I tried to take one small, biblically defensible nap.

Edgar attacked my feet, boarded the bed like a pirate, and somehow got himself halfway inside the box spring.

This week on Domestically Feral: rest is attempted, chaos is deployed, and management definitely has whiskers.

Season 2 begins with Dracula chicken, Don Knotts, tiny ceramic skeleton drama, and one firm boundary: Satan does not own October.

If your conscience tells you to skip Halloween, skip it. Truly. I am not here to drag anyone through a pumpkin patch against their will.

But my pumpkins are not a gateway drug to the underworld.

My decorative skeletons are not a theological crisis.

And I refuse to surrender harvest, memory, imagination, porch lights, old movies, and cinnamon candles to fear.

So yes, we are starting Season 2 calmly.

With restraint.

Like civilized people.

[Insert sanctified snark.]

Fall has been declared. Hallowtide has begun. Edgar Allan Purr is turning one, Mr. Darcy is still reporting for evening lap duty, and somewhere in this house a chocolate cat is doing something I will absolutely have to clean up later.

Season Two of Domestically Feral is here — clean, family-friendly, faith-shaped, cat-haunted, coffee-adjacent, and slightly unhinged.

Welcome back to the house where the animals have motives and civilization remains unstable but functioning.

Barely.

Somehow, a series of completely normal decisions has led to me being invited by actual researchers to help find extremely elusive female lightning bugs.

I have no degree, no credentials, and no reasonable explanation for this. I am a housewife with coffee, a butterfly net, and apparently just enough stubbornness to stand outside in the dark longer than is socially acceptable.

This is the story of how one tiny glow in the leaves turned my yard into a hidden world of beetle courtship, faint flashes, scientific questions, and mild personal crisis. Soon, I’ll be leaving my emotional support house to go looking for tiny glowing ladies in the dark.

With snakes.

And people.

And because apparently I wasn’t done making this weird:
The firefly obsession eventually grew into a public education project called Find the Fireflies.

FindTheFireflies.org

I also have a Kickstarter live right now for I Don’t See Fireflies Anymore, which is helping fund free educational resources:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fireflies/i-dont-see-fireflies-anymore

We have officially had Edgar for 100 days.

In that time, he has become sleeker, bolder, louder, less humble, and significantly more convinced that household rules are merely decorative.

This episode is the 100-day report on Edgar Allan Purr: emotional support kitty, domestic menace, tiny tyrant, and the reason I have no one to blame but myself.

Boof would like to know why Edgar is allowed to tear through the house like a tiny chocolate criminal while she gets fussed at for doing the same thing.

Unfortunately for Boof, there is one key difference: Edgar is a cat, and Boof is a poorly designed missile powered by impulse and the infamous Aussie butt wiggle.

This episode is about unfair house rules, questionable dog physics, collateral damage, negligent assault, and one very good girl with absolutely no understanding of her own legal exposure.

My husband brought home another cat.

Not a real cat. A porcelain one.

With eyeliner, a judgmental frown, missing toes, and two haunted little gremlin kittens.

So naturally, this episode involves storage room “treasures,” clutter warfare, a violated craft drawer, and Edgar meeting what may be the most offensive representation of catkind ever placed on our hearth.

Edgar has entered his predator era, and unfortunately, he has started thinking bigger.

After catching lizards and collecting household trophies, he managed to slip through a front door that had not latched properly and sample the great outdoors.

This episode involves panic, a falsely accused child, one fluffy chocolate fool on the porch, and the reminder that coyotes are not an acceptable character-building experience.