Rain, thunder, lightning, the works.

We have had so much rain these past few weeks......... I have honestly never seen the grass here grow so quickly. Our Spring bursts of wildflowers are all but obscured by the tall grasses in the pastures, and I'm still hoping that the yellow Texas stars will grow tall enough to peek out from all that green.

Our pond looks beautiful, as do all the other ponds in our hills here. One could probably put a rowboat or even a little fishing boat out in any or all of the ponds and have a grand time... if one were prone to do that (which I am certainly not).

The barn swallows are busily renovating their nests from last year, to the detriment of our porch. Where one has birds, one has bird poop and feathers. Actually, the teeny little feathers that float on the breeze look very pretty, but the same cannot be said for the splotches of poop all over the deck and the porch.  There hasn't been this much of a mess on the porch since we had the chickens a couple of years ago.

There is a particular nest in one corner of the porch that is being fought over by barn swallows and wrens.  That nest was originally built by the swallows, but the wrens are trying to stake their claim to it by adding gobs of messy grass and horse hair to the otherwise very neat mud-construction of the swallows. At night, the swallows sleep in that nest, but when they're flying around the yard during the day, the wrens sneak into the nest with their beaks filled with grass. The result is a messy nest with all sorts of stuff hanging out of the sides. When the barn swallows come back, they simply pull out all the unwanted items and drop them onto the porch. I've been keeping a broom up on the porch because I'm having to sweep up the debris twice a day.

The orange cat.... he's been sleeping in the kitty-coop during the day, which Mickey isn't happy about.... and when I came home from town yesterday, all three cats (Gatsby, Mickey, and the orange cat) were sleeping in the shady grass by the courtyard behind the garage. As I walked from the garage to the back porch, all three cats opened their eyes to look at me, but it was the orange cat who meowed loudly and turned over on his back to stretch out his paws in welcome.

Ha! I've fallen for his upside-down belly-to-the-sky look before from that cat. That's when he gave me the worst of the scratches I've gotten from that blasted cat. I just look at him now and tell him that I wouldn't trust him for all the Meow Mix in Texas.  Slowly, however, I think both Gatsby and Mickey have come to realize that the orange cat has decided that this is where he wants to live out his stray little life.  I don't agree.... and I long for the day when I can capture his orange and white kitty self again.