A better day...

I am hoping beyond hope that the scorpions have found other pastures (and other master bedrooms). After the pest-control guys left, there was one scorpion fighting for its life in a corner of our kitchen, which I put to rest with the sole of my shoe. I managed to swat him at arm's length, without hurting my shoulder this time. Then there was a dead one under the bed this morning-- I know it wasn't there last night because I have been checking underneath our bed every night for a week now. I'm guessing that it dropped down from the air-conditioning vent after lights-out and took its last breath under the bed as we slept. Thankfully, because of the bug-spray/Agent Orange stuff, this last scorpion didn't have the strength to crawl up under the covers.

This morning, my husband unscrewed all the air-conditioning vents and put thin mesh screening in those vents-- now even a tiny spider can't drop down from the vents, much less a King Kong-sized scorpion. (Perish that thought.) I don't know why those a/c vents aren't installed in the first place with mesh screening. This is Texas, for heaven's sake.... the entire state is built on top of ant hills, spider webs, and scorpion nests. (And who knows what-all else.)

Last night was my first full night of sleep in more than a week and a half. And when I woke up at 7:00 this morning, my legs were stretched out towards the bottom of bed-- gone was the scorpion-safe, leg-cramping fetal position. As I said, I have faith in the bug guys, and faith now as well in the air-conditioning vents. I would hope that I won't have to be waking up every hour on the hour to shine the flashlight over the ceiling and underneath the bed. (As my cousin F would say: Hope floats. (We don't exactly know what that means, but it sounds good.) We are also on a schedule now with the pest control company... they will be out here on a regular basis, and sooner if I call them. (I should put their number on speed-dial.)

The chickens came out of their coop this morning as if they have lived here forever. They ventured further into the yard, pecking away at the grass and looking up at the trees and out into the pastures. Gatsby (our outside cat) was out there watching them with us... and Gatsby was hiding behind my legs for quite some time. I think our friends are right-- Gatsby is a smart cat, and he knows he's outnumbered by those chickens, and they can scratch his eyes out in a heartbeat. I don't think he will be bothering them. Now we'll have to get our dog to stop barking every time she sees them. Hey!! You birds!!! You're in MY yard!!!!

My red hen, Dolly, was the first to walk back into the coop this morning and pretty soon, the rest of the chickens followed her. Dolly went right into her favorite nesting box and started to tweak and twist the hay in there, tossing out a few strands that she didn't care for, and then she sat down into the hay. Within half an hour or so, she was out of the nest and a fresh egg was sitting in there. All the eggs so far four of them) have been found in the nest with the fatter side down, pointed side up.

We decided to leave the door of the coop open all day now... the chickens are coming and going as they please.... they know how to get back in there for their food and water, and around dinner-time or a little bit after, they should take themselves back into the coop and then we'll lock it up for the night. We can tell that the hens are comfortable with us now.... if we go into the coop without some bread or vegetables for them, they will just stand there at our feet and wait. And wait. And wait. One of us will then go back into the house, get some bread for them, and then only after we have hand-fed them will they go about their chicken-business in the yard.

Their little chicken sounds are very comforting, all that cooing and clucking and clicking... hard to describe the contented little noises coming from them all. Jaye and Edie follow each other all the time, and even like to share the same basket-- it's a bright red one that I found at the resale shop-- they both love it, and the basket is big enough to hold them both. We're thinking that maybe those two chickens were in the same brood and were raised together... that would explain their closeness. It's funny, because Jaye and Edie are named after two of my aunts-- both of whom were born within a few years of one another, and my grandmother would say they were "always in each other's pockets."

Our neighbor D plowed a huge plot at the end of one of our pastures this morning, near our woods and close to the pond. My husband will buy seeds to plant there, and it will soon be a wildlife garden for deer, rabbits, birds, squirrels, and whatever else happens to come along through the woods looking for a snack. It's far enough from the house to keep the wildlife fed, but not let them come too close to the house. We will have to start shopping around for a golf-cart soon, so we can easily get to all ends of the property. It would make life a lot easier than walking from one point to another, that's for sure. I don't walk too far out into the pastures because I don't want to encounter any snakes.

I'm just about getting over the scorpions... and I don't want to start counting snakes.

Free range chickens...

We let the chickens out of their coop this afternoon, for about an hour or so. We stayed in the yard with them, and just watched their progress as they walked out of the open gate of the coop and ventured into their great unknown. They seemed quite happy with the yard right around The Coopacabana and the guest cottage, and didn't venture as far as I thought they would. But today was just their first outing... I'm sure they'll get braver with each little journey.

The leader of the pack is definitely Audrey, my husband's brown/black/red hen with the posture of a supermodel. Next in the pecking order is Dolly, my red hen. In an art museum, it would be this type of hen (a Rhode Island Red) in the oil painting of a farm-yard.

The two Guinea hens have stayed together since my husband went back to the chicken farm to get the second Guinea hen to keep the first one company. (We didn't know at first that they needed to be in pairs.) The second one is a bit smaller than the larger gray one, and this "new" one has lots of white polka-dots..... my husband named her Dottie. The Guinea hens coo and sing to one another and their sounds are very pretty.

My three hens are living up to their namesakes..... Dolly is the no-nonsense red hen who is continuously arranging and re-arranging the hay in the nesting boxes. So far, she has gifted us with two beautiful brown eggs. Jaye is the over-the-top black/white feathered hen, who is constantly preening and fluffing up her feathers... she has given us one egg so far. And Edie, the sleek black hen, does what she pleases and doesn't always follow the six others. When we put the hens back into the coop this afternoon, it was Edie who broke away from the rest and tried to hide under the bushes.

Even though the Audrey hen is Queen of the Coopacabana, she hasn't given us an egg yet. But she has let my husband pet her, and she eats out of his hand all the time. Henny Penny, the brown hen with the leopard spots, seems to follow either Dolly or Audrey around the coop, and all three of them stayed pretty close together when they were out in the yard.

While the chickens were discovering the backyard and scratching the grass for worms, my husband hosed-down the concrete floor of the coop. Nice and clean after that good washing, and now that we're letting the chickens out every day, the coop won't be quite so messy. The backyard grass, on the other hand.... we'll just have to watch where we're walking.

I had heavy baskets on the floor of the coop and the hens would walk in and out of them, and rest in them instead of flying up to the roosting bar. When we let the chickens into the yard, I put two of the baskets in the yard and left just one in the coop. I figured the two baskets in the yard would be nice little egg-laying spots for them if they had the urge when they were out of the coop. But when we got the hens back into the coop, three of them were fighting each other for the one basket that I had left inside the coop. It's mine! No!! It's mine!! I was here first!!

So back I went into the yard, and gathered up the two baskets that I left under the bushes near the courtyard. Back into the coop I went, and put those baskets right where they were in the first place. I guess the hens liked those baskets right where they were.... so I will leave them in the coop and look for more heavy baskets at the resale shop, and I'll keep those in the yard for them. (Picky... picky....)


The bug-guy was here again today.... did the second treatment underneath the house and up in the third floor attic. We should be, please heaven, scorpion-free. Please. Please. I am running on empty here, with three nights of very little sleep. I was downstairs in the TV room sewing puffs for the quilted pillows and I fell asleep while "Dancing With the Stars" was on. I woke up with the needle still poised to sew into the circle of fabric. I'm lucky one of the cats didn't jump into my lap and land on that needle, for goodness sake. (I woke up in time to see that Tom DeLay didn't get booted off that show. Give me a blessed break.)

I've already done the bug-check up here..... looking at all the ceilings, in all the corners, searching all the bedcovers with a flashlight. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zero. There might be a god after all.

Our neighbors J & J, down the road in their newly-built, solid-as-a-rock stone house, called to tell us that they found a scorpion in their master bedroom the other night. They have also had to fish out scorpions who drown in their pool every night. Now... the pool I can understand. The scorpions come out at night looking for food and water, they see the water in that pool, and they don't realize how deep and wide it is, and in they go. But the master bedroom of a just-completed brand-new house? And our house as well? With all the rooms in here, why do those damn things find the master bedroom?!

There must be a Scorpion Master Plan: we will scare-to-near-death all the women of this two-legged species... attack their senses in the rooms where they sleep... they will become walking zombies with brains like applesauce due to lack of rest... and then we can take over the world because when all those female brains turn to mush, the males of the species will not survive very long because they won't be able to find anything!

I truly need a good night's sleep.

Can't sleep.

I woke up a little while ago and my first thought was "Great! I have slept through the night." Then I looked at the clock and it was 1:54, which meant I slept a total of two hours. Not so great.

First thing I did after I looked at the clock was take the flashlight from my night-table and shine it all over the ceiling, the walls, the carpet, the bedcovers...... scorpion patrol. Not a one, thank goodness.... but I still couldn't get back to sleep. Every few minutes, I clicked on the flashlight and did the searching again. Still nothing. But I still couldn't sleep.

I got tired of trying to fall asleep, tired of thinking about angry scorpions having to deal with the pesticide, and just tired of thinking about everything that happened today. At times like this, the computer becomes a release mechanism.

The phone rang this afternoon and it was our young friend Miss C...... she and three of her college friends were on the way back from a country dancing competition and nearly became an automobile accident statistic. C wasn't driving..... and it wasn't her car. In the car was C, her roommate, and two guys from their dance class. One of the guys was driving C's roommate's car-- the roommate wasn't familiar with the location of the competition, so one of the guys offered to drive her new car because "Girls can't drive worth a lick anyway," as he told C and her roommate.

It was Mr. Great Driver who ran a red light....... never even hit his brake because he didn't see the other car coming...... and when the two cars hit, the seat belts didn't lock (because the brake hadn't been touched) and all four kids went flying around inside the car as it rolled over from the impact. All of them went to the hospital.... three were released rather quickly, but C was kept longer because they thought she might have internal injuries.

After a day's worth of tests (most of which were "brutal," said C) they are releasing her either tomorrow or the next day. This is C's first accident (hopefully her last) and her first hospital experience. She is not thrilled with either and can't wait to get back to classes. When I suggested to her that she might need a day or two to just rest up before going back to the college, she told me that she didn't want to miss any more classes than she needed to "because this is college now, not high school."

I told her that she could make up the work.... that other students in her classes could give her notes on the lectures that she missed..... that the most important thing now was to just get to feeling better. I also told her what my dad always told me after I started driving: "When you get in a car, it's always better to be the driver, not the passenger." She said that she wouldn't ever get into a car "if that idiot is behind the wheel." I think she's ticked off at herself for not offering to be the driver when they went to the competition.

C's accident put the scorpion problem into perspective, that's for sure. C is shaken up a bit, but she's fine.... and she shook us up, and her parents, needless to say. But in C's own words: "These things happen, but I'm good..... I'm good."

So. Everything that was floating around in my head is now here. Maybe now I can get some sleep? Without shining that flashlight all over the room every couple of minutes?

If not, I'll be back.

D-Day for scorpions.

First thing this morning, I called a local pest-control company and told them we had a scorpion problem out here. The guy on the phone wasn't impressed-- he said "Well, there, ma'am, do you know anyone out here who doesn't?!" -- and then he laughed at his own joke.

When he didn't hear me laughing, he asked me when I would like them to "git out there to yore propt-ty." I told them "About twelve hours ago," then I was the one laughing at my joke. I didn't hear him laughing, but I know what he was thinking: "I've got me a city-girl on the line here, without a doubt."

So out they came.... two men, two trucks. And they sprayed everything to within an inch of its creeping, crawling critter-lives. Only place they didn't spray was anywhere near the chicken coop. I even brought Gatsby into the house, in a closed cat crate, and let him stay in the kitchen till they were done. The bug-guy looked at me as if I were crazy when I told him that I would "call the outside cat" so I could get him out of harm's way. All it took was for me to stand on the porch and call Gatsby and out he came from one of his hiding spots. I picked him up, put him into the crate, and carried him into the house. I could hear the bug-guy saying "Well now, look at that there." Gatsby just sat in the crate and looked around the kitchen till they were finished spraying outside.

The bug guys will be back tomorrow, with more high-powered hoses that will spray some scorpion dust-stuff underneath the house and up in the attic. With today's spraying, the bug-guy told me that when the scorpions come out tonight, they're going to be "fighting mad and nasty as all get-out." He said they'll be "stinging everything in sight, including themselves" because the spray attacks their nervous system as it kills them. He suggested we didn't walk barefoot inside or outside for the next 24 hours. (Barefoot? Outside? Did he think we moved to Texas just yesterday?)

The pest control company will be here on a regular basis from now on. Either every month, every two, or every three months. No more than three months inbetween each spraying, if we want to keep "the country critters" under control. He told me that if my scorpion-tolerance was low, then every month (to spray around the house and cottage) would be the best way to go.

The way I'm feeling today, with last night being fairly sleepless, I wouldn't have cared if he had told me he needed to be out here spraying every blessed day.

The chickens, unlike me, slept very well, and gifted us with another egg this morning. Today's egg was from Jaye (black/white hen). I know their about-to-lay-an-egg signs now: the hens get into one of the nesting boxes or one of the baskets and start to rearrange the grass and the hay. They just settle into the nest and won't come out. Half an hour later, voila! You have an egg.

The chickens are getting to know us now. They have such soft clucking noises when we're in the coop, feeding them leftovers and scraps of bread and vegetables. We had fresh corn for lunch and I gave the chickens the cobs, and they had a blast pecking at the kernels.

As my husband says.... "another day on the ranch." Cluck, cluck.

Welcome to the Coopacabana....

My husband and I picked up our chicken family yesterday afternoon. We went to a chicken farm in the tiny teeny town of Lyons..... there must have been 150 chickens and Guinea hens there, a few ducks, plus a couple of cows and a donkey. I learned that people have donkeys because they are better watch-dogs than dogs. As soon as we drove up to the property, that donkey started to bray and carry on.... and he didn't quit until his owner came out the front door to greet us.

We each picked out three chickens, after the farmer/owner pointed out which ones we didn't want because they were roosters, not chickens. When we told him we wanted friendly chickens who had good attitudes and would be easy to handle, he told us that he always "weeds out the nasty ones." (Translation: chicken dinners.)

I chose a beautiful red hen, which I named Dolly. Then a black and white mix, which I call Jaye. And I just had to have an all-black chicken (because I'm partial to all-black cats)... and I named that one Edie. The names I chose seemed to fit-- when we opened the crate to let them into the coop, the first one out of my crate was the red-- Dolly. A no-nonsense hen, just like my Aunt Dolly. The all-black hen, Edie, reminds me of my Aunt Edie because she loved all black outfits and her hair was jet-black. And the black/white mix is named after my Aunt Jaye... she used to have elegant black and white suits when I was a kid, plus the black/white mix of feathers looks over-the-top, which is Aunt Jaye's style.

My husband picked out a Guinea hen, all gray with a touch of white on the feathers, which he named Jeanie (after his aunt). Then he chose a large, classy-looking brown/black/red hen which he named Audrey (after his mom). The third one he picked is a brown hen with some spotted feathers, and he calls her Henny Penny. The first one out of that crate was the Audrey hen... which would fit his mom's attitude-- "Let's get on with it!" When our neighbor D came to see the chickens, he suggested that we go back and get another Guinea hen. It seems they don't really like to be alone, and they like being with other Guinea hens rather than with a bunch of chickens. So we might do that, so the two Guinea hens can keep each other company. (My suggestion would be to bring the Guinea hen back and trade her for another chicken, but I don't think my husband is going to bring back one that he already picked out and named.)

The chickens seem to be content in their new home. They were flapping around and clucking when they first got here, but we fed them some bread, and they discovered their water and pellet feeders, so they calmed down a bit after a while. We also gave them some lettuce, tomatoes, and some bits of fresh plum-- the tomatoes and plums were a big hit, and they ate every bit of the lettuce as well.

This morning, Dolly (the large red hen) gifted us with our first egg. And, true to her namesake, Dolly spent a good part of the morning rearranging the grass and hay in her nesting box, and making everything "just so" before she laid that egg. We knew it was Dolly's egg because all the other hens were out of their baskets and nests and Dolly just stayed in her nesting box and kept rearranging that hay. My husband not only took photos of all the chickens, but that first egg as well.

The chickens have to stay inside the coop for three more days, then we can let them out to roam around the yard. If they do what chickens are supposed to do, they will walk themselves back into the coop before the sun starts to set. And I'm betting that either Dolly or Audrey will be leading the way--- they both seem to want to be the Chicken-in-Charge of the coop. We'll see who wins. There really is a "pecking order" when it comes to the hens.


The scorpion count is now up to 7. After my husband and I watched "The Amazing Race" tonight, I came up here to check my computer and put some lights on. When I walked into our bedroom, there was a scorpion on the ceiling next to the air-conditioning vent. And how did I see that so quickly? Because that has become my thing to do now-- look at every a/c vent in every room I walk into. After my husband killed that one, I noticed another one in the master bathroom...... so he smashed that one also.

That's it. Seven scorpions is about my limit. Actually, one is truly my limit, but I was giving the chickens a chance to kill them all. Now I can't wait. First thing in the morning, we're calling in an exterminator..... and having him spray all around the house, the cottage, the barn..... all the grounds around the house. We realize that he can't be spraying every inch of 23 acres, but at least the acreage around the house will be relatively bug-free. The chickens can take care of whatever the bug spray doesn't get.

Just when I was beginning to calm down after scorpion #5.......

Friends in high places...

Just about a month ago, my friend Audrey in Pennsylvania passed away.... I believe she was 93. Audrey was the supervisor of the clerks when I started working at the library in NY so many years ago. She was the mother hen to the clerks (as one of the clerks was fond of saying) and she was very good at discovering what everyone's strong points were. And if you didn't have a strong point, she would see to it that you learned one right quick.

Audrey had told me over the phone one day "I don't understand why God isn't taking me. I'm tired of not feeling well! I'm tired of not being able to do everything I want to do! I wish He would realize that I'm ready to go!" I had no answer for that, but she wasn't looking for one. I think she just wanted to get her opinion out into the universe, loud and clear.

And God (or The Powers That Be, or whatever you believe in) heard Audrey one day and let her go. Now she knows all the secrets that everyone on the planet wonders about.

My friend Frankie also knows all the secrets..... she passed away about six years ago, and we miss her still. She was "a character," as my young friend Miss C used to say. And indeed Frankie was-- a character. She could disarm you with her politically incorrect but right-on-target sense of humor hiding behind that short bob of gray hair and her "granny glasses" (as she herself called them).

My friend Alice..... who watched her diet, who quit smoking when the Surgeon General said to, who exercised regularly, who was careful not to catch germs from "coughing and sneezing sick people who should have stayed under the covers"-- she passed away a few years after we moved to Texas.

My friend Blanche, who passed away before we got married years ago..... who knew as soon as she set eyes on my husband that he was the one who would get me to marry him. As circumstance would have it, Blanche not only knew my husband's family (and had worked with his mother) but she knew most of their friends as well. "That boy comes from a fine family, L, so you won't go wrong with that one...... plus, his mother is a doll, a living doll." Blanche was right.

My friend Lou...... in whose Coffee Shoppe I had lunch every day when I worked at the library... and sometimes I had dinner there as well. And even if I wasn't hungry for dinner, I'd go in there after work anyway and have some tea and talk to Lou and his son, and to Blanche if she was still working that late. When Lou met my husband (we had gone there for lunch on our first date), Lou told me "Marry him! Marry him already! Marry him and I'll make you a wedding dinner you'll never forget." So I did. And Lou did. And our wedding dinner in Lou's Coffee Shoppe was indeed memorable.

My friend Jerry, who passed away too quickly and too suddenly, leaving his wife missing her "Prince." And he was a Prince.... such a nice, solid man who was a gentleman of the old school, who could make you laugh with his unexpectedly dry sense of humor, and who could see things so clearly at times that he left you wondering how you could have missed the obvious.

Other friends..... like "The Chief" and his wife Catherine, and Mr. T, and Gene.... library people who kept in touch with me for years after I left NY for Texas... they are all gone now. And things come up now and then which remind me of their friendly ways.... and I shake my head in complete wonder that so many years have gone by since I stood in the library at the checkout counter and either basked in the quiet or cringed at the Story Hour commotion.

I usually think of all these friends on New Year's Eve, when the midnight music makes me remember Guy Lombardo and his orchestra, and wish they were still around to bring in the New Year. I miss Guy Lombardo too...... my grandmother loved him because he looked "bella... bella..." in his tuxedo.

"Friends in high places." That's where I like to think they are... way up there in the clouds somewhere, looking down and tsk-tsking at all of us as we worry and fret over such insignificant trivial bumps along the road.

It's a foggy morning... ghostly, ethereal... we can't even see the end of the pastures.

I miss my dad. I miss my dad. I miss my dad. I'm beginning to forget the sound of his voice. I have to concentrate really hard to remember the cadence of his voice, the pronunciations, the exact sounds. I miss my dad. I miss my dad. I miss my dad. I miss my dad.

Sticky traps.

My friend J and I were eMailing each other the other day about those little sticky-traps that you can set out to catch mice and insects. I told her that maybe I could put rows of them all around the bed and that way the traps would catch the scorpions before they had a chance to climb the bedcovers. Sounded like a good idea, but of course I wouldn't do that. The scorpions can probably use their tails to pole-vault themselves over the traps, anyway.

So... there I was this morning, making breakfast in the kitchen, and I noticed that Mickey is sitting at the end of the kitchen going towards the breakfast room, and he's just sitting and staring at the louvered doors which cover the storage space where the heating and air-conditioning system is hidden. And that little cat is just staring, and staring... not moving a whisker. I know Mickey well enough to realize that he doesn't ever stare at anything without a reason.

I opened one of the louvered doors, and there, on one of the sticky traps that had been set out by the previous owners of this home, is a tiny little mouse. All four of his feet are caught on the sticky trap and he's trying to get free. Mickey's eyes got as big as dinner-plates when he saw that little mouse. I shut the door as fast as I could, and walked out of the kitchen, up the stairs, all the while calling my husband's name, over and over without a breath inbetween. When I got to the top of the stairs, there he is, saying Now what? "A mouse. Sticky trap. Air-conditioner closet."

Down the stairs.... my husband opens the louvered doors, and we see lots of sticky traps there, which we didn't realize had been put in there.... and he sees the little mouse still trying to get free of one. "What an inhumane invention," says my husband. He took the sticky trap out of there and went outside and into the garage to get something to pry the mouse's feet from the sticky trap. He used a screwdriver to dig into the sticky stuff, so as the mouse was loosened, there was still some glue stuck to the bottom of his feet. My husband let him go (not near the house) but he doesn't think he'll have much of a chance out there with glue-filled feet. I told my husband that if I see a tiny mouse outside with huge grass-covered toes, we'll know it's the same mouse.

"Another day on the ranch," says my husband. Indeed. And while we're on the subject, I've already seen my first snake... about three days ago. It didn't get me too crazy, because it was a small one, about 14 inches long, and not even as thick as my pinkie-finger. It was outside by the fountain, just laying there on the flagstones. I had gone out with Gracie just before dark and we both walked past it. When we were closer to the fountain than to the snake, I saw it slither (I hate that word) into the pine mulch underneath the palm trees. (It wasn't till the snake had gone that I realized either Gracie or myself could have stepped on that damn thing.)

Our neighbor J told us the black snakes are "chicken snakes" and they're not harmful. When those snakes are small, the chickens will probably kill them. (Yet another reason to get chickens.) Needless to say, I don't care whether a snake is harmful or not... I don't want to be anywhere near them. From that evening on, whenever I have to take Gracie out to let her into the grass, I just stand up on the porch and tell her to go down the stairs and "Hurry up," and she knows exactly what that means.

I have just about had it with the critters and wildlife here.... but we fully knew what we were in for when we moved to the country. "Another day on the ranch, " says my husband. Another day for a potential heart attack, say I. To keep my nerves in check, I continue to sew cute little puffs for quilted pillows. The sewing is very relaxing. To date, I have made 874 puffs. By the time I get used to the wildlife and critters here, every single family member and friend will have received a quilted pillow from me, and maybe even a full-sized quilt to match.

But on the bright side.... no scorpions yesterday. And since taking the floral-print sheets off the bed and vowing to use just plain ones from now on, I feel better as I peek under the covers because I know that I will be able to see anything under there now, whether it's moving or not. I slept like a baby last night..... not so much because of the plain sheets, but because I was totally exhausted from not sleeping the two previous nights.

Now that Mickey Kitty and ShadowBaby are roaming freely around the house, I know that if there is anything crawling or creeping about, or trying to get in through a tiny crack, one of them will notice, and even if they don't go near it (like the scorpions) at least they follow it and sit there and stare at it till they get my attention with their meows.

I should train the cats to use an air-horn when they see a scorpion. That would certainly get my attention.

Be careful what you wish for......

We wished for rain all summer long. Ta-daaaaaah...... it has been raining now for three days. We had been wishing for cooler temperatures since the beginning of May. Ta-daaaaaah.... a cool front has stalled over our Texas sky, and the temperature dropped yesterday from 95 degrees to 78. Bring out the sweaters and long slacks and dig out the box of hot chocolate mix from the pantry, both of which we have already done.

Gatsby, our outside cat, ran into the garage as soon as the temperature dropped past 85. He found himself an empty spot on top of one of the work-tops in there. Well, no cat of mine, inside or outside, is going to be sleeping on a hard Formica counter-top. Out came an old fleece blanket to put on top of that Formica. Out came one of the cat crates which I set out on the end of the counter-top. I put a soft velvet cat-bed into the crate, propped the door of the crate open with a folded-up towel, covered the top and sides of the entire crate with an old tablecloth, and voila!-- Gatsby has a clean, cozy and warm spot to call his own.

I had been hoping he wouldn't pick the inside of the barn as his cold-weather hiding spot. The barn freaks me out a little bit-- too much dirt way in the back of the barn, which means there must be zillions of spiders back there, probably some snakes as well, and heaven only knows what-all else. As soon as I saw that Gatsby was trying to get comfortable in the garage, I pounced into decorating-mode and fixed up a nice safe sleeping box for him. Gatsby seems to approve-- he has been in there sleeping in the crate since the rain started the other day. He will come out to eat on the back porch, making his presence known with a few pitiful meows. By propping open the side door of the garage, he can get in and out on his own and I don't have to worry that he will be wet or cold when the temperature really starts to drop come December and January.

I remember telling my husband that I wouldn't let myself get too attached to Gatsby, being that he's an outside cat and can walk off one day and find himself a new home. He doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. Not only does he have a warm pillow and blanket, but I've been microwaving his canned food since the temperature plummeted to 78 degrees.

Attached? To an outside cat? Not me. =^..^=

Free at last...

That's what Mickey Kitty and ShadowBaby have been saying since yesterday morning: Free at last! Free at last....!"

I have decided to let the cats roam around the entire house, instead of keeping them in the TV room and the adjoining bathroom, the breakfast room and the kitchen. Being that our house is 100 years old, there are pocket doors and French doors which enabled me to close off the foyer and stairways, the dining room and living room. Every time we went upstairs, we would open a door quickly and shut it just as quickly, so the cats couldn't follow us into the front rooms and the upstairs rooms. Occasionally, we would hear either or both of the cats meowing in the kitchen. Plus, I knew they were getting bored with having just a few rooms-- ShadowBaby just kept eating (even stealing the dog's food) and he and Mickey started to pick on one another. He's touching me! He touched me first!! Did not! Did too!!

So I decided to give them a test run yesterday. Of course, as soon as all the doors were open, both of them ran from the breakfast room into the dining room. ShadowBaby walked quickly through the front rooms and headed up the stairs, with just a short stop near the front door to look out onto the property. All that land and she's keeping us inside?

Mickey Kitty was more methodical in his initial search... he walked slowly around each room, sniffing into all the corners, looking up and down and all around at everything. When he got to the living room furniture and recognized the sofa and chairs, he rubbed his head up against them. He also stopped by the front door to look out at the view, then ran up the stairs.

Into all the rooms they went, sniffing and peeking into corners, looking under the bed, rubbing their noses on familiar furniture that was in the other house. So this is where you put the bed! And here's my favorite little pink sofa!

Before too long, they were running up and down the stairs (great exercise for ShadowBaby) and following us up and down all day long. They both know to go downstairs into the back of the house for their litter boxes, which are in the bathroom connected to the TV room. I absolutely refuse to put litter boxes in the upstairs bathrooms, or anywhere else. I could never have done this with AngelBoy. He would have taken one look up here and his blue eyes would have stared right into my soul: So.... you have four bathrooms up here.... so that means I need a litter box in each and every one of them. And if you're really nice to me, I might even use them.

Mickey and ShadowBaby quickly resumed their habits from the old house.... jumping on top of the bed to put their heads inbetween the throw pillows, sitting on the rim of the bathtubs to see what's inside, curling up on top of slippers by the side of the bed, sitting by my feet as I type. Mickey also found his favorite wicker chair, which used to be on the screen-porch in the other house. It's now in the foyer by the front door, which gives him a great view of the front property and the pond. Within two hours of their "release," ShadowBaby was trying to get Mickey Kitty out of that chair.

So the experiment worked...... the cats are happier... ShadowBaby is getting much-needed exercise by walking up and down the stairs and he isn't sleeping near his food dish all day long waiting for the Cat Food Fairy. And it's nice for me, too. I didn't like keeping all those doors closed downstairs. Now I can see into the dining room and the front hallway from the kitchen. When we're in the breakfast room, we can see into the dining room. The door of the kitchen stairway is open to the first landing of the main staircase and that stairway is nice and bright now.

When we have company, or when I have the dining room table set up for guests, then the cats will have to go into the TV room and I'll just close that one door to keep them in there. But for now.... the cats are really in the house. And they're probably saying Well, it sure did take her long enough!

Sleeping with the enemy...

.... and the enemy is the scorpion. At least in my mind. I have to get myself to not be afraid of them, and turn myself into their worst enemy. If I don't, I will soon be a walking zombie. In the past two nights, I've had about five hours of sleep. I have discovered, during the past two nights, that as you get older, it's hard to sleep in a fetal position because your legs tend to cramp--- and I'm afraid now to let my feet get near the foot of the bed.
Once again last night, I kept waking up and shining a flash-light up to the ceiling, down to the floor, and then over and under the bedcovers. Once again, my husband slept soundly. Except for the time when I jumped up from my pillow and had my feet on the floor in two seconds flat because I thought something fell on my face. Something did, but it was only a piece of my own hair or an eyelash, because we were definitely the only two breathing things in the room.

First thing this morning, I changed the sheets on the bed. Off came the floral-print sheets, on went a plain beige sheet set. The floral sheets will never see the light of day again. (I can probably make zillions of quilt puffs with a set of king-sized sheets.)

I am still thinking about having an exterminator come out here and spray every blade of grass, every bush, every tree, every bit of mulch, every everything on the entire 23 acres. But I know it's not going to last... that the toxic spray will also kill the butterflies, dragonflies, and maybe even the baby birds and baby bunnies as well. And with the hopeful arrival of chickens this weekend, will it harm them as well as they go scouting around the grounds for crawling and flying things to eat? So I'm holding off on the agent-orange stuff, and hoping the chickens will take care of the spiders, flies, bees, wasps, crickets, and --most importantly -- the scorpions.

I did a Google search on scorpions, and so did my cousin F up in NY. She and I both found different sites, with an encyclopedia's-worth of information. (In this age of instantly updated technology, does anyone under the age of 40 even know what an encyclopedia is?)

Basically, it's hard to control the scorpion population-- even with insecticides. The best thing to do is to just keep them out of the house, which means sealing up every crack and crevice that you can find. The sites also suggest to keep trash away from the house, to keep rocks and bricks and bark away from doorways, and not to bring wood into the house unless you're putting it right on top of a roaring fire the minute you carry it in. If there are trees growing over the house, then trim the branches because scorpions are like spiders, but without webs-- they crawl up and on and all over the trees, and will drop from the branches onto the roof.

My cousin F read that the mama scorpion will have 20 or 25 babies at a time, and they will hang onto her back till they're old enough to get around on their own. Her advice was to look for the mama scorpion and swat her and all the babies-- she said I'd be eliminating at least 26 scorpions with just one good shot of hairspray and a few hard swats with my shoe.

Basically, my fear of scorpions has come to this: murdering a mother and her 25 babies so I can have a good night's sleep again.

Scorpion #5.

And just where was scorpion #5? In the bed. In our bed. In the master bedroom on the second floor. Unless scorpions can climb up stairs, I'm guessing that #5 fell through the air-conditioning vent and walked over to the bed and made himself warm and cozy underneath the comforter. Scorpions like warm and dark places to curl up in-- since we moved here, I haven't even put my shoes on before shaking them upside-down first. Our friend V in Clear Lake gave me that advice as soon as we told her we were moving up here.

I found #5 yesterday morning as I was making the bed. I had the comforter folded in half near the bottom of the bed and when I unfolded my side of it to pull it up, there was the scorpion. At first glance, it looked like a curled-up wad of brown thread. I learned a long time ago not to touch anything that looks like a bunch of threads. Then I put on my glasses and saw what it really was.

I was too stunned to run out of the room and get the hairspray from the bathroom-- I didn't want to lose sight of the scorpion because I didn't want him to burrow further into the bedcovers. So I took off my flip-flop, swatted him onto the floor-- he was still curled up and sleeping, so it was a surprise attack and he was a bit stunned himself.

It fell to the floor and curled its tail up at me, ready to sting. I stretched my arm out as far as it could go and swatted that thing about 38 times. Swat/swat/swat.... by the time I was swat/swat/swat done, the scorpion swat/swat/swat was dead enough, and so was my right shoulder. If I had stretched my arm out any further away from the rest of my body, it would have fallen on the floor right next to #5.

So now I had to get the scorpion off of the carpet... I got a paper cup from the bathroom and scooped him up into that, and held that cup at arm's length as I walked downstairs to find my husband. Look! Another one! This one was in the bed! The BED! (And don't think I was brave enough to scoop up that thing in one of those teeny little bathroom cups-- this was a large-sized paper cup.)

We spoke to our neighbors down the road yesterday afternoon...... I mentioned the scorpion problem. J told me that he's been swatting scorpions for all of his life.... that the last time he got stung was the summer of his 14th year, and he's 65 now and hasn't been stung since. He finds scorpions all the time..... just steps on them and keeps going. He said You need to remember that you're bigger than those little old scorpions. They're going to scatter away from you as quick as they can. Just step on them, make sure they're dead, and then get on with your life. Men.... so sympathetic. I will have to remember those words the next time I come across a man with the flu. "You need to remember that you're bigger than those bad old flu germs. Just blow your nose, take some Robitussin, have a cup of tea, and then get on with your life."

Of course, when I got into bed last night, I couldn't sleep. No matter how many times I told myself that the chances of another scorpion finding its way underneath the comforter two nights in a row were very slim, all I could think of was a bed filled with curled-up, sleeping scorpions. Tossed and turned all night long...... spent part of the night sitting up in bed with tears in my eyes, the other part curled up in a fetal position because I didn't want my feet too near the foot of the bed. And there was also a part of the night when I wanted to swat my husband with a pillow and yell out "How in the world can you just SLEEP?!"

This morning, my husband told me that there's nothing he can even say to make me feel better because it's all in my mind. And the rational side of me knows that. The emotional side of me knows that there are no scorpions in Alaska and maybe it wouldn't be as cold up there as I think it would be. Then again, there are bears up there. Always something.... it's always something.

So here it is..... all typed out, and hopefully out of my mind. Until scorpion #6 comes along. I am hoping that the chickens we get will be eating every last insect on our property. I will be very disappointed if they don't. My husband has to add just one more board to the gate of the coop-- yet another extra security measure against raccoons. He was going to finish it up this morning, but it's still raining. More rain... more water for the pond. More water outside so the scorpions don't have to come inside looking for a drink.

I told my friend J that I should look on Google and learn all about scorpions. I really don't want to call a pest-control company and have them spray their toxic stuff all around the house and property. I don't even know if that stuff would work on scorpions anyway. J told me that she had a mouse problem in her house on the other side of the hill here. She put down sticky-traps to catch them. Which got me to thinking that I could line up those sticky-traps all around our bed.... the scorpions would get stuck to those as soon as they tried to get anywhere close to the comforter in the middle of the night.

Maybe Google can tell me what I can use to keep the scorpions out of the house in the first place. An uzi might work.

Chicken thieves....

Between the local raccoons who come out after dark, and the hawks constantly flying around the skies all morning and afternoon, it's a wonder that there are any chickens at all in this county.

We just found out this afternoon that one of our other neighbor's chicken population has decreased from twelve to five. Every "lost" chicken of B & G's was the victim of a hawk. We see them flying over our neighbors' properties every day..... but we have yet to see a hawk flying off with its lunch or dinner clasped in its talons. The hawks here are larger than those we had seen in Clear Lake-- well, no wonder.... they have a steady diet of fresh chicken.

Late this afternoon, my husband attached yet another layer of steel wire to the bottom three feet of The Coopacabana. With all the money we have spent on chicken wire and quarter-inch wire since we started this coop, we could have eaten out in the best restaurants in Houston every night for a month. And we wouldn't have been ordering chicken.

I know that once we do get our chickens, I will not ever again be eating any other part of a chicken besides the eggs. I don't usually eat chicken anyway, unless we're at someone's home and I'm being polite by eating what is served. I will have to think of a way to get around that. I'm so sorry... did I not mention that I'm allergic to chicken? Not a problem at all.... please pass the salad. (The truth being that I will soon be allergic to the thought of someone cooking and eating what could have been my pet chicken.)

While my husband and I were attaching the quarter-inch wire, Gatsby was right there with us, alternately watching everything we were doing (Chickens? For me? You are too kind!) and rubbing his body against my leg, my hands, my shoes.... and purring like a furry motorboat. I don't usually hear Gatsby purring..... he has purred before, but it's been very low. Now his purr is loud enough to get your attention. I guess he has truly forgiven me for getting him "fixed."

We also have to figure out a way to attach a good lock to the gate of the coop... a lock that a raccoon won't be able to open. We have heard from the neighbors that raccoons are relentless in their pursuit of a living, breathing chicken. We have also heard from neighbors that cleaning up the mess of blood, bones and feathers from a chicken who was a raccoon's dinner isn't the most pleasant sight first thing in the morning when you open up the coop.

Just the thought....... I know right now that I will never again look at a package of Purdue's chicken without cringing.

Lettuce pray....

That's how the baby bunny would type Let us pray.... if he could type at all, which he can't, because he left this world and went to Bunny Heaven around dinner-time tonight.

I really thought he might make it because he seemed so bright-eyed this morning. But maybe the brightness was brought on by fear. I'm sure he was quite content to be in the little bunny nest with his mother and the other baby bunnies.... till Gatsby came along and decided to make him a play-toy.

Gatsby was just being a cat. Years ago, when we had an orange and white Manx named Rusty, he caught (and killed) a tiny baby squirrel in the yard. My dad was with us at the time-- we were both sitting on the deck and Rusty ran across the backyard too quickly for us to stop him-- we saw too late that he was headed for that little squirrel. When I scolded Rusty for killing the squirrel, my dad scolded me... telling me that Rusty was just being what he was-- a cat. My dad said "You can put fancy collars on that cat, you can let him sleep on fancy pillows-- but he's still a cat, and cats are going to chase down anything that moves. If you don't want him to kill anything, then keep him inside."

This morning and afternoon, I was feeding the bunny with an eye-dropper, which seemed to work once the bunny got the hang of it. I'm sure the eye-dropper was a poor substitute for his bunny-mother, and that's what he really needed-- his bunny-mother, complete with long ears and cute little tail.

When I went out this afternoon, I stopped by the thrift shop and bought a plush and very soft and small teddy bear.... and put it in the box with the bunny. He cuddled right up to it, which is exactly what I thought he would do. As soft as that little bear was, it still wasn't what he needed, but I tried. I can't even say that the bunny is in a better place, because I wrapped him up in soft tissues and I put him in a little bag and placed him in the Hefty bag inside the trash can outside. Not exactly a better place. I can't bury him-- either Gatsby or some other outside creature would dig him up..... and that wouldn't be a good thing.

Every time Gatsby walks near his crate on the back porch, he peeks into it..... still looking for that little bunny, I'm sure. When I fed Gatsby for the last time tonight, I told him not to go looking for any more baby bunnies. "The first one didn't make it..... I don't want to do that again." Gatsby just looked at me with those green eyes of his. You didn't like my gift?!

Just in case..... for future baby bunnies.... I saved the soft little teddy bear. I have a feeling that finding baby bunnies now and again is going to be one of Gatsby's favorite night-time activities.

Baby bunnies.

Every day brings another wildlife adventure. This afternoon, our outside cat Gatsby caught a baby bunny. It was just around noon-time, after Gatsby had already eaten his own lunch of tuna, when I saw him walking towards the house with a little furry thing in his mouth. At first, I thought it was a field mouse, and I was happy that he was doing his job as a "barn cat."

When he got closer to the house, I saw that it was a little baby rabbit, not a mouse...... and I ran out there to try and get him to release the bunny. Not a chance. He did what a cat does with a prized catch-- tossed it up in the air, batted at it a few times with his paw, and looked like he was about to make it a second lunch. That's when I came in the house and called my husband to come downstairs.

"He's being a cat. If that were a mouse, you'd be happy he caught it." But it isn't a mouse... it's a cute little baby bunny. It's the cute factor-- breaks your heart every time. During the time my husband and I were discussing what to do, the bunny was no longer there. My husband thought that Gatsby had eaten the bunny. The whole thing? Every last bit of it? There's nothing left out there! My husband told me there was nothing left of the salads we had for lunch, either.

I just couldn't believe that Gatsby had eaten that little bunny. Not in that short a time. Besides, Gatsby had already eaten his own lunch..... he shouldn't have been hungry. He's not a big eater. Usually...

Tonight, as I was sewing puffs and listening to the news, I heard a screaming-squeaking sound coming from the side porch outside the TV room. I put on the overhead lights out there, and the first thing I see is Gatsby walking on the porch with a baby bunny in his mouth. The same little bunny from this afternoon? Who knows....

Gatsby walked towards his crate and put the bunny into the back of the crate, then came outside to guard the door of the crate. Of course, the bunny can't get out, and he's in that crate just screaming and squeaking for all he's worth. No way could I let nature take its course out there.... not when I'm listening to that pitiful screaming from inside that crate.

Out I went.... telling Gatsby what a great little hunter he is....... while shutting the door of the crate and carrying it inside the house. So there's the crate.... in my kitchen...... with the little bunny shaking like a leaf at the back of the crate. I opened the door of the crate, took out the towel that was in there (which I'm sure had Gatsby's smell on it).... and put in a fresh towel for the bunny. (All the while I'm doing that, Gatsby is by the back door, with his nose pressed up against the screen door-- "You stole my bunny! Give it back!")

The little bunny stopped screaming, but he kept looking at me and watched what I was doing. While I had the door of the crate open, I put in a few lettuce leaves, and a very shallow dish of water. The bunny watched me the whole time...... then when I shut the door of the crate, he hid himself behind a fold of the towel, with just his little white tail sticking out.

Now..... what would I do with the cat crate for the night? Can't leave it near Mickey and ShadowBaby-- I think the little bunny has had his fill of cats for one day. And I didn't want to leave it near Gracie... if the bunny is afraid of the cats, then he would surely be afraid of the dog.

Can the bunny squeeze himself out through the wire door of that crate? I don't think so, but I didn't want to take a chance. So I brought the whole crate upstairs..... and put it into the biggest jacuzzi tub in the house..... if the bunny does get through the little wire door of the crate, he surely can't get himself out of that deep tub.

Last I looked, the bunny was still hiding underneath the towel in the crate. He hasn't touched the lettuce leaves..... but I doubt very much he's in the mood for munching. He's probably saying his little bunny-prayers that Gatsby didn't gobble him up. Just the thought makes me cringe.....

I will release the bunny in the morning.... way down by the woods around the pond. At least he'll have a chance there. If I release him near the house, Gatsby will just catch him again. I'm wondering how many bunny-babies there can be around our property. And will Gatsby just keep on hunting till he catches them all?

Gatsby is being a cat. An outside cat, a barn cat. He's doing just what his cat-brain tells him to do. But knowing that doesn't make it any easier for me.

Quilted pillows and scorpions.

I am still sewing circles of fabric into powder-puff sized quilt pieces.... 732 puffs so far. (When my husband sees me sewing now, he calls me Puff Mommy.) I have discovered that by overlapping the puffs just a little bit as you create the design, the puffs become more quilt-like and make a nice thick covering for the pillow top. I pin the puffs to the pillow, sometimes rearrange them a couple of times till I get just what I think is pleasing to the eye, and then I sew them on, one by one.

With each pillow I've made, the designs get more interesting and intricate, and my sewing keeps improving. I have long since stopped pricking my fingers with the needle, which happened on the first pillow-- I had to toss out about five puffs on that first one because they were stained with teeny red droplets of my blood, but thankfully, I didn't bleed on the pillow itself. (I have also learned that it's much easier to sew without bandaids on your fingertips.)

My cousins are getting quilted pillows for Christmas.... then my friends will be the next ones on my pillow gift-list.... and then I will make one for myself. Or two. Or three. I am always on the lookout now for fabric ends..... a yard or two of this, half a yard of that... blues and greens, prints and flowers.... I still watch in wonder as the circle of fabric becomes a kaleidoscope of color as the thread is pulled to make the flat circle into a fluffy puff. And I've made up my mind to try a quilt..... maybe not a king-sized quilt at first, but a lap-sized quilt that wouldn't seem so daunting to a self-taught sewer.

And the latest scorpion-- #4, but who's counting. I was sitting in the TV room the other night, sewing puffs from a fabric that was a mass of brown branches, green leaves, and oranges nestled inbetween the leaves-- when the thread was pulled on that fabric, the result was bright orange bits peeking through bright green.... very pretty.

So there I was, pulling the thread to make the magic, and out from under the sofa came a scorpion. Just walking slowly on the carpeting, as if he belonged there. And where were my hunter-cats, who usually alert me when there's an intruder in the house? Sound asleep in the breakfast room. I stepped around the scorpion and ran into the kitchen to get the industrial-sized can of hair spray from under the sink. (My secret weapon for the bug-world.)

I came back and sprayed that thing to within an inch of its disgusting little life. So much hair spray for that one little two-inch scorpion that the TV room smelled like a beauty salon on a Saturday afternoon. When the scorpion was so sprayed-up that he couldn't move, I smashed him with my shoe-- just enough to kill him without getting his insides all over the mint-green carpet.

Then I put the can on top of his lifeless body, went into the kitchen to get a plastic Ricotta container and the longest pair of BBQ tongs I have....... which I used to pick up the carcass, put it into the container, snap the lid on, and toss the Ricotta-coffin into the trash. All of that happened so fast that I didn't even have time to get grossed out. When all was said and done, though, my heart was going a mile a minute, so I ran upstairs to tell my husband that I had committed scorpiocide. "This is the 4th one! FOUR!"

And my husband said what he always says when he thinks I'm upset--- "Do you need a hug?"

He's lucky I didn't have a plastic Ricotta container big enough to hold him.

Real rain... a real pond... and another scorpion.

It has been raining for the past couple of days.... finally, a good long soaking pouring-down rain. We had actual puddles on the ground, and wonder of wonders, our pond is filled up half-way. It will take still more rain to fill up the nearly football-field sized pond, but it's well on its way to being a real pond now, rather than just a great big hole in the ground off in the pasture.

So nice to see the rains coming down.... we fell asleep to the sound of rain last night and woke up to the same sound. Amazing. Considering that it hasn't really rained here since the beginning of May, it was like a symphony-- now we know what the rain sounds like as it hits the roof, the porches, the windows, the gazebo.

Last night as I was listening to the rain, I had the back door open and Mickey Kitty and ShadowBaby were looking at Gatsby through the screen door. There's a tiny gap between the screen door and the sides of the doorway-- and I guess I should put up a little sign there that says "Welcome Every Crawling Creepy Thing." In a matter of minutes, I saw Mickey Kitty straighten up his back and his ears went straight up and he just sat there staring at the floor near the door-- and what was there? A scorpion. This is the second one that's been in the kitchen in the past couple of weeks.

For the last scorpion, I called my husband and he came running downstairs and killed it for me. Well, I can't keep on doing that..... and these scorpions aren't as big as I thought they would be, so I was ready for this one. I had my secret weapon underneath the kitchen sink--- a big can of hair spray. The biggest, cheapest, foulest-smelling hair spray I could find in WalMart-- the kind that you wouldn't ever want to put on your hair.

That kind of stinky, sticky hair spray, however, is the best bug-killing weapon you can have. It smells horrible, but not as bad as "Raid." I sprayed that scorpion till it could hardly move. I'm sure it was gasping for breath by the time I was done, and its legs were probably stuck together as well. I was all set to smash it with my shoe (first the spray, then the smash), but I sprayed it with so much hair spray that the blast of spray sent it flying out underneath the door and it fell through the wood slats of the porch.

I am hoping that when we get our chickens, this problem with the scorpions will be just a memory. Our neighbor D swears that the chickens will eat every last crawling and flying thing on our property, so I'm counting on that.

The chickens eat the scorpions. And the crickets, the bees, the wasps. And then we will eat the eggs. I'm trying not to keep thinking about that because it's going to gross me out.

The Coopacabana....

We are still working on the chicken coop, but it's nearly done. We were out there this morning, with Gatsby supervising as he stretched out in the shade and watched us working. The nesting boxes are hung up, and right above those we hung up the chicken painting that's framed with wood and chicken wire. A nice touch.

I put the wooden bread box on a little wrought-iron table..... and with the hay inside that box, it looks as cozy and comfy as the traditional nesting boxes. My husband hung up two roosting poles for the chickens. We have learned that they don't sleep in the nesting boxes, they like to sleep perched up on poles, a little high off the ground. So my husband put up brackets, and attached eight-foot 2x2's to the brackets..... instant roosting perches. (Not exactly instant, since everything is taking much longer than we expected.) The chickens use the nesting boxes just for egg-laying. (I hope we get chickens who know all this stuff.)

The water bowl is also hung up, suspended from the ceiling with a chain. We have to get another length of chain for the feed bowl. By keeping them a few inches off the ground, we won't have to worry about ants and/or mice. Both the water and the feed bowls are sort of upside-down covered contraptions--- you fill them half-way or all the way up (depending on how many hens you have) then turn it over and gravity takes care of the rest... like a hummingbird feeder.

It is still blasting hot outside, so all of the coop work takes place between 7:30 and 11:30.... after that, you just don't want to be out there working on anything. My husband keeps saying that the chickens had better appreciate all the work he's been putting into the coop. "All this time, and all the money for materials.... just to save money on fresh eggs." Funny, when you think about it.

While we were in one of the stores getting some supplies the other day, I found a book on chickens..... wonderful book, with photographs of the breeds, chapters on care and feeding...... what to do and not do...... what to look for to keep the chickens healthy...... which breeds make the best pets, which breeds lay the most eggs. Of course, I had to buy the book. I'm sure all that information can be found on the Internet (which we've been looking thru) but the computer just isn't a good substitute for a book that I can hold in my hands.

I also found a book on chickens that gave step-by-step instructions on killing, plucking and cooking fresh chickens. I closed that book right-quick and put it back on the shelf. We're not raising chickens to eat them...... we just want some fresh eggs, and we want the chickens to control the insect population on the property. Maybe I should leave the book in the coop so the chickens will know what to do.....

This howl's for you......

We woke up at 3:00 this morning to the sound of coyotes howling in the woods. It was a very distinct sound-- two or three quick barks followed by a really long high-pitched howl. Bark-bark-hoooooooooooooooooooooooowl. How do they hold that "oooooo" sound so long?

My husband got up and went outside on the upstairs porch..... he said the howls were coming from the woods on our property. I thought of Gatsby being outside, and hoped that he was sleeping in his hiding spot under the deck or at least close enough to it so that he could quickly run there. I've seen Gatsby out in our fields, but he stays relatively close to the house-- I would imagine that his instincts would tell him not to be in a wide-open area unless he was close enough to the trees to quickly climb to a safe high limb. Can a coyote climb a tree?

I also thought of our neighbor's missing chickens as I listened to those howls. Were coyotes able to get into D's coop? Is that why he has lost so many of his hens in the past couple of weeks? Now that our own coop is done ("The Coopacabana," with apologies to Barry Manilow) my husband thought maybe we should test it out. There are three layers of wire in the most vulnerable places of that coop, and his idea was to buy a whole roasting chicken (uncooked) and put it in a tin pan inside the coop.

He thought if we did that chicken-test before we got our real live chickens, we could see if a raccoon or a coyote would be able to get into the coop and eat that raw chicken. Sounded like a good idea, but I told him that we would have every bit of walking wildlife on our property if we left a raw chicken in that coop all night long. And then wouldn't they all be coming back night after night to see what else was being served in The Coopacabana? Right now, no one but us and our neighbors know we have a coop ready for chickens. If we put raw meat into that coop, the entire animal kingdom will know about it within a couple of hours. Not a chance I'd like to take. I would rather trust my husband's coop-building talents and hope for the best once we put the chickens in there.

My cousin F suggested that we hook up a baby-monitor in the coop-- then we would hear any suspicious noises in there during the night. Not a bad idea....... if we heard the chickens clucking when they should be sleeping, we could go out there into the pitch-black night and try squirting the coyote with the garden hose. (Our neighbor would be out there with a rifle, cocked and ready to shoot.)

With non-violence in mind, I say we hook up a CD player in The Coopacabana and have Barry Manilow music playing all day and all night long. I'm betting that the hens would love the music, but the coyotes and bob-cats would be running for the hills. Can you just see the hens, swaying to "I Write The Songs" as they hold their wings up in the air.... we can give them little battery-powered candles to make the scene even more Manilow-authentic.

The barn cat.

I don't believe Gatsby will ever be a true barn cat. He is on the porch all day long now, unless it's over 100 degrees and then he goes underneath the back deck. He must have found a nice cool spot under there because when he comes out, he doesn't feel hot to the touch.

Gatsby stays as close to us as he can, either sleeping on the porch itself, or on one of the chairs, and one night when I woke up in the middle of the morning, Gatsby was sound asleep in one of the porch chairs outside the TV room window. Last night, as I was sitting in a chair sewing still more puffs for handmade pillows, there was Gatsby, his green eyes staring at me thru the window. He doesn't meow..... he just stares. My husband says he wants to be part of the family. Well, he already is, but he's just outside.

Not in the barn, though. I don't think I've even seen him walk into the barn.... not even when I walk Gracie up the hill and Gatsby is right there with us. That cat will stay close to Gracie all the way up the hill, and all the way down. He doesn't make a detour into the barn to see if there are field mice in there. For all we know, the barn is filled with mice because we don't have an actual barn cat to keep the mice away. For all intents and purposes, Gatsby may just be an inside cat who happens to stay outside.

And a possessive outside cat at that. I cannot walk three steps without Gatsby running to my feet and melting himself down onto my ankles with the rest of his body curled up around my leg. I have tried keeping to the two steps to the right, three steps to the left rhythm, but Gatsby keeps changing the sequence and the only way to get from Point A to Point B at times is to just pick him up and carry him right along with me.

My husband says I am teaching him that he will get picked up every time he rubs his head on my ankles. I told my husband that all I'm doing is trying to avoid a broken leg if I fall over this cat because he intends on keeping himself so close to me as I'm walking. He not only follows me, but he will follow my husband into the backyard when he waters the plants there, and he follows our dog all over the property, and he will watch us doing chores-- Gatsby is the supervisor.

The first time I held Gatsby, his entire body stiffened, which made me think that he hadn't ever been held before. The second time I picked him up, he was a little more relaxed in my arms. And now.... Gatsby turns into a furry mass of Jell-O and just stays in my arms and looks at the view as we walk. Those green eyes of his..... they look at me as intensely as AngelBoy's blue eyes used to star right thru me.

Cats. Inside cats. Outside cats. Barn cats. Whatever you call them, I get attached to them all. I remember the first couple of days when we found Gatsby outside..... I told my husband that of course I would feed this poor starving cat, but I wasn't going to get attached to him. At that very minute, my husband gave me a look that said Yeah, right.

"Your days are numbered."

That's exactly what I keep telling the crickets as they go flying, leaping, jumping, whatever-it-is-they-do through the air, all the while making that click/click/clack sound. Totally unnerving. I think they fly blindly because I've seen them hit against the house, the garage doors, the porch railings-- don't they look before they leap?

My husband and I were having lunch out on the porch a couple of days ago, and a huge brown one click/clicked its way across the porch and landed on my husband's shirt, which made me jump out of my chair, which startled my husband because he didn't even realize the cricket was there. Luckily, when the cricket leaped away "from the crazy woman in the white rocker," it didn't land in our salads. (Did you buy different croutons? These don't have that garlic flavor.)

I have never seen so many crickets in my life. And they're in all sizes and colors-- small brown ones, medium-sized black ones, large brown ones with black lines going thru them, tiny beige ones, and big black ones with green racing stripes on their bodies-- that's what it looks like.... racing stripes. I am depending on the demise of the cricket population once we get our chickens. I hope we don't get picky eaters.... I expect those chickens to eat every insect on this property.

The other day when we were working on the chicken coop, a super-sized brown cricket with yellow legs landed on the ladder. He just sat there watching us, and you could see his body moving with each breath. The cricket just watched as my husband hammered in the steel hooks, and didn't even seem to flinch from the noise. Of course, I wouldn't go near the ladder, not even to hold it steady, as I had been doing every time my husband got up beyond the second step. "There's a cricket on that ladder. I can't touch it." --"So don't touch the cricket... just hold the ladder." "Sorry, but until that cricket goes away, you're on your own." "Husband falls off ladder and dies from fall because wife is afraid of a cricket..... that's what the headline on the news might be." --"Wife dies from fright as cricket lands on her face as she holds ladder for husband..... how about that headline for the news?"

When I walk out to the mailbox in the afternoon, I just keep my head down and try not to look up. It's bad enough that I can hear that click/click/clacking sound, but I don't need to actually see the crickets to know that they're jumping all around me. Now that we're getting close to having the chicken coop finished, I've been telling those crickets "Y'all have fun now because your days are numbered." When my husband heard me saying that out loud, his answer was "Now that you mention it, aren't our days numbered as well?" (Men take things so literally, I swear.)

Missing hens.

I was talking to one of our neighbors down the hill and she told me that our neighbor D (proud owner of 16 hens) has only two hens left right now. Two? As in one, two? What happened to the other fourteen hens? She said that D thinks it was a raccoon or coyote, or maybe some of the circling hawks or vultures managed to fly away with his hens.

Either way, he's going to set up a raccoon trap near his coop and see if he catches anything. I pity that poor raccoon.... I'm sure D is very upset. He was very protective of his hens, and very thankful that they managed to keep the insect population around his house under control. D had told us that when he first moved in over there years ago, he spent a small fortune on landscaping around the house-- shrubs and bushes, palm trees and flowers. Within two weeks' time, the grasshoppers had eaten every last leaf on every last plant. Gone. Stripped. Nothing left. Not even one thin blade on the sago palms.

Which is why he got the chickens in the first place-- to eat all the crawling, flying, pesty insects. His landscaping is lush and beautiful. But now.... he has just two hens left. I told that story to my husband and I could see his mind at work-- no doubt, he will be putting up yet another layer of chicken wire, held in place by not just staples or tacks, but probably iron hooks studded in cement. "I'll be damned if some raccoon is going to run off with my chickens......"

We didn't get the "free" chickens the other night. Someone else had found the ad, called up the people with those hens, and off they went, to another good home. If all goes well, and the work on our coop is done this week, we will be hen-shopping over the weekend or the beginning of next week. And the name for our coop--- It will be "The Coopacabana," of course..... with apologies to Barry Manilow. (At the Coopa.... Coopacabana.... --maybe we should name one of the chickens Lola.)


The goats continue to escape from the neighbor's pasture across the road from our hill..... today there were seven goats in B and K's backyard. I know that because I was in her kitchen at the time, and we were standing there talking and all of a sudden, we see two goats looking in at us through her back door and one goat walking on her daughter's trampoline. The other goats were having lunch in her husband's vegetable garden.

We walked out on her patio and started making noise with the first things we picked up-- her daughter's plastic toys, a stick that had fallen from a tree...... the goats started running out of her yard and back to their own hill... except for the trampoline-goat. That one just stood there looking at us. We didn't get too close to him--- if he's brazen enough to get up on that trampoline, and brazen enough to stand there facing us with all the noise we were making, then we thought it would be better to just leave him be.

The neighbor with all the goats had been working on that fence last week. Either he keeps missing the spot where the goats are escaping, or the goats are just finding new ways to get out. And they keep getting out because they, along with the horses over there, have eaten every last bit of grass and hay on their fields. The owner needs to just buy them more hay. Either more hay, or a trampoline.