Rainy Tuesday.

The weather wizards predicted sleet for us today, but the temperature warmed up some, so we're only having rain. (I like when the weathermen make mistakes in our favor.) It's about 50 degrees out there, rather than the 38 they predicted, but I'm still sitting here in three layers of clothing. I told my husband yesterday that after all the cold days we've had this month, I am vowing not to complain about the over-100 degree days of summer. As far as I'm concerned, summer can start in twenty minutes, and I'd be perfectly content.

Yesterday, before we went shopping for groceries, we drove to the tiny little airport just outside of town. They have a runway there for small private planes, and there's also a little diner/cafe that looks like it dropped right out of the 1950s and landed here in the Hill Country. The waitresses wear red/black knee-length poodle-skirts with puffy crinolines underneath, white blouses, black and white saddle shoes with white bobby-socks, and their hair is pulled back into pony-tails and tied with a ribbon. The floor of the diner is black/white tiles, the tables and chairs are red vinyl with chrome...... and the music playing is solid 1950s.

The little airport and the diner are tucked back into the hills, with just a few small signs pointing the way-- that you would easily miss if you weren't looking for them. During the time we were sitting there for lunch, four planes came into the airport, and one left.... so apparently, local pilots know it's there and take advantage of both the runway and the diner. (Just where are they all going?)

The diner's specialty is their burgers, so my husband ordered one of those, and I had two side-dishes of homemade vegetable casseroles, along with a slice of their cornbread. Good food, a fun atmosphere, and you can't beat that music. It would be nice to go back for lunch in the warmer weather because they have a huge outdoor screened-in room which overlooks the pond and the runway.

When we got home, my husband happened to turn on the TV and the show "Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives" was on..... and they were showcasing "hamburger joints" around the country. Of course, looking at all those hamburgers can make you hungry for one....... unless you don't like to eat meat. But today at lunchtime, when my husband asked what we had for lunch, I wanted to try making a really good hamburger plate using the vegetable burgers that we get at the supermarket.

So that's what I did-- and tried to make it as delicious as possible. Into a cast-iron pan went some sliced onions, and I cooked those up till they were browned and sweet... then after the frozen veggie-burgers came out of the microwave, I browned those up with the cooked onion... then steamed some of the French bread from the Brazos Belle restaurant... then melted swiss cheese on top of the bread before adding the burger and the cooked onions. I wrapped the whole thing, bread and all, in a large lettuce leaf to make it easier to handle..... and I have to say that it was delicious. It wasn't as good as a real beef hamburger is, but it's as good as I need to have without giving in and eating red meat.

And the rain continues.... perfect day to take down some of the Christmas decorations, which I started this morning. The little table-top trees are now all lined up on a long shelf in the huge walk-in closet off of the TV room.... didn't take the ornaments off them, just lined them up on the shelf. Tomorrow, I will put away the Santas...... then the angels..... then all the holiday china and Santa mugs. Christmas will be going back into the storage closet the same way it all came out-- a little bit at a time. Jingle bells.....

Merry two-days-after Christmas.

We had a very nice first Christmas in our "new" hundred-year-old house. Miss C and her parents drove up here for Christmas dinner, and then spent the night-- C in her room up in the Barn, and her parents in the Cottage. C loves the casual Texas decor of the Barn rooms, and she was happy to see all the cow and horse paintings I've found since her last visit here. She is planning to come up again sometime in January to spend a few days with us before her classes begin for the new term.

I roasted a turkey breast for Christmas dinner, and I swear I may never buy a whole turkey again. Everyone seems to like the white meat anyway, and I usually end up giving most of the dark meat to Gracie and the cats. Which isn't a bad thing for them, but it's a royal pain for me to be lifting a whole turkey in and out of the oven and then having to carve it into neat slices. As far as I'm concerned, a Butterball whole turkey breast is the way to go in this house. We had all the trimmings with the turkey, including my husband's oyster dressing, so it felt like a combination of Thanksgiving and Christmas. (Without ten pounds of leftover turkey.)

The weather didn't stay warm for the holiday... Christmas Eve and Day, and the day after, were just too cold to be comfortable outside. We all talked about past holidays, when it was Spring-like for Christmas Day and we all just loved it even though all of us grew up with northern winters. My cousin F in NY told me about the 26-inch blizzard of snow that came their way last week, and I truly have to say that if I never see snow again, that would be just fine with me. As it is, I've been dressing in layers since before Thanksgiving, and that is getting to be a royal pain as well.

I'm sure the stores are crowded now with shoppers looking for after-Christmas bargains. I don't want to see the inside of a store for at least a week-- whatever they're selling isn't worth the after-Christmas rush.

About the only thing I'd like to see is the inside of Mr. Watson's chicken farm....... I would really like to pick out another red hen, and maybe another black/white hen as well. C gave me a vintage copy of "The Little Red Hen" for Christmas, along with a whimsical polka-dotted red hen figurine for my kitchen. Cleaning the chicken coop every morning has been a chore lately-- it's a lot easier and quicker, with just three hens in there, but it's a chore because I know that there will be no fresh eggs in the nesting boxes. (I have long since given up on getting eggs from the two Guinea hens, and Audrey is really past her egg-laying days.) I have just six eggs left from Dolly, and I'm only using them for omelets or eggs-over-easy. I had bought a dozen eggs at WalMart to use for mixing into a recipe-- and as soon as you crack those eggs open, you can tell right away that it's not a "real" fresh egg. (How quickly we get spoiled.)

For my Christmas gift to my husband, I made him a special Christmas tree.... filled with old black/white photos of his growing-up years in NY. I found pictures of his parents, his grandfather, his sister, their house. We had a box of old photos that my husband hadn't looked through in years, and I picked out the photographs that I thought would mean the most to him. The tree looked beautiful, with fiber-optic lights tucked inbetween the branches, the photos cropped and decorated with holiday trimmings, little gold bells and red berries and tiny pine cones. The tips of the branches were lightly flocked so it looked like a northern Christmas tree sprinkled with snow. When my husband saw the tree and started looking at all the old photos, he had tears in his eyes. It was a very special Christmas keepsake gift, along the lines of the "It's a Wonderful Life" movie.

And indeed it is. A wonderful life.

Four more days...

Christmas comes but once a year..... but it sure does get here fast, no matter how well-prepared you are.

The weather has gotten warmer....... but Gatsby is still loving his little world in the house, instead of outside in the yard and inside the garage. This once-scruffy ghostly-gray outside cat has blossomed into a rich, deep charcoal gray-coated, green-eyed, well-behaved handsome cat. He is a perfect gentleman inside the house... sleeping on a sofa or a chair, but not scratching it with his claws (which he lets me trim). He sleeps the whole night long, not waking me up mid-morning like Mickey or ShadowBaby will.

Last night, Gatsby ventured upstairs and slept on our bed-- much to the dislike of Mickey Kitty, who hissed at him and tried to swipe Gatsby with his paw. This little peanut of a cat, Mickey couldn't even reach Gatsby's chin. And Gatsby just sat there, staring with those lime-green eyes of his, wondering what on earth was wrong with this unusually small black cat. I've just let the cats work it out....... even telling Mickey and ShadowBaby that I couldn't leave Gatsby out in the garage on such cold nights. He's got fur! He'll get used to the cold in no time! Thankfully, all three cats are getting along, aside from the occasional hiss from tiny Mickey.

The weather has returned to its normal state now, and still, Gatsby prefers to be inside rather than outside, and as long as he continues to be a good gentleman cat, that's just fine with me. (I distinctly remember telling my husband I wasn't going to get too attached to "just a barn cat.")

Two of our friends from Clear Lake drove up here yesterday for a Christmas lunch. Even though they got here way before noon-time, the day just sped by on wings, and before we knew it, we were all hugging each other good-bye again.

J had seen the house before, but when she drove up here with me, the entire house was empty. So it was particularly nice yesterday to see her reaction to the house now that all of our furniture is here and in place.... and everything seems to be in the right places because I haven't been moving things around lately. J had gifted us with some of her family's treasured furniture, and those pieces seem to be right at home here as well.

Yesterday was L's first time up here, but I don't think it will be her last. She enjoyed the drive up here with J.... she said they chatted the whole way and had a nice time during the two-hour drive through the city and into the countryside. This morning, L sent me an eMail telling me how peaceful and serene the property seemed to be, and that she felt as if she'd been on a day-long retreat during her visit with us. She would like to come up again with J..... and I told her to just let me know the day and the time and we'd be ready for them.

Everyone we know has had the same reaction to not only this house, but this land. I can't explain it either, but it just has a good feeling to it. I wish I knew more of the history of this home, and more about the families who lived here before the previous owner renovated everything. The renovations weren't drastic-- just enough to bring things up to code without disturbing the vintage integrity of the house itself. I was telling J that I can walk around this house and now wonder why it took so long for me to "get back here." I cannot explain that feeling, but it's just there, and that's the way it is.

Being over 100 years old, this home does have old-house habits-- like drafty doors, and windows that don't open because they've been sealed with countless layers of paint over the decades. Adding more insulation and weather-stripping will take care of those problems, we hope..... and I'm hoping my husband gets those chores done before we have another cold snap. (As my cousin F says-- hope floats.)

Four days till Christmas...... our first Christmas here, but certainly not our last. The big tree in the dining room looks wonderful, as if it were meant to be just in that very spot. Sharing the afternoon with our good friends yesterday was the perfect way to begin this Christmas week. We had so many good laughs during the day... it was just like the old days in the other house, only much better.

Our young friend Miss C will be here on Christmas Day with her parents..... they were going to come after the holiday, then changed their minds and decided to come on "the day." I think Miss C had something to do with their change of plans. She had been so disappointed not to have been here on Thanksgiving that she told me she "didn't want to miss Christmas too."

Missing Christmas. Who in the world would want to miss such a magical joyous day?!

Got leaves?

We had a glorious day today.... the weather is back to its normal state-- mid 60s to mid 70s, sunny and warm. I hope the weather gods see fit to leave this just as it is. My husband and I spent the day out in the yard, raking up the leaves from the two giant pecan trees by the gazebo. So many leaves.... so many 55-gallon trash bags that we filled up. I've saved the bags of leaves because I'm using them as mulch for the little yard outside the chicken coop. I have already spread out two bags' worth of leaves in that space, and the chickens are happily strutting through the leaves and scratching underneath them in their endless search for bugs. The leaves will squish down after a time, and then I'll just spread out more of the leaves. (Easier than going out and hauling a square bale of hay home in the car.)

It was so pretty out today, and we spent so many hours out in the yard, that I let the chickens out of the fenced-in coop area so they could roam around the front yard with us. And that's exactly what they did, while hawks circled in the sky over us all. Hawks in one part of the sky, looking for living lunches, and buzzards in another part of the sky, looking for dead meals. Yuck to both. When we were finished raking, the chickens followed me back to their coop because I was holding a can of corn in my hand. They have come to recognize the can, which holds their favorite treat.

Last night was our Christmas dinner party with four of the neighbors. It all turned out just fine-- and everyone showed up in their holiday best, which was extra fun. We dressed up as well, like we usually do for our holiday dinners, but we had no idea the neighbors would do the same. So the dinner was indeed like a holiday. Everyone was surprised at the attention to detail with the table settings, the centerpiece, the place cards, the four-course meal. They have no idea that we used to have live music for our huge Open House Christmas parties at the old house, so last night's dinner for six was a piece of cake.

Piece of cake? Not really. In order to make last night's dinner look effortless and beautiful, I worked for two whole days before the door bell rang. Everything was set to be heated up or put into the oven... the place cards were made last week... dishes for each course were lined up on the kitchen counter, candles and Santa were taken from other parts of the house to serve as the centerpiece for the dining room table..... and I had notes upon notes upon notes so I wouldn't forget to do anything or forget what I was going to serve with what-- the bite-sized cheese rolls with the salad, and the garlic bread with the eggplant parmesan.

So, yes, it was a piece of cake compared to a house filled with 50 friends and neighbors, but it was still a lot of work. And I told my husband I'd do it all again...... maybe for Valentine's Day, with more of the neighbors, and I'd plan it as a potluck dinner party so everyone can bring something for the dinner. Potlucks seem to be just as popular here as they were in Clear Lake, and they're always fun because you get to taste everyone's favorite recipes.

But, one holiday at a time. We're not even at Christmas yet, so I don't want to be thinking about Valentine's Day. We're having more company on Sunday... friends from Clear Lake are driving up for lunch... their first time seeing the house since we moved in, so we're excited to be seeing them, and they're excited to be finally seeing the house. More company.... more food to prepare... but lunch is always easier than dinner. Piece of cake.

If you don't like Texas weather....

.... just stick around and it will change in the next fifteen minutes. (So sayeth the Texas weather wizards.)

Our temperatures have been flip-flopping between freezing (around 50 degrees) and normal (around 74 for December). My husband said that during this past summer, we couldn't buy a raindrop, and for the past week, we couldn't buy a ray of sunshine.

It has been drippy, cloudy, foggy, dreary. One day's temperature goes no higher than 55 degrees (translation: three layers of sweaters) and the next day's temperature reaches to the low 70s (one sweater). I'm trying very hard not to complain, especially when I listen to the news and hear the single-digit temperatures in the Northeast and the double-digit inches of snow in the Midwest.

Today's weather is cloudy but at least there's no rain. It's windy and cold outside, and from the second floor of our house, I can hear the howling wind, which makes me feel colder. So I'm sitting here with two layers of sweaters and a shawl around my shoulders. (A shawl with a blanket thickness that could keep an Eskimo warm.)

I delivered the last of the Christmas cookies to the neighbors yesterday. When I went across the road to D & S's house, D told me to come in out of the damp for a few minutes. He wanted to talk about chickens. How many did we have left? Were we getting any more? Baby chicks? Or hens?

I told him that we were talking about getting just two more hens after the holidays. No more Guinea hens-- we have two of those now, plus one chicken who seems to have passed her egg-laying days. D gave me a lesson in hawks, telling me that a hawk swoops down so hard on top of a chicken that it breaks the chicken's back before it lifts it up off the ground. (Just what I wanted to know.)

He asked me about the coyote I saw in our courtyard, and suggested that it may have been a fox or a bobcat. I told him that this city-girl knows the difference between a fox, a coyote, and a bobcat. Nevertheless, D told me that a fox has a very bushy tail and a very pointed snout. Yes, I know. Coyotes don't usually come that close to the house unless they're starving. Yes, I know. Then he showed me a picture of a bobcat that he had killed on his property a few years ago. It measured 52 inches from head to tail. What?! 52 inches?! Good grief.

As I sit here typing, I have a gold glittered-paper Christmas ornament with a photo of my red hen Dolly framed in the center of it. The ornament came in the mail yesterday with a Christmas card from my friend F up in the really frozen single-digit Northeast. It was one of the first photos we took of the chickens, and Dolly is standing there in all her pretty auburn feathers, staring with her yellow eyes at the camera. I hope you're getting my good side with that there camera.

I was going to put this pretty ornament downstairs with a small display of porcelain chickens, but I'm not ready to do that yet. I like it right up here on my computer, where I spent a lot of time at my desk. I'm trying not to think of a hawk breaking Dolly's back, or Dolly being taken away into the woods by a starving coyote.

I'm just trying to remember that beautiful red hen and how much she trusted me when she was with us. After all, she was just a chicken, for goodness sake. But she followed me around the yard like my shadow, and seemed to really like to be picked up and told how beautiful she was. You are the most beautiful chicken in the coop, my Dolly-girl. And the eggs.... so very warm in that nesting box. Thank you for the warm little miracle, my sweet Dolly-girl. And I always knew when she was getting ready to lay her egg because she would walk up and down the courtyard, just clucking and clucking, announcing that she was ready.

When I go out into the coop during the day, I talk to Audrey the way I used to talk to Dolly. It's not the same. Dolly used to sit there with her head cocked to the side and she would just stare at me for as long as I talked, as if she were listening to every word. Chickens get to recognize your voice, and I guess Dolly got to know mine and liked it. But not Audrey-- she just looks at me for a couple of seconds and then walks away. Sorry. Not interested. There are bugs in the dirt waiting for me. As for the Guinea hens-- I don't even try and talk to them anymore. They are in a world of their own, and unless you've got food in your hands, they're definitely not "into you" at all.

I asked our neighbor D how many times over the years he had to replace all of his chickens. He thought a few minutes and said that over the past eight years, he had to start all over three times, after losing all of his chickens to either hawks or raccoons or coyotes. D thinks it's cruel for me to keep my remaining three birds confined to the coop and the small fenced-in yard just outside the coop. He said they should be roaming all over the property, the way they used to.

Well, of course he's right-- they should be free to roam. But they should also be safe from back-breaking hawks and starving coyotes and 52-inch long bobcats. For right now, I'm leaving our birds right where they are. They may not be the happiest hens, but they're safe.

Freezing in the hills.

Okay, enough is enough. And to think that we were just complaining about the over 100-degree temperatures of this past summer. I, for one, am ready again for summer. Bring on the heat.

I have let our outside cat, Gatsby, come inside the house. Way too cold for him to be out in this weather. I don't know how the chickens are standing it out in the coop. Gatsby was very happy to come in here for more than just a few minutes, which I had been letting him do from time to time. He found his way into the TV room, and seems to know that is where I would like the cats to stay. And stay he does-- on the sofa, or curled up in a chair, or stretched out on Gracie's blanket.

The Gentleman Cat.... that's what we're calling Gatsby these days. Our inside cats have grown up with a house filled with holiday decorations, and except for Mickey Kitty playing with the sheep in my parents' Nativity set, neither he nor ShadowBaby touch anything else. Gatsby has walked into the living room and dining room, and he has seen all the little table-top trees, as well as the big tree in the dining room. He stood in front of that tree and looked at it from top to bottom, then went back into the TV room. He is probably confused as to why there's a real tree inside the house.

So far so good, with Gatsby. All of the cats are eating together and sleeping together, and yesterday, both Mickey and Gatsby were napping on one of the chairs in the living room. They looked so cozy there that I didn't even shoo them back into the TV room. Wonder of wonders, Gatsby even let me trim his nails without any fuss.

This afternoon, Gatsby followed ShadowBaby up the stairs and he had a look-see at the rooms up here. More Christmas trees..... more decorations. Gatsby looked at everything, didn't touch a thing. He followed me back downstairs, used one of the litter boxes in the "cat's bathroom" (thankfully, no problem there either) and curled up in the TV room next to Gracie for another nap.

I am so glad we decided not to get the miniature horses. With this weather we've been having, I know I would have been out in the pasture trying to put blankets around those cute little horses, or leading them into the barn and out of the wind. We have enough pets as it is. Not enough egg-laying chickens, but I hope to remedy that problem after the holidays. I told my husband that I want Santa to bring me one sweet red hen. Possibly two. Actually, I don't want Santa to bring them.... I want to go back to the chicken farm and pick them out myself.

But not now.... way too cold. And we're too busy right now. No big Christmas Open House party this year, but we've invited some of the neighbors over for dinner, and friends of ours from Clear Lake will be visiting before the month is over. And this month is going to be over in a heartbeat.

The Coyote Hit Man.

Our neighbors went into Houston today to visit friends there. On the way back, they stopped in at the Sporting Goods store to look at shotguns. Not only did they look, but they bought one. The neighbor is ready to aim that thing at the next coyote he sees.

And he may not have to wait too much longer. One of our other neighbors lost his last two chickens in two days. When we first moved here, he had 16 chickens. The number slowly dwindled...... the last two were taken either by hawks or by coyotes within the last couple of days.

While our neighbor was at the store looking at the shotguns, he got to talking with one of the sales people there. He told them about the chickens, the coyotes, the hawks. Turns out that the salesperson is a "Professional Coyote Hunter." Pardon me? Is there really such a thing?

This man will go to your property armed with his trusty shotgun and his collection of coyote-calling contraptions. He can flush a coyote out of the woods with a crying-rabbit call, or a chicken-clucking sound, or a baby kitten meowing-mechanism. For anything a coyote would eat, this man can replicate their sounds. There is no charge for his services... he just comes to your property, does all the calling-out he can to attract the coyotes around, and he shoots them. He will either take away the dead coyote, or skin it for you. Pardon me? What would I do with a coyote skin?

Our neighbor who bought the shotgun told us that if we saw the coyote again, we should call him and he'll come driving down his hill to ours, and he will aim and shoot. "Of course, after we kill it, we'll have to bury it." Pardon me? Bury it? Where?

He also suggested that maybe my husband and I, along with his wife, would like to take some lessons on the proper use of a shotgun. The shotgun has just one chamber, for one shell. "It's safer for everyone that way," he said. What if we miss with the first shot? Can we re-load that thing before the coyote gets too far away? "Who says we're going to miss?" said the neighbor.

I wonder what coyote-killing does to one's karma?

Guess who's coming for lunch?

I have learned to pay attention to the screams of our two Guinea hens. According to the books, they don't squawk for nothing. So this morning, when I heard them screaming, I looked out the kitchen door just in time to see a coyote right in our courtyard near the chicken coop.

I opened the back door, which has a nice loud farm-door squeak, and that scared the coyote into moving away from the coop. When he saw me on the porch, he retreated further into the backyard. When the coyote saw that I was walking on the back porch in his direction, he started running across the yard, went thru the fence rails, and ran off into the pasture towards the woods.

The Guinea hens were still squawking a bit, so I walked over to the coop to calm them down. Thankfully, I wasn't wearing my coat with the hood-- I unlocked the coop this morning with the hood pulled up on my coat and that made them scream as well. They didn't stop yelling till I took the hood off so they could see that it was only me. (Who knew that the Guinea hens would be so sensitive?)

A coyote. Something else to worry about now. Even though the coyote ran off into the woods, I locked the gate of the chicken coop. No sense in taking any chances. And now, of course, we're wondering if the coyote was responsible for some of our "missing" chickens. There was a pile of feathers from Henny Penny in the front yard, so it's possible that she and the coyote had a struggle there.

The hawks just swoop down and grab whatever they have come for, barely touching the ground after having searched for their prey during their fly-bys in the sky.... which would account for finding very few feathers from both Dolly and Jaye.

Needless to say, we're learning a lot about the wildlife up here. Lessons that we wish we didn't have to learn. Like shooting a gun. That's what the neighbors keep telling us. Y'all need to get a shotgun.

Apparently, the only way to keep coyotes and bobcats away is to just shoot them, say the neighbors who have lived up here for a good long while. Just aim to kill 'em and then y'all just bury 'em out in the field. Good grief.

One of our neighbors has a tiny Yorkie who likes to walk around their backyard. This dog is small enough to be taken away by a coyote, and could probably be lifted up by a hawk if the hawk was hungry enough. This neighbor is going to Houston tomorrow and plans to stop by one of the sporting goods stores to look at shotguns. He said he would call us if he found "something suitable at a decent price." He also said that if he did buy a shotgun, he could come down here with the gun if the coyote comes back. I asked J if that would work-- should I tell the coyote to "sit and stay" till J could drive down the hill with his shotgun?

I wouldn't be surprised now if my husband decides to get a shotgun. I would be even less surprised if someday soon, my husband and I are taking shooting lessons from one of the neighbors.

How cold can it get?

I'm sitting here remembering all the broiling hot days we had in May, June, July, August, September, and October. We kept saying Will this summer never end?

And right this second, I'm wishing for those 100+ temperatures. It was so cold the other night that some of the flowers just froze up. They are sitting out in the flowerbeds, wilted like cooked spinach, and not looking like flowers at all. Yesterday, there was frost all over the pastures in the morning, and the temperature dropped farther down the thermometer after breakfast. We drove into town last night for the Christmas Parade, dressed in layers of clothing and watching home-made floats gliding down Main Street. Residents were sitting in lawn chairs and wrapped up in blankets; kids were running into the street to catch the candy being tossed by the angels and elves riding on the floats.

The town also arranged for a Holiday Farmer's Market yesterday, but we forgot all about that, even though the day's schedule was sitting right on the kitchen counter. Next year, we will make sure to get into town for the Market, then leave before the parade starts. The parade was strictly old-time, old-town, mainly geared for the children. Which was fine-- they all seemed to be having a great time. But I guess we're too jaded for that kind of parade. We've seen street parades in Germany, and Disney parades in Florida and California. Plus all the Christmas festivities in New York City. How can a tiny Texas town compete with all of that? It simply can't. It is what it is, and although last night's parade needed more bands and more music, it was still nice to see an entire community come together to watch angels in glittered halos and pixies in red tights sitting in the backs of red pick-up trucks all decked out in green and red lights.

Today is warmer, but it started to rain early this morning and hasn't quit all day. We had planned on getting the big tree this afternoon, but I don't want to be walking around the Lowe's parking lot looking at wet Christmas trees, so we put that off till the weather gets warmer and dryer.

I've been letting Gatsby in the house because of the drop in temperature. He still sleeps out in the garage at night, but he's making himself at home in the TV room during the day. He seems to be more comfortable with Gracie than our two inside cats, probably because he spent so much time with Gracie out in the yard all summer long. So far, there have been no cat fights, although I did hear a teeny hiss from Mickey Kitty yesterday. Gatsby was too close to Mickey's favorite chair, and I guess Mickey was anticipating being ousted by Gatsby, which never happened. Gatsby is a gentleman cat, without a doubt, so we named him well.

The chickens seem quite content with the beach umbrellas in the front yard of the coop. I was out there a little while ago, and they were underneath the umbrellas, probably wondering why they weren't getting wet from the rain. Audrey has started to cock her head to one side and listen to me as I'm talking to her, which is what Dolly used to do. Last night when I went out there to lock up the coop, Audrey was on the roosting bar and she sat still and let me pet her, listening to my voice all the while. She used to just ignore me, in the pre-hawk days when we had more chickens.

We were also going to buy two more chickens this weekend, but we put that off also, because of the freezing temperatures yesterday and the rain today. Just two chickens is what we've decided. Actually, what I've decided, since I'm the one taking care of the birds. I want to be able to keep them confined to the coop and the umbrella-covered front yard of the coop, and I can't do that if we over-crowd the space with too many hens.

Needless to say, I don't trust the hawks anymore. Not that I did before, but it was just too heartbreaking to lose three chickens to those hawks and I don't want to take that chance again. When I think of all the days when our chickens would walk up the steps to our back porch and sit there looking into the door.... and I would go out there and shoo them away. Of course, now I'm sorry I shooed them, and I'm also sorry the remaining birds can't have free run of the property again. There's just no way to keep them safe that way.

And it is the saddest thing to take an egg out of the fridge now, knowing that Dolly and Henny Penny aren't here to give me their warm little miracles every morning. Nature is what it is, and I know that, but that still doesn't make it any easier when I see those eggs.

White stuff.

We had approximately 786 snowflakes here this afternoon. I happened to be getting my hair trimmed at the time, and nearly all the hair-cutters in the salon went outside with either their camera or their phone to take pictures. I tried very hard not to smile; tried even harder not to laugh. But I guess if you've never seen snow before, 786 flakes of white stuff falling from the Texas sky is a big deal.

Houston had more snow than we did up here in the hills..... maybe 2,349 snowflakes. Judging by the video-clips on the evening news, an army of Barbie-doll-sized snowmen were built by children all over the city. Schools closed early (even the universities), and businesses were shut down in an effort to get everyone home before the roads iced up. I'm sure the retailers were dusting off their cash registers, in hopes that the cold weather would make everyone rush out to get some Christmas shopping done.

The weather wizards predicted a lot more snow than what we got, and they were posting weather bulletins and severe weather alerts all day long. When you have lived up north for 40 years, you learn that the more snow that's expected, the less you get. The eight-foot drifts with the zillions and zillions of uncountable snowflakes come when the weathermen tell you that a "light dusting of snow" is on its way. I remember a light dusting during the month of April a bunch of years ago when I was working at the library-- we had eleven-foot drifts of snow, with roads totally impassable which shut down most of NYC and the surrounding counties.

Along with today's snowflakes, the temperatures dropped about thirty degrees. It was so cold outside this afternoon that I let Gatsby in the house for a while, to eat his meals, and to just come in out of the weather. (He wasn't impressed with the white stuff either.)

Gatsby seems to do just fine in the house. He quickly learned that the TV room is the preferred room for cats in this house, and he goes there as soon as I let him in the back door. I let him in the front door the other day and he walked through the living room and dining room, looked at the sparkling and glittering Christmas decorations and just kept walking towards the TV room. (Good cat.) After he eats his food, he will curl up near Gracie, or lay down by the heater-vent in the floor. (Smart cat.) Tonight, he jumped up into my husband's lap and stayed there for about an hour. (Very smart cat.)

If I'm sitting down on the sofa or in one of the chairs, Gatsby will jump into my lap and curl up and just lay there for as long as I'm sitting still. (Content cat.) The other night, he sat in my lap and faced himself towards the TV and he watched an entire episode of "House Hunters" with me. They were in Paris, and Gatsby was totally absorbed with the Paris traffic and the apartments. (International cat.)

No matter what the temperature, I can't keep Gatsby in the TV room at night with our two inside cats. ShadowBaby seems to be okay with Gatsby (as long as Gatsby doesn't touch his food), but Mickey Kitty is having bouts of "But I thought I was the baby-kitty around here?!" When I let Gatsby inside this afternoon, Mickey Kitty took one look at him, left the room, and I found him upstairs in our bedroom with his head underneath the afghan at the foot of the bed. (Sensitive cat.)

In our garage, I have fixed a comfortable home-away-from-the-inside-of-the-house for Gatsby. He has a warm and comfy pillow inside a blanket-draped cat crate, which is on one of the work counters, and the door is propped open a bit so he can come and go as he wants. I also put one of the lawn chairs in the garage for him, also with a warm cat-bed pillow on it. If he doesn't want to be in the crate, he can curl up in the chair. His food and water dishes are in there for him, and he should be okay. Maybe not as warm as he would be in the house, but he'll be fine.

The chickens are in the coop, without benefit of soft cushy pillows, and they weigh much less than Gatsby, and they seem to be okay with the drop in temperature. Not exactly happy, but okay. The hens were quiet again today..... they're taking advantage of the umbrellas covering their grassy spot in front of the coop, but without the other hens, these remaining three are just clucking along at a slower pace. Clearly, Dolly and Jaye-Bird were the party girls of that coop.

I'm hoping it gets warm again. The weathermen are promising 60-degree temperatures by the beginning of next week. With all the sophisticated equipment they have, you would think they would never make a mistake with their predictions.

Got umbrellas?

When I went to the chicken coop first thing this morning, I found the same thing as I did yesterday.... one chicken and two Guinea hens, huddled up on the roosting bar. Audrey just looked at me with that old-hen stare that I've come to recognize. It's as if she's challenging me-- Well, now... what happened to the other hens?!

I feel sorry for Audrey..... she's the odd hen out now, being with the two Guinea hens. As I started to clean the coop this morning, the Guinea hens clearly didn't want to be in the coop with me and the broom, so they started squawking to get out. They walked around for about five minutes, came to the spot where a few of Jaye-Bird's feathers are still in the grass where the hawk got her, and then the Guinea hens flew up on top of the rose arbor and started screaming.

I cleaned the coop as fast as I could so the Guinea hens would come down from their perch and get back into the coop if they wanted to, which they did. Audrey watched me sweep the floor and put down clean paper underneath the roosting bar, all the while staring at me with those wrinkled old eyes of hers, so unlike the bright round eyes of the other chickens we had. (Had. The operative word these days when we talk about the hens.)

After the coop was all done, I stood there wondering what I could do so these birds would feel comfortable again walking around the grass without remembering what happened with the hawks-- which, by the way, happened again to our across-the-road neighbor: a hawk flew away with one of his chickens today. ("That's just the way it goes," he said. He has had more experience with losing chickens-- his flock has gone from sixteen down to just two at times.)

Outside our coop, there is a small grassy area that's surrounded by a picket fence with a gate. In order for me to get in and out of the coop's gate, the picket-fence gate has to be opened, which I do in the mornings, then shut it at night after I lock up the coop. I had suggested to my husband that we cover that grassy area with chicken wire, but we haven't done it yet because the chickens have been content to just stay in the coop since the hawks took away three of our hens, and my husband just hasn't had the time yet.

I got to thinking about things we had in the garage, and maybe I could improvise something..... and I remembered that we had two beach umbrellas. Big and colorful umbrellas...... surely I could stick those into the ground, open them up, and the chickens could walk around that grass within the picket fence and they wouldn't be seen by the hawks soaring around the hills. Right?

Out came the umbrellas.... into the ground went the stakes, good and deep so they wouldn't shift in the wind..... into the stakes went the tops of the umbrellas and I opened them up. When they were both open, the grassy "front yard" of the coop was covered with the brightly-colored umbrellas and it looked like the coop was ready for a beach party. After I opened up the umbrellas, I closed the picket-fence gate but left the door to the coop open. I called out to Audrey and tossed some of the chicken-feed near the door of the coop. She made a low sound, sort of like my sweet Dolly used to do..... it sounds like "Ohhhhhhhhhhh," followed by a few little clucks.

Audrey ventured out into the grass, followed by the Guinea hens. They all looked up at the umbrellas........ then they all looked at me (most likely thinking I had lost my mind). But they did walk around the grass, and I think they knew they couldn't be seen from the sky. (I know that for a fact because before I called them out there, I stood underneath both umbrellas and looked up-- I couldn't see the sky, just the undersides of the umbrellas.)

For now, this seems to be a good solution. The chickens have their grass to scratch around in, and they also have a sense of safety again which had been stolen by the hawks. I have come to terms with losing three of our hens to those dang hawks. Nature is what it is, and it's not going to change. Hawks search for chickens, and they catch them now and again. And again.

I only wish I had thought of those umbrellas before my sweet little Dolly was taken away by the hawk. I miss finding her eggs in the nesting box every day. I looked at Audrey after I cleaned the coop this morning and said out loud-- Well, Audrey-girl, I guess I won't be getting any eggs from you anytime soon. And Miss Audrey looked at me with those old eyes of hers, as if to say "That is eggsactly correct."

"Your mother doesn't work here....."

".... so pick up after yourself." A sign with those words was hung up years and years ago in the staff kitchen of the library where I used to work. The staff supervisor, Audrey, hung it up because she was tired of cleaning out coffee cups left in the sink, and picking up paper wrappings from everyone's lunch.

So Audrey got out a piece of poster-board and a magic marker: "Your mother doesn't work here, so pick up after yourself!" She hung the sign right over the little sink in the staff kitchen, for all to see, and it worked. Everyone washed out their own cup, everyone tossed away their lunch-time trash. Audrey was happy. And when Audrey was happy, we were all happy.

I'm thinking about having a similar sign made for our little community: "Your mother doesn't live here.... so don't toss your trash as you drive."

For the past couple of weeks as my husband and I go for our daily walk, we've been seeing soda bottles and beer cans tossed into the woods. We quickly got tired of looking at the Dr. Pepper bottles, Sprite cans, Bud Light cans, El Corona bottles, and we decided to do something about it. We couldn't understand the trash being there in the first place. This is a nice community with beautiful and expensive properties. Who would be tossing out bottles and cans?!

We walk from our home all the way up and down the hills here to the main highway, which is a bit over two-and-a-half miles round trip. On the way towards the main highway, we were carrying empty Hefty trash bags and our gardening gloves. When we completed half the walk, we opened up the bags, put on our gloves, and started picking up the trash on the way back.

Once we really started looking, there were way more bottles and cans than we thought. The first couple of days, the black-plastic Hefty bags got so heavy and so filled that we had to leave them by the side of the road and go back and get them with the car. Judging by the condition of what we picked up, those bottles and cans had been there for quite some time, mostly covered by leaves and weeds so you couldn't really see them unless you were walking and looking for them, which we clearly were. In front of some of the properties, there wasn't a stitch of litter, and those people came out to tell us that they pick up any trash along their property line every week.

By the middle of the first week, we were able to use white-plastic kitchen trash bags, and still, those got filled up. The last couple of days, we've been using the plastic bags from the supermarket, and we're able to carry them all the way home rather than leave them at the side of the road because they're too heavy. (We joke that soon we'll be able to walk with just a plastic sandwich bag in our pocket.)

As we've been doing this clean-up project, neighbors have stopped by to thank us, other neighbors have told us that they used to do the same thing, others said they meant to do it but never got around to it. We've told everyone that we're lucky enough to have such a pretty winding-around-the-hills road here, it's just a shame to see it messed up with trash. Of course, everyone agreed, and some suggested that it must be workers in the area who toss out the trash because "if y'all live here, why would you want to trash it up?"

We have only missed a few bottles and cans, but those landed where we can't safely reach them, being careful of fire-ant mounds, poison ivy, sticky-thorn bushes, and slanted pathways that lead down to rocky creeks. My husband intends to attach a nail to a broomstick so he can stab the nail into the few cans that we can't reach.

I told my husband that we should send a little computer-printed note to everyone in this hills: "Merry Christmas! We have cleaned up the roadside trash for everyone who lives here!" (I would resist the urge to add Your mother doesn't live here, so please pick up after yourselves!)

Quiet in the coop.

We have one chicken left now (Audrey) and two Guinea hens (Dottie and Jeanie). All three of them have been inside the coop all day long, and they've been extremely quiet. I went in there first thing this morning and felt so sick to my stomach that I had to rush out. The thought of a hawk ripping apart my chickens, especially Dolly, just will not leave my head.

We chose to keep the birds inside the coop today, and probably for the next couple of days as well. I saw two hawks flying over our neighbors' properties this morning...... soaring, circling, searching. If I had a gun, and if I knew how to shoot the dang thing, I would have probably been out there in our pasture, screaming at those hawks and trying my best to blast them out of the sky. You took my Dolly-girl! She was such a sweet hen and you ate her up!

But we don't have a gun. And I don't know how to use one. And even if I did, I most likely could not point it at any living, breathing creature with the intention of doing harm.

We will probably go to Watson's farm this weekend and buy two more chickens. Just two, who hopefully will give us little warm miracles in the nesting boxes every day. I will get another red hen, who will look similar to Dolly. (Dolly-Two? Dolly-Girl?) Maybe two red hens. (Dolly-Three?) The Rhode Island Reds are such a sweet breed of chicken, so friendly and inquisitive.

Or maybe I should just get two chickens and not name them at all. I don't think I could do that. I'm not a chicken-farmer. We're not raising these birds to end up in a deep-fryer. (We're not raising them to be eaten by hawks, either.)

This afternoon when we got back from our walk, there was one bright reddish-auburn feather standing up straight in the grass, as if it had been planted there. Today is a very windy day. That feather, by all rights, should have blown further up the hill with all this wind. But there it was, in front of the cottage, as plain as day for me to see. I picked it up and then started looking for more of Dolly's feathers. My husband stopped me... told me I was going to make myself more sick about this than I already am. And he's right. I let go of the feather and the breeze took it away.

Stupid damn hawks.

Goodbye Dolly.

This has been a horrible day. Early this morning, I found a pile of feathers that was once Henny Penny, one of the two chickens that we lost yesterday to hawks. In the middle of this afternoon, as it started to rain and I went outside to lock up the chickens in the coop, Dolly was missing.

Inside the coop were Audrey and the two Guinea hens. All three were very quiet, huddled together, not a peep out of them as they looked at me. Please not again. And where's Dolly?!

I walked all over the property around the house, the cottage, the barn. I looked inbetween the bushes, behind the palms, around the pecan trees, underneath the cottage. I kept calling Dolly, all the while knowing that she wasn't there because she would have come out at the first sound of my voice. Where's my Dolly-girl?.... and there she would be at my feet, looking up at me with her head cocked to one side.

We couldn't believe it had happened again, damn it. Three chickens in two days? Is that the work of just one hawk? Two? Three?! We'll never know, and it doesn't even matter. We called our across-the-road neighbor who has also lost chickens...... he told us to get a shotgun. Period. End of story. Get a gun.

Jeez. We don't want to be killing birds here. But birds are killing our chickens. And you're not even supposed to kill hawks in the first place. All the work that my husband put into making such a raccoon-safe coop for the chickens..... and they're being literally torn apart by hawks. Give me a blessed break.

So now we have Audrey, who is too old to lay eggs, and the two Guinea hens, who are too stupid to lay eggs. ("As smart as a pile of rocks," as our neighbor says.) Dolly laid an egg this morning, just before I went into the coop to clean it. I put the egg up to my face and it was still warm. Dolly was watching me, and I said "Thank you for the egg, girl." And she looked up at me with that yellow-eyed stare of hers, and I put the egg in my pocket and picked her up. She let me hold her while I thanked her for the egg again and again. Thank you for the warm little miracle, Dolly.

I will truly miss that beautiful red hen.

I told my husband we should get just two more chickens, as soon as we can get out to Watson's farm. We intend to keep our one remaining chicken and the two Guinea hens inside the coop for the next few days, to give the hawks a chance to realize there's no more food here for them, and hopefully, they will begin to shop elsewhere. So as long as we're going to keep these birds in the coop, we may as well get two new birds and keep them inside as well so they can get used to their new home.

I also suggested that we put up more chicken wire, and enclose the small fenced-in area just outside the coop. If all of that is fenced in with the wire, hawks won't be able to get our chickens. They'll have less room to roam around, but we also have fewer chickens now. And I'd rather have fewer chickens with less room to walk than more chickens who turn up missing due to fly-by hawks.

Jeez....... this has been a bad couple of days. I feel so sorry for those chickens...... we brought them here hoping to keep them safe, and we were out-done by hawks. Damn it all.

Piles of feathers...

We found a pile of Henny Penny's brown leopard-spotted feathers this afternoon, right near the fence of the front pasture. So now we know the chicken-snatcher was definitely a hawk. We're guessing that the hawk grabbed Henny Penny, took her towards the pasture, and killed her there during a struggle before flying off with her. Judging by the pile of feathers out there, she must have gone kicking and screaming. Which would account for the rest of the chickens being so subdued when we got home yesterday.

Even this morning, when I opened the coop, the chickens and the Guinea hens were as quiet as mice. Not a peep out of them, and usually they're very vocal in the morning. When we took our walk this morning, we put Dolly and Audrey back into the coop, which was easy because Dolly follows me wherever I go, and Audrey will follow Dolly. The Guinea hens had other plans for their morning, so we just left them where they were.

As we walked, we could see two hawks soaring over the other properties. Hawks will flap their wings good and hard a few times, then they're able to glide for a while. That's how I can tell them apart from other birds. When I feed the chickens their bread or corn for their afternoon treat, I'm putting it inside the coop now so they won't be distracted by eating and not be able to pay attention to what's going on in the sky.

Absolute pits, to lose two chickens in one day. And here we were during the summer, making that coop so secure and safe from raccoons.... but there's no protection against the hawks, I guess. Unless we keep the chickens inside the coop all day long, which won't make for happy chickens.

One of our friends from Clear Lake happened to call last night, and when I told her about the chickens, she suggested we put up a scarecrow. I don't think a scarecrow will deter the hawks. I should check the Internet...... maybe there's something that would make the hawks look elsewhere for their dinners.

Good grief........ we vowed not to kill our chickens, and yet they were killed and eaten by hawks. November was not a good month for the chickens: Edie fell into the fountain on the 3rd, and Henny Penny and Jaye-Bird were taken by hawks on the 30th. I hope the chickens have a better December.