When the smoke clears, I'll deal with my garden's clay soil – and my BadKitten's act of rebellion

A dirty haze from still-burning wildfires hangs over much of north Idaho as I write, and I'm making my peace with the early end of this season's garden. The double smack-down of drought and smoke has hit my flowers and vegetables hard. Most of the nearby fires reportedly started from dry lightning strikes, instead of human carelessness. But instead of muttering unpleasantries at the Garden Goddess, I've decided to use these acts of nature as excuses for this year's failures in the vegetable beds – except for the zucchini overload. The Big Zs just smirk at the smoke.

My flower gardens have hung in much longer than the veggies, but they, too, have suffered an attack of the vapors. The pansies started fainting in July, and most of the petals on the phlox, monarda, Canterbury bells, rosa campion, and verbascum have dried in the relentless heat. When the smoke clears out, I'll get an early start on digging shallow trenches along the flower beds for planting bulbs this fall. I'll also re-dig a couple of beds that tanked last spring. Instead of the bright mix of tulips and daffodils I expected, glowing red, purple, yellow and pink in the April sunshine, only a few spindly daffs and a couple of grumpy tulips pushed up through the soil. I'm learning never to underestimate the amount of clay clumping up my gardens. We impetuous gardeners believe that a one-time pass with a rototiller will produce crumbly black gold forever. This has not happened, so I'll also amend the soil this fall with bags of anything promising “clay buster.”

In this summer of drought and smoke, I've been especially grateful for the flocks of finches that perch at our bird feeder and then head to the nearby birdbath for a drink and a splash. I watch these beautiful little creatures of feathers and song from my kitchen window, noting the way they share the perches, and I make sure to freshen their water regularly. The recent day when I walked into our living room and found a scattering of finch feathers on the rug was a painful reminder that I live with a passive-aggressive BadKitten. Except for a couple of small acts of rebellion, my former chief garden staffer had handled his demotion pretty well, I thought. But my black and brown Maine coon cat is a wily beast. He foxed me while I struggled to bring his replacement, Tessa the Vague up to speed on her new duties.

“Speed” is not a word I typically use with Tessa. Her thought process– a vacant stare, followed by a long (really long) pause, until, finally, tentative comprehension dawns is not speedy. Neither is her gait, a stumbling, sideways clunk. So I streamlined her duties: When I'm working in the garden, I told her, come outside and find me, no matter how long the search takes. Then keep me company for awhile, before you wander away on your mission to find the kitchen steps again. Now I'm afraid the week-long disruption of her training, because of the smoky air, might have taken us back to point zero. (And with Tess, point zero goes back a good stretch.)

While my attention was diverted, the BadKitten plotted. He had not caught a bird since Mother's Day, and I hadn't seen him anywhere near the bird feeder in weeks. I've gotten used to his presence indoors – a large, furry mound, asleep on the flowered armchair near his buddy, Rags, our Old English sheepdog. But I should never doubt my BadKitten's IQ. Unlike his adopted aunt Tessa's blank gaze, Benjamin's green eyes gleam with intelligence. Apparently, he felt unappreciated (without bothering to consider for what, exactly, he deserved appreciation,) and decided to remind me that a demoted BadKitten is a dangerous BadKitten. When I discovered the feathers, I also saw my Maine coon cat lying on the rug nearby, front paws crossed, halo slightly askew. “Too bad your slacker of a chief garden staffer wasn't guarding the bird feeder,” he seemed to purr as he regarded the feathers. “Such a mess. The vacuum cleaner's in the hall closet.”