Minus one orange cat....

.... and one peacock.  And no, that is not a complaint.

I've seen the peacock, whom I had christened Mr. Carson.... his blue-and-green feathered self is down the hill at his rightful owners, back where he belongs with the constantly increasing flock of chickens on that property.  It's strange that we haven't heard Carson's love-sick calls as the sun sets every night. Maybe they found him a female companion and he no longer has the urge to roam around the neighboring properties.

As for the orange cat.... I could have sworn I heard a cat out on the porch the other night. I did not, however, come downstairs and put the lights on to see if it was indeed that blasted orange cat. I have a new rule now.... I am not (NOT) going to feed stray cats. Period. End of story. Not going to feed stray cats. (Unless, of course, the stray happens to be a long-haired blue-eyed Birman who steals one's heart in a second and then proceeds to break it into pieces for years and years.)

Driving into town one day this past week, I did see two orange cats up at one of the other properties near the main highway. That particular property raises and trains horses, which means they have a lot of barns, which means they have a lot of mice.... which also means they always have an array of cats up there to control the mice. Mostly all of their cats happen to be orange and white. And the orange/white stray that was holding our porch hostage for a year and a half could very well have come from that particular property.  I'm hoping now that he has gone back to whence he came.  I'm sure he was disappointed that I wasn't here every night to feed him at ten o'clock... and he wouldn't have accepted my excuse of touring castles and cathedrals and gardens in England.

We do have a new resident on the side of the porch... a huge black and yellow spider that I'm calling Charlotte. She is huge, and getting larger with each insect meal she's been consuming.... her web is enormous, and looks very pretty with a smattering of morning dew on it. Problem with the location of her web is that the barn swallows tend to fly right through it as they pop in and out of the wisteria bush near the back steps... which damages part of Charlotte's web... which gets that poor spider into a re-decorating frenzy at least twice a day.

Oh well.... Charlotte will survive the constant renovations... the birds are quick enough not to get caught in the web themselves... Mr. Carson may have a blue-and-green feathered lady-friend down at the bottom of the hill... and life goes on, with or without that blasted orange cat.