Damn that groundhog.

Is the groundhog ever wrong? That furry little prickly bundle pronounced winter would last for six more weeks and he was right. Everyone across the country is cranky enough now with all of this blasted cold, wet, snowy, sleeting, hail-tossed frigid weather. In six more weeks, the Hawaiian islands may sink to the bottom of the Pacific because anyone who can afford to fly there will do just that in an attempt to escape this blessed weather.

As I type, we're having yet another cloudy and cold, drippy and rainy, nasty and never-ending winter-y day. We had sleet yesterday, and native Texans who hadn't ever seen sleet before were outside taking pictures of the frozen rain falling out of the sky. I can't remember the last time the sun was shining outside. Oh yes I can... wasn't it two weeks ago, when the temperature was up in the high 70s and the sun was blindingly refreshingly bright and the Hill Country was filled with people wearing shorts and tee-shirts that said This is NOT our usual Texas winter weather, so y'all please come back next year and we'll do better.

Even the livestock has gone a bit crazy. The goats across the road keep getting their necks stuck in the square openings of the barbed-wire fence. I don't know how they manage to get their heads through those squares, given the size of their horns, but they get their heads through those metal squares so they can munch on the taller grass just outside the fence-- and then they can't get their heads back out. When we first moved here, I would go into a slight panic at that sight and get my husband to go across the road and down the hill to rescue the trapped goats. I have since learned to just put on a pair of gloves, walk down the hill myself, pet the goat on his head and calm him down, grab hold of the horns and just ease him back through the barbed-wire openings. Yesterday, however, the imprisoned goat's horns were way too long, way too curved, and he was way too scared. I had to walk back up the hill, get into my car, then drive over to the neighbors and tell them to please go out into the pasture and rescue that goat so I wouldn't hear him screaming and see him struggling from my kitchen windows. (The neighbor was probably thinking Dang city girl!)

The pasture behind our own fields belongs to the neighbor all the way at the end of this road.... he has eight cows on his property. Two of those cows are always finding a way out of their own pasture and they come right on up to our barn or our property around our pond.... and they make themselves at home. We have nice tall green grass there, because we don't have cows of our own, and the neighbor's cows know that, which is why they keep wandering over here. I have lost count of how many times my husband has gone out into our pasture behind the barn and chased the cows back to their own field. I haven't done that yet, not because I'm afraid of the cows, but because with all the rain we've had, the pastures are a mucked-up muddy mess, complete with cow-poop from the two escapees. I have nearly knee-high rubber boots, but I still don't want to be walking through tall grass land-mined with four-inch high piles of cow-poop.

The new group of chickens that we bought last month continue to lay eggs every day, despite the rain and the cold weather. Both Scarlett and Prissy lay an egg every day, and Mammy gives us an egg nearly every day, just missing a day here and there if the weather is too close to the freezing point. Prissy is becoming as friendly as my Dolly-girl hen used to be, but I haven't tried to pet Prissy or pick her up lately. I think I got too attached to the first group of hens, and when the hawks and/or coyotes took some of them away, it was just too heart-breaking. So I think, with the hens, it's better to just be friendly, and not get too attached.


On Super Bowl Sunday, we went up the hill to J&J's house, along with some of the other nearby neighbors. We all brought something to add to their Football Buffet and we watched the game on their new big-screen TV. The guys enjoyed the game... the ladies enjoyed the commercials but kept wondering why such great commercials were being interrupted by guys playing with a football. That day was cold and windy also, but without the rain we're having now.

With all of this horrible weather, no one is out on their property-- except the livestock, which doesn't know any better. Our neighbor B has put a blanket-coat on her horse Diablo-- that blanket has been on Diablo since before Christmas and she's probably leaving it on till the flowers start blooming. When we do see neighbors outside, everyone is bundled up in layers and layers of clothing and we're all looking like little kids from the 1950s, in the days of those multi-layered snowsuits where you were so packed up with clothing that you could hardly move.

The weather is much worse, of course, in the mid-west and the north-east. But this is Texas! People from the mid-west and the north-east come here to get away from the frigid weather up there --- and this is the best we can offer them?

I cannot wait for summer.