The deontologist looks at the cat that woke him up. How can such a young cat be so huge, he wonders. The other day the deontologist opened the back window so the cat could climb in and he (the cat) fell off the fence before he reached the window, he is so fat. Not fat, exactly, though, just… huge.

The deontologist feeds all three cats and enjoys the few minutes during which huge cat is distracted by food and not walking figure eights around the deontologist’s feet. The deontologist thinks about everything he wants to do that morning: practice cello for half an hour in the cellar, meditate, do yoga, water things in the garden, feed the tortoise, and a number of other things.

His wife and kid are sick, though, so he postpones his new regimen of morning cello practice until the weekend.

He does the other stuff, though. And push-ups. See, the deontologist saw a website where a young woman describes teaching herself to dance in a year, by means of obsessive practice. The deontologist is all fired up.

Outside it is cool and looks as if it might rain, or might not. He puts two sections of the wooden fence his daughter is painting onto sawhorses in the back yard, as they are too heavy/bulky for her to move around.

The plum tree is heavy with green plums. The pie cherry tree is full of ripe pie cherries and blackbirds. The apple tree is full of green apples. The row of strawberries is over, but there will be raspberries all summer, and the grape vine is heavy with green grapes.

The deontologist checks on the vegetable garden at the rear of his abundant back yard. There is a big green zucchini hidden among the weeds, and a couple yellow zucchini. There are two big cucumbers ready to go. His vegetable garden is, at this time of the summer, most abundant in zucchini, mosquitos and slugs. He considers whether zucchini are the slugs of the vegetable world.

The slug traps are full of dead slugs, dozens of them, all drowned humanely in beer.

He spies a few ripe cherry tomatoes and plum tomatoes. The big beefsteak tomatoes are starting to change color. But tomato and cucumber season won’t really get going for another week or two.

At lunch, the deontologist walks to the noodle shop and buys a takeout thing of chicken and rice. He walks around and finds a bench under a tree where he had shared a sandwich with two crows earlier in the week.

Two minutes later, the crows are back. The same two crows – a large, grey-black one and a slightly smaller black one. The larger one seems more intelligent because it is more cautious. It won’t come any closer than two or three meters. The smaller one comes up within five feet of him. The deontologist throws them a couple pieces of chicken after making sure it is not too hot.

Crows are always so surprised when he is nice to them!

The crows move away when cars drive by, but come right back. They leave for longer when someone walks past with a dog.

The deontologist wonders if there are hygiene rules against sharing your lunch with crows inside the city limits.

He throws a little rice into the gutter for grey crow, but it lands too close. The deontologist moves a couple steps away so the crow can eat the rice.

There are laws against feeding pigeons, he knows. Pigeons are degenerate birds, rats with wings, but certain people get a kick out of them.

The deontologist prefers ravens and crows.

If there were coyotes in Vienna, he’d feed those too.

But there are no coyotes in Vienna.