Reflections on the Tenth Week of Winter

I decided not to cry over spilled leaves. Saturday, I trimmed dead leaves off house plants. My cat George followed me and gobbled dry leaves off the floor before I could sweep. “Stop, George,” I said in my teacher voice. “Leaves make you vomit.” He ignored me. I nudged him with my shoe. He didn't move. I swept him with the broom. He kept eating. I picked him up, put him in the hall, and closed the door. That worked in the back rooms, but there was no door to shut him out of the great room. He gobbled, and I sighed. But George had given me an idea. Because of the snow cover, I'd been giving worms shredded paper rather than dried maple leaves for carbon. They'd eaten the cut leaves but not the paper. Maybe they'd like George's favorite–dried Boston fern leaflets. I spread newspaper on the kitchen table, dumped the plant clippings, and separated leaflets from stems and tropical house plant parts. Leaflet by leaflet, I saved half a cup. When I put the top on the storage container, however, it tipped and emptied onto the floor. I yelled, “George,” automatically, but he wasn't eating. He was toasting his arthritic bones in the sunshine streaming through the glass door. I swept the leaves and figured worms could ignore micro bits of breakfast, skin, cat hair, and ladybug feet.