Gorgeous days......

The past couple of days have been so pretty.... cool in the morning, warm in the afternoon, hardly a drop of humidity...... good-hair days. 

A day like today makes us remember the first Autumn days when we had just moved here.... we would be out in the yard by the pecan trees with Gracie (our dog who has since passed away), two of our cats, and our first flock of chickens (all of which are gone now also).  My husband and I were picking the pecans off the ground, Gracie was watching us, the cats were watching the chickens, and the chickens were just scratching and pecking around in the grass under the trees.  A Norman Rockwell painting... a Kodak moment... call it whatever you like.... those were beautiful days.

I think we were still on a 'honeymoon' with this property then.... that was before the first Winter came which brought along a deep-freeze that broke all weather records in this state.  Those below-freezing temperatures left us with frozen pipes and no running water on the property..... and me wanting to pack up and move back to Clear Lake.  "What do you mean there's no water?"  (I remember asking my husband that question at least half a dozen times.)  He told me to relax.... that the experience would be just like camping.  Camping?  Since when do city-girls go camping!?  (If I don't have an outlet to plug in the hair dryer and enough light to put on make-up, then I don't go anywhere, much less camping.)

We got through that first winter..... and the second..... and my husband is an excellent plumber and pipe-fitter now.  Not only that, but everyone in Home Depot knows him by name.  As soon as you tell the people in that store that you live in a house built in 1907, they love you because they all know you'll be back again and again and again........

But today....... glorious day.... Gracie would have loved to be sitting under the pecan trees on this beautiful day.    But there I was, without Gracie..... watering the flowers and the plants..... looking up at the sky as a hawk flew around the property.... and I wasn't exactly watching where I was walking.... and I stepped in a small mound of fire ants. 

I sit here, on this gorgeous day, typing with seven ant bites on my right ankle, and with half of my mascara gone because when the first ants started biting me and I looked down to see at least two dozen of those blasted ants crawling on my foot, I sprayed myself in the face with the hose as I was trying to get the ants off of my feet.

But on the bright side...... not one of the neighbors has called me today to tell me that they've seen a cougar in the yard.