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About Us
Zane Gray Goes Green, Every Day!
Naming Zane was easy. He was gray and, in their own evolved secret language, Amy and her sister Toni had for some long-forgotten reason called each other Zane when they were children. So the name Zane Gray suggested itself right away. We didn't really know that much about the writer, Zane Gray, but little did we know how appropriate that name was.
Zane Gray (1872 - 1939) was one of the most successful writers of Western novels, in fact he was one of the first millionaire authors (back when a million dollars was a billion dollars today) and I believe he still holds the record for the number of movies made from a writer's books (110!), including The Riders of the Purple Sage, The Lone (Star) Ranger, and Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. His success allowed him to travel the world as a sportsman and he is a legend among fishermen. Many of his records stood until the 1970's.
Our little Zane Gray turned out to be quite an adventurer in his own right, as those who read my blogs regularly can attest. And, of course, he likes tuna fish and shrimp, though his version of catching them is Zane-waving us into preparing and bringing his plate of food to him (see my previous blog).
And, like every good outdoors-person, Zane Gray goes green, every day. He is ecological in the extreme. He starts each day with a breakfast of grass to aid his digestion of the immense quantities of food he is going to weasel out of us later. He buries his poop so we don't have to buy kitty litter, fertilizing our property as he goes. He keeps the rodent population down without the use of poisons. Actually, come to think about it, he keeps us aware of not putting anything out on our lawn or elsewhere that might harm him and, consequently, other animals and, ultimately, Amy and me.
I might be wrong, but today's Zane Gray adventure is one of the most compelling examples of why I think he's so smart and we're so smart for paying attention to what he seems to be trying to tell us. This afternoon I began the process of washing off years of accumulated grime from about ten large plastic containers by hosing them down, but realizing that it would take more than pressurized water to do the job I went to my shed looking to see if some of the ancient and potentially noxious products we've accumulated over the years might actually, finally, prove useful.
I found an unopened container of something called Whole House Wash or something and it said it was non-toxic so I thought, OK, let's give it a try. Zane had other ideas. Just after I used the hose to wet a container, but before I was about to pour some of this stuff on a stiff plastic brush I use to clean the bird bath, up marched Mr. Zane and proceeded to sniff at each and every one of the containers.
Now, this would be appropriate behavior if he was a dog but he's not. In fact, it is very unusual for a cat to get so involved with spray hoses nearby, even though he knows I would never spray him intentionally. And since I'm always looking for Zane to be trying to tell me something and since I'm psychic, I was astounded to get the hit that he was trying to tell me not to use the Whole House Wash, just the stiff brush with water, because he walks around this area on his daily patrols and who knows if that company's definition of non-toxic includes non-toxic to animals? I looked closer and noticed that its expiration date was 2005, so who knows what it had turned into by now, four years later.
Like I said, I may be wrong on this one, but after seeing Zane deliberately prevent me from starting to work I assumed he meant that I wasn't supposed to be doing something that I had intended and started to do. And so I used a lot of elbow grease - my hand keeps cramping up as I write this from holding that damn brush - and spent a lot more time brushing off the oily grime than I would have had I used the out of date glop, but both Zane and I were safe. We have a well and anything that goes into the ground tries to make its way to the aquifer and our drinking water. Hay, Zane-o, even though we have a huge water distiller for our drinking water, how about we talk about that poop burying, buddy?
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