End of cold snap...

... beginning of cloudy snap.

We've just gone through three days of winter-y weather.... temperatures dropping to the mid-thirties during the night and not rising much over 50 degrees during the day. Yuckeroo to all of that. The cold snap has snapped itself out now, and we're back into 60-something degrees, but the sun is nowhere to be found so it feels a bit colder. When one gets used to really high temperatures, anything below 65 has you layering on sweaters.

Neighbors J & J came over last night for tea and cake, and we played "Shanghai," their favorite card game. With four players, you use two decks of cards-- a lot of cards to shuffle. J & J are so into this game of cards that they're shopping on-line for a good automatic shuffler. I guess they didn't put that particular item on their wish list for Santa this year.

My cousin's son in Chicago sent me a little video eMail this morning, wishing me a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year..... the video was half talking, half singing and was very cute. I'm amazed at the technological skills of a ten-yr-old. If someone gave me the equipment and told me to make a video and then get it on my computer, I wouldn't know how to do it. I should ask my ten-yr-old cousin to teach me how to use the mysterious little buttons on my cell phone.

I'm looking out my window here and the sky is gray-ish white. Reminds me of a NY sky in winter, either after a snow-fall or just before. We know one thing for sure... clouds over this sky aren't holding snowflakes. Been there, done that... we did have some snow here last year, which lasted all of an hour. Mostly everyone in this town who has lived here all their lives said the same thing-- it was their first time seeing snow falling from this part of the Hill Country sky.

The baby goats are crying in the fields across the road. That particular neighbor always has a bunch of goats (a flock? a herd? a group?). He raises them for the meat. I'm guessing that they had a feast of goat meat for their holiday dinners... and now the baby goats are crying and searching the field for the momma goats. I just cannot get used to the sadness with the animals here in the hills. At one time or another, there are either momma cows crying and searching for their calves, or baby goats crying out for their mothers. Can't everyone just eat vegetables, for goodness sakes?!?!?!?!

One of the Beverley Nichols books I recently read was one of his children's books-- "The Tree That Sat Down." It was a book-length lesson in the lives of the animals of the forest.... they all have their routines, their schedules, their likes and dislikes..... all of them have a basic daily routine that goes on without change, until man intervenes. And then their animal world is turned upside-down and they must renegotiate and relocate and make do with their interrupted circumstances.

Survival of the fittest. Bah humbug to that. It's not survival of the fittest... it's really survival of the ones with the most weapons.