Key West - Wednesday, February 17th

My "classroom"
Although I miss my friends at Tariffville and my two cats at home, I am enjoying doing distance learning for a little bit because I can be outside in the warm weather.  The rental house where we are staying has a screened in porch and it is fun to be "in school" on the porch, so I can watch the pelicans nearby.

A pelican visitor


Today, my mom suggested getting changed into my bathing suit on one of my breaks so that when it was lunch time, we could walk down to the lunch for a quick swim.  Talk about a fun recess!

We chose to swim over my lunch break


Cats on gate to Hemingway House
After school, we went back to Key West so that we could tour the Ernest Hemingway House.  Ernest Hemingway was a very famous author.  To be honest, I normally don't like these kinds of (house) tours, however everyone in our family was very excited about seeing the Ernest Hemingway House because of the cats! (In fact, we were so excited that my mom forgot to take a picture of the house because we were so busy looking at the cats!) Aside from the celebrity of the house's former owner, the Ernest Hemingway House is famous for its polydactyl cats.  Polydactyl means "many-toed" and each of the house's 60 cats have extra toes on either their front paws, back paws or some even have extra toes on all four paws. The extra toes on their paws make the cats look like they are wearing mittens.  If the cat doesn't have the extra toes, they at least carry the gene, which means that they could have kittens with the extra toes.  It is thought that many of the cats that reside at the Ernest Hemmingway house are descendants to the polydactyl kitten, Snow White, that was given to Ernest Hemingway as a gift from a sea captain.  The cats have free reign of the house and its property and you can easily spot one of the 60 cats that live there. 
A view of the lighthouse from 
Hemingway House

A polydactyl kitty - look at those "mittens"! 

I think this Hemingway cat is waiting
for a snack in the birdbath!


This kitty was our favorite because he liked getting
and giving love.  Here he is "making biscuits" on my leg.


After seeing the Hemingway House, we continued to walk around Key West and saw many more wild chickens roaming around the streets.  Finally, before heading back to our vacation house, we went past the White House......well, kind of.  It was actually called "Truman's Little White House".  President Truman used this house as a "winter White House" during his presidency.  President Truman would also retreat there when he needed rest and relaxation.  More currently, presidents typically go to Camp David for relaxation.

More wild chickens!

Truman Little White House




Comments

  1. UnknownMarch 1, 2021 at 8:57 AM

    Hi Jonathan,
    Bayliegh says it was cute that they call it "making biscuits" when the cat was on your leg. The cats were cool.
    Your friends in Mrs. Drinan's class

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AmyMarch 2, 2021 at 1:36 PM

      The cats were one of our favorite things to see in Key West.

      Delete

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