Peter Cottontail Better Watch Out...

I went on the back porch today on my way to the trash to toss a used vacuum cleaner bag and noticed what I thought was a small dog digging in the brush pile left over from when the contractor cleared under the electric line several years ago. It did not hear me, and so I darted back into the house and called for R to come and see. Our Dog was a stray, and I keep praying that God will send the perfect stray dog for us to love. Maybe this was it!! Richard joined me at the door; then it happened to look up, and we both realized it was a fox out and about in broad daylight. R raced for the camera; the battery was dead. He raced to find an extension cord to plug it in. Of course, by then the “perfect shot” had already passed; and I guess you can’t really tell that it actually is a fox, except by the color. My admiration for wildlife photographers who get marvelous pictures of animals in perfect poses has gone up by leaps and bounds. What patience they must have. The creek between the house and where the fox was digging has still not gone down enough after 38 hours of steady rain that started Monday night for us to jump across to go see what it was up to, but it left quite a pile of black dirt. Not sure if it was thinking about digging a den, after a rabbit that was hiding, or digging to get at some other small animal that it smelled. It nosed around the brush pile for maybe 10 minutes before trotting off.

Not just another yard ornament

Missouri is noted for his mules and its gated Fox Trotters, which are wonderful horses for pleasure riding. In fact, they have used the Fox Trotter to breed gaited mules. Most horses in this part of the state are used for pleasure riding. The farmers here who run beef cattle usually don’t have big enough farms to need a horse to collect the cattle -- one farmer I know uses a border collie, and if they mostly use their land to make hay, they use a machine rather than horse-drawn equipment.

There are rodeos where they do barrel racing and that sort of thing, and horse shows, but the horses don’t have much actual work to do on a daily basis except stand around and look pretty. And I am not being disparaging here – I love horses. We looked into getting a horse for ourselves years ago when our son was young and wanted a horse. We concluded that we could not afford to keep a horse the right way, and, as my husband said, “I think he would be interested in it for a while, and then it would end up becoming an expensive lawn ornament.”

The main to this are the Amish, who farm in a very flat area between here and Springfield, about 1 hour down the highway. The Amish in their horse-drawn wagons are a common sight on the highway, as are the huge draft horses pulling the farming equipment in their fields.

On our recent trip to Springfield, we stopped on the way back at the McDonald’s near where they farm because we had been “sent buy one, get one free” coupons and decided to take advantage of the offer. I am only a little embarrassed to admit that I love McDonald's hamburgers and french fries. 

Four Amish women had also stopped at McDonald’s and were leaving just as we got there. One of them approached me and asked if I wanted to buy some homemade egg noodles. I declined the offer, but later regretted that I had not done so.

Their horse is not just another expensive yard ornament. It is not a “pretty” horse compared with the horses we see when we take our walk, but it is obviously well cared for and well fed. And it actually has an important job to do. One might wonder what the maintenance and upkeep on a horse would be compared with a car?

A Little Fox

Age and accident have taken their toll on the gifts we received when we got married. One of the few wedding presents I have left is the set of really nice stainless steel flatware that my parents gave us. So it is with increasing alarm, anger, and frustration that I see our forks beginning to dwindle. And why is that? N takes a fork with him to work so he can eat his lunch. I am firmly convinced that he fails to bring the fork back with him. He assures me that he is not loosing the forks, but I don’t believe him. It is these “little things” that he does day in and day out that begin to wear on my equilibrium. It is, after all, the little fox that comes in and eats the grapes one by one that ruins the crop. So, this afternoon R and I set off for town -- he to go to the bank, and me to the thrift store to pick up a few forks. The thrift store has a commercial style flatware thingy with four slots. All four are filled with knives. Not a single fork. So then we went to the salvage store. She did have some forks, 25-cents each, but they were the cheap, tacky kind. We bought them, but I have an idea about where I might be able to trade them for some old-fashioned type flatware. We also got some plastic forks. I hope this solves the problem!

You’re alive only because you’re so stinkin’ cute.

Well, she’s a stinker all right— a stinker with a charming personality. Cats have a way of getting under a person’s skin, which I guess is a good thing, because they can be the most exasperating animals. Meet Skeeter, aka Squeaker (because of her squeaky little meow), aka Twinkletoes (because when N dumped her on us, we already HAD a cat named Skeeter). He eventually took our Skeeter to live with him (she later died). It seems to be our fate to end up with tortoiseshell cats. This is our second. The first, Big Kitty, was a lighter version (about the color of tree bark) and even, well uglier, than this one. Squeaker seems to always want to be where she isn’t. If she is outside, she wants in; if she is inside, she wants out. She was a city cat--and not trained well by her city cat mother--that was transplanted to the country, and she is stupid. She has the cat instinct to hunt and kill anything that moves all right, and she’s great at catching insects, but she has no discrimination about what is appropriate for her to be stalking. We’ve watched her slinking across the yard after a rabbit bigger than she is, down the driveway after full-grown deer (wonder what they were thinking as they watched this tiny cat inching toward them), and one morning at about 5 a.m., I caught her chasing a fox down the driveway. The fox was running only because I turned the outside light on. I hate to think what could have happened to her had I not gotten curious about the strange noise I was hearing outside. We hate her, we love her, she makes us laugh. A lot.

Packin' it in

We first meet Water Rat in Wind and the Willows when he helps a bored and restless Mole to have a wonderful adventure on the river.


As the story progresses, they and their other companions, Toad and Badger--but especially Toad--end up having quite an adventure indeed.



The story climaxes with Rat organizing an attack on the weasels and ferrets that have taken over Toad Hall.

I love Water Rat, and the Rats of NIMH, and Remy in Ratatouille. I even liked Pinkerton in Charlotte's Web. I had a pet rat when I was a kid.

I would like to like the rats that live here. But I don't. We are at war with these rats--everybody refers to them as "pack rats", for obvious reasons, but they are probably really the Eastern Wood Rat. These rats are not like the scruffy brown Norway rats that live in the big cities. These are actually rather attractive animals (except for the tail), with smooth, soft light brown fur and a creamy underside.

They are everywhere here. Everybody has a rat story. Their huge mounds of sticks and leaves can be seen here and there outside, usually at the base of trees. They collect food and store it in these mounds. The fox Richard photographed last year was digging around such a nest. It's a good defense: by the time the animal digs through the debris, the rat is gone.

But bad things happen -- very bad things happen -- when these rats decide to get up close and personal with the humans they coexist with....

• We had to junk a car because before we could get it towed for repairs, rats got into the engine and chewed the wiring so bad that was not really possible to fix it.
• We lost our phone connection one day because the rats chewed through the lines.
• Rats chewed the wire leading from the garbage disposer under the sink, which caused a sparking short. If I had not heard it while I was doing dishes, we could have lost the house. Most of our electrical wiring is now in metal conduit.

We have trapped and killed many rats over the years.

Once we gave up our permanent flock of hens and ducks, we raised broilers in the chicken coop and used the barn to store stuff. Although we started moving most of the stuff out (or throwing it away) when the roof started leaking, there is still some stuff out there. I went out there the other day to look for something and the rats have moved in.



This huge nest is sitting on what once upon a time was a redwood hot tub.




And then out in the chicken coop...

which has also been abandoned...


there is another nest.

The last time we sat traps for the rats, we managed to kill two wrens. I am not sure what we will do about these guys. Something.

And in the mean time, I need to get a life. I had a dream about Pioneer Woman last night.

The staff goes on strike

Most cat owners have heard the phrase

“Dogs have….. Cats have staff.” 

Yeah. Well, our cat has a certain staff woman very well trained, but with the help of her union rep, she is now on strike.

Our cat is an “indoor-outdoor” cat, and we have allowed her to drive us nuts. When she wants in, she crosses the bridge from the porch to the bird-feeding platform in front of the window where I sit at my computer and meows at me to let her in.

And what do I do?

I get up and let her in.

She eats a bite of food, uses the cat box (it seems not to matter that she has 8 acres of land on which she could poop or pee), perhaps plays with one of her toys for a minute or two, and then, within about 10 minutes or so, she wants out again. If the back door is not ajar, she nags at us to let her out by meowing obnoxiously. And we get up and let her out. 

We cannot just leave food out for her and make her a totally outside cat because there are several big tom cats who have decided our property is part of their territory. They torment her enough as it is, and if we left food out, they would simply eat it and the problem would get even worse. Plus she has no sense (one morning very early, I watched her following a fox that was trotting down the driveway).

In the winter, it is not quite as bad because it is COLD outside and she is happier to stay indoors, but as Spring arrives, the problem escalates.

Having already established here in earlier installments that parts of our house are rather crooked, I don’t need to go into a detailed explanation of why the screen door at the other end of the house requires forceful persuasion to shut all the way, and even then, there is a half-inch gap at the top. If left to its own devices, it stays open about an inch. On more than one occasion, I have gotten up to let the cat in the door at my end of house (which does shut all the way) and she has run straight through the house and out the back door at the other end.

After listening to me complain for the umpteenth time about the cat, today Richard finally said.

Look, the back door is open. Just ignore her. She will go around and come in on her own.

So earlier today, I took his advice. She crossed the from the porch to the platform and meowed at me. I got up to make sure the back door was open. She thought I was getting up to let her in, but I did not. I sat back down. She returned to the platform and meowed at me again. I ignored her. She left and came in the back door herself, curled up on the bed, and went to sleep.

Yea!!!

And yes, other visitors have occasionally come in the back door as well: lizards, frogs, chipmunks, wrens….

The Hairy Meatloaf is at Six.... and Counting

If it is true that cats have 9 lives, then I think ours has just lost another one. It is hard to say how many she has lost already, since things occur that we don’t know about, but I’m guessing 3 so far. She lost one the day she decided to go play with the fox... and survived. She lost the second one the day she brought in the live rat and let it go in front of the propane heater. The rat crawled so far up into the “innards” of the heater that we couldn’t get it out, so we had to dismantle the heater and take it outside so the rat would leave. In the meantime, we also dismantled the “doggy door” so she couldn’t come in with any more live “presents.” If one had been listening carefully, a few pithy words might have been heard, along with “why don’t you take the cat out and shoot her.” And finally, she is down to No. 6. She came rushing in the other morning from the cold outdoors, leaped up on the propane heater, which happened to be off at that particular moment, and then vomited. Fortunately, most of it did not fall down through the grill and onto the heating elements. Once again, I really wanted to kill her.

The week that was...

There is a humorous scene in one of the Anne of Green Gables books where Anne finds a dead mouse in the plum pudding she was going to serve to the teacher. A somewhat similar incident occurred here last week, but it wasn't so funny. I made bread, and several days later Richard walks in and drops a dead fly in my hand.

Did you have any idea you had baked a fly into the bread?

(Yeah I did, actually. I thought you needed an extra bit of protein)

You're joking, right?

Nope. If I had not turned the bread over, or had cut it in a different place, I never would have seen it.

Yuck! Yuck!!! I know the federal government allows a certain percentage of insect parts in processed food. I know we probably get more protein in our food than we think we get  – indeed, I’m told that we unknowingly eat up to 2 pounds of insect parts each year, but to actually find one. And especially a fly.

The eeuuw! factor is right up there.

That is so disgusting. I can't figure out how it happened, because the dough is either covered and rising in the oven… or I am fiddling with it… or it is baking in the oven. But, in this case, the evidence doesn't lie.

We got brave last Sunday. Richard finished the final calculations on the tax return (for us April 15 means filing an extension for the return to October 15) and discovered we will get some money back, and to celebrate we took a walk out to the pond. Not sure what we were thinking -- I mean, if the pond had been bone dry that would not have been much of anything to celebrate, but much to our delight, there was still water in the pond and even a bunch of large tadpoles swimming around in it. Tadpoles? In October? Well.... whatever. The bald cypress trees that I was certain were dead earlier in the summer, look to still have a bit of life in them. So that was good.

The week has hummed along pretty well. I have had a reasonable amount of work, so I am not stressed out too much and have even slept in an hour or so a few mornings this week. I have started again to lose a bit of weight. I am hoping that by the time I leave here in late November for my niece’s wedding that I will be a few pounds lighter and will be able to wear some of my nicer clothes.

And I found out that American airlines, which I have to take to get to Los Angeles if I don’t want to go through Denver (which I don’t), has instituted a new policy to make flying on their airplanes just that much more miserable since Nathaniel and I flew to Los Angeles in November 2 years ago. All of the aisle seats are now “preferred seating” and apparently are reserved for customers who are paying the full price on the ticket (I didn’t read all of the qualifications to get one of these seats). I can’t afford the full price. I am annoyed but trying to remain grateful that I will be able to go. I can put up with a few hours of misery.

Yet another storm arrived earlier in the week… very heavy rain for a brief time until it moved through the area. Shortly after it passed I heard a fox “screaming” from somewhere toward the back of the field. Not sure what word to use to describe the noise they make – not a bark like a dog or a “yip” like a coyote -- but it was very loud.

The state highway crews came by with their machines and mowed down all of the wild flowers that had struggled through the drought of the summer and finally bloomed along the rights of way after the early fall rain. They have equipped their tractors with a new sickle device that allows them to cut down growth on the slopes and ridges that formerly were too steep or too narrow for a tractor pulling a brush hog. That is too bad because in the past some plants -- including the yucca with its beautiful bell-like flowers -- survived the mowing. Not now. For years we enjoyed seeing the large spikes of waxy yucca flowers, and now they are gone forever.

How easily something can be wiped out.

Overnight the trees have put on their fall colors, and it is quite gorgeous right now and will be for another week or so as long as we don't get any more heavy winds to strip them off. We were in West Plains yesterday for our monthly session with the grief counselor and to do some shopping and it was quite breezy. While we were stopped at one traffic light, we noticed a blizzard of golden yellow leaves coming almost horizontal from a tree in a nearby park. They were floating and swirling and it was quite fascinating to watch. Soon most of the hardwood trees -- the nut trees and the maples especially -- will be bare of leaves. Most people immediately think of the sugar maple when they think of "fall colors" and rightly so. Quite a few sugar maples have been planted in yards and it almost takes ones' breath away when they are in their full color. And we have our very own sugar maple in our front yard.

This area is not really a destination for people looking to see spectacular fall colors -- not like New England in any event, but we still enjoy it while it lasts.

Stop and smell the....

I mentioned in an e-mail to my cousin in Washington, DC, that it was OK for him to write about the daily goings-on in his life – his part-time job at the U.S. Patent Museum, the garden in his yard -- because I needed – needed in a most urgent way – to read about other people’s normal lives. Tips for people who spend hours in front of a computer include looking away from the screen periodically to stare at something far off. Well, I needed some emotional far-off staring.

He writes:

...Many times in my past my sanity was safely maintained by looking outside of myself and my own situations, observing others and their happenings, shedding my eyes away from my own problems and seeing what else was going on. You, Leilani, are blessed with the ability of observing and enjoying the wonderful delights of our natural world, so don't forget to take a break often to go outside, and dwell upon the beauty of our world, just outside your door.

He is right of course. And so I did. I went for walk. Checked out what was happening in our whiskey-barrel garden,

noting that peas are ready for picking, and lovely blooms are beginning to appear...

in the snarl of passion flower vines on the ground that exploded after Richard mowed the area earlier in the Spring. Even some with orange bugs ...

And then remembering that there might be butterfly weed growing in the back field, so I came up toward the house and headed in that direction.And just happened to notice the wild wisteria vine that has been growing up into the old peach tree by the barn for years. 

  

The peach tree is about dead, but the wisteria has twisted around itself in a most intriguing way. I don’t think I could have gotten a more perfect spiral had I tried to arrange the vine myself.

And while searching for the butterfly weed, I noticed a fairly large hole in the ground. 

I wonder who made this hole. Groundhog? Fox? And who might be living here now. Who are the people in your neighborhood?

And then I did indeed come across the butterfly weed.

And then I strolled back to the house, spotted our boy sitting under the tree in a lawn chair,

and visited with him a bit and then went back to work.

I later found I had been joined on my walk by 3 ticks. Two were still crawling, and one had anchored itself in the back of my knee. I made short work of all of them.

Repurposed

Richard is clearing the dish drainers of last night’s dishes, and he is making a lot of noise as he clatters the silverware, plates, and pots.

The noise stops. I hear him clear his throat and he is standing in the door to my office.

“Can you explain to me why there is a bone in the dish drainer?”

Well, yes. I can, except as I start to explain it comes out gibberish.

“Do I have to?” 

“Yes. I have to have my wife explain the very strange things she does,” he says.

So I start again.

“Next year on the Sunday before Easter, I think will try to do a Passover meal at Sunday School, and I need a bone to represent the Passover lamb. I found this one from that dead deer.

Last night I soaked it in bleach, scrubbed it, and it will be perfect.” 

He nods his head. Now he understands. Sort of.

This year at Easter I was going to do a presentation on the Passover Seder for Sunday School. I have some good material on it from when I put a presentation together for the kids at another church years ago, and I have a great little book.

I almost had what I needed. But not quite. I didn’t have matzo, and there was none to be found anywhere in the area. Not even at Walmart. The Jews who celebrated the first Passover did not have factory-made matzo, after all. I did find a recipe on how to make a Passover bread that could be used.

But what I really wanted and did not have was a lamb bone. At that time, lamb was more $9 a pound, and I couldn’t see spending $50 plus for a leg of lamb to get the bone. I didn’t want to use a chicken bone and pretend it was a lamb bone. Then time ran out and the presentation didn’t happen.

But in the meantime, there is a spot on the frontage road where I walk every other morning -- near where I found the first blue sock (see my last post)--that seems to be a favorite place for deer and other animals to cross the highway, and sometimes they don’t make it. I have found a dead fox there, and two does were killed trying to cross within the past several months.

The deer that was most recently killed was not scavenged by coyotes or dogs or other critters. It has finally rotted away (and the stench was terrible for a while there) and is now just a collection of bones. Although I noticed last time I walked by that something has started carrying the bones off.

Well, I don’t mind trying to pass off a deer bone as lamb bone, and so I think I am going to try again next Easter. It will be perfect, as long as I don’t forget where I’ve stored it and don’t chicken out on the presentation.

Send in the clowns... and don't rain on our parade

One doesn’t really appreciate the nuances of small town living until one has lived in a small town for a while and gets to experience the small town parade.

It usually always rains on July 4, and today was no exception. The heavily overcast sky was a blessing, because it has been hot. Very very hot. It did not rain on the parade, though.

I got to the parade a tad late, and I missed getting a photo a wonderful George Washington riding a beautiful Missouri fox trotter horse. I missed Betsy Ross, too

The parade had patriotic motorcycle riders on their Harleys

Classic cars....


Clowns....


More clowns....



Clowns riding on ATVs..



Clowns passing out candy....
Clowns riding on bicycles... The clown on the back of the bicycle is the Episcopal priest. I wanted to dare him to show up at church tomorrow wearing his clown costume, but somehow, I don't think he will..

Characters from our history made an appearance too...



Davey Crockett (Davey, Davey Crockett, king of the wild frontier!)


Some former presidents....

And the monks from the Anada Kanan center just outside of town, a reminder that one of the things our forefathers for was freedom of religion...


Horses...


Donkeys...

Goats...



And bringing up rear, the volunteer fire department and their various fire trucks..


And a good time was had by all, especially this little girl who received a plastic fireman's hat from the driver just after I took the picture.

I am forbidden to kill the cat

It is about 6 pm. The Evil Squeaker has been captured and the doors to the outside are shut. She does not want to be inside, but we cannot leave her out all night. First, she will eventually want in, at a time when it is most inconvenient for us to let her in; second, it is not very safe for her out there – feral tom cats frequently come around to bully her; aside from her own species, there are fox and coyotes and probably bobcats and she is an idiot and doesn’t have sense enough to avoid danger.

She has learned that two of the doors leading to freedom do not always latch unless they are shut with enthusiasm, and she has become quite adept at checking these dodgy doors and teasing them open if they aren’t actually shut. So, she has checked the doors but instead of settling down and going to sleep…

she is restless and is wandering through the house meowing and making everyone cross.

Richard has retreated to take a shower, and I am heading from into the kitchen to make some tea, when I hear a loud crash from the living room area and she comes shooting around the corner like a rocket and disappears into one of the other rooms. At first I thought Richard had fallen in the shower. But he was fine.

Next to the chair where I sit to watch TV in the evenings there is a plastic storage unit on wheels with three pull-out drawers. I have sat a board on top of this and on it sit my colored pencils and the pencil sharpener and other stuff.

Occasionally, I like to color at night during the commercials when I am watching TV. I am not gifted when it comes to drawing and painting, but if someone gives me the lines to color, I can have a good time doing it.

It does not take Sherlock Holmes to figure out that she is the source of the crash. She had leaped up on the board, landing on the edge, which caused the board to flip off the storage unit and onto the floor, taking it with it the colored pencils and everything else. The pencils were carefully organized, but now they are scattered everywhere.

I scream unkind things at the cat, who has vanished. I replace the board, and add a brick to the middle in case she tries it again, and I pick up the pencils.

“Sorry,” says Richard, having come out of the shower and beet red where the hot water has hit his back, "you cannot kill the cat.”

Waffles…

A day or so after a light snowfall dropped a couple of inches of snow on the ground, I arrived at the park with the Mollywog for our afternoon walk. I was not surprised to see that I was the first person to walk on the path since the snow had fallen. I have frequently been the first person to tramp through the snow in the park. The path was not totally pristine though. Tracks from an unaccompanied larger dog (or perhaps a coyote) and a smaller dog (perhaps a fox), who seemed to be on separate missions were meandering about. Rabbits and squirrels had also been busy, along with some birds  with big feet – probably crows.

I never walk very fast with the dog because I can’t walk fast anymore myself and she has to stop and sniff every 10 feet or so and I let her get away with. I’ve always wondered what exactly she was sniffing if not pee left behind from other dogs. I was not that surprised to see her stop every few feet and sniff each footprint that the dog (or coyote) had left in the snow until she was satsified and went on to sniff something else.

The next day when I returned, I had company -- the high school track coach was running laps since school had been cancelled – but aside from him, again no one else had been there. The prints I had left the previous day were still there by themselves. We exchanged a few words each time he sped by me, and on one pass he observed that I had been the only other person there since I was now laying down a second set of identical tracks that weren't there when he began running.

The pattern of the snow boots I wear looks like waffles.

Waffles.

What a sweet fun memory that brought to mind. Dad loved to cook. Here he making my birthday cake a few years ago..

During the weekdays he would get up at about 5:00 a.m., long before anybody else was awake, and he made his own breakfast. He ate bacon and eggs just about every day, and ironically, after years of that diet, his cardiovascular system was in excellent shape -- no atherosclerosis, no blockages, no nothing – and still is at age 91, except his heart is slowing down now and he needs a pacemaker (which they have decided not to do).

But he would occasionally make waffles on weekend mornings. They had an old waffle iron that they had probably gotten as a wedding present, and he would plug that in and heat it up. He made the batter using Bisquick and he’d start turning out waffles. I loved the crispness and how the syrup would puddle in the depressions. It was a lot of work, and it was a mess to clean up because the batter always oozed out the sides and then baked on to the side of the waffle iron.

I remember at the Seattle World’s Fair that they offered up Belgian waffles, with strawberries and whipped cream. I had never heard of such a thing -- mom and dad were too careful with their money to buy strawberries and whipped cream for waffles for four kids.

I remember we had a waffle iron after we moved here – I think I got it at a thrift store – but it eventually broke.

I haven’t had a waffle in years. Perhaps I ought to do something about that.

We need to remember what's important in life: friends, waffles, work.
Or waffles, friends, work. Doesn't matter, but work is third.
--Leslie Knope

Road kill

I would hazard a guess that the outraged folk who attempt to disrupt the November deer-hunting season in some parts of the country don’t think too much about the carnage inflicted on wildlife by the automobile. Not just deer, which are killed by the hundreds of thousands every year on American highways, but smaller creatures too, including turtles, opossum, raccoon, skunk, armadillos, coyotes, fox, bobcat, snakes, birds, and insects. Insects? Yep. Of course, most insects that end up smeared on windshields or mashed into the grill of the radiator aren’t that important in the whole scheme of things, I guess, but occasionally.... well. A few days ago, I found a treasure—a luna moth in perfect condition in the middle of the frontage road on the way to work I did have a picture of the moth, but I posted it without permission so here is the link instead: http://www.fcps.edu/StratfordLandingES/Ecology/mpages/luna_moth.htm. As I passed it, it took a minute or to for my brain to register what I had seen, and then I turned around and went back for it. It was still alive, but barely. I presume it crashed into the side of car. After it died, I had R place a dollop of hot glue on its back and I attached a thread and now it hangs by my computer, flying in the breeze drawn in through the window by the whole-house attic fan.

By the light of the silvery moon...

Last night we had a comedy of errors with the cat. We don't have much trouble getting Twinkletoes to come in at night in the dead of winter, but as winter progresses toward spring and the nights aren’t so bitterly cold, she is a little less reluctant to come in. Oh, she’ll come in readily enough when she is called–she always comes when she’s called–but then she immediately wants outside again. As we’ve come to say about her “the cat always wants to be where she isn't,” and then she rushes around to all the doors wanting out. Leaving her outside all night is not really a very good idea. She is a very small and she is too stupid to stay out of trouble. Our first cat, Big Kitty, never wasted her time messing about with something she knew she couldn't kill. This one stalks grown rabbits that are bigger than she is, and deer; I’ve seen her chasing after possum and even a fox. Too many dangerous critters are out at night that could have her for a midnight snack: coyotes, big owls, and bobcats (supposedly). The raccoon might not eat her but could certainly seriously hurt her. And, of course, there’s the selection of tomcats who all think this place is their territory and pick fights with her. So, last night she came in around 9:45. N was already asleep (or supposed to be); R was about sleep, and I was up doing a few things. I heard a cat meow outside. I knew it wasn't Twink because she was in the house (running from door to door looking for a way out). Unfortunately, N didn't know she was in the house. The cat outside woke him up and he thought it was Twink, so he opened the door and called to her. I hollered at him that she was already in the house and he shut the door. Unfortunately, it was too late. A few minutes later, I did a room check and she was obviously not in the house. She probably shot for the door when she heard it open and she managed to sneak out when he wasn't looking. How is that possible? Oh, very possible. We have accidently locked her in the basement more times than I can count, her having snuck in when we weren’t looking. I tossed and turned for almost 2 hours fretting about her and then I finally got up and went outside and took a stroll down the driveway to see if she was anywhere around. The moon, which wasn't even a full moon, was up overhead by then and it was so bright it almost hurt to look at it. It also lit up everything with a pale light that was bright enough to cast a shadow. It was just lovely out. And sure enough, here came Twinkletoes trotting around the side of the house. She came over to me, and I grabbed her up and managed to get her back inside the house without getting clawed. No wonder other cultures worshipped the moon. I used to think that in earlier times when it got dark, people just went to bed. But I bet they didn’t, not when the moon was full. I bet they did all sorts of things by the light of the moon, especially out on the plains where there weren’t many trees to obscure the sky.

RIP Peter Possom...

When my nieces were little, I wrote some animal stories for them that were based on true things that had happend here. For many years, the rear entry screen door did not close all the way because the door frame was crooked (indeed, our entire house is crooked, but that's another story). The dog and the cat weren't the only creatures who had learned to come in and out at will by sticking their nose in the gap at the bottom and bullying their way in. One fall, a tree frog came in several times and I finally let it stay in the bathroom where it mostly clung to the shower curtain and the redwood paneling in the the shower, and then finally hybernated in a knothole. It got too active the next spring and we let it go. That was Freddy Frog. Peter Possom got trapped in the house one night. It had come in to eat the dog's food, which was right by the back door. It heard me coming to shut the door for the night and hid in the storage area by the back door. Later after the house had quieted down, out he came looking for a way out. He woke us up, and I caught him and let him go. There was also a Sammy Skun, who preciptated a most unpleasant encounter. We found out the hard way (3 sprayings in less than a week) about letting the dog have free access outside during the wee hours of the morning (which is why I went to shut the door for the night). The other day while I was on my way to work, I stopped to make a left onto the state highway into town and there, far off on the right shoulder, was a dead possom. Only it wasn't dead. It raised its head a little and flopped around. I felt sick inside. I turned right instead, parked on the shouler, and went over to it. Its lower face had been crushed, and possibly its front shoulders. It was very much alive but unable to move, and its dying was going to be long and cruel. So I picked it up by the tail and drove it back to the house for R to shoot and went to work. Farmers only have to go through one experience of having a black snake, possom, skunk, coon, or fox in the hen house for them to immediately adopt a kill first, ask questions later policy for these smaller predatory animals. Even worse, there is a cruel streak in some of the people who live here -- anything on the road is fair game and they deliberately run them over -- turtles, snakes, possom, skunk, raccoon, and increasingly, armadillos. This possom was so far off the road that I am almost sure this was deliberate. I felt a little better that it didn't suffer too long. RIP Peter. ..