Zip was waiting for me outside this morning, and Maria warned me that she had seen him and he had a filthy, black nose. At first, I thought he was injured, but he was just being Zip, who is everywhere at once, sticking his nose into every hole for miles in search of moles and chipmunks.

Zip is the King Of The Hill here; he is everywhere, all the time, missing nothing, curious about everything. No wonder he got a dirty nose. He sticks it in every chipmunk hole there is.

I held him while I rubbed his nose and Maria took the photo. It was twice as bad as this before I started rubbing it clean. Bud was patient about my holding him, and we got almost all of it off of him. Then we had our morning get-together, where I scratched him until he purred.