Home

[on the bay]

Aw thank you @Enufstuff.

From "Colors of the Wind," from Pochohontas, my favorite song.😊

[PamfromCT]

@Enufstuff, We could have a good time trading animal stories.  We have oak treees, so always an army of squirrels.

And the usual array of animals in a woodsey suburb.

In the past several years, quite a few bears.  And where we live, two game refuge areas close.  Bears are usually not at all aggressive, but there have been problems.  Some have plowed down fences, a few broken into homes, etc.

Simple solution?  We cannot feed the birds once the weather starts to get warm til it gets cold.  We don’t keep trash cans outside.  Our town had to make it official.  Bears don’t come around much anymore.  But ‘cause of other wildlife, coyotes and such, no kitty can go outside.  And dogs are walked, not staying outside.  Our Winston is an indoor kitty, rescued from roaming the streets of Hartford.  He lives a good life.

[Enufstuff]

@on the bay   OMG! I just looked that song up and it made me

cry.  Both my great grandfather and great grandmother came to this country from Quebec in the 1900's. They descended from

 Algonquin, Huron and MicMaq First Nations.

   In recent years, my children and grandchildren and I have embraced our native roots and have been going to pow wows.

    Just two weeks ago, in Maine I re-visited a gentleman ,the same age I am, who shares ancestry with the same family from

Quebec. We are cousins, many times removed. We found each other by chance. He is a drummer at Maine and NH pow wows.

    Since my children and grand children are grown, I'm not familiar with songs from Disney productions.

     That song from Pochohontas is beautiful.

    p.s. I do remember my great grand daughter at three, singing

songs from "Frozen" endlessly.

[Enufstuff]

@PamfromCT  Wow! That is frightening, to have bears roaming where you live. We have never encountered that. We also have a large oak that squirrels nest in and the acorns cover our front lawn in the fall. I tell my husband to leave them there. The squirrels need them in winter, even though we keep them supplied with peanuts.

    Most of our squirrels live in our pine trees. In the morning a couple of them will come up to the porch, waiting for breakfast. We put out birdseed and fill the birdbaths every morning. Then all the birds come.

   Three of our cats were rescues. They were the best and I think that they appreciate being rescued, don't you think so? One of them was taken by the coyote, sadly. Now, no cats go outside.

That poor cat had belonged to a neighbor and they just left him outside all the time, even in the freezing cold. They got dogs and the dogs didn't like the cat. Imagine! I started feeding him and giving him water. I couldn't touch him, he was almost feral. He was emaciated. You could see how dry his fur was. I made a little house for him on my porch, all lined with foam

and plush fake fur. I put in a warm wool blanket. Then I put a tarp over the house. The neighbor asked if I would adopt him.

I put a dish of food into the little house. After a while, he let me pat him. Then I started to let him in the house. One night he wanted to go out and that was the last time I saw him. I had a little kitty door in the lattice below my porch. In the morning, a piece of lattice was broken and a little fur stuck on it. In the damp soil not far from there, were what looked like large dog tracks. We were very sad, but we hoped that he had felt safe and loved, that last year of his life.

    The spoiled Maine Coon that we have now just takes for granted that three of us spoil her. She doesn't know anything different.

She is a sweet girl. She loves watching her birds, squirrels and chipmunks from behind a screen door. She gets so excited when they come up onto the porch.

[PamfromCT]

@Enufstuff, You are so lucky to have a verified history of your ancestors.  I do have a detailed chart I inherited showing the ancestry of my mother’s father’s family, going back to France in the 1600s, before they came and settled in New. Brunswick, Canada.  We are sure we must have Native American blood.

In French, it is said xx married xx “of the woods.”  

On my mother’s mother’s side, way way back, our ancestor came from England with his mother and siblings.  His mother died on the voyage, and he was adopted into a French Canadian family.  He kept his British last name, which explains how my grandmother had a British surname.

My brother and I have talked about exploring more, now that he is retired.  Our father’s side might be harder - our grandparents came here as young adults and not much is known about their eastern European background.

And, OK, ready for more?  Winston is a Maine Coon.  A pampered puddy cat!

Thought you would enjoy reading all this.

[Enufstuff]

@PamfromCT  How about that! Maine Coons are great. How old is Winston? I have heard that Maine Coons are the most doglike

of all cats. My girl is 6 years old and her name is Katie. Her registered name is Dirigo Kateri. The breeder is Dirigo and Kateri is the name of the first Native American saint.

  Is Winston affectionate? Katie loves attention and is affectionate. Katie had a sister, Dirigo Silvermist. We called her

Sylvie. Sadly, she only lived 2 years. She was my precious girl.

Katie is more Daddy's girl. Sylvie was gorgeous, silver blue with a white bib and belly. They both came from a line of show cats and

Sylvie had the beautiful coat of a show cat. She had congestive heart failure. Katie was devastated, losing her sister, so we all

gave her extra attention. Katie is

a very cute, brown tabby. Her bib and belly are caffe latte and the silky fur on the top of her head, down her back and tail is black. She never got as fluffy as her sister. Sylvie looked like their mother, Sugarmist and Katie looks like their father.

     What color is Winston? It's funny that we both have Maine Coons.

     Regarding ancestry, the Jesuits kept impeccable records from the time they arrived in New France (Canada). They set up missions and documented all the births, deaths, baptisms, confirmations and marriages in their parishes. They came along with the fur traders from France. The Ursaline nuns set up schools to educate the children. They wanted to Christianize

and baptize the First Nations people. In Jesuit relations, they documented everything, including stories about the families.

That is how we were able to trace back 9 generations. Mostly through church records.

    The ancestors from Quebec were on my father's side. Manitouabeouich was Algonquin and his daughter, baptized with the name Marie, was the first native girl to marry a French settler, Martin Prevost. Theirs was the first marriage documented by the church. Other pairings at that time were

called "country marriages". Many French settlers went to live with native girls and their families.

    On the marriage certificate is Marie's name and Sauvage.  (meaning savage) That was in the 1600's. Marie was taught by the Ursaline nuns and lived with a wealthy French family in Quebec. That is where she met Martin. Her grave is in the oldest cemetery in Quebec and there is a park in Quebec named after Martin Prevost. There is a video about Martin and Marie, that is used in Quebec schools. There is also a book about them, but it is all in French. My cousin has a copy. With only my high school French, I wish it would be translated to English.

    The Huron ancestors were from Ontario and the MicMaq were from Acadia, now known as Nova Scotia. Each subsequent generation married more French Canadians.

    I have heard that most people whose families originated with the French Canadians, had some First Nations ancestors.

    For a long time, many kept quiet about having native ancestry. Now, people whose families have assimilated in the past, are celebrating their heritage in this country and Canada.

Pow wows, once forbidden, are celebrated. Many are trying to bring back their native languages. Some have been lost forever.

    I have a cousin who has been researching our ancestry for many years. She has also traced back to the generations from France, before the 1600's We still have relatives in Rouen. There could still be some in Quebec. I remember going up to Quebec as a young girl  a couple of times and visiting my great

grandmother's younger brother, who was elderly and living in a

retirement home. He didn't speak any English.

   On my maternal grandmother's side, mostly English and some Scottish , we also had ancestry done by my grandmother's cousin who is Mormon and ancestry is required by their church. Her ancestry goes back to the Mayflower . One of her ancestors, John Hopkins, came on the Mayflower.

He was a surveyor and he and governor Bradford laid out the roads in Plymouth and Truro on Cape Cod. The descendants settled along the coast of Massachusetts and into nearby towns,

Ipswich, Middleton, Beverly and Salem. My grandmother knew that we were related to General Putnam ,but she would be thrilled to know that people involved in the witchcraft trials, accusors and the accused.

the Putnams , Proctors and poor Bridget Bishop, the first person to be accused and hanged as a witch were also ancestors. Nathaniel Hawthorne was another of her ancestors.

So many streets in nearby towns were named after her ancestors who owned the land. She passed away in 1989, so never knew about all this ancestry.

   I find ancestry to be fascinating. I hope that you and your brother pursue it. It sounds like you have a good start. There are so many sources available online; census records, church records, immigration records, war records. Good luck

    Thank you for your post

[PamfromCT]

@Enufstuff, What a wonderful family history you have documented!  You are so fortunate to have all this information.  I am sure it has made such a positive difference in your life, just to know who your many ancestors were and your DNA.  I do believe there seems to be more interest than used to be, for some families at least.  My husband’s family came from Germany, yet we have a Norwegian last name.  And my father’s family came from a region that was always in contention between Poland and Austria.  I guess, growing up,  his parents had to honor the Emperor of Austria in school.  I would love to know more.  

I am am sorry for the passing of your kitty.  But glad to know you have your precious baby to love.  Our last kitty Lily before Winston was also a Maine Coon with papers we adopted when she was retired.  She was a love, and we were so sad when she passed.  But then I discovered Winston on a website of a rescue group.  While he was found on the streets of Hartford, I don’t think he had been on the street for long.  

Winston has light orange fur, white bib and booties.  He is a pretty boy.  Very affectionate and outgoing.  He loves me, but he LOVES his daddy.  He is an active guy, we have had him for about 2 years.  No idea of his actual age,  but he is definitely maturing.  However, Winston likes to TRY to chew leather clothing items - shoes, pocketbooks, belts.  Little a puppy.

Being careful is the rule.  Two old fools, yes we are.  

He is our baby.  Our 2 children live in CT.  Our DD and DH married late, no children.  Our DS and DILhave two children, a boy 14 and a girl 9.  We are very old grandparents.  

Wishing you well, and I hope we can connect again soon.

Pam

[Enufstuff]

@PamfromCT  Would you believe that in the 90's we also adopted an orange street cat? I like to say he was a marmalade cat. I was going to a massage therapist and this cat had been hanging around her house and she was feeding him, along with her cats. She thought that he was abandoned. He would talk to me when I went there.

          Well, one evening when I was leaving her house, he jumped onto the hood of my car and would not get down.

My friend said "Take him home." She did'nt need a third cat.

         I called my husband and said that this cat wanted to come home with me. (My cat that I had for 15 years, had passed away and we had agreed to not get another cat.) I told him that this cat was so sad and dirty and not cared for and he said "Well, we'll try it."

        The next day, he came home in the middle of the day to check on the cat. From that day on "Oliver" was Daddy's boy.

He was just the sweetest cat. He really seemed to appreciate his new life. He would talk to us and he was so affectionate.

He even loved my grandchildren.

       So many Saturday mornings I got absolutely nothing done because Ollie was too comfortable on my lap. He ran the house.

       We think that he was possibly part Maine Coon. He seemed very dog like and loved attention from everyone.

From a dirty scruffy cat, he cleaned up beautifully. After a while he gained weight, he fluffed up with a beautiful orange coat with a white bib and belly.

      A strange thing happened when we were deciding on a name. My husband and I thought of Oliver at the same time.

I did'nt even really like the name. But, we knew that he had to be Oliver. We always called him Ollie.

     We had him for about 12 years before he got cancer.

      He was the best cat ever. My husband will still talk about him.

[Love4cats]

---

@Enufstuff wrote:

My porch is ready for guests. Come relax on my shady porch

out of the hot sun. Have an ice cold lemonade or I can make iced tea

What a beautiful porch, I can see myself having my morning coffee there. Enjoy!

---

[Enufstuff]

@PamfromCT  Like our Ollie, Winston is very fortunate to have been adopted into a loving home. It is interesting how cats will become attached to one person.

     Katie became attached to my husband because I was still working and he was retired and at home to spoil her all day.

I retired just as covid was beginning in 2020.

     It must be difficult to keep all leather items in a safe place, so that he does'nt chew them. Since she was a kitten, Katie has liked to chew on plastic. She likes thick, crunchy plastic. Initially, I thought it was because she was teething, but she still will do it, if I don't keep things out of her reach.

     I had never seen this kind of behavior in cats before. I wonder if it is some form of pica. Maybe just a nervous habit.

     My husband and I married later in life. We were both divorced and single when we met. He had one grown child and I had five children and one grandson. My six year old grandson was our ringbearer at our wedding.

     We have only had cats together which is a good thing. If we had a child and spoiled it like we do our cats, it would not be a good thing. Cats are our babies.

     The first time, I was married very young and was married for 21 years. After being single for 8 years, I married my second husband. Now, I have 6 grandchildren and 7 great grandchildren. My husband has 2 grandchildren.

      We had our 30th anniversary in June.

        Ancestry is fascinating and my cousin who lives in Denmark has been retired and working on ours for years. She made me a guest on her membership on Ancestry.com.

        It is interesting that you mentioned the Emperor of Austria

and your father's family history.

         The summer before covid, August 2019, we went on a Viking River Cruise on the Danube. We started in Budapest, then Austria and Germany. In Vienna we had a tour of the Schonbrunn Palace. It was absolutely gorgeous. I can't even imagine what it was like to live like that.

        Right now, I'm reading The Habsburgs by Martyn Rady.

It's too hot to go outside, so reading, drinking cold drinks and

making cold meals is what I'll be doing for the duration.

         Stay cool and hydrated.