Rain, rain, go away....

We have had more rain these past couple of weeks than I can remember seeing here in all the years we've been in this state.  The bayous in and around Houston have flooded over, causing major havoc in the communities there. I can only wonder what it's like in our old sub-division in Clear Lake, with the large bayou that runs down the center of that neighborhood.

As for up here in the hills, we had torrential rains last night which ended before 8:30 pm.... and then we had the most beautiful sunset. My husband went outside to take pictures, and we noticed a rainbow that arced from the sky beyond our driveway to the sky over our pond... certainly the largest rainbow I'd ever seen.

While my husband was taking pictures of the rainbow, there was lightning in the sky off in the distance, and he captured that in the same photo with the rainbow. One would think he had photo-shopped the rainbow into the lightning picture (which he could very well do) but I was out there with him on the porch so I know the rainbow/lightning photos were legitimate.

As if yesterday's rain wasn't enough, we had another rainstorm early this morning at 5:00, and for the next ten days, we have a 40% chance of afternoon thunder-showers.  The ground here is already soaked through with yesterday's heavy rain, and certainly the city of Houston doesn't need another drop of rain while they're waiting for the high water levels to recede.  Millions of dollars' worth of water damage has been sustained in and around the Houston area.

Translation: This is one morning that I've looked out the window and thanked my lucky stars to be up here in the Hill Country.

A surprise of sunflowers....

Well, finally.... something in the backyard this morning that was a nice surprise and didn't have me running back to the porch--- sunflowers!

My husband has been buying huge sacks of birdseed since the winter months, and he has made sure the bird-feeders in the backyard are filled every morning. As a result of those seeds, we now have huge sunflowers blooming in the flowerbed near the feeders.  We knew that the birds really liked the large sunflower seeds because they were always the first to be picked out from the rest of the seeds in the feeders.

A few weeks ago, we noticed thick stalks coming up from the flowerbed, and I had a feeling those could have sprouted from the sunflower seeds.......... and this morning, two bright yellow sunflowers were unfolding their petals. So very pretty, and huge........ I'm sure they'll produce hundreds of seeds that the birds will enjoy... and some will fall to the ground and take root.... and then we'll have more sunflowers.

I told my husband that we shouldn't waste our time and money buying plants for the flowerbeds.... just let the birds drop some seeds around the yard and we'll be surprised by what comes up.  I wonder if those birds can be trained to pull up weeds....

Peaches... minus the cream.

Today was peach-picking day at a near-by orchard.  We've gone there three or four years in a row now, picking peaches when the trees are ready to give away their fruit. The peaches are delicious... even more so because every peach that you wash and cut has been picked by your own hands. Seriously, the peaches are so good and so impossibly fresh that I refuse to buy peaches from the supermarkets anymore, so we just enjoy these when they're in season.

This particular orchard has nearly 700 peach trees... plus nectarine trees, blackberry bushes, and we think we also saw some plum trees on one side of the property.  The orchard owner hands you a bucket to put the peaches into, and the bucket goes into a little red wagon, and then he points you in the direction of the rows of trees that are ready for picking.  Today was a good day for picking--- not many bees, and it was a bit on the cool side this morning so the bees weren't too active yet when we were there.

Wearing boots is a must... the ground is most-often wet (especially from the rains we've had)... and you don't want to be wearing your favorite white Capris when you're picking peaches. I tend to go there in clothes that I don't care much about... with instructions to my husband that we are not going out for breakfast afterwards because I wouldn't be caught in town with these clothes on.

"So let me get this straight... those are your peach-picking clothes, not your going-out-for-breakfast clothes?"   Yes.  (He's a very fast learner.)

We came home with a box of peaches.... I've already cut up two of them, which I put into the big salads that we had for lunch.  From now on, peaches will be popping up in anything and everything I make, until they're gone.  The best way to enjoy those peaches are just washing them off, slicing them up, and eating them.  Much too good and too fresh to be freezing them, and of course I have a cookbook filled with baked recipes using fresh peaches.... all of which would add hundreds of calories to a ripe peach.

Usually, I just take that peach cookbook from the shelf and page through it at this time of the year... and look at all the pies and cobblers and turn-overs.... and then just take a fresh peach and wash it and slice it....

The orchard will have peaches for picking for the next couple of weeks. No doubt, we will go back once more to get a second picking.  We should also pick some nectarines... the ones being sold in the supermarket lately haven't been good at all.  

The owner of this orchard, along with his full-time helper, makes peach farming look very easy. Everything is planted in neat long rows... hay is spread out underneath all the trees to cushion the peaches that fall from the branches... his set-up of peach boxes and little red wagons.... the entire property is like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting.

However, unlike a Rockwell painting, when you're picking the peaches, you have to keep an eye out for snakes that may be coiled around the branches, and bees that may be nesting right behind the peach that you've chosen to pick.... not to mention the raccoon and fox poop that's dotted around the hay underneath those trees.

All of that being said, I still enjoy picking the peaches, and this is one time during the country-year that we look forward to.  (I must be advancing a bit in my country-ness..... I didn't cringe once when I typed the word 'snake.'

Got breakfast?

When I walked into the kitchen this morning, three pairs of eyes were staring at the back door.... Gatsby, Orange Cat, and Carson (the peacock).  All of them sitting quietly, patiently waiting for me to bring out the bowls of Meow Mix.

The peacock has been alternating his visits between our porch and the neighbor's property down the hill (they are the owners of Carson--- I just gave him a name while he's here).  Carson sleeps in the trees here at night, or roosts on the porch railing on the side of the house by the breakfast room. As we eat lunch, we can see him through the windows... he's watching us, we're watching him.

I tried feeding Carson some bits of vegetables, but he prefers the cat food.  Maybe I just haven't given him the fruits and vegetables that he likes... he doesn't care for asparagus or broccoli, and bits of lettuce don't interest him either. I have no idea what he eats down the hill.... they have over three dozen chickens down there, so Carson may be munching on chicken feed when he's with those hens and roosters.

Orange Cat has been here more than he's been gone lately. Not only has he made himself comfy in the garage from time to time, but he sleeps in the screened-in chicken coop during the day, right along with Gatsby and Mickey.  I have to make sure Orange Cat is not inside either the garage or the coop when I shut the doors at night to keep Mickey enclosed after dark.

Carson walks around the porch and the yard all day when he's here... walks around like a king inspecting his estate. The cats just watch him, not running away, but not getting very close to that huge bird either.  Carson and the cats seem to tolerate one another, respecting each other's space and eating habits.

Welcome to the country zoo.

Peacock on the porch....

As I type, the neighbor's peacock is on our porch, eating the Meow Mix out of the orange cat's bowl. Haven't seen the orange cat much these past couple of days because of all the rain we've had, but I still keep a dish of cat food out there for him during the day. (If God is a cat, I've got it made.)

So there's the peacock.... he started off in the yard by the gazebo... then he flew up to the roof of the breezeway which connects the house to the garage... then he flew down to the courtyard... and then he found his way up the stairs of the deck and ultimately to the back porch where he spotted the Meow Mix and the bowl of water. He's having a blast, and better still, Sweet Pea is watching him from the windows of the TV room, wondering what on earth that creature could possibly be.

It's a male peacock, so his coloring is gorgeous.... his tail feathers aren't as long as I thought they were, so either he has lost some of the longer ones since I last saw him, or could this possibly be another peacock, and not the one belonging to the neighbors at the bottom of our hill?  He was screeching out his mating call a little while ago, and those loud sounds were reverberating in-between the cottage and the house, then as he walked up closer to the barn, the sounds seemed to be even louder.

Not a peep out of him, however, since he discovered the Meow Mix.  Maybe that was his problem all along.... hunger.  So I guess now I have to hope that this peacock has a short memory. Otherwise, he'll be prancing on our porch every evening about this time, looking for the bowl of cat food.  If that peacock does come up on the porch tomorrow night, maybe I'll ask my husband to take a photo of him and we'll send it to the Meow Mix people.  A star is born....

Everyone knows it's windy....

....(as the words of that old song goes.)

Very, very windy today. So many small branches have fallen from the pecan trees by the gazebo that it's comical. (Or it would be if I didn't have to pick them up and carry them to the brush piles.)  On windy days, those little branches drop off the trees like toothpicks, landing in the grass at haphazard angles to form crazy patterns in the grass. As I picked up the branches this morning, a squirrel sat on top of the gazebo roof and just watched me going back and forth, back and forth.

The orange cat has been making himself quite at home in the kitty-coop this week... sleeping in the sun on top of one of the cat-sized wicker tables in there, along with both Gatsby and Mickey.  Which is funny when you think about it, because at any given time of the day, either Gatsby or Mickey will hiss and spit at that orange cat, and Gatsby has been known to just plow into the orange cat when he doesn't want that stray up on the porch.  So when I see all three cats in the screened-in part of the coop, sleeping less than two feet away from each other, it just makes me wonder why they all can't just get along all the time.

Since his return, the orange cat has been more tolerable... just one tiny scratch on my hand as I was filling up the bowl with Meow Mix, and one scratch on my husband's wrist when he tried to pet that cat.  My husband calls him "Pumpkin Kitty" because of his color, and I suggested to my husband that perhaps that stray cat didn't like that particular name, hence the scratches.  As for me, I'm still calling that stray by the somewhat-name of "Orange Cat."  There are days when I've called him "That Blasted Orange Cat," and that seems to fit him as well.

My husband thinks this cat is just here to stay... he has chosen our porch as his own, he has his favorite sleeping spot, and something tells me that no matter where we take him, he's going to find his way right back here. If I do ever get to catch him in the carrying crate again, I can tell you this... he's going straight to the shelter to be fixed and vaccinated.  The 'fixing' will tame him down some, the vaccinations will keep him healthy.  And after those two procedures are done and paid for, then I guess there will be no denying that Orange Cat is indeed our cat.

Give me a blessed break.

It's still extremely windy outside. I can see the lower branches of the pecan trees dancing around the gazebo out there, and I can hear very small bits of branches hitting the roof of the gazebo as they fall to the ground.  More little branches to pick up. But not today. I've already gone back and forth to the brush pile five times this afternoon.  Tomorrow is another day, Scarlett.

Got goats?

As a matter of fact, I do. At times. The goats, however, belong to the neighbor across the road, and they all know how to get out of their own pasture and cross the road to get to our pasture. And that's just what they did this afternoon.

Not only did some of them get out, but they all got out today, about 20 goats... and there they were, munching on the wildflowers on our property and making their way towards our pond.  Can't blame the goats... it's the neighbor with the lack of common sense to fix the darn fence so they cannot get out. We've been waiting for three years for him to fix the side of the fence that's near the road coming up our hill.

I went out there with the air horn this afternoon... walking down the road and getting just close enough to the goats to give them all a good blast. I hate to use that thing... the noise is horrible, and I know it scares the birds and the cats as well as the goats, but it's the only way to get the attention of the goats as well as the neighbor.

At the first blast of the air horn, the larger goats jumped over the fence, balancing themselves on one of the larger posts before flinging themselves into their pasture.  At the second air horn blast, the smaller goats started to run to a spot where they could shimmy underneath a sagging part of the fence, and at the same time, the neighbor came driving down his hill and then up our hill with his noisy muffler-less backfiring truck, intending to herd the goats back onto his property.

Stupid man. He stopped the truck and explained to me that he hasn't had time to fix the fence, and of course the ground is too wet now to do anything about the fence this week.  I resisted the urge to remind him that the fence has been in dis-repair for three years.  I didn't even argue with the man... didn't say that I don't want the goats on our property... didn't mention that I'm tired of chasing his livestock with an air horn, and totally resisted the need to beg him not to kill any more of those adorable baby goats for his stew pot.

The goats all went back into their own pasture... the neighbor took his noisy truck back to his own hill.... and I came back into the house to get ready for this afternoon's tea party.

There are times when living out here hurts my heart.

Welcome to the world, baby calf.

I thought something was wrong with one of the neighbor's cows this morning.  This is the same neighbor with all the goats. He doesn't care much about his livestock from what I can see.... anything on four hooves over there eventually gets onto his dinner plate, and that's the extent of his caring.

When I noticed that one of his cows was just resting underneath a tree all morning, I figured I would just keep an eye on her for a while, rather than driving over there to alert the neighbor. This afternoon after lunch, after an entire morning of laying down under that tree, the mama cow got up, followed shortly thereafter by a baby calf. As cute as can be, with the same dark coloring and white face of the mama cow.

The baby calf wobbled a great deal before being able to walk over to its mother, and that wobbling caught the attention of a young brown calf who went over to meet the new baby. A few minutes of inspecting the just-born calf, and the young calf was prancing around it like a puppy, clearly wanting to play. The little baby calf only wanted his mama's milk at that point, and had no interest whatsoever in romping around with his little brown calf.

All afternoon, that mama cow and the baby calf, along with the young brown calf, have been resting in the shade under a tree, far away from the rest of the herd. The just-born calf will wobble over to its mama from time to time, but it's mostly sleeping and resting, getting acquainted with the world over there in its pasture.