oh, happy day!

Over a week's worth of entries in one wodge:


Wednesday 12 October


I had almost given up hope for rain Saturday by 9:30 at night when a tap-tap-tap started on the roof. For an hour or so it was like when the popcorn is nearly finished -- there’s a pop, and then a long pause, and you think it’s all done. Then a pop-pop as a few more go. This rain was like this, I kept thinking it was stopping, then a few more drops. Then after an hour or so it settled into a steady drizzle that lasted almost all night.


That gave us about an inch. Didn’t do much for the tank, because there was almost no runoff, but increased it a bit. Then about 9am it started up again, somewhat harder, till early afternoon, and added another inch to the total. I took a fairly unremarkable picture of the front yard, and Buddy in the background, in the rain at noon.


Monday afternoon on the way to the bee meeting, Carolyn couldn’t get over how washed and sparkling everything was, and how lovely the day felt.


Back in the early spring, when I was getting the new hive stand ready for the split that didn’t happen, I grubbed several dozen extremely crowded bulbs out of the fencerow where they were going to be right under it. A patch of garlic, and about 80 of what I thought were the Schoolhouse Lilies or Oxblood Lilies, the red rain lilies of September. I evidently missed a few, because three Red Spider Lilies (Lycoris), to my surprise, squeezed themselves up out of the corner of the space to bloom. The bulbs that I dug up had been in a paper bag by the front door all summer. They were still plump and healthy, so I took seven bags of ten each to bee meeting, as well as the cut flowers.

Gave some to Carolyn and Kay, and Kurt raffled off the rest.



Yesterday, Tuesday, I didn’t even look at the forecast, so I was astonished to wake up about 3:30 this morning to more rain. For half an hour it was very gentle, though distant lightning was flickering. Then suddenly the lightning and thunder were on top of us, and the rain a downpour. Eventually I went back to sleep. This morning is sunny and cool, the broken clouds have all blown on off, and we got another 1-3/4 inches! Now the tank is quite noticeably bigger; ought to be good for another month of drought at least (not that I am hoping for any such thing).

The pond margin has come up to pretty much cover all of the flat cracked plain that I about lost my shoe in before.


At least one crawdad has survived and excavated a new chimney.






There are tiny little white flowers blooming on tho silt flats around the water.






The hillside of bare dirt and dead straw is covered with green dots of germinated seeds. Don’t know what KIND of seeds, but green, anyway.







Back before the rain, when the path to the pond was just dust, Alabaster could turn from a pretty white cat into a goblin in an instant. All it took was a quick wriggle in the dust on her back.












The younger red chicken has hurt her right leg and is limping very badly. Up around the middle of the leg there is a big clumpy scab. I can’t tell just what is wrong. I don’t see how it can possibly be a varmint bite. I wonder if she could have gotten herself caught behind a tie rod or something. She is eating scratch eagerly. Undecided what to do, if anything.





Tuesday 18 Oct

Chilly this morning, down near or below 50° - a cold front blew through energetically about nine last night, with wind and thunder and lots of lightning, and a fairly vigorous, if brief, rain. Less than a quarter of an inch, but a nice reinforcement. It comes to nearly four inches for October so far. It’s still pretty windy this morning. Still below 60° at noon. So odd to actually welcome the sunny spots on the floor for putting one’s feet into.

Now I am going to go into the library and FINALLY get these posts up.



Oh, and one more wildlife photo. This is the second scorpion that has shown up in the sink. This one was evidently killed by the hot water I was running to wash dishes before I got the sink cleared out and saw it. Some arthropods (roaches, for instance) are very sensitive to hot tap water.

A couple of weeks ago, when I was hastily rinsing out the dishes to give the cats "gushie-fud" before going off to Ikea with Mary, I felt a sharp pain in the side of my fingertip as I started scrubbing with the scratcher. Turned out to be an inch-long scorpion on it. I had a dish of soda right there, so I immediately plastered it with wet soda, shortly reinforced with aloe vera. It hurt for maybe ten minutes, not very badly, and then was virtually unnoticeable. Never made any mark to speak of. I'm sure a bigger one would be worse, but I was fairly relieved to discover that they are not nearly as dangerous as I had feared.

winter, birdfeeder, bees, etc.

Saturday January 22 -- Two nights ago it was in the teens after a bitter, windy day. Today, with almost no wind and no clouds at all it got up to sixty! The bees were out in same force. They continue to show up with frequent loads of the mystery orange pollen, as well as the yellow that I suppose is dandelion, and pale yellow/dirty white -- winter honeysuckle? Perhaps the orange is cedar, though those trees i have looked at are not flowering. Hmm, the Illustrated Flora doesn’t give a bloom season for junipers.

Cats went out today for three or four hours and seem to have tired themselves out. I got home an hour and a half ago, and they didn’t move from their napping spot together on the wicker chair; they’re still there.

Sunday morning -- goldfinches dave discovered the feeder! Must refill today. Also the suet cake, nasty-freezer-tasting as it may be, is mostly gone. Carolina wren has a lot to do with that. I bought a couple of new fresh ones.

Chilly cloudy gray day today, unlike yesterday. 2pm and it is barely up to 47°. (Forty-seven! Degrees! Rah! --Pomona College in-joke) That may be why there is much more activity at the feeder today.

Agate had another run-in with the black-and-white tuxie cat that lives around here somewhere. I felt all over him and couldn’t find any sore places. Sure hope there is no hidden bite that will abscess; I feel we have been there, done that.




I didn't even see this cardinal in my viewfinder -- he showed up in the annoying interval between button-push and shutter-click. I put it up on Facebook captioned
Cardinal one: "Outa my way!" Cardinal two: "I'm gone, man."

more wet

Sure enough, the forecasters were right. A measly little drizzle this morning wasn't much, but about 4pm we got a substantial thunderstorm, the red spot over Denton on the radar. And it looks like there is another one over Dallas that might hit us in a while, too.






Agate and Tut were happy to come in out of the wet. Alabaster must have found a dry spot somewhere. Often she comes bounding up from under the deck, but not this time.

5 minutes later - I passed the back door and called again, and there she was; came in and headed for the food bowl, and then for her spot on the south windowsill. Tut wanted out; Agate remains asleep. A lockable cat door would be handy ...

food chains

Real ones and hopeful. Light is on where I sit in the corner of the living room. Gecko on outside of glass makes a lunge, snaps up a little moth. (How he sticks to vertical surface of glass remains a mystery to me, no matter how much I read about the mechanisms.) Cat sits inside window and ... watches. Intently.

cats meet snow

Lets see if youtube embed codes work on Blogger.



Yes!!

To make the captions legible, click the full-screen button. Now I know that the font-sizes on iMovie refer to the movie as seen full-screen, and need to be doubled for youtube.

just about perfect

Sitting in the Ridge living room, nice fire in the fireplace, Agate purring in my lap (Tut curled asleep with her nose under her paw in another chair, Alabaster on the futon-sofa), watching the birds at the splendid new feeder. Chickadees, titmice, goldfinches, Carolina wren, white-crowned sparrow, Harris' sparrows, brown thrasher, cardinals, blue jay, mockingbird. Down by the tank I saw a great blue heron.

It is a real major pain that, when a flicker of motion draws my attention from the computer to the window, I have to push my reading glasses out of the way to be able to see. And it's hard to type with a lapful of cat noodging the laptop off the lap. And I'm SUPPOSED to be making jewelry. Well, I'm about to, I guess.

one left, and mom

Well, the spring of the kitties may almost be over. The two gray guys got adopted from Petco, and Tabby-spot and Ruffie have found homes from the Cupboard flyer. I put in another Craigslist ad last night and have four inquiries.
I'll be sad to see her go, she's SUCH a little cutie, and I have invested an awful lot of time and effort (and cash) in getting the little thing this big even. But truly I need to have just my two cats, And maybe if I get set up at the Ridge I can occasionally foster some upstairs. Put a screen door at the entrance to the big room, maybe, so they could have the room and porch, and I could see through the door before I opened it.

Mama Tut is NOISILY in heat, almost all the time. And she is licking and chewing her back so it is all covered with raw spots. I wonder if she could be allergic to Revolution? Anyway, I'm calling in the morning for appointments for her and Floof; hope I can get her maneuvered into the carrier. How long after spaying do the hormones die out?