Strays R Us.

Christmas comes, and Christmas goes... and so do the stray animals in the hills here.

We had a couple of cold nights this weekend, and I felt so badly for the orange and white cat... he usually sleeps on a chair on our porch, on top of a soft blanket that I leave there for him. But when the wind blows, what good is being on top of a blanket, no matter how soft it is?

I decided to give the orange cat one of the cat beds..... one that I thought was so cute for the cats, but Sweet Pea didn't like it, Mickey wouldn't go near it, and Gatsby couldn't fit into it.  It's one of those square-shaped beds with a hole in the front... so the cat can go inside of it, curl up, and be toasty warm because it's lined with a soft lamb's wool fabric.  Out onto the porch chair it went, and for two nights, the orange cat slept in front of it but wouldn't go into it.  On the third night, it got windy... and finally, that orange/white cat decided that inside that cat bed was the place to be.  I woke up this morning and there he was, all curled up just as nice as could be. When I went out onto the porch to give him food, he was so comfy that he didn't even get out of that bed... he stuck his head out of it and meowed at me, then went back to sleep. (No, we really don't want another cat. I repeat... No, we really don't....)

Yesterday, one of the neighbor's dogs found her way to our driveway... for the hundredth time. This particular neighbor has two or three dogs at any given time. He takes good care of just one of them, his favorite dog which herds his goats and cows. The other dogs come and go, and when he doesn't want them anymore, he just stops feeding them, and the unwanted and hungry dogs go off to other properties.

So this one female dog, skinny as can be, with the body-type of a Greyhound and the face of a plain old hound, was sniffing around the driveway and the yard by the gazebo. When my husband noticed how skinny that dog was, he went out there with a bowl of Meow Mix. (We don't have a dog, so of course there's no dog food in the house.)  The dog gobbled up that cat food so quickly that my husband came in for a second bowl. The dog, however, got scared, and started walking off down the hill. Never the one to not feed a hungry animal, my husband got in the car and followed the dog, caught up with her, and gave her the second bowl of Meow Mix, along with a can of Fancy Feast that none of our cats would eat. That dog liked the Fancy Feast so much that it literally picked up the dish of canned food and walked off with it so it wouldn't be taken away from her.

After that dog had finished every last drop of cat food, my husband picked up both bowls and drove back up our hill. Within five minutes, the dog was in our driveway, sitting there on the concrete with one paw up as if she were begging for food. Out again went my husband, with still another bowl of Meow Mix. Lest you think we were over-feeding that dog, the bowls we were using were cat bowls, nowhere near the size of dish that big dog would require.

The stray dog ate very well yesterday, and being that it was raining today, we didn't see her in the driveway or the yard all day. I did, however, see dog paw-prints on our porch this afternoon, right next to the empty dish of cat food.... I had left food out there for the orange cat, but clearly the dog got to it first, and probably scared off the orange cat.

We tried to get this dog to follow us up to our porch yesterday, but the dog is so very scared, literally with her tail so far between her legs that she appears tail-less. This is not a dog we would keep... she's way too big, she doesn't seem to stay put and always wants to be traveling... definitely not our kind of dog. But we can't just leave a hungry dog out there without feeding her. So we'll keep trying... and hopefully we can get her to the local animal shelter. It's more than clear that the neighbor doesn't want her anymore. Some people should just never have pets of any kind.

Christmas Goats and Miscellaneous Wildlife.

The neighbor's goats jumped their fence yesterday morning and we had goats all over the road outside by our mailbox. Thankfully, the neighbor's dog started barking like mad, alerting his owner about the wayward goats..... the neighbor got into his truck and along with the dog, managed to herd the goats back to their own pasture.

The coyotes have been howling and screaming for countless nights now... always after midnight, around about the time when one's sleep is deepest and most comfortable. And then it starts... one coyote's howls will get the others started and soon you're listening to a symphony. Being that coyotes will howl their loudest after they've captured some poor little animal, it's hard to ignore the fact that a cute little bunny or baby deer might be breathing its last breath. Not exactly the thought you want floating around your mind as you put your head on your pillow.

Orange Kitty is still here... sleeping now in the chair by the Santa Sign (Naughty/Nice List) on the back porch. Silly me... I should have painted the name "Orange Kitty" on that sign and put him right smack at the top of the Naughty List.  That blasted cat... just when you think he has abandoned his habit of grabbing at you with his claws, he swipes at your leg with lightning speed and then looks up at you with such innocence. I do believe, however, that the orange cat has now learned the meaning of a loud "NO!"  The problem is that I have to say the word No! seconds before he gets those claws out. One of these days, I'm either going to fall down the porch steps or walk right smack into one of the columns.

Because of the pouring rain a couple of weeks ago, our pond is filled to the brim and looking quite beautiful, especially after M trimmed up all the tall grasses around the perimeter.  A small flock of ducks have taken up residence in the pond, along with a smattering of turtles which can be seen sunning their shelled selves on the rocks in the middle of the pond. My husband suggested that we stock the pond with fish, but then his next thought was that we'd have raccoons all around the pond, trying to catch their dinner. So... no fish.

We've had dogs walking back and forth around the property this past week....... Herbie (belonging to a neighbor who has decided his dog needs to be 'free' and not 'fenced' in his old age); and Trixie (belonging to another neighbor who walks up and down the hill from time to time); and a stray dog who looks like a greyhound and has made friends with Trixie. The neighbor who owns Trixie doesn't want to keep that stray so he doesn't feed him, which gets the stray to 'shop' around the properties on trash pick-up day. We would gladly feed that dog if he'd come near us, or better still, we'd take him to the shelter... but the dog is very scared and won't go near anyone except Trixie.  As a result of the stray's 'shopping,' our trash was torn apart on the day before Christmas Eve.......... we had trash blowing all over the side yard that day, and it was very windy here, so of course I was out there running after pieces of waxed paper and paper towels.... and the stray was eating heaven-knows-what that came out of the trash bags.

Life in the country.... sometimes peaceful and serene and beautiful.... sometimes ridiculous and ornery and crude.

How does that song from the old TV show go?    "Green Acres is the place to be......"

Finally, the sun.

Yes, Virginia, there really is a sun.

After three cloudy days, the sun has finally decided to shine over this part of the Hill Country. It is a most welcomed sight indeed.

And, after five days of not feeling well, I think my cold germs have gone elsewhere. This is the first morning that I've gotten out of bed and not felt like I got hit by a truck in the middle of the night.

Life has been going on and on, no matter how many germs were surrounding me. The orange cat continues to make his presence known on our porch, and he seems quite content these days. He sits there in the chair by the back door seemingly waiting to welcome anyone who comes up on our porch. However, as soon as he sees a car pulling into our driveway, he high-tails it under the back steps, failing to welcome anyone at all. He will come out of hiding when the coast is clear.

Our live-in handyman M has been telling his friends about his 'new' apartment on the second floor of our barn. One of his friends is now asking if any of our neighbors would like to offer similar living arrangements... S would like to be a live-in handyman on one of the other properties here. We told M that we would like to meet his friend first, before asking our neighbors if such a situation would suit them. The apartment over our barn has two bedrooms... my husband is now wondering if he would have enough work for two live-in handymen.  However, I am not sure if M wants to share his new-found wealth of a large apartment with one of his friends.

While I was resting up and trying to ignore my cold, I discovered how to take a photo with my cell phone. I also set up a Pinterest page for myself and found the entire process very addicting. (Who knew there were zillions of ideas out there?! It's sort of like 'Pin The Tail On The Donkey' for adults.)
And I've been trying to keep up with all of my Blogs as best as I can, but there were a few days when the sneezing and coughing just got the best of me. And my books... I feel like I've abandoned my books... but I just couldn't concentrate enough on reading. So I consoled myself with just browsing through beautiful books about Christmas decorations and ideas.

The weather has been warm and comfortable, although these past cloudy days were very damp. It's so nice not to need either the air-conditioning or the heating, especially as we're so close to the end of December.

And Christmas is just a few days away..... this happens all the time... no matter how prepared you are, and no matter how much of a head-start you get on the preparations and decorations, The Powers That Be can sometimes toss in a handful of cold germs to make sure you're paying attention.

"Y'all come back now...."

This is what's great about Christmas... it's not just one day, it's a lot of days, and most of those days bring super-nice surprises.

A friend of mine brought a wrapped gift to me this morning that was so very thoughtful inside and out. The wrapping paper was nostalgic and innocent, with a 1950s-Christmas flair to it. Such pretty paper that I saved it. Inside the wrapping was a gift that she had hand-painted for me.... a smiling, whimsical black and white cat that's saying "Y'all come back now, ya hear..."

Cute as a button that cat is, and you can just hear him purring Y'all come back... as you look into his green eyes.  It's amazing to me that artists can have such talent that their work comes to life as you look at it, whether it's a classical painting in a European museum or a whimsical and loving cat with green eyes sitting by your door in the Hill Country.

That cat painting is now in my breakfast room, arranged with Christmas boxes right near my chair by the table so I can see it every day. After the holidays are over and the Christmas Santa sign comes off the porch, I will put the green-eyed cat by the back door so he can tell everyone to come on back.

Another morning surprise from friend C was a Downton Abbey tea mug that I will use every day for hot tea.... another thoughtful gift, to be sure.  Christmas is as Christmas does, and nothing says Christmas more than hand-made gifts. The Downton mug will hold my tea, but the green-eyed cat will hold my heart.

Speaking of cats, I can just hear the orange cat now......
Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you going to tell me who that green-eyed cat is?

10 Days Till Christmas...

So sayeth the blackboard in my kitchen, where I've been writing the chalk-white numbers every morning.

I went into town today for a few errands, and contrary to our friends' reports back in Clear Lake, I didn't run into traffic jams or city grid-lock. Everyone here is just going along with day-to-day chores and errands, as if Christmas were just a blip on their country calendars.

While I was in town, I looked around a couple of stores for grab-bag gifts for next year's Christmas party. The grab-bag gift exchange was so much fun on Saturday night's party that I'm determined to do that again next year. Neighbors said they would also bring wrapped gifts for the exchange, but it's always good to have extra wrapped gifts on hand, just in case.

I'm also keeping up with my own method of Christmas shopping.... being that this year's gifts have all been mailed out to family and friends miles away, it's time to start looking around for gifts for next year's Christmas. And birthdays--- with a big family, there's always someone having a birthday during any given month.

The weather has been glorious..... in the mid 70s today, with lots of sun..... it has felt like Spring. About the only thing that has spoiled this week were the cries from the baby goats on the property over on the hill across the road. That particular neighbor raises goats.... not to sell, but to eat. He also butchers the goats, particularly the babies... he says the meat is more tender, more delicious. Give me a blessed break. I never ate much meat before moving out here to the Hill Country, but after hearing the baby goats crying over there, if I never touch a piece of meat again, I'd be perfectly content.

Life in the Barn...

After five years of living here, and not seeing lights on in the barn apartment unless we had friends staying there, I can honestly say that it's nice to see life over there now. Not only life, but Christmas lights as well.

My husband bought three boxes of Christmas lights and gave them to M, thinking that he may want to decorate his front porch and balcony with the tiny white lights. M did just that, and when I went outside a little while ago to plug in our own Christmas lights, I saw that the front of the barn apartment is looking very festive. When my husband comes home from work, he'll be pleased to see all the little white lights over there. Actually, now that both the house and the barn are decorated with lights, the guest cottage is looking quite dark and lonely. We need more tiny white lights!

M completed a major chore yesterday... he mowed the tall grass by the pond, and he picked up all the dead branches that had dropped from the big pecan tree down there. The result is astounding.... the pond looks all dressed up and decked out for Christmas, and even M himself seemed to be very pleased with what he accomplished yesterday. After he was done working, I saw him just standing in the pasture looking from one end of the pond to the other, raising his arms just a bit before he turned back towards the house, as if he was saying "So there! Look at how great this looks!"

I can already see that M is taking pride in the work he's doing here, and being that my husband is such a perfectionist with this property, I know he's pleased also.

Gorgeous 'winter' days.

The weather lately has been glorious... with a little morning fog tossed in to make sure we're paying attention. Our days are in the 60s and low 70s, and the night-time temperature drops into the 50s. We may even get down into the 40s later on this week, but still... so much better than watching the weather station to make sure those numbers don't get down to the freezing point. Been there, done that, don't want to do it again.

I raked up some of the pecan leaves this morning and tossed them behind the bushes near the back porch. Wonderful mulch, those leaves, and because of the position of that part of the porch, the wind isn't going to blow the leaves out onto the grass. In a couple of months, all those leaves will have become part of the ground again, as if I'd never raked them there in the first place.  There are still more leaves to be raked up, but I will ask M to do those... he can pile them up into the flowerbeds around the house.

Sunday has become 'outside chore day' around here, being that M is not working at his job in town, and that's the day when he does work around the property here. My husband had him weed-whacking the tall grass around the pond yesterday, and then M put up the Christmas lights around the railing of our porch. When my husband bought some new boxes of outdoor lights last month, he bought extra boxes for M, thinking that he may want to use them to decorate his staircase and porch of the barn apartment.

This weekend is our Christmas party.... the weather is supposed to be very nice, sunny and warm for the rest of the week and not too cool at night... perfect party weather, in my opinion. I had planned to make hot wassail for the party, as I've done for every Christmas party we've had over the years. Seems that even in the warmer weather, everyone enjoys the wassail.... it just goes with Christmas, no matter what the temperature happens to be.

Just 17 more days till Christmas....

Doing the landlord thing...

Even though we're not charging M for renting the apartment over the barn, we're still the 'landlords' and he's the tenant. M has been a tenant before, but we have never been landlords. "It's a learning experience," my husband said.

Today, we had an appliance repairman here to look at the washer/dryer in the laundry room of the barn. Neither one had been working, but now the dryer is just fine. The washer, however, is a "goner," as the repairman told us. "Not worth the money or the time to fix her," said he.  (Why is a broken appliance always put into the female category?)

We were all set to go to Home Depot to buy a new one, and then M told us that the thrift store where he works always gets donated appliances. He called the store, they had just received a nearly-new washing machine, and they said he could have it for $25 plus a small delivery charge. "Sold!" --- they put M's name on it, and they will deliver it tomorrow and hook it up for him.  M wanted to pay for it.... no way... we are the landlords and we're responsible for the appliances. M was thrilled because he was saving us some money.

We decorated the big tree today, and M helped my husband with the lights before going out into the yard to get some trimming done on the trees around the house.  We all had lunch together, and I could quickly tell that M and my husband had a lot of guy stuff to talk about. Which is fine with me... I'm not too good with the guy stuff, except for being able to listen and not have my eyes glaze over within the first twenty seconds.

Around eight o'clock tonight, my husband's phone rang and it was M.... the apartment was completely dark. One of the circuit breakers had blown, and he didn't know where the breaker box was. "I will be there in thirty seconds," said my very precise and mathematical husband, and off he went. He showed M where the box was, showed him what to do if it happened again, and then came back to the house to tell me where the breaker box was located.

Details.... lots of details when you become a landlord and have a tenant living on the second floor of the barn. We have to install a mailbox for M.... we've already replaced overhead lighting in the barn.... we've provided a trash can so M can put out his trash on the pick-up days.  And, most important, we have introduced our new tenant to the cats, both Mickey and Gatsby outside, and Sweet Pea inside. "And then there's an orange and white cat who is here for a few days and then gone for a few days. We call him Pumpkin, or Orange Kitty."  M is a cat-person, so they should all get along just fine.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you going to get that person out of my barn?

Poinsettia Day

This particular day comes every year about this time..... the neighbor and their children who live down the road stops by at all the other neighbors to give everyone a pretty poinsettia plant. The children hide behind their mother or their father (whichever one makes the delivery) and they're always very quiet, whispering "Merrrry Crissssmus" before they run back down the porch steps.

The first year we lived here, I was unprepared for their early Christmas delivery, so I gave them some boxed cookies that I had in the house. The kids were thrilled... chocolate chip cookies were their favorite, their father told me.

The second year, I gave them Christmas story books, and the kids were happy.... books were their favorites, their mother said.

Since that year with the story books, I've kept two baskets filled with little toys and gifts and books for young children. The little gifts are wrapped in polka-dotted cellophane bags with bright ribbons (pink for the girls, blue for the boys), and the books are a mixture of Christmas stories and popular children's authors.

The kids absolutely love the baskets, and make their choices very carefully.... gently picking up the cellophane bags and peeking in-between the polka-dots at the prize inside... and sometimes finding it hard to decide. Today, I told the kids they could each have two choices. I thought that would make it easier for them.... but it seemed to make it more difficult.

The two younger kids chose packages of candy and little toys, and the eight-yr-old girl chose a book and a little Christmas angel with sequined wings. Very quietly, as she walked down the porch steps, I heard her whispering "Angels are my favorite."

I will have to remember to put more angels into the Christmas basket for next year.

Holiday bugs.

My husband says that I'm the one who always finds bugs in and around the house because I'm the only one looking for them.

Well, that could be true... but if there was a scorpion or a beetle on either my husband's computer or the TV remote, then he'd be finding them also.

Thanksgiving morning.... and everything in the dining room was looking just beautiful... I was admiring the decorations and place settings on the table and my eye happened to catch a teeny bit of movement in the curtains hanging in the archway between the dining room and the living room. I have two long panels of sheer silk and brocade curtains in that archway, one on either side of the wide arch. They serve no other purpose other than to dress up a square open space between the two rooms and the design of the soft fabric looks very Victorian.

What did not look very Victorian was the big scorpion that had found its way in-between the sheer silk and the brocade silk.  I usually capture scorpions with the vacuum cleaner, but with those delicate curtains, that wasn't going to work.  I got the dust-buster thing and slowly got the nozzle of it between the two layers of fabric......... and into the dust-buster went the scorpion.  That stupid thing must have been half asleep because it didn't start running until it was whirling around in the canister of the dust-buster. If Black and Decker were to use this scorpion-capture method in their advertising, they'd be selling dust-busters all over the state of Texas. One thing you have to remember after the scorpion is sucked up into that canister--- you have to spray a bit of Raid into the nozzle to get the scorpion gasping for its last buggy breath.

The other bug is a polka-dotted beetle of some sort that is right now somewhere in the live Christmas tree that's sitting in the corner of our dining room. We bought the tree this morning at Home Depot... lovely Frazier Fir, perfectly shaped from the bottom branches to the very top that's nearly touching the ceiling. My husband was securing the tree into the stand while I was holding onto the trunk of the tree to keep it steady... and that's when I saw the beetle, crawling on my wrist.

Of course I screamed a little first, just out of surprise, then I flicked my hand to get it off of my wrist, and into the tree it went..... this slow-moving polka-dotted square-shaped, flat little bug. I don't know if it's in the beetle family or not, but whatever it is, it's still in the tree. I thought of spraying the Christmas tree with Raid, but who knows if that would hurt the tree that we just paid $70 for. Better to let the bug find a comfy branch of the tree and settle in.... and I'm hoping that it doesn't find its way onto the dining room table during the next Waldorf Wednesday tea party.

Bugs. Insects. Crawling, creepy little things. The entire state of Texas was built on an enormous ant hill and is and forever will be protected by mega-armies of six- and eight-legged soldiers.

Day before Thanksgiving....

The orange/white cat is getting friendlier all the time... letting us pet him, and usually not bothering to swipe his paw against our wrists now. I've made a little pillow-bed for him on one of the chairs on the back porch... he will use that unless Gatsby is out there giving him the cat-evil-eye to vacate the porch. That's when Pumpkin will slowly get off of the chair, walk slowly towards the steps leading to the backyard, and then he'll walk towards the barn. At least once or twice, he'll turn around and look towards the porch to see if Gatsby is following him.

Yesterday, I was out near our mailbox talking to two friends, and all three cats were sitting in the driveway, just watching us. Gatsby was by the front of the garage, Pumpkin was next to my husband's car, and Mickey was the bravest... he came all the way up to us for petting. Mickey is usually the one who comes purring up to everyone, ready to spread his kitty-love around to the neighbors.

Because of the pouring rain we had last week, our pond looks like Spring... filled nearly to the top and the birds and the neighbors' dogs are enjoying the water. That particular neighbor keeps his dogs outside, which is a good thing because they don't look too pretty after they've run through the pond.

Our live-in handyman will be officially moving into the barn apartment this weekend. He will have Thanksgiving dinner with us tomorrow, along with a few of our friends, and one of their friends who would otherwise have been alone for Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving isn't the time for a one-person dinner... everyone should invite whomever they know who would be spending tomorrow by themselves.  Share your feast.... it's what Thanksgiving is all about.

Sunday stuff....

We've been getting last-minute things ready for M, our live-in helper who will be taking up residence next week in the apartment over the barn.  By next Saturday, he will be officially moved in.

My husband replaced some of the ceiling tiles in the rooms up there... a few of them had a few old water-stains, a couple were cracked.... so now they're all white and new again. I never was a fan of those drop-ceilings with the square tiles, but that's what was put into the rooms of that apartment by the previous owner, and that's what will stay. Now that all the tiles are white and clean, the ceiling looks pretty good.

In the kitchen up there, my husband put new fluorescent bulbs into the ceiling fixture, so that's working perfectly and the kitchen is nice and bright. For as long as we've been here, the burners on the stove in that apartment have never worked...... and now, magically, they're working just fine. We tested the stove on three separate days, and they're still working, so we won't have to replace that appliance after all,

There were days when I honestly thought the rooms over the barn were haunted.... and I'm not the only one who felt something was just 'weird' up there. My friend C felt it also, but couldn't put her finger on just what was wrong there.  Our young friend Miss C, who stayed up in the barn rooms every time she came to visit, never said anything was weird or different or scary about that apartment, and I never mentioned my suspicions about the guest rooms to her.  Miss C just loved that little apartment, but now when she comes to visit, she'll be staying in the guest cottage.

Since M started moving his belongings into the barn every weekend these past couple of weeks, and ever since friend C did her cleaning/dusting/mopping magic up there, the barn apartment seems to have taken on a new personality. I no longer feel ill at ease when I go up there, and it just seems fresher and new up there.

So maybe this is what the barn apartment needed..... new life up there. Goodbye to the ghosts, hello to M.

Jack Frost has left the Hill Country.

Our temperatures are finally back to more normal numbers... it was beautiful today, nice and warm and sunny, but now it's raining... it's still warm outside, so we'll forgive the weather gods for the wet stuff. And how could I complain anyway.... the residents of Buffalo, NY are drowning in snow up there.... five or six feet of snow, which I can't even imagine.

Pumpkin Kitty continues to visit our porch, but not on a regular basis. I have no idea where that cat goes when he's not here. He's still playing hard-to-get, just letting us pet his orange and white head once or twice a week, then he's off to parts unknown.  With the cold weather we've had, I fixed up two warm beds for that cat, only one of which was chosen by his Royal Orangeness.  That cat definitely doesn't like any sort of warm bed that resembles a box, leading me once again to believe that he has been trapped in a box before and then re-located, probably right close to our road or not far from it... and that's how he got here in the first place. So, no matter how warm and cozy that box on the back porch is, Pumpkin Kitty is just not going near it. He simply prefers the warm blankets I have put out on the chaise lounge. He curls up in those, paws himself into a soft spot, and goes to sleep. And Sweet Pea watches him from the windows of the TV room.

Our live-in handyman will be moving into the barn apartment soon.... before the end of this month.  We've already asked him if he'd like to have Thanksgiving dinner with us, and if he doesn't go into Houston to visit his daughter, he'll be having dinner with us here, along with a few other friends on our road.  It was too cold this past weekend for M to come here to do any outside work, and we've already told him to use this weekend coming up to move more of his belongings into the barn rooms. After he's unpacked and settled, then we'll come up with some sort of work schedule for him.

Thanksgiving is literally around the corner now.... I spent most of this afternoon getting groceries, and my husband is picking up specialty items in Houston. There are just some things we can't get at the stores here, like just-caught seafood, which we always bought at the fish markets on the bay coast in Clear Lake.

Gobble, gobble... seven more days till turkey day. And the one thing about Thanksgiving that I don't like is cooking that silly bird.  If it were up to me, I'd be serving salmon or lobster or crabcakes for Thanksgiving dinner. But I guess the Pilgrims wouldn't approve of that menu....

The mouse stops here...

For the past few days as this part of Texas has been engulfed in the most ridiculously cold weather we've had since last winter, Mickey has been spending most of his time in the garage. He's not much liking it, but he's warm and he's safe---  I have cat beds and cat tents in the garage for Mickey, and my husband bought him a new heater (no sharp edges, no hot wires) to keep him toasty warm when the weather turns stupid.

If Mickey's inside-the-house behavior hadn't gone down-hill in his older years, he'd still be an inside cat, which is how he started out his little kitty life with us. We've had him since he was less than two months old and less than three pounds in weight. Teeniest, tiniest little black kitten we'd ever seen, found by my husband and our dog Gracie as they walked in the park one morning back in Clear Lake. My husband found that tiny kitten just weeks after we had both promised one another that we would not have any more cats.

"Well, this one is different," said my husband... "Gracie found him in the tall grass near the bayou... it's Gracie's kitten... we have to keep him."

Far be it from me to refuse a teeny-tiny kitten, especially an all-black, which I know are the last to be chosen at the animal shelters. Being that Gracie found the kitten just two weeks before we were leaving for California's DisneyLand, we named the kitten Mickey Kitty. (We nearly named him Mickey Mouse, but felt that just wouldn't do.)  So Mickey joined our family, and our pet-sitter at the time added that three-pound ball of fluff to his list of responsibilities at our house during our time away.  The pet-sitter loved Mickey, as he did all our other pets.... but Mickey was special because he was so darn tiny and so darn cute.

He's always been smaller than the average male cat, and he's still as cute as can be... but he's relegated to the outdoors on nice days, and to the garage at night and on not-so-nice days. Before you start thinking that the garage is too enclosed for a cat.... he can also go through a little trap door which gets him to the fenced-in chicken coop, so he has sun and fresh air and a fine view of the property whenever he wants. (We no longer have chickens, so the chicken coop is now a screened-in porch for the cats.)

This morning when I went into the garage to feed Mickey his breakfast of warmed-up Fancy Feast, I nearly stepped on the little gift that Mickey left for me just inside the garage door. Usually, the first thing I see when I go into the garage in the morning is a stuffed green felt mouse that has been Mickey's favorite toy since his first Christmas with us. But this morning, the green mouse wasn't in its usual spot by the door.... in its place was a real mouse--- a dead one. Not exactly a little tiny mouse, either....... if this mouse had been a member of a family of four, it would have been the papa mouse. I'm surprised that Mickey was able to even catch it, much less kill it. Usually, he plays with the mice he catches, letting them go when he gets tired of the game.  Judging by the size of that mouse, I think Mickey caught the mouse eating out of the cat food dish and Mickey showed him no mercy in dispatching him to that big Mouse Hole in The Sky.

So my first chore of the morning was to scoop up the dead mouse with the broom and the dustpan, and toss him into the trash. Oh, how far I've come since moving out here to the country. In my Clear Lake days, I would have run screaming into the house to get my husband to remove the mouse... and if he wasn't at home, I would have gone knocking on all the doors of my neighbors to see whose husband was home to take care of a dead mouse.

Oh well.... I guess even a city girl can learn to look a dead mouse in the eye.

Totally stupid weather....

Well, the TV weather wizards were correct this time..... we did indeed get a frigid arctic blast from up north..... it's been freezing for days now.

On Wednesday afternoon, the wind was so fierce that it was hard to open the back door because the wind was just pushing it closed before you could open it and get out to the porch.  Honestly, if I wanted weather like this, we could have just stayed up in NY.

The barn swallows that are still here are huddling up in their nests on the back porch... two birds to a nest, all close and cuddled up together as soon as the sun goes down. If I walk out on the porch, I can see their little heads peeking over the edge of the nest. Those birds know me by now, so they don't leave the nest.... they just stay put and watch me. So cute.

I've made warm tents and blanket-filled boxes for Mickey in the garage.... he has his own heater in there and as long as the doors are kept shut, he's toasty warm, and enjoying his solitude. I've brought him into the house for a couple of hours at a time on the coldest days, but that means keeping Gatsby and Sweet Pea in the TV room so Mickey will think he's the only cat in the house. I still do not like Mickey having to be an outside cat now. And if his behavior inside the house wasn't so bad, he wouldn't have to be sleeping in a heated tent in the garage, but there's nothing I can do about that.  I don't want another situation like we had with AngelBoy, who was the most out-of-control cat I've ever had. (And still, I miss that blue-eyed cat so terribly.)

Pumpkin is still hanging around the property.... sleeping in the corners of the barn at night, and coming to the back porch for his Meow Mix. I'm wondering if Pumpkin will make friends with M once he moves into the apartment over the barn at the end of this month. Now that would be a perfect arrangement, if M would feed that orange cat by the barn, eliminating the cat-fights between Gatsby and Pumpkin. But.... I'm not going to suggest that to M. If it comes to be, then fine, but I don't want to 'push' a cat on to M if he doesn't want to be responsible for one.

It's supposed to rain this weekend, according to the weather wizards. We told M not to come out here to work this weekend, because of the cold weather, but he may choose to move more of his things into the apartment.  I've given the neighbors M's phone number, and my bet is that M will have plenty of opportunities to do work on other properties once he's fully settled here.

But... as long as this stupid weather continues to act like northern Canada instead of southwest Texas, no one will be doing much of anything outside. I hate the winter months.... with a passion. Except for Christmas... that's just a passion all on its own.

Sunday stuff...

M started moving some of his belongings into the barn apartment today.  He got here this morning with two friends of his who helped him move... and they stayed all day to help M with some of the chores. M was grateful for the help, being that we had some power tools that he hadn't used before on trees and bushes. Having been mostly a city guy, M will now have to get used to life in the country. He says that he is loving all of this, and I hope this "honeymoon" stage with the countryside won't be wearing off anytime soon.

It was good that M had that help today because my husband has been sick with a cold for the past four days. His coughing and sneezing is now on the way out, and my own cold symptoms have begun. Is there ever a time when cold germs just get to one person in the house?

I've had to take a break from shelling the pecans from our trees... most of my time this week has been devoted to Christmas decorations. I just finished putting up the last tree this afternoon.... everything is done now, except for the real Christmas tree that will go into the dining room right after Thanksgiving. As always, there is an explosion of Christmas throughout this house... every room, including all the bathrooms and the 3rd floor library.... every place you look, there is Christmas.  And once again, we're approaching the season where certain groups of people are trying to get everyone to say "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas."   Give us all a blessed break.

With so many of my cousins and their children living in other states (Arizona, New York, Illinois, Florida), I've also been wrapping Christmas gifts and then boxing them up for mailing.  My cousins are used to my early mailing of gifts... and within a few weeks, my cousin T in Arizona is going to be calling me and saying "Are you kidding me? We're still eating turkey leftovers and you're playing Santa already!"  He does that every year..... it's become a tradition.

Our weather has been very nice these last couple of weeks...... a little cool in the morning, warm in the afternoons, then cool again at night. The weather wizards on TV are calling for an Arctic Blast to come rolling down from Canada, bringing us abnormally cold weather for this time of the year. Oh goodie. I can hardly wait.

Handyman special....

Happy days here...... my husband has spoken to a friend we met in town..... about living in the apartment over our barn.  M would live in the barn for free, his 'rent' being paid with work that he would do around the property for us.

We met M a couple of years ago... he worked at two of the cafes in town, as did his daughter... and now M is working at the local thrift store and living in a tiny efficiency apartment in the center of town. His daughter goes to college and lives in downtown Houston.

My husband and I have discussed this arrangement before, and even asked another handyman to live up in the barn a while back, but he found another place. That handyman didn't want to do 'free rent' for chores... he just wanted to pay rent.

M has been at our house these past two Sundays, working on the property for us, and he loved it out here. He's used to town and city living, but loved this area so much that he was willing to work for free.  We paid him for his time these past two weekends, but once he moves in, we'll have a list of chores for him to do, plus other neighbors are always looking for by-the-hour help, and M can still work in town as he chooses.

It's a win-win situation, as my husband calls it....... M gets a nicer and bigger apartment where he has room for his daughter to visit... and we get work done so the chores don't pile up in-between searching for a handyman to do the jobs.

My husband told M about this arrangement while the three of us were having lunch on Sunday...... M was so overwhelmed and taken aback that he couldn't even finish his lunch. He was nearly in tears, and saying that he couldn't believe we'd ask him to "actually live here in this beautiful community."  And when we all walked over to the barn so he could look at the apartment, he was overjoyed with disbelief and he said it finally feels like he could have a real home again.

M will be giving notice to the landlord at his current apartment, and giving notice to his boss at work.... he won't be working there six days a week once he moves into the barn apartment, but they will let him work as much as he can or as much as he wants to.

I spent most of today going through the closets of the barn apartment... I took out things we had stored there, and I also took out everything that belongs to our little friend Miss C...... when she comes up here for over-night visits now, she'll sleep in the guest cottage instead of her usual room in the barn apartment.

M will be moving in sometime around the end of this month, but might be bringing some of his belongings every Sunday when he comes here for work. Both my husband and I think it will be a good arrangement for all of us..... M is a quiet man who loves music and books, and he and his daughter have a very good relationship.  All of us, especially M, feel as if the sky opened up and sent down a little miracle right here in the hills.

Herbie the beagle.

First of all, I like dogs. I do not, however, like the neighbors' dog in our yard. Namely, Herbie.

This dog belongs to neighbors further on up the hill who moved here just a couple of years ago and decided not to be very neighborly. They wave as they drive by, but they don't stop to say hello. They have been invited to neighborhood get-togethers but never chose to attend, and never even Rsvp'd to say they couldn't (or wouldn't) come. Fine. Some people are like that. We all stopped inviting them, and we just wave as they drive down the hill.

However, these un-friendly neighbors have a very friendly dog. A beagle named Herbie. Within months of moving to his new home, Herbie decided to go exploring.... and of course got lost. Neighbor J found Herbie and drove him around looking for his owners..... and thought he'd found the owners and left Herbie with 'his people.'

The next day, signs went up on our road...... "Lost Dog: Beagle named Herbie. Please call...."  And who did Herbie belong to?  The new and un-neighborly neighbors. Oh my. Neighbor J had left Herbie with the wrong people.

So J made signs for Herbie..... putting his own number on the sign and offering a reward.  J did indeed find Herbie... and paid the reward.... and delivered Herbie to his rightful owners--- the new and not-so-friendly neighbors.  Even after a reward was paid and their dog was returned, those neighbors still remained un-neighborly.

For the past year or so, Herbie has been managing to escape from his own yard while his people are in town or at work. Herbie goes exploring... down the hill to romp and play with the dogs of other neighbors. Herbie has been returned to his own property many times by many neighbors.

Today was my turn. I went outside to give the cats their lunch and there was Herbie, sitting in the courtyard with Gatsby on one side of him and Mickey on the other side. Each cat had their tails up and fluffed-out like Halloween cats, and Herbie was too scared to move. That dog sat there in the middle of the courtyard and looked at me, with an expression that said "Please save me."

I went right back into the house and got the leash that once belonged to our dog Gracie. I also got my cell phone from the house.... went outside and clipped that leash to Herbie's collar, and off we went towards Herbie's home. On the way up the hill, I called Herbie's people.... told them I had Herbie and I was headed their way.  The owner wasn't at home... asked me to leave Herbie in the yard.

I resisted the urge to tell that neighbor that my schedule today did not include walking his dog back to his house. I did, however, suggest to Herbie's owner that he might want to find a way to keep Herbie on his own property because he was going all over everyone else's property, in their gardens, on their porches, and, worst of all, Herbie was walking by himself all over the road at times and one of these days, he's going to end up underneath a car.

The worst insult today... seconds before I could get the leash on Herbie, he committed the ultimate act of disrespect. That dog peed on my "Bird Girl" statue.... my Savannah girl which is similar to the statue made famous by the book "In The Garden of Good and Evil."

Honestly.... Herbie's people need to teach that dog some manners.

Plop... plop.... rumble... roll....

Those are now the sounds we hear when the pecans drop from the trees and fall on the new metal roof of the gazebo.

First you will hear that plop sound when the pecan first thuds onto that roof. Then, as it rolls down the copper metal, you can distinctly hear a rummmble sound as it rolls towards the edge.  When the pecan goes into a free-fall from the edge of the roof line, and if it's very quiet outside (which it usually is) you can actually hear the pecan as it lands on the grass.

I'm surprised that an army of squirrels haven't arrived in our yard en masse, being that the pecan sounds are now signalling the bounty of fresh nuts that surrounds that gazebo.

As October goes....

This month has flown by... totally disappeared while I wasn't looking.  I've spent most of the month picking pecans from our trees, then shelling them..... piles of nuts here, piles of shells there. I wear very thin latex gloves for both the picking and the shelling. The fresh nuts are covered with a sheer layer of brown dust that will discolor your hands for a few days. Not exactly a must-have for the latest nail polish color.

When you buy pecans in the store, those shells have been cleaned and waxed and they're perfectly clean and shining... not so when you pick the nuts right from the trees. Sometimes the green pods are open, sometimes the pods have turned brown and brittle... but inside each of those pods is a perfectly shelled pecan.  Every pecan I pick from those trees reminds me of the fresh eggs that I used to get from my hens... little miracles, just in nut form instead of an egg.

Today while I was picking the last of the pecans that I could reach, Pumpkin Kitty was sitting in the sun by the barn, just watching me. When I got to the trees closest to the barn, I started talking to him, telling him it was okay for me to be in 'his' yard. (When you have a male cat, they tend to take over whatever part of the yard or the house they're in at the moment.)  Pumpkin Kitty sat there watching me, and when he got tired of sitting, he stretched out in the grass and looked at me upside-down. Gatsby was on the other side of the yard, close to the pecans trees, just watching Pumpkin.... both of them are male. Both of them want to dominate the yard.  Same goes for all males of any species, I would imagine.

Tomorrow is our Halloween party.... I've been getting everything ready so I will have precious little to do for the party tomorrow night, except read, put food into the oven, and get dressed in costume. Between watching the work on the gazebo and tending to the pecans, my reading time has been cut short for the past couple of weeks.

The gazebo... it looks even prettier than it did with the old shingled roof. The copper-colored metal roof was just what this gazebo needed..... it looks like a horse-less carousel has been planted in our yard.  We'll be looking for some sort of lighting to put in the gazebo... something that works on a timer so the structure can be lit up for a while every evening. Something else for the to-do list or the look-for list.  No matter how much you do, there's always something else to add to those lists. Sure does keep life interesting.

The Prodigal Cat

And there he was last night.... that orange cat. Sleeping on his favorite chair on the back porch. My guess is that he had spent the last bunch of days out in the fields catching the mice that were re-located when the hay was cut this past week.  That orange cat probably spent his nights feasting on mice in the back of our barn, so he didn't need Meow Mix when he had warm mouse-meat for his lunch and dinner.

I went out there to say hello to him last night and he stayed on that chair, rolled over on his back so his belly was up towards the porch ceiling, and he looked at me in that upside-down way that all cats seem to instinctively have mastered. Quite possibly, people may look better in the eyes of a cat when we're viewed upside-down. That orange cat meowed soft sounds and started to purr.

As he purred, I put my hand out and gave him a few gentle rubs on the top of his head... he kept purring. He didn't try to scratch me, didn't move from the chair... he just laid there, quite content.

"Welcome back," said I.
"Meow, meow," said he.

My husband has been calling that orange cat Pumpkin Kitty ever since we first saw him, which is nearly eleven months ago.

So that's his name, I guess. Pumpkin Kitty. Or just plain Pumpkin.

Sounds better than That Orange Cat or Orange Kitty.

The name 'Pumpkin' seems to fit that orange and white cat..... he can stay out in those fields for days and days.... plus he's a hard-headed cat who wants to do things his own way, no questions asked. He has all the resiliency and stubbornness of a field pumpkin.  He found his way to our property during last year's pumpkin season, and he's still here for this season's pumpkin-picking time.  That cat has resisted every effort of ours to catch him and bring him to the shelter, and he has the patience and fortitude of those slow-growing pumpkins.  So, Pumpkin it is, and I guess he's here to stay until he wants to take his cat-self elsewhere.


Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad you finally gave me a real name?

Four days gone...

We haven't seen the orange cat in four days now.  The last time he was here, our outside cat Gatsby howled and screeched and plowed into that stray cat something fierce... I'd never seen Gatsby fight like that before, and when it was all over, I saw the orange cat walking slowly towards the barn.

I didn't go after the orange cat to see if he had been hurt... after all, he's a stray cat, isn't he?  And haven't I wanted him gone for the past ten months?  And hasn't he been unfriendly and unpredictable for all of those months?  If I could have caught him, I'd have brought him to the local animal shelter.... I did not, and do not, want another cat.

I have to admit that it's nice to just walk out the back door without even thinking that the orange cat might scratch my legs as I walk by. (He was very quick on the fast-swipes with his claws.)  Neighbor L had suggested that I use a spray-bottle with that orange cat..... and it worked... as I walked, I sprayed that water right in front of the cat and that kept him away from my legs.

Very quiet on the porch these past few days.... no howling from Gatsby, no hissing from Mickey. All is quiet on the porch with just our own two outside cats.  Still, I hope the orange cat just found another barn to call his own, I hope the coyotes didn't get him, and I do hope he doesn't come back to our porch.

Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you missing me now that I'm gone?

Making hay...

As I type, the "hay guy" is mowing down the pastures... he's been doing that since early this morning. As a result of that, flocks of crows and vultures have been circling in the sky, looking for mice who have left the tall grass and are running around the fields looking for a safe haven. Between the hay guy on the tractor-thing, and those huge birds flying circles in the sky, I don't think there's any place that's exactly safe for the mice.

Add into that equation our three outside cats... Gatsby and Mickey and (still) that orange cat. Each of them had hiding spots around the house and under the bushes all day today, with one eye on the tractor's progress and the other eye on whatever is scampering along in the grass running in the opposite direction of the tractor. Mickey caught two lizards, the smaller of which (yuck) he ate. I don't think Gatsby has caught anything at all... he likes to look and watch, but doesn't often chase anything (unless it's holding a dish of Meow Mix).  My guess is that the orange cat did indeed catch (and eat) at least one mouse because he didn't come up on the porch at lunch-time today.

The orange cat, however, could be just staying away from Gatsby as much as possible today. Early this morning, before the sun came up, Gatsby decided he didn't want to share the porch with the orange cat. I was barely awake when I heard Gatsby howling and screeching at the orange cat, and then I heard both of them running across the porch. Actually, I just heard Gatsby's heavy-set self running on the porch..... he's so big that he sounds like a small dog out there (or a very tiny baby hippo).

The neighbor's dogs heard Gatsby howling as well, and they started barking before six o'clock this morning, which set off the other neighbor's roosters and they started crowing.  With just one twitch of Gatsby's whiskers as he looked at the orange cat in the dark of the morning and decided to prove who owns the porch, all the neighbors on our side of these hills were probably waking up at 5:30 this morning saying "What the....?!"

Saturday stuff....

As I type, the contractor is putting the finishing touches on the gazebo... the roof is complete, the trim is up, and he's painting the railings, posts, and spindles.  With any luck (and if he can stay off his cell phone for a while) he'll be finished today.  The gazebo looks great, even better than it did before with the old shingled roof.

The orange cat..... L's suggestion about using a water spray-bottle has been working wonders with that cat. I've been spraying the water not on the cat, but just in front of him, and that keeps him away from my legs when I go out into the yard. I've been scratched (and bitten) by that stupid cat so I've been trying everything to keep him at a distance.  I still refuse to give him a real name... and I'd still give anything to have him caught and taken to the shelter. No matter how I try with this stray cat, I just don't feel as if I can fully trust him.

I've been picking pecans for days and days now.... and yesterday was just a perfect weather day... when I was out there under the trees, I thought of our dog Gracie.... she used to watch us pick pecans when we first moved here.  Every time there's an exceptionally clear and warm day outside (not broiling hot and not humid) we think of Gracie and wonder if her spirit is still on the property with us. This week's clear and perfect weather was Gracie's favorite sort of day for just walking around the yard. I was really missing that dog yesterday, and I caught myself talking to her as I picked those pecans. Sometimes it feels as if she's right next to me.... and I could just kick myself for all those times I used to tell her "Gracie! We've got 23 acres here and you're always right under my feet!!"

After the rains...

Haven't seen one wasp all weekend. Happy day!

We had rain over the weekend, with high winds that blew away all the muggy air that had been hanging around the hills here. Temperatures have dropped a little bit, but the weather wizards tell us that we'll have temperatures in the 80s for the rest of this week. Once again: Happy day!  (I am not ready for the temperatures to drop down into the 70s just yet.)

The gazebo roof is taking on a life of its own as I type. The contractor (minus his helper) has been cutting the metal roofing since eight o'clock this morning. The sawing of that copper metal is bone-tingling loud... Gatsby is out on the porch, seemingly oblivious to the sounds of the power-saw, but Mickey is hiding under the bushes.

There are two tiers on that gazebo roof, and I have to wonder why the contractor didn't cut the metal for the smaller roof first, before cutting the larger pieces for the second tier. Somehow it makes more sense to me to work from the top down, rather than the bottom up. My husband thinks that the contractor will use the leftover smaller pieces for the upper tier of the roof.

So far, the roof of the gazebo is looking just fine, so we're having faith that the contractor/Ken doll knows what he's doing out there.

Picking pecans...

If you want to know when the pecans on your trees are ready to be picked, just listen for the crows. And we've had crows here for over a week, so I really should have known why.  Those birds will take a ripe pecan right out of the husk, fly it over to the road, and use the hard surface of that road to help crack open the pecan shell.  By the time the crows have filled up their bird-bellies, there is quite a pile of pecan shells in the road.

We have two huge pecan trees in the side yard, and half a dozen smaller pecan trees in the backyard. Funny thing is that the smaller trees have the largest and tastiest pecans.  When we first moved here, we were picking every blessed pecan that we could find out there. We had so many pecans that I was sending them to my cousins up north... "These pecans are from our own trees!  I picked them myself!"  When friends from Clear Lake came up to visit, I made cute little take-away bags of "our very own pecans!" for each of them.   So proud was I.... but  I stopped doing that after the first pecan season in this house.

Now we know better... we don't pick the zillions of pecans that fall from the largest trees... those pecans aren't that tasty (sort of dry) and they're so small that it's hard to get the nuts out of their shells. The smaller trees have huge pecans, and they're delicious, like the finest pecans you can buy at specialty stores.  I store them in the fridge, and don't crack them open till I'm ready to use them.

For the rest of this month, I'll have to make sure to get out there in the yard every day and check for pecan husks that have opened up to reveal the shelled nuts inside. It's a balancing act at best... holding the little plastic bucket, looking up into the trees for the nuts (while watching for spiders) and looking down at the ground (being careful of fire ant mounds).  And you have to wear thin plastic gloves when picking the nuts because your hands will turn green and yellow from the husks, and brown from the shells.

Very different from those Clear Lake days when all I had to do was drive to Kroger and pick a bag of shelled pecans from a shelf. No gloves, no spiders, no fire ants.

Cricket, anyone?

Hundreds of crickets, clicking and clacking their way all over the yards here this week. I can barely walk from the house to the coop without being side-swiped and attacked by crickets. Alright, maybe it's not really an attack, and I know that crickets don't bite, but that doesn't mean I want them on me or my clothes, and that is exactly what's happening here. Every blessed day.

This is when I really miss having chickens.... those hens ate up every cricket in sight... and the few crickets I did see back then were very small ones, not steroid-laced mega-crickets with a jumping capability of thirty feet.

At this week's Waldorf Wednesday, a few of the ladies were talking about going on 'an adventure' to walk around the woods and the creek that meanders through all of our properties here. "Wear boots," one of them said.... "because of the poison ivy and the snakes."

And then this particular neighbor asked me if I would like to join them.   Me?

I assured all the ladies that none of them would enjoy their walk in the woods if I were along with them. I can't even deal with one spider or one cricket or one scorpion on my own property, so why on this blessed bug-filled earth would I want to go trekking in the blessed woods looking to see what's growing and living back there?

I already know what's growing..... flowering trees, pretty wildflowers, small streams coming from the creek-bed, and musical waterfalls (when we have enough rain) filtering down through the hills. As for what's living back in those woods...... take your pick: raccoons, possums, armadillos, coyotes, deer, bob-cats, birds (from bluebirds to vultures), foxes, snakes.... and everything else that goes bump in the blessed night.

It was a dark and stormy afternoon...

The contractor and his helper started work on the gazebo yesterday. When they got here (before eight o'clock in the morning) the sun was out and it looked like a perfect day for working outside.  Within a couple of hours, it started to get cloudy, then it started to get dark and the wind kicked up so badly that one of the chairs on the porch went flying. The contractor kept working, with one eye on the sky and one eye on the gazebo, and even in all of that wind, they were out there trying to beat the rain that we were sure was just a heart-beat away.

As dark as the sky got, and as fierce as the wind was, we never did get one drop of rain. And, thankfully, because we had the trees trimmed not too long ago, the branches weren't dropping from the pecan trees which are right over that gazebo.

When you're out in the middle of so much land, you can see for miles away, and in weather like yesterday's, the change in the sky is so evident, and can be very frightening. Mother Nature makes one humble, to say the least.... when she's in a temper, there's no stopping her.

That dark sky yesterday morning lightened up into a bright and sunny day within half an hour's time. We could see the dark clouds off in the distance, and some of the little towns around here may have been battered with the rain that we never got.

When the contractor and his helper left, the new posts were up on the gazebo decking... they used concrete as a filler so they're not working today, giving the posts in the concrete time to 'just set and be happy.'  They will be back tomorrow, with the material for the roof.

Yesterday morning, we were hearing the cows from the other side of the hills... they had been crying for three days, probably because their calves were taken to market. The sad sounds of those cows are just heart-breaking and I don't think I'll ever get used to those poignant cries.  When the sky darkened yesterday, the cows went quiet... and when the sun came out again in the afternoon, the cows were still silent.

And today... the cows are silent still.  So quiet that it's nearly un-nerving.

Friday stuff.....

We had pouring rain last night... and a good deal of lightning that was off in the distance. Looking out from the back porch, I could see all the lightning strikes above the trees. I was standing there with a flashlight in my hands, thinking that the power would go off, but it never did.

I was also standing there and calling for Gatsby to come into the house. He wouldn't stay inside last night and wanted to sleep on the porch, but he must have run underneath the back steps or under the cottage when the rain started. For whatever reason, that cat likes his hiding spots outside when a storm comes along, rather than being inside the house. Probably because he can't fit his plump cat-self underneath the sofa in the TV room. So that's where he was last night... hiding from the rain... and when I opened the back door this morning, he had his nose pressed up against the screen door.

Lots of little green frogs outside this morning... which always happens after a good rain. The frogs were perched on the porch columns, just hanging there like little green ornaments. If you go up to them for a closer look, they don't even move unless you try to touch them. (I don't mind looking at frogs, but touching is out.)

The barn swallows have been sleeping in their old nests at night.... and I'm sure they're the same little birds because they don't move from those nests when they see me on the porch. All the little baby birds that were born in those back porch nests got to recognize me and probably even my voice because I would talk to them as I went up and down the porch steps. They would rest their little heads on the ridge of those nests and just watch me going back and forth. As they got closer to the point of leaving the nests, they would sit there on the edge and just watch me, not moving a feather. So now they're back... still watching me... and I'm still talking to them every time I see them. (My friend V used to talk to the squirrels back in the park in Clear Lake.... and here I am, talking to baby birds.)

I haven't seen too many wasps this week, but I surely have heard the bees. When I was in the upstairs rooms of the barn a few days ago, I could hear buzzing that sounded like it was coming from underneath the floor. My friend C told me that it sounded like bees were down in the barn. "Want to go down there and have a look?" she asked.  Absolutely not.  If the bees are there, let them stay there... and I'll send my husband down there with a can of the wasp spray.

A bubble-shaped dome........ a huge see-through, breathe-through bubble.... that's what I need surrounding this entire property.... and I'd be perfectly content. But I guess not even a bubble would keep out the fire ants.

The list of readers...

... keeps on growing.... I can now add Canada, Poland, Afghanistan, Brazil, and Ireland to the list of new readers.  Thank you all very much!

Gatsby's porch...

Once again, our outside cat Gatsby has decided that he does not like that orange cat anywhere near 'his' porch.

Gatsby has begun howling at the orange/white stray cat every time he sees him. Can I really keep calling that orange cat a 'stray' now?  He's been hanging around our property for about ten months, off and on (mostly on).

But Gatsby has decided enough is enough. He howled and meowed and carried on so much a few nights ago that the orange cat ran off the porch and stayed away for two days and two nights. And me, who kept wishing that the orange cat would just go away.... I was worried that something had happened to him (as in a fateful meeting with a fox or a coyote).

Orange Kitty came back last night....... hungry and meowing... and my husband went on the porch to pet him just like he was doing every night last week. Well, after two days of being away from our porch, the orange cat lost his sense of good manners....... he took a swipe at my husband's hand and managed to leave a nice claw-mark.

"What's wrong with that damn cat?!" said my husband.

He wants a home, said I, but he doesn't know how to 'make nice' so he can get one.

Oh well, the orange cat is back.... Gatsby is howling at him, Mickey is spitting at him, and Sweet Pea is once again watching from the windows.  Why is it that all the male cats come to this house? Although, finding a female cat who could be pregnant with seven kittens would be no picnic either.

Another 'Thank you...'

New readers on my blogs..... from Romania and The Netherlands......

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

It is just totally amazing how many people from around the world find their way from there to here.

Rainy days...

We have had more rain this week than we've had all summer long. The pond looks great, once again filled to the top instead of just that one big puddle at the deeper end.

The stray dogs have gone elsewhere... haven't seen them in a few days. I did see one of the neighbor's dogs on our porch, though. This particular neighbor has two dogs that run after his truck as he goes down the road. If that neighbor comes up this road, the dogs are right behind him, and one of the dogs takes a detour from the road.... running down our driveway, up the porch steps, and he helps himself to the bowl of Meow Mix that I keep there for the outside cats.

My inside cat Sweet Pea heard the dog's paws on the porch so he ran to the window for a look-see, which made me take a look and there was the dog, looking at me through the glass. I opened up the door and chased him away... he was chewing on the last of the cat food as he ran down the steps and across the yard so he could catch up with his owner's truck.

I am hoping that the rain will quit next week, because the contractor that my husband picked is supposed to start work on the roof for the gazebo.  This particular contractor looks like a Ken doll.... not a hair out of place, not a wrinkle in his shirt or jeans, and drenched in a pungent after-shave. Actually, he looks like a city boy, and compared to the other contractors who came here to give us an estimate, "Ken" looks very out of place here in the hills.

Can't sleep.... I can hear raindrops falling on the roof and the balcony outside the bedroom. After so many weeks and weeks without a drop of rain, now I can't get my mind to quit concentrating on every single little raindrop.

Stray dogs.

The morning started off with two stray dogs who found their way onto our property... of course they weren't fluffy lap-dogs... one looked like a German shepherd and the other had the rounded snout of a pit-bull. Both huge, both running here and there, and one found its way to our porch and gobbled up the Meow Mix.

I got Mickey into the kitty-coop as fast as I could.... Gatsby came willingly into the house and ran into the TV room.... and I told the orange cat that he was on his own. (Orange Kitty went into the drainage pipe to hide.)

Then I got on the phone to our close-by neighbors........ one has a cat that is sometimes out on her patio, and the other has a very small dog that likes to soak up the sun on her deck.

My husband tried to get the dogs away from the properties up here.... they wouldn't come when he whistled, in fact they stood there in the road just looking at him.  Then my husband got out the air-horn and gave them a blast of that noise.........the shepherd ran off into the hills and the pit-bull dog ran further up the road.

About an hour later, there was no sign of the shepherd and I saw the pit-bull running down the hill, probably searching for his dog-buddy.  We didn't see those dogs all afternoon, which is a good thing.... I'm hoping they either found their way back to where they belonged, or they're off in the woods somewhere deciding where to go next.

I've lost count of how many stray dogs we've seen up here..... there was that big brown hound dog that found its way here on the day that Prince William married Kate (we took him to the shelter on the day he killed one of our chickens).... there were two black-lab mixes that we found one night when we came back from playing cards at a neighbor's house.... then there was Captain January, the little dachshund mix that I found on a freezing day last January (and I still wish I had kept that little guy).... and there have been other stray dogs that we had to take to the shelter just because they were either too big or too unpredictable.

Listen up, people.... if you have a pet that you no longer want, please please please either find a new home for them or bring them to the local animal shelter.  A lonely country road is not a good option for dogs and cats that have once been a part of your family. (And if you're that kind of pet-abandoning person, then you probably should re-think the whole idea of having any sort of pet in the first place.)

Three inches of rain.....

That's what we had here yesterday and all during the night.... more than three inches of rain which nearly filled up every bit of our pond and knocked the electricity out three times.

I was in the post office this morning and that's what everyone was talking about.... the amount of water captured in their rain gauges during those heavy rains.  Having a rain gauge in your yard seems to be the thing to do here.  I have no idea why everyone needs to know how much rain falls at any given time, but a rain gauge is basic equipment on these properties.

With that country-rule in mind, I did buy a rain gauge a few years ago.... I actually gave it to my husband as a gift.... I thought he really wanted one because he kept asking the neighbors how much rain was in their gauges after we'd had a good downpour.  When my husband unwrapped that rain gauge, he said "Why do I need a rain gauge?"

I told him that now he didn't have to ask the neighbors how much rain had fallen....... "You can just look at your own rain gauge now," said I.

"But then I won't have anything to talk about with the neighbors," said he.

That rain gauge sat on a shelf in the garage for six months, and then I finally took it out of the package and set it down into one of the flowerbeds.  When it rained, no one in this house bothered to look at it, and my husband continued to ask the neighbors how much rain had fallen.

The glass and metal rain gauge got dug up by the chickens we had at the time... it was knocked over by the cats.... and it was disassembled and re-located by the raccoons.  When I got tired of looking all over the backyard for the two pieces of the rain gauge, I gave up and put it into the donation box for the local thrift store.

My husband was right. Who needs a rain gauge? All you have to do is ask a neighbor or go into the little post office the day after it rains.

Under the front steps....

Definitely not a cute little bunny underneath the front steps. My guess is that it's an armadillo, and a big one.  The piece of metal chicken wire that my husband put on that hole by the steps was moved away this morning. Not simply moved away, but flung away, as in "Who the heck put this chicken wire right in front of my hiding spot?!"

I left the chicken wire right where it landed. I think we'll have to put the catch/release trap at the entrance to that hole. (I say "we" but I really mean "my husband.")  Any night-roaming animals are sound asleep for most of the day, hiding out in whatever cozy and dark place they've built for themselves. And the animal that's under those steps has built a tunnel going from under the palm leaves to under the front steps, with a long entrance-way hollowed out underneath the paving stones. Sort of like NYC's Holland Tunnel, but Texas-style.

Oh well, that's tomorrow's project..... setting up the trap....... hoping to catch the critter when it comes out for tomorrow night's foraging.... and then we can drive the caged animal to the lake and release it there. (I say "we" but I really mean "my husband.")

Armadillos aren't the smartest of animals..... they will walk right into a trap if you either put the trap right in front of them, or direct them towards the trap with wood slats set on top of the dirt outside their hiding place.

One of our neighbors has re-located nearly 50 armadillos by using pieces of wood to form a direct line from one part of their garden to the catch/release trap at the other end.  Each and every time, an armadillo will get itself from the flower garden to the wooden 'highway,' and then just walk along and follow that wooden trail right into the trap.  The neighbor drives to the lake area in a nearby town and releases the armadillo into the woods there.

We all joke that the little town and the woods around its lake will soon be over-run by an influx of armadillos from this town. Hopefully, one of those re-located armadillos will be the one from underneath our front steps.

Down the rabbit hole...

... and I'm hoping against hope that it's only a rabbit.

My husband found a gaping hole near the front steps yesterday...... actually the same hole that I had found behind the bushes and near the stepping stones around the steps. I was filling up that hole day after day a few months ago, using the dirt that had been 'shoveled' out of it and piled up under the palm trees.

I thought it was an armadillo or a skunk, or even a rabbit or a fox, but we never did see the animal who was making his home underneath the front steps.  Yesterday, when my husband put the ladder up near the steps so he could get to the roof gutters, the ladder sunk right into one of those stones because there wasn't any dirt at all underneath.

My husband put on work gloves and was able to reach underneath the stones, all the way up to his elbow.... which shows you just how much dirt had been removed from underneath that stoned path. We had a bag of topsoil in the garage, so my husband shoveled that into the hole and then replaced the stone on top of the new dirt. Then he covered up the entrance hole with wire..... and now we're watching that spot to see what, if anything, comes in or out of 'the rabbit hole.'

Whatever animal is in there, it's not going to come out during the day, and I'm certainly not going to be sitting on the porch with a flashlight just to have a look-see. Suffice it to say that something has made a cozy nest underneath those steps and if it's still in there during all of the hot days we've had these past few months, then far be it from me to disturb it.

One thing I've learned about the animals out here....... the only way to win the wildlife war is to shoot everything in sight, on sight. And I'm not about to do that, so my motto has come to be "Live and let live, and just stay out of their way."

Thank you...

This is a very long over-due "Thank you!" to those of you out there who are keeping up with all of my blogs.

Not only do I have readers here in the U.S., but on my 'audience' list, I see that I have readers from England, Poland, France, Ukraine, Australia, Germany, China, and Russia.

To say the least, that is very humbling, and so very kind of all of you to take time out from your own busy lives to see what's happening in my teeny little corner of this planet.  As I've written in my blogs, my writing is non-political and with all the madness that always seems to occur around the world, I try not to include that mayhem in my blogs. That does not mean that I am not aware of the current news events of each and every day.

So it is indeed a wonderful thing to know that my writing has been discovered by blog-readers in other countries who may not always have joyful days.  To all of you, I do indeed wish you joyful days and peaceful nights. And I truly do thank you for stopping by to read my blogs from time to time!

Sardines, anyone?

Well, so much for the theory that every cat likes sardines.

Neighbor L suggested to me that I try catching the orange cat with a can of sardines as the bait. Apparently, Orange Kitty has never heard of the "every cat loves sardines" rule.

I think this orange cat showed up around Thanksgiving last year. Since then, we've tried catching him with a catch/release trap, and also tried getting him into one of the cat carriers. Neither method worked. As soon as the orange cat saw that metal catch/release trap on our porch or on the property, he high-tailed it out of here for a few days. Which led me to believe that he got here via a catch/release trap.... someone trapped him on their property and transferred him to a country road, namely ours.

When we tried to get the orange cat into a cat carrier to bring him to the local shelter, he started hissing and scratching... a royal hissy-fit if ever there was one. And again, he stayed away for a few days.  But he always comes back..... he likes our two outside cats, and he's in love with Sweet Pea, our inside cat. (Orange Kitty is a male, and so is Sweet Pea... not that there's anything wrong with that.)

We have tried not feeding that orange cat...... it doesn't work. He still hangs around our porch and underneath the guest cottage.... meowing for all he's worth because he's starving. He wasn't ever a big cat to begin with and when he doesn't eat, he looks like a poster-kitty for anorexia.  So I always break down and give in, and put out a bowl of Meow Mix for him, which is another reason he doesn't stay away for too long a time. He knows a soft-touch when he sees one.

Outside cat Gatsby still growls and spits and howls at the orange cat from time to time, but that doesn't keep Orange Kitty from finding another porch.  Semi-outside cat Mickey has come to like the orange cat's company, but I'm sure he won't miss him when he's gone.

However... I don't think that orange cat will ever be gone. We just can't catch him... can't get near enough to him with him scratching or biting, and he's too smart for the traps. As for the sardines... Orange Kitty turned his nose up at those little fish, and so did Gatsby. Mickey, however, the pickiest eater I've ever had, just loves the sardines. Eats up every bit in the dish and then meows loudly for more.


Knock, knock.
Who's there?
Orange.
Orange who?
Orange you glad you found a food that Mickey really really likes?!

A snake-catching thing.

Not that I would be interested in catching a snake, but there are times when we've seen a snake close to the house or up in one of the birds' nests and there's no way to catch them.

Until now.  On the news this morning, I happened to see a county wildlife agent catching a snake with a jaw-like contraption on the end of a metal pole with a gripper-type of handle at the bottom end of that pole.

The wildlife agent held that gripper-thing in his hand, got the red jaw-like part near the snake, quickly closed the gripper handles, which clamped down the 'jaws' at the other end of the pole, and like magic, the snake was caught, couldn't move or get away. Then you can either bag the snake or you can shoot it.

So of course I told my husband about that snake-catching thing... he looked up "snake catcher" on the Internet, and there was that silver pole with the red jaws at one end and the gripper handles at the other end.

"You need to buy one of those," I told my husband.
"And are you going to be catching the next snake if we buy this thing?"
"Of course not," said I.
"And what would I do with the snake after I catch him with this?" he wanted to know.
"Well, then you can shoot it."

My husband thought it was unreasonable for me to think that he would be able to catch the snake with that pole and then successfully shoot the snake...... "One hand holding that clamp shut on the pole and the other hand pulling the trigger of the rifle? I don't think so," said he.

He suggested that I could use the pole to catch and hold the snake while he shot it. "Not in this city girl's life-time," is what I told him.

I told him that he could catch and hold the snake and I could shoot it with the rifle.

My husband reminded me that the last time I used the rifle to shoot at a raccoon, I took aim and then shut my eyes before I pulled the trigger. "So you want me to stand in front of you while you hold a rifle and close your eyes while you try and shoot a snake?"

I guess that arrangement is not an option. But I still think my husband should buy one of those snake catcher poles.

Dove season...

That's the reason for the random gun-shots we've heard lately.... dove season has begun. Hunting season, that is, which means licensed hunters take long rifles and use them to shoot non-threatening gray doves in this state. Give me a blessed break.

I don't understand the whole hunting thing. Unless you're killing animals for food, why do it at all? And if you're going to kill those animals to eat them, then at least do it on the animals' own territory, where they have a chance to out-run your ammunition.  There are game farms in this state, in this county, that have their land enclosed with fencing that's too high for most wildlife to jump over. For a fee, licensed hunters can go onto those properties and shoot all the wildlife they want, whether it be for the meat or for a trophy to hang above their fireplace.

As for the very pretty and softly coo-ing doves...... how much meat can one possibly get from those birds?  And are most of those hunters just using the live birds for target practice?

I've heard the theory that if the hunters didn't kill thousands of doves during this season, then the state would be over-run with those birds. Well, so what? This state is already over-run with fire ants and scorpions and spiders..... if the hunters really want a challenge, the state of Texas should have open season for those insects.... and the sharp-shooting hunters can have a stuffed tarantula hanging over their fireplace.

Gun shots and spiders...

I woke up this morning to my husband asking me "Did you hear those gun shots about an hour ago?"

"An hour ago" meant five-thirty this morning, being that the clock said 6:30 when I first opened my eyes this morning.  I had not heard the gun shots, and for that I was grateful.

One of the nearby neighbors has set up a deer-hunting blind on his property. He sits up in that elevated blind and waits for deer to come grazing on his land.... and then it's the 'Bambi' story all over again.  Not exactly a sportsmanlike thing to do, to say the least. But it's his property, and far be it for anyone in this state to tell anyone else what they can and cannot do on their own property once they're out of the big-city limits.

So when my husband told me about the before-dawn gun shots, I thought it was that particular neighbor. My husband, however, disagreed. Because there had been so many shots, he thought that the neighbor behind us had been target-shooting.

In the dark? Who needs to shoot at a paper target before the sun comes up? (That neighbor has a shooting range set up in a corner of his property for target practice.) My husband tends to think the neighbor was practicing night-shooting, just in case.  In case of what? Predators? Burglars? Stray deer who escape from the other neighbor's property?

As for the spiders..... the first thing I did this morning as I went into the kitty-coop was to nearly step on a huge brown spider. Huge... nearly as big around as a medium-sized tarantula, but it was brown, not black, and not hairy. A steroid-laced spider, but very thin, with the thinnest legs I've ever seen on an insect.

The spider wasn't moving, but I didn't think it was dead either. I had a can of wasp spray in the coop and I grabbed it and sprayed the life out of that spider, literally. Actually, the spray came out so forcefully that it sent the spider flying into the grass outside the coop, where I sprayed it some more. Just in case.

The big brown spider, after a few minutes of twitching, went to that big spider web in the sky. And for that, I was grateful.

City car on a country road...

... and the city car was mine.

There I was this afternoon, driving down our hill on my way to the post office. As soon as I pulled out of our driveway, I saw the neighbor's goats on the road and heading towards the grass around our pond. Give me a blessed break.

I honked the car horn to get the goats' attention, and then I used my car to herd them back towards their own property. Which usually works just fine. However, I forgot about the mounds of gravel that are underneath the grass on the neighbor's side of the road. The problem with the gravel is that it's on an incline which goes down towards the drainage ditch which runs to the drainage pipe that's underneath the road. And the problem with that is my car is definitely a city car... two-seater sports car, low to the ground, and even though it's a heavy car, the tires got hold of that gravel and just slid a little bit towards that incline on the side of the road.

As I was sliding towards the drainage ditch, the goats were jumping back over the neighbor's fence and onto their own property. Smart goats.... they know enough to get out of the way of a city car being driven by a city girl.

When I realized what was happening, I slammed on my brakes, said a not-nice word or two, and felt the wheels of that car burying themselves deeper into that gravel. The goats were on their side of the fence, in their own field, watching me and my car.

Another not-nice word or two followed that... and then I was determined to get myself and my car back onto the road without having to walk back to the house and get my husband to push the car out. (And then have to listen to him saying "How in the world did you manage to do that?")  Details... men are always looking for details.

I tried to drive the car backwards onto the road, not once but twice. Didn't work. More not-nice words were bouncing off the inside of my car. Then I drove closer to the neighbor's fence, thinking that I could back up more easily if I got those tires away from the gravel. The goats saw my car getting very close to their fence and then ran off into the field. As I said--- smart goats.  Getting closer to the fence didn't work... it only got my car deeper into the very tall grass that's probably filled with all kinds of crawling and slithering things. No way was I going to get out of my car in all of that grass and go get my husband.

Only one thing to do.... drive the car down further into the incline, drive past the drainage pipe, and then drive the car up and over the incline through the grass on the other side of the drainage pipe which I knew to be gravel-free.  So that's what I did with my pretty little city car.... drove it into and through all of that tall grass (probably ran over half a dozen mice) and then gave it some gas when I passed that drainage pipe and that got my car out of the drainage ditch, up and over the incline and the tall grass, and back on the blasted road.

I stopped on the road and looked back at the spot where my car had been stuck, and then thanked my lucky stars that we didn't get the pouring rain that soaked the center of our town yesterday, because that drainage ditch would have been filled with at least two feet of water. And then the inside of my car would have really been filled with not-nice words.

That orange cat...

Orange Kitty is still around the property... sleeping under the bushes in the heat of the day, hiding under the gazebo when the lawn mower is going, standing guard by the back steps at night.  And still, he's being too aggressive to either pet him or catch him.... and catch him is what I'd like to do, followed by a trip to the local animal shelter. Surely, someone else in this town needs an orange and white cat to catch mice and keep snakes from coming up on the porch.

Our mostly-outside cat Gatsby doesn't howl at the orange cat all that much anymore... except, of course, if Orange Kitty is eating the Meow Mix at the very minute that Gatsby wants a snack. Then Gatsby's howls will have that orange cat running for cover underneath the cottage.

There are days when that orange cat looks at the bowl of Meow Mix and won't go near it. How can a stray cat be picky about the food that's put in front of him?  'Free' food that he doesn't have to hunt down!  I've tried cans of Fancy Feast with that orange cat... flavors that our other cats don't like and won't eat (but there's no way of knowing that until the cans are bought and paid for and opened up, of course). To date, that orange cat doesn't like any of the Fancy Feast cans, and tonight he has decided that he doesn't like Meow Mix either.

Well, so be it. I don't leave food out on the porch at night.... after Orange Kitty turned his whiskers up at the bowl of Meow Mix not once but twice, I brought the bowl into the house when he walked away from it. Off he went, down the steps of the porch, heading towards the field by the barn would be my guess.

Unless that orange cat gets his paws on a mouse tonight, he's going to be hungry. And then maybe in the morning he will decide that the Meow Mix isn't such a bad thing after all.  Stupid cat.

We've tried  not feeding that cat, in an attempt to get him to go away, but that just doesn't work, not in the beginning of his 'stay' here, and it doesn't work now. That orange cat just got thinner and thinner when we weren't feeding him, and he spent all of his time meowing on the back porch... too pitiful for words, and I just gave in and fed him.

Too aggressive to pet, too smart to be caught. And I've been saying from the beginning that we don't need another cat around here. Especially a stray cat who turns his nose up at a bowl of Meow Mix. Stupid cat.

Up a tree....

... and that's exactly what the tree guys did today--- climbed up into our ancient pecan trees and gave them all a very good trimming and thinning out.  And, wonder of wonders, these two tree guys showed up on time last week to give me an estimate, and then they showed up today, right on time, to do the work. It's not often that such blissfully perfect things happen with workmen out here, so it was a nice surprise.

The cats weren't happy with the tree guys though..... I had to confine Mickey inside the garage and the attached coop, and Gatsby came into the house for the afternoon.... and Sweet Pea kept going from window to window, making sure the workman who was climbing the tree was doing it correctly. As long as Sweet Pea is inside the house and watching the world through the windows, he is one fearless cat.

Now that the pecan trees are trimmed, I'm hoping that branches don't keep falling from those trees every time a breeze blows through them. The brush piles are filled with sticks and branches and small limbs that I've been carrying to those piles for the past couple of years.  Now that I've found such a great tree-guy, I'll be calling him once a year to keep everything in check.

On the road...

Literally, on the road this morning---- one exquisitely squished armadillo and one very long curled-up and pancake-squashed brown snake.  And those two dead creatures were on the road which runs through our hills here, before reaching the main highway.  On the way into town this morning, there were also assorted mashed piles of flesh, bone, and fur, but they were so torn up and eaten up that I wouldn't have been able to identify them even if I had been up close (which is not an option for me).

On the drive back from town, the pile of snake was gone, probably carried off by the vultures. Very easy for them to just pick up a flattened snake and whisk it away into the woods so they can eat in the shade of the trees and not have to scatter every time a car approaches their dining place. That particular snake wasn't as big and heavy as some of the dead snakes I've seen on that road. The heavier the snake, the more of it the vultures have to consume before they're able to transfer it from paved road to grass-coated earth.

As for the armadillo.... when I was driving towards town, the armadillo was face-first into the road, his four little paws flattened out as if he'd run himself into a glass door.  When I came back from town, the armadillo was turned completely over, with his paws nearly reaching for the sky and his dead eyes not seeing that his underside had been ripped apart by the vultures.  Seven vultures had to scatter as I drove down that road towards my house, and I saw in my rear-view mirror that they went right back to their feast as soon as the tail lights of my car were ten inches away from that poor armadillo.

And so concludes today's wildlife/roadkill adventure. I tried to just state the facts, without adding any unnecessary complaints about the disgusting and nerve-numbing emotional trauma that goes hand-in-hand with getting into one's car and driving into town for a few hours.

Give me a blessed break.

Lost dogs, baby birds, and mice.

The stray dog was walking up our road this morning, but he turned right around and headed back down the hill as soon as he saw us. Very thin and starved-looking dog, sort of Greyhound-sleek, with a tail that never did raise up towards the sky.

I wish people would be more considerate with their pets.... when you no longer want to care for a dog or a cat, the most humane thing to do is bring them to a shelter. At least they will get food and water, and have a chance of finding another home. Be nice, people.... to one another AND to your pets, for goodness sake.

The last two baby birds are just about ready to fly out of their nests. We've had a record number of baby barn swallows this year, and I can't even begin to count the number of birds that are in our yard at any given time of day.  I have lost count of how many times I've had to hose off the porch furniture because of the bird droppings.

My husband bought a huge sack of birdseed a couple of weeks ago and he was filling up the bird feeder in the backyard. Not only did the birds enjoy the seeds, but a mouse or two must have found its way up to the feeder and was storing the large sunflower seeds in a corner of the guest cottage. This weekend, my husband sealed up the space near the tub in the cottage, and hopefully, the mice will keep themselves in the fields instead of discovering new ways to enter the house, the cottage, and the barn. Seems that all the mice need is one teeny tiny little space and they can squeeze themselves inside and have a grand time exploring.  Three cats on this property, and still we have mice.