Cabin fever.

I think we're all getting a case of cabin fever here... the temperatures are still low (no higher than 40), the sky is still grayish-white without a drop of blue, and there's not a soul stirring outside (unless you count the chickens and the birds).

Both Mickey Kitty and Sweet Pea want to go outside but I haven't let them for the past four days or so. Way too cold for Mickey and if a frigid breeze ruffles his whiskers, he's going to run and hide underneath the cottage. I don't want to be out there in the cold trying to coax him out from under there. Sweet Pea would probably run around and try to catch the sparrows, but then he'd climb the mesquite tree so he could jump onto the roof of the house, and then I'd be going in and out of the upstairs balcony doors calling him to come on in. Way too cold for that little game. Gatsby has been going outside for a few minutes each morning and afternoon, but he quickly comes in when he realizes the TV room is much warmer than the porch.

As a result, with three cats confined to the TV room, the breakfast room, and the kitchen, they are finding ways to entertain themselves. Such as jumping from the wicker chair near the window to the end of the kitchen counter-top near the built-in bookcase. (So far, no cookbooks have hit the floor.) Usually, it's Mickey who will try that first, followed closely by Sweet Pea who is probably thinking Well, I can do that too! Gatsby is the only one who's just sleeping the days away in the TV room, but he will get up from his nap if he hears the other cats munching on dry cat-food.


The pecan trees were filled with crows this morning. The crows will go to the uppermost branches and pull the nuts from the tips of the pods. With all the wind we've had this past week, it's a wonder there's a single nut left in those trees. All of the pecan trees with the larger nuts dropped them back in November, but the native Texas pecans still have small nuts hanging by a thread in the pods... and those are the ones the crows are getting. They manage to get that little pecan in their beaks and fly out into the field with it. Then they will peck and peck at that pecan till it splits so they can dig the nut out of the shell. Surely, there must be enough nuts and pods out in the fields to burst forth with an orchard by now.


We heard loud shotgun shells this afternoon out near the edge of the woods. Those woods are partly ours, partly our back-neighbor's, and from time to time, he drives a truck out there and we'll hear a shotgun going off. We have no idea what he's shooting. Either he's shooting at a coyote, or he has a trap set way out there and he's shooting whatever gets caught in the trap. The woods are far enough away from the house that I can barely see what's going on, even with the help of the binoculars. When you live out here for a while, you learn to not pay much attention to the shotguns, as long as you know they're being shot off on someone else's property. But on a cold day like today with nothing happening, you run to the window with the binoculars as soon as you hear a little noise.

Neighbors have told us time and again to get a gun, for the snakes and coyotes, the raccoons and armadillos, and heaven only knows what else. My husband has set cage-traps now and again, but the raccoon he trapped was driven to the nearby lake and let go into the woods out there. Shooting a live raccoon while it's trapped in a cage doesn't seem quite fair.

I'm hoping the Weather Wizards are correct..... that we'll be warming up with tomorrow's temperatures, and warming up with each passing day from tomorrow through next week. And to think we were complaining when the temperature got down to 62 degrees a few weeks ago...