in bookstores in the Natural History section.

Anyway, just go read the book.  I guarantee you will a better person for doing so.

"When the Truth is Found to be Lies"

I'm already tired of the 2016 presidential race.  As John Oliver said the other night, there will babies born before the election whose parents have not even met yet.

And when these candidate open their mouths, all I can think is that they are saying what they need to say to get elected, not necessarily what the truth is.

Which brings to mind one of the earliest performances by Jefferson Airplane, whose opening line is prophetic:

When the truth is found...to be lies...

If the embedded video playeth not, here's the link.

My Work Boots

I normally hike and work in lightweight, meshy boots made of some synthetic material.

But around power equipment I recognize the need for leather; in fact, when I was scheduled for a chain saw certification class for PATC (Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, my volunteer trail maintenance organization), I was required to wear high-top leather boots...which I did not then have.

So, in the spirit of reuse and recycle, I had the brainy idea to check out eBay for used boots, which is where I scored these $20 size 12 beauties:

[image credit Gary]

The bride harassed me no end, saying "Who buys used boots on eBay?  Who even has the balls to try to sell used boots on eBay?"  The word "appalled" doesn't even come close to capturing her outrage.

But I wear them well...and these were cheap boots (in the sense of inexpensive, not poorly made).  So with that in mind, I can truthfully say that your best boot is your cheap boot.

Bobblehead Post...and Ultrarunning (the JFK 50 Miler)

This is a bobblehead unlike any I have ever seen before:

Image credit Gary, of bobblehead George Alfred Townsend

And who is George Alfred Townsend, as you might be prone to inquire?

First off, the bobblehead was a fan giveaway at this past Saturday night's Class A minor league baseball game between the hometown Hagerstown Suns (affiliate of the Washington Nationals) and the Lexington Legends (affiliate of the Houston Astros).  Mister Tristan (the 7 year old human being, not the blog) and I enjoyed a great summer night of baseball.

But rather than feature a bobblehead figure from the world of sports, entertainment, or politics, the team turned to local history.  American Civil War history, to be specific.

Good on them!  This was a very cool promotion, for anyone, not just history buffs.

See, George Alfred Townsend was a member of the press, and considered to have been the youngest war correspondent of that conflict.  After the war he purchased a tract of land at Crampton's Gap, atop South Mountain near Burkittsville, MD (remember the spooky movie The Blair Witch Project, which was set nearby?).  The site was part of the Battle of South Mountain, 3 days before and a prelude to Antietam, where the Confederates held three mountain passes and delayed the Union army by at least a day, enabling General Lee to consolidate his scattered army and manage a drawn battle at Antietam.

Wikipedia has a good summary of Townsend's life.

Townsend later built on his property a memorial arch to War Correspondents, billed as the first monument to the free press in the world:

Image credit here.  

OK, you've all, I'm sure, been waiting with bated breath for the connection to Ultrarunning.  Well, the fabled JFK 50 Miler goes right past the arch (too bad they don't have you actually run through it, which would be waaaay cool...but probably not looked favorably upon my the National Park Service).

I've run the JFK 5 times and each time when you pop out of the woods and into this park early in the race, see the arch and the hundred of spectators assembled there for the race, it is quite uplifting.  

Cats in Art: Netherlandish Proverbs (Bruegel the Elder)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I am using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.  

Image credits Web Gallery of Art, Netehrlandish Proverbs, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1559, oil on wood, 46" x 64", held by Gemalddegalerie, Staatliche Museum, Berlin, GE.


See the kitty to the left middle foreground?  Didn't think so, thus the detail:

Zuffi's comments:

On the wall by the house on the left, a man is engaged in a foolish attempt to "put a bell on a cat."  There are several reasons why such an undertaking makes no sense, notably the difficulty of soothing the animal, although this cat seems rather docile and the man in armor has amply protected himself from its claws.  Once fitted with a bell, and therefore advertising its presence from a distance, the cat is no longer able to perform its chief function, that of catching mice, thus bringing loss and misfortune to its owners.  With this episode Bruegel seems to be urging us to refrain from risky and essentially vain undertakings, while at the same time censuring those cowards who need to arm themselves to acquire courage.

I'm not sure of Zuffi's analysis there at the end, because I'm thinking about using armor for the next time I need to put flea meds on my cat Amanda.  Guess I'm a wuss.

A Howl of Delight....and Ultrarunning

....because wolves have returned to California!!

Image and article credit here.  

From the article:

California’s first gray wolf pack since wild wolves disappeared from the state nearly a century ago was spotted in the woods in the northern part of the state, wildlife officials said on Thursday.

The pack appears to include a wolf photographed by state fish and wildlife experts last month, then believed to be alone.

“This news is exciting for California,” Charlton H. Bonham, director of the Department of Fish and Wildlife, said in a statement. “We knew wolves would eventually return home to the state, and it appears now is the time.”

Pictures of the wolves – five pups and two adults – posted on the department’s website show the family in a meadow with tall trees behind them.

Officials said the pups appear to be a few months old. Officials learned of their existence thanks to cameras posted in remote parts of Siskiyou County near Mount Shasta, which snapped images of the pups and adults, the statement said. Officials have named the group the Shasta Pack.

I view it as good news--great news, actually--but some folks disagree, thinking the wolves will pose a danger to humans and their animals.  I've seen wild wolves at Yellowstone in the winter and it was one of the most thrilling days of my life.  To encounter one in the backcountry while running would be amazing. 

Donors Vs. Constituents

The most likely reason that ordinary people think politicians are out of touch with regular people and represent the fat cats and not them...is that it is true.

Donald Trump, who says many stupid things, revaleed the secret at the recent debate (courtesy of Talking Points Memo, from  a piece entitled "The Real reason Donald Trump Embarrasses the GOP"):

So why is Trump the enemy, really? The GOP will say it’s because he’s a clown, he has no experience, he can't win, he’s more a celebrity than a politician. This might all be true. But there’s another big reason they’d rather not talk about.

At the debate and numerous public appearances, Trump has matter-of-factly stated that he is an equal opportunity donor to Republican and Democratic candidates—not for the purpose of civic duty or altruism, but in exchange for influence. He has openly deemed his gifts to politicians a business expense. He went so far as to declare, before 24 million viewers at the debate, that he uses his donations to obtain favors from legislators who are all too eager to bow to his requests. He not-so-subtly implies that politicians are bought and paid for by him and other financial moguls. And he expects a fair return for those dollars, measured in policy rewards like zoning adjustments, subsidies for building projects and long-term tax relief. 

In short, he lets the cat out of the bag about something the political system has spent more than a century to disguise.

Representative democracy can only remain legitimate in the eyes of its citizens if they believe that those who seek and hold public office are independent actors. We have tolerated well-funded lobbying organizations, most of which get their money from rich donors and corporate investments. Hillary Clinton admits she receives huge contributions to her campaign from Wall Street titans. But she adamantly denies that these millions of dollars influence her political decisions.

Cats in Art: Turnip (Bednar)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I am using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.  

I have a loved one who lives in Eureka, CA, and works at the Humboldt Arts Council in the Morris Graves Museum of Art.  So...I have previously highlighted several works from The Graves Museum, but thanks to the loved one, have a couple more to share. 


Here's what the museum website says about their mission:

Museum art collections represent the nation’s patrimony and heritage, and the Humboldt Arts Council is conscious that we are entrusted with a resource that essentially belongs to the whole community— it’s yours to enjoy! Collecting works of art is one of the most basic undertakings of an art museum. Moreover, what the museum collects strongly determines its overall character and influence in the art community at large. As a consequence, the Humboldt Arts Council in the Morris Graves Museum of Art is founded upon the principles of ethical art collecting and stewardship. The Museum recognizes that it holds for posterity a significant portion of our cultural wealth.  The Morris Graves Museum of Art is dedicated to the arts and artists of the Pacific Northwest with the highest priority given to the works of our patron artist, Morris Graves. Emphasis is placed on collecting art which builds on the evolving strengths of the collection and which also have a significant potential for long-term usefulness.

Image credit Humboldt Arts Council in the Morris Graves Museum of Art, Turnip, Julia Bednar, size and media information unavailable.

So, this fine pussycat must be Turnip.  I wish that the genesis of his name (I assume this kitty is a male but I don't actually know that) was known to me, for that's the kind of human interest (or kitty interest) story that truly appeals to me.

Of course, the bride and I tend to name our cats using human names--Sam, Charlotte, Amanda, Sammy, Molly-- but that's our choice.  Turnip might well be the best of all possible names for this beauty.

At any rate, Turnip is a fine looking cat who seems to be boring into your mind with those eyes.  Julia Bednar captures so well that intense kitty gaze just won't quit; I just knew she surely must know and live with cats.  from the museum website:

Julia maintains an art studio at her home where she lives with several cats, strays who came from the gully to live with her and who often become subjects of her paintings. Her studio is open by appointment during the year. According to ancient Chinese philosophy...to make art good enough to enter people's hearts is called "making stone into gold". That has become Julia's mission and her mantra.

On the artistic side, the eyes are simply perfect, the progressive shadowing from left to right is spot-on, and the layering of the fur is so realistic.  And the whiskers are to die for.

But it's the eyes, always the eyes, that keep drawing me back to Turnip's face.  I'd love to see more!

"I Have Completely Entrusted my Life to the Mind and Engineering Skills of a Rodent"...and Ultrarunning

Image credit Alexander V. Badyaev in National Wildlife

The North American beaver (Castor canadensis) was the topic of an article entitled Masters of Downfall that I just read in the Aug/Sep 2015 issue of National Wildlife, the magazine of the National Wildlife Federation.

Specifically, the article focused on how beavers fell trees, which as it turns out, is NOT random at all.  In fact, they are quite skilled at making trees fall where the beavers want them to.

The author is scoping out beaver activity in Montana, where he tells us:

Two groups of beavers seem to be working in shifts, circling two giant Douglas firs that already have deep cuts.  I'm entirely within the range of these 150-foot trees, and as I fire my remote camera to photograph the beavers' activity, a realization sets in: "I have completely entrusted my life to the mind and engineering skills of a rodent."

Again, here is the link to the NWF article, which you really must go read.  You'll be glad you did.

Oh, and the link to Ultrarunning?  Several years ago I was on a business trip to Washington, DC, and after work drove out to the Great Falls (MD) area to take a long run along the C+O Canal.  As dusk began to gather, I saw a large black shape on the trail in front of me silently and easily slip into the water.  When I say "large," I mean German Shepherd size, minus the legs.

I suddenly realized it was a beaver--a very large one--and that I was so fortunate to have seen it.  It must have reached the area via the wild Potomac River corridor...yet it was a scant 10 miles from the White House.

Crime at the Beach

Mister Tristan (the blog, not the 7 year old human being), has been dark since Sunday, as the bride I and have been away for a few days at Nags Head, NC, with one of our loved ones.  I could have pre-written several posts and scheduled them for publication while I was away, but life interfered with blogging.

But we found that even pleasant vacation spots can experience violent crime:

Image credit Gary: GSW to the back of the shell at close range

More real blogging coming soon.  I am running on Thursday morning at the Naval Support Activity-Mechanicsburg--from whence I retired--with my pre-retirement former running buds.  I fully expect to laugh for about 1 hour, the time it will take to complete one lap of the 6-mile perimeter road.

With any luck I will be able to write another Tales From the Perimeter post.   It's been too long since such a post.

Cats in Art: Cat in Window (Lanning)

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I am using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi.  

I have a loved one who lives in Eureka, CA, and works at the Humboldt Arts Council in the Morris Graves Museum of Art.  So...I have previously highlighted 3 works from The Graves Museum, but thanks to the loved one, have a couple more to share. 


Here's what the museum website says about their mission:

Museum art collections represent the nation’s patrimony and heritage, and the Humboldt Arts Council is conscious that we are entrusted with a resource that essentially belongs to the whole community— it’s yours to enjoy! Collecting works of art is one of the most basic undertakings of an art museum. Moreover, what the museum collects strongly determines its overall character and influence in the art community at large. As a consequence, the Humboldt Arts Council in the Morris Graves Museum of Art is founded upon the principles of ethical art collecting and stewardship. The Museum recognizes that it holds for posterity a significant portion of our cultural wealth.  The Morris Graves Museum of Art is dedicated to the arts and artists of the Pacific Northwest with the highest priority given to the works of our patron artist, Morris Graves. Emphasis is placed on collecting art which builds on the evolving strengths of the collection and which also have a significant potential for long-term usefulness.  Image credit Humboldt Arts Council in the Morris Graves Museum of Art, Cat in Window, Sarah Lanning, no additional information available. I am pleased to welcome a young artist to my Sunday feature of Cats in Art here at Mister Tristan (the blog, not the 7 year old human being). This image--created by a young girl for an art show--is rather impressive.  The competitors were between the ages of 4 and 13, but I cannot ascertain how old young Sarah was at the time.   Regardless, she perfectly captures the essence of catness with the perked ears,  exaggerated pose, and pure radiant curiosity of the kitty in the window.

ADHD: Proximate vs. Ultimate

Ram across this Psychology Today article in my Internet travels.  All of us, I am sure, have some connection to a kid who has behavioral issues, and who has been formally diagnosed or is thought to have ADHD.

Turns out that there seems to be a strong cultural component:

In the United States, at least 9 percent of school-aged children have been diagnosed with ADHD, and are taking pharmaceutical medications. In France, the percentage of kids diagnosed and medicated for ADHD is less than .5 percent. How has the epidemic of ADHD—firmly established in the U.S.—almost completely passed over children in France?

Is ADHD a biological-neurological disorder? Surprisingly, the answer to this question depends on whether you live in France or in the U.S. In the United States, child psychiatrists consider ADHD to be a biological disorder with biological causes. The preferred treatment is also biological—psycho stimulant medications such as Ritalin and Adderall.

French child psychiatrists, on the other hand, view ADHD as a medical condition that has psycho-social and situational causes. Instead of treating children's focusing and behavioral problems with drugs, French doctors prefer to look for the underlying issue that is causing the child distress—not in the child's brain but in the child's social context. They then choose to treat the underlying social context problem with psychotherapy or family counseling. This is a very different way of seeing things from the American tendency to attribute all symptoms to a biological dysfunction such as a chemical imbalance in the child's brain.

As in all things, we need to look for the ultimate cause, not the proximate cause.  In other words, my father, for example, died of congestive heart failure.  That's what his death certificate says.  But that was just the proximate cause...the ultimate cause was a lifetime of poor habits and poor choices.

I'm not a doctor, so the situation is obviously complex and multi-layered.  But it sure seems that with ADHD, drug treatments would deal only with suppressing the proximate undesirable behaviors, while ignoring the ultimate psycho-social causes.

Dead Tigers...and Ultrarunning

This year is the 45th anniversary of the Beaver Falls High School Class of 1970.  Our school mascot was a tiger named BFHS after the school acronym (and pronounced Biffis).   We were the Tigers.  Rah-rah!

Some classmates are planning a reunion this month.  I live out of the area (though still within the state of PA) and have not kept up with the class other than a couple close friends.  Turns out I cannot attend the reunion due to a previously scheduled vacation, but I had mixed feelings about attending anyway, as many of us do when it comes to reunions.

That said, I still find myself avidly reading all the emails about the gathering and have learned some stuff about people who were important to me from nearly half a century ago.

The point of this post is that the organizers have sent out a list of the deceased members of our high school class, and the list seemed long.  Shockingly LONG.  As I read the names I welled up in tears.

So the purpose of this post is to salute those dead Tigers.

Then the scientist in me thought, "Hey, we're now all about 63 years old.  What is the normal expectation for deaths among a graduating class of some 500 students born in 1952?"

So for this post I spent a lot of time poring over various actuarial tables and life expectancy charts.  The one at this link is about as good as any, I suppose, although it seems to read a couple of years shorter lifespan than some others.

Bottom line: when the BFHS Tigers in the class of 1970 were born in 1952 the lifespan for males was about 66 years and for females it was about 72 years.

A couple of years after high school graduation, when we reached age 20--and having survived infant mortality etc.--the respective lifespans were now 70 and 75.

Now that we are in our early 60s, the men can expect to live to age 76 and the women to age 79.

The number of deceased classmates is 48, although that's just the known ones.  Many people moved away to lives and places unknown.  They are off the reunion radar, so undoubtedly there are some more dead Tigers than listed.  How many more?  No way to tell.

And from the actuarial tables I just could not easily determine, of 500 mixed sex individuals born in 1952, how many should still be alive today.  So maybe 48+ dead is not a very high number at all.

It just seems that way...because the mental image I have of so many of the classmates from the deceased list is from when they were 18, young, vibrant, and alive in every sense of the word.

Rest in peace, dead Tigers.  And as an aside, I wonder how many of us ever ran an Ultra?  Statistically, there should have been a couple others besides me.

Cats in Art: St. Gertrude, Patron Saint of Cats

From my continuing weekly Sunday series of cats in art. I am using some ideas from the coffee table book, The Cat in Art, by Stefano Zuffi. 


The image below is not directly from Zuffi but rather was suggested to me as a spin-off of my Catholic Saints pieces of a couple weeks ago, here and here.


Turns out that, yes, there is a Patron Saint of Cats, one St. Gertrude.

Image credit Catster, St. Gertrude of Nivelles (Belgium), stained glass window in the Belgian province of Limburg [ed. note: sorry, was unable to uncover any more information than that, such as the church, size of the window, etc.

Please look carefully at the kitties at St. Gertrude's feet, which might at first glance be mistaken for rats, heaven forbid!


It is from Catster that we learn:

Why, pray tell, would Catster readers be interested in St. Gertrude? March is Women’s History Month, and Gertrude is a strong historical figure. She’s the patron saint of gardeners, travelers, widows, recently deceased people, the sick, the poor, the mentally ill, and travelers in search of lodging. People call upon Gertrude for protection from mice and rats, fever, insanity, and mental illness. However, cat lovers revere Gertrude of Nivelles most of all. After all, gentle Gertrude is the patron saint of cats and cat lovers. Who says saints aren’t cool?

And from another site, another cool image of our newly favorite saint:

Image credit here, but the link tells us nothing about from whence this very cool image came.  Nevertheless, we learn some more details about St. Gertrude:

Gertrude of Nivelles, also known as the patron saint of cats, who may have – the legend is a little vague — led an army of kitties into battle to protect the abbey, which was overrun with rats.

Gertrude shares a feast day with St. Patrick, but I had never heard about her.  So, who was this Gertrude? According to the stories, she was born in 629 in Belgium. Her father died when she was 14, and her mother built “his and her” monasteries at Nivelles, which mother and daughter joined. Gertrude later became the abbess.

After more research, I also must report she’s never been canonized officially — one more reason I can’t help feeling our pets, especially the cats, have received short shrift from organized religion.

Of course, the cats can always fall back on St. Francis of Assisi, but perhaps Pope Francis, who seems to be on board with all God’s creatures, might throw Gertrude’s canonization on his to-do list.

Pope Francis better get on this, pronto.  Otherwise all his refreshingly good thoughts and actions may be for naught.