<center><h1>June showers — 
and the storks 
come bearing kittens 
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writing and photos by @d-pend
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*After the sky put itself through contortions, shedding layer upon layer of precipitated cloudskin—
After the mighty javelins of plasma seared the atmosphere with explosions of ozone—
After the midnight serpent writhed its way over the sleepy plains—
After the insistent onslaught coaxed abundant petrichor from the protesting earth—
A world of green gently sways and preens its fur in the muted summer's cool.*
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![b 62320 3.jpeg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/d-pend/eHRFTQyh-b2062320203.jpeg)
![greenbluestrips 62320.jpeg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/d-pend/AfWVGITa-greenbluestrips2062320.jpeg)
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<center><h3>The aftermath of summer storms
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<div class="text-justify">It has been an eventful last few days, that's for sure! I have <a href="https://peakd.com/hive-174578/@d-pend/the-markets-may-be-red-but-my-cat-s-eyes-are-yellow">mentioned my cat Topaz before;</a> she was a stray that appeared around my apartment complex earlier this spring that I gradually ended up befriending and then adopting. I have appreciated having the company of a living thing with all the goings-on of this year, since I don't have a roommate.<br><br>

For a while I suspected that she might be pregnant, and as time went by it became more obvious, even though I didn't really react to it or think about it too much. She is such a slender cat I wondered for a bit if she was just putting on weight! My mom @violetmed came to visit me several days ago and she commented on it, and it also seemed like she was preparing to nurse, so eventually I had to accede to the evidence.

Mom brought me a big cardboard box with one side cut short to see if I could convince her to make her nesting place there — and somehow it worked! I was a little worried that she might have them outside since she is an outdoor/indoor cat, but it all happened like clockwork in the end.</div>

<div class="pull-right">https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/d-pend/BQZWCpbS-IMG_4585202.png
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She started having her kittens on Sunday in mid-morning, and I called my mom to come over to help me monitor the process since I don't have any experience with this sort of thing. Everything went quite smoothly and she had all six kittens by 2 pm — two dark/black, two tabbies, and two orange.
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I am planning to keep them all with mom as long as possible so they are emotionally/physically well-adjusted, so needless to say I will have my hands full for the next couple of months! Actually, I'm very much looking forward to the experience because I've never had the privilege to interact much with newborn animals, at least as far as helping to nurture and train them.<br><br>

I was considering that it might be cool to make the kittens a Hive page where I could document them as they grow up — what do you think, should I do it?
<center>* * *</center>
Other than all of the above I have been playing @dcitygame quite a lot and working on a ton of music. <i>(If you don't know what DCity is, there are many good tutorials that have been coming out recently. I'll link some in a bit when I go through them. Be careful though — you may just get hooked!)</i> Music-wise, I've been writing a lot of vocals, both rap and singing, to my friend Rusty's beats. We are amassing quite a bit of material to eventually polish up and release, but he has a pretty intense full-time factory job so the timing of it all is up in the air. I'm just enjoying the process of creating and experiencing the natural high that being musical brings.<br><br>I'm grateful that my wrist is healed up so that I can play the piano again. It's been hot and dry for a while until this weekend when some intense thunderstorms began periodically rolling through for the past few days. It was some of the most defeaning thunder I've heard in a while earlier today! I took these macro photos with my iPhone 8+ this morning in the calm, cool air after the storm passed by.</div>

<center> * * * </center><center>**Hope you all are doing well 
and enjoying the summer!**
.
*With love,*
@d-pend</center>
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![greenbluestrips 62320 3.jpeg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/d-pend/7TwqxAda-greenbluestrips2062320203.jpeg)
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<center>`Writing and photos by @d-pend,`
`created for HIVE on June 23, 2020.`</center>
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![greenbluestrips 62320 4.jpeg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/d-pend/1R9bdZN2-greenbluestrips2062320204.jpeg)

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![e 62320.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/d-pend/AT10gBI2-e2062320.png)