Yesterday's wedding... today's stray dog.

These Royal Weddings can wear one out... getting up at 2:00 in the morning to watch not only the ceremony, but to see all the guests walking into Westminister Abbey. All those hats! The British take their hats very seriously, and the Prime Minister's wife will be remembered because she did not wear a hat. What was she thinking? Thank goodness they no longer say "Off with her head!"

The wedding was wonderful... Kate's gown was Grace-Kelly perfect... William was handsome in his uniform... the Queen looked too yellow in her outfit (someone should tell her that blue suits her best)... and along with Fergie not being invited, they should have scratched out her two daughters from the guest list (both looked like they were going to a Sweet 16 lawn party).

All of the networks had coverage of the wedding, but I watched CNN mostly, for the simple reason that Anderson Cooper told the other announcers "We should all just watch and listen and enjoy." I just wanted to watch the ceremony and listen to the music, not the pitter-patter of the announcers. I went thru a few tissues as Kate and her father made their way up the aisle... that part of a wedding always gets to me.

I told my cousin F that maybe Prince Harry would fall head-over-heels for Kate's sister Pippa... and then we could have another Royal Wedding. With all of Harry's previous escapades (some of which I'm sure he regrets) he needs a nice girl to just settle down with.... and his current blonde girlfriend with her hair pulled back into a messy little bun and pinned up under a hat is just not going to meet the Queen's expectations.

Hats off to the British... no one can match them with pomp and ceremony and things-done-right.

Yesterday afternoon, I happened to see a stray dog in the neighbor's driveway. I knew it was a stray, because they don't have a dog, and we already know all the pets and livestock around here. I drove over to the neighbor's and got her chickens into her coop, but the dog ran off and I didn't see it again. Our up-the-road neighbor J saw the same dog yesterday morning, but couldn't catch him. Just what we all needed... a lost and hungry dog roaming around the property with our cats and chickens.

This morning, that same dog was in our yard under the pecan trees. It looked like he was munching on the nuts, poor thing. I quickly got some cat food and went out there, shaking the bowl so the dry food would make a rattling sound to get the dog's attention.

Nothing wrong with this dog's hearing... he came right over to me, very slowly, and then laid down on the grass and immediately turned over so his belly and paws were up in the air. He's so thin that I could just about count his ribs.

Six cans of Friskies cat food later, the dog and I are very good friends. He's a male, a dark rusty-brown with some black markings, not fixed, and very friendly. He followed me to the coop and back, not bothering with the chickens, and not even interested in them at all. He made friends with my husband, and now he's sleeping on the back porch with one eye on the back door, waiting for us to come out there again.

I've called the local animal shelter-- they're only open from Monday thru Friday. No weekend hours? How can that be?

It looks like we'll be feeding William from now till Monday, and then we'll take him to the shelter. We're not keeping him. We really don't want a dog. But I had to call him something, other than 'the dog' or 'here boy.' So I've named him Prince William, William or Wills for short, and he seems to like the name. He also seems to like the Friskies cat food, but I guess when you're as hungry as he was, you're not going to mind if there's a picture of a cat on the label.

As for the cats... they're all in the TV room, watching William thru the screen door. None of the cats are interested in going outside today, with William sitting there on the porch. Oh goodie-- I now have one more reason to keep the cats in the house.

Windy days and Royal Weddings.

We have had more windy days these past three weeks than I can ever remember. During the day, the wind is so strong that the feathers on the chickens stand straight up at times... they look like hens having bad-feather days. At night, we can hear the wind just howling outside like a freight train.

Early this morning when I went outside to clean the coop, it was as silent as an abandoned church... not so much as a breeze, and it seemed so weird. It didn't last long, though. The wind kicked up later on in the morning and it's been howling and blowing ever since.

The wind hasn't been helping all the wild fires around the state, and every day we hear about more fires popping up and destroying countless acres of homes and property. You would think that people would be extra extra careful these days, with no rain for three months now and you just know that everything is dry, dry, dry.... one little spark is all it would take to set things burning. Which, of course, keeps happening.

I spent yesterday taking down the Easter decorations... the two Easter trees are put away in the closet, along with my Easter parade of porcelain bunnies and chicks and ducks. All wrapped up till next year. We had Easter dinner with neighbors J & J... they did the cooking, I baked a carrot cake for dessert. J was fussing around with the table settings just before we sat down to eat, and she said that when they come to our house, I make everything look so easy and effortless. Well, if that's how it looks, it's only because no one is here to see the four days before a holiday dinner, when I'm crossing countless things off a to-do list.

Only a few more days now till William and Kate's wedding. I will be setting the alarm and getting up in the middle of the night to watch it all from beginning to end. I'm sure my husband thinks I've lost my mind, but my cousin F in NY totally understands. She is the family expert on the Royals, and knows all of the history since their early beginnings.

I watched Diana and Charles get married, as well as Princess Anne, and Andrew and Fergie, and Edward and Sophie. When Diana died, I watched the funeral and went through half a box of tissues. Why is it that the whole world felt they had lost an old friend when that car crashed in Paris?

My collection of books on the Royals keeps growing, and I look at them all from time to time. I'm sure I will be buying a book on William and Kate's wedding... heaven knows there will be many to choose from after the wedding is over. My friend J in England will be watching the wedding also-- from her TV, not from the streets of London. With all the crowds that will be there, she would rather have the best seat possible-- in her own living room.

The pomp and pageantry of Royal events-- no one does it like the British. The carriages, the horses, the history, the gowns, the hats, all those people happily waving their flags... it's an every-day reality sprinkled with fairy tale dust that makes it all magical.

When Diana and Charles were in that carriage riding through the crowds thirty years ago, everyone had such hope and joy and expectations for a long and happy life for them. At that moment in the history of time, it seemed like everything in the world was at a perfect stand-still and nothing else mattered, nothing bad was going to happen, and everyone was just as happy as they could possibly be.

And when William and Kate ride through the London sreets in their carriage on Friday, everyone will be overwhelmed with memories of Diana and we will all be hoping for a fairy-tale perfect marriage for her son and his bride.

Saving the Easter Bunny.

The roads of life are paved with good intentions.

I had been keeping Mickey Kitty and Sweet Pea inside the house because there were so many baby birds around the porch. Gatsby has been going in and out as usual because he never seems interested in the birds. But with Sweet Pea and Mickey, who will pounce on anything that moves, I wanted the baby barn swallows to have enough time to get used to their new feathered wings.

This morning when I opened the back door, all the baby birds were gone from their perches on the porch columns, so I thought it would be okay to let Mickey and Sweet Pea outside. After they ate their breakfast, they ran so fast towards the back door that they were skidding on the kitchen floor, each one trying to be the first one to hit the porch at a run.

I went about my morning routine... cleaned the coop, put birdseed into the feeders by the cottage, and then had some breakfast. My husband went out to walk around the property, checking the bluebird boxes in the fields to see if there were new nests or eggs. After about an hour, it was time to see what Mickey and Sweet Pea were doing before I went upstairs to get some make-up on and get ready for the day here.

Out the back door I went, and all three cats were on the back porch deck. Mickey was standing on the deck with his tail held high, the other two were watching him, not moving a bit. A few steps closer to the cats and I understood the stand-off... Mickey was holding a baby bunny in his mouth, and I could see by the look on his whiskered face that he was darn proud of his 'catch.' I could also hear the baby bunny crying like one of the cats' squeaky-toys. Mickey clearly didn't know what to do with the tiny bunny, and I'm sure Gatsby was just holding his own breath and waiting for Mickey to drop that prize on the deck.

I wanted to cry myself, but I gave Mickey my happiest voice and asked him "What are you bringing to me, Mickey?" When I say that to him inside the house, he will bring me his toy and drop it at my feet-- which is what I was hoping would happen with the bunny.

No such luck. Mickey knew I wanted his 'toy' and he ran off the porch and into the bushes. By that time, my husband had finished his birdhouse count and was in the yard by the front of the house. I told him what happened with Mickey and the baby bunny and we figured that we could get Mickey cornered in the flowerbed and one of us could grab Mickey and the other could rescue the bunny.

Gatsby and Sweet Pea had followed Mickey into the bushes, still waiting for him to drop the bunny. The poor little bunny once again started to scream, which I think scared Mickey this time because he dropped the bunny into the grass underneath the bushes.

I grabbed Mickey and carried him into the house, all the while telling him what a good boy he was, but also telling him that he shouldn't be messing around with tiny baby bunnies. The next one I grabbed was Sweet Pea, and I carried him into the house and put him in the TV room with Mickey. Gatsby was the last one outside, and he was smart enough to run far back under the bushes. I'm sure he was hoping that my husband and I would go into the house and then he would grab the baby bunny. Gatsby has caught baby bunnies before, and killed them, leaving them as gifts for us by the back door.

I managed to get hold of Gatsby when he stuck his head out from under the bushes to see what we were doing with 'his' bunny. Into the house went Gatsby, and when I put him in the TV room with the other two cats, he let out a fierce meow, most likely wanting to know why he was being grounded when it was Mickey who caught the bunny in the first place.

Back outside I went, and my husband and I began the search for the baby bunny. We pulled up some weeds and tall grass, and there was the bunny, peeking up from its hiding place in the flowerbed. I tried to catch him, but he was way too fast and he ran off towards the barn. Just looking at how fast he was running, we knew that Mickey didn't hurt him. We just let him go, with the hope that he will get back to his mama and the rest of his bunny family.

The cats are all still in the house. They're sound asleep now, and all dreaming of baby bunnies, I'm sure. I told my husband that I'm not going to let Mickey and Sweet Pea out in the early mornings anymore. I didn't realize that bunnies would be out in the open during the day. I thought they came out at night to look for food and hop around the property.

As I type, I can still hear the tiny screams of that baby bunny. I told my husband that what will eventually 'do me in' here will be all these little traumas with the wildlife and the neighbors' lifestock. Goats getting stuck in fences, mama cows crying for their calves who've been taken to market, baby bunnies getting caught by the cats, baby birds falling out of nests, the cats cornering snakes in the yard, raccoons in the fountain, baby possums by the side of the road... it just never ends.

Country Living Rule #1: You can take the girl out of the city, but you can't take the city out of the girl.

Baby bird carousel.

Spring is still with us, even though the temperatures are in the high 80s. The baby barn swallows have hatched and are now testing their new feathered wings.

Every day, the baby birds are flying around the columns of the porch, not going too far away from their nests, then settling down on the blades of the porch fans. As the breeze blows the blades around, the baby birds just sit there and go round and round as they chatter to each other during the ride.

There were so many baby birds out there this afternoon that I kept the cats inside. Both Mickey and Sweet Pea sat by the windows and looked up at the birds as they rode the fans. The barn swallow babies are just so tiny when they first leave the nests, but they make up for their size with their songs.

The quail are still here... sometimes three and four at a time are walking around the yards. Gatsby will try and chase them down from time to time, but I don't think he's trying very hard. I'm sure he could catch them if he wanted to-- I think Gatsby is more interested in the baby bunnies that he gets from time to time. I'm hoping that all the mama bunnies have taken their babies to a cat-less property.

Except for PittyPat, our chickens seem to be on strike here. PittyPat still lays an egg every day, but the others are on vacation. Scarlett is sitting in her empty nesting box, hoping to hatch an imaginary egg. (She went through this 'broody stage' last year also.)

Prissy and Daisy have both stopped laying their daily eggs-- neither one has left an egg in the nesting boxes, even though both of them sit on the nests for an hour every day. Audrey has given us a few eggs during the last couple of weeks, but each one fell to the floor of the coop and broke because she was sitting on the roosting bar when she laid them.

I don't know why their little chicken-minds are so confused, but I'm just going along with the egg-flow here and we'll see what happens. I've even looked around underneath the palms and the rose bushes, thinking that maybe Prissy and Daisy have been hiding eggs in the flowerbeds, but I never find any eggs.

Actually, I haven't looked underneath the palms lately, not since Mickey was out there and found a green snake in the flowerbed.... he chased the snake up one of the crape myrtles and the snake hid itself so well inbetween the leaves that you couldn't even see it. Mickey knew the snake was up there, though, and he sat at the base of the tree and cried.

Needless to say, I did not help Mickey get up the tree to the snake... and I didn't go out there under the tree and bring Mickey in the house. I just left Mickey right where he was, meowing for all he was worth. The snake stayed up in the tree, and I waited till Mickey got tired of pleading with the snake to come down from its hiding place.

Baby birds riding on the fan-carousel, chickens trying to hatch imaginary eggs, snakes hiding in crape myrtles. Spring-time in the Hill Country, minus the Spring rains-- we haven't seen a drop of rain here since the middle of January. Thankfully, we haven't seen any of the wild fires that have been marching around the state.

"Tell us the truth."

My husband has been thinking about the upcoming commencement speech he will give at the university's May graduation. Every once in a while during a conversation, he will launch into a topic that I can tell he has been considering for the speech. Then I'll ask him 'Are you just talking? Or is this practice for the speech?'

Last week at the university, he was talking to a group of students about the graduation ceremony, and he asked them what they would like to hear during the commencement speech. Inspiration? Motivation? The students' answer to my husband's question: "Just tell us the truth."

So that's what we were discussing today-- the truth. In my opinion, everyone has their own truth. If there are one thousand graduating students at the commencement, then there will be one thousand interpretations of whatever speech is given. Inspiration and motivation comes from within, sometimes with an outside prompt.

My husband had asked me what I would say if it were me giving the commencement speech. Ooooh... hard question. One that I could only answer in short sentences as we were talking and discussing the speech and possible topics. I needed to type... I think much better when I'm typing because the sound of spoken words don't get in the way.

So here it is... I would tell the graduating students my own truth, as I see it:

There will be a time in your life when you come to the realization that we are all just teeny specks in this enormous universe, and the sooner you believe this fact, the better your life's choices will be. Whatever we accumulate during our life-times doesn't amount to much when our lives are coming to a close. It is usually towards the close of our lives that we start to examine everything we've done, and most often, that's way too late to make good changes and better choices.

The truth is this: It doesn't matter how smart you are, how many degrees you have, how much money you've earned, how big your house is, how little your debt is. What matters is who you are. You can't be taught 'how to be' in textbooks. Who you are comes from all the experiences and the emotional baggage you carry with you as you go step-by-step through your life.

Every moment of life is a lesson and every life is made up of millions of moments. How many moments we each receive depends on how long we live, and how we live.

This planet is so very small when you consider the size of the universe. How can anyone think that what they do on this Earth will not affect anyone else? Every nice and good thing you do, every inconsiderate and not-so-nice thing you do... every single one of those moments will tumble across the planet like a line of dominoes. And it's up to each individual to turn those dominoes into sunshine, not mudslides.

Education is a powerful tool in this competitive world, but so is kindness. There are moments of learning in life that do not come out of chapters in a book. These are the moments that will test you, inspire you, motivate you. Or not. That choice -- to be inspired, to be motivated, to make thoughtful changes -- that choice is yours to make.

Those choices will eventually become your legacy on this planet. Your legacy, your memory, will live forever in the thoughts and actions of all who accompanied you during your life's journey, whether they were with you for just one moment or for a thousand moments.

The truth is this: years from now, no one will remember the title of the degree you've worked so hard to receive on this day. Years from now, no one will remember your bank balance or the expensive car that you drove. But they will remember the person that you were during the moments of life that you shared. Your legacy -- the memories of your life -- will live forever in the hearts and the minds of the people whose lives you touch. And if you've touched their lives in a loving and caring way, they will pass along your memory -- your legacy -- to everyone else they meet. They will learn from your kindness and good choices and pass those lessons on to everyone they know.

The truth is this: you have successfully attained a level of education that should enable you to make wise choices which will protect and preserve this sphere we call Earth. Wise choices, educated choices, caring and loving choices, can change our world, one action at a time, one moment at a time. And the truth is that there can be no better legacy for this graduating class in front of me at this very moment.

Up up and away....

A colorful surprise while my husband and I were walking on the county road this morning-- a hot air balloon right over our heads, floating over the tree-tops. We heard the whoosh of the air tank before we saw the balloon, and we both looked out into the fields thinking that someone was having problems with a tractor or some sort of farm equipment. But then we heard the sound again, looked up, and there it was... a huge balloon, so close we could see the basket and the people in it. We stood there in the middle of the road, waving up at them.

The balloon floated on and we watched it till we couldn't see it anymore. On the way back down the road towards our hill, we looked at all the fields to see where it landed. Not a balloon in sight... nothing but the neighbors' houses, chickens, livestock, and green wildflower-less pastures.

We haven't seen a hot air balloon since we lived in Clear Lake. They had a hot air balloon festival every year at the Johnson Space Center... we lived so close to JSC that we got to see all the balloons floating over our subdivision. So this morning's sighting was a nice surprise.

The quail are still walking around the yards here, and the cats aren't bothering them. I was out on the porch when the quail were walking around the front courtyard today and Gatsby was right on the porch with me, watching the quail through the porch railing. Maybe he doesn't like birds? I wish he would lose his taste for baby bunnies. The quail make such sweet little sounds... I hope they stay around.

Speaking of birds... the hens might be getting into their 'broody' stage again. Scarlett spent half of the day sitting in the nesting box, and Daisy joined her (in a separate box) late this afternoon. Scarlett did lay an egg today, but I took it out from under her. Nothing in Daisy's nesting box, and she was very insulted that I dared to look.

I checked the little notebook that I keep on the chickens and their egg count, and it was this same time last year that Scarlett went broody and stayed in the nesting box for 34 days. I hope she doesn't plan on doing that again, but if she does, then I'm just going to let her sit it out. Last year, I was taking her out of the nesting box five and six times a day, trying to give her a hint that the sitting wasn't necessary because she had no egg to hatch and even if she did, it wouldn't be hatching because we didn't have a rooster.

I did all of that on the advice of the chicken farmer who sold us the hens, but Scarlett was determined to sit in that nest, and that's what she did. So this year, she can just sit in there for as many days as she wants. The books say that the hens do get out of the box to eat and drink, so this time, Scarlett is in charge of the details. I'll just make sure she has fresh food and water right near her nesting box.

And that's been the day... sunny and warm, Summer is here... Spring lasted 28 minutes, and the lack of wildflowers under our rain-free sky is very disappointing. Oh well... there's always next year.

Open House.

This past Saturday afternoon, we had the Open House party for friends and neighbors and my husband's co-workers. Nearly 35 people came for an 'Ice Cream & Dessert Social' and the dining room table was filled with cakes and pies, brownies and ice cream, and fresh fuits.

At any given time during the afternoon, there were more people standing around my kitchen instead of relaxing in the dining room and living room. A comfy sofa, plush chairs, and still more chairs-- enough for everyone, and then some. But every time I went into the kitchen, there they all were, deep in conversations and seemingly very comfortable standing up.

The cakes and brownies that I baked were a hit.... but of course I made too much. And the pies from Royer's Cafe-- always delicious, but we bought one too many. When we said goodbye to the last guest, into the freezer went all of the brownies and two of the pies. I told my husband that I wouldn't be baking any sort of dessert until everything in the freezer was gone. Our neighbors can expect to have pies and brownies when they stop by.

Everyone left with a little bag of Easter chocolates tied up with a pretty ribbon. Such a little thing, those party favors, and the smiles on everyone's faces just made the day. I've been doing that for years... party favors were my Aunt Dolly's speciality when I was a kid, so every smile given for one of our favors is like giving extra smiles to my Aunt Dolly.

As always at our parties, when there are so many people, you just aren't able to spend as much time with everyone as you'd like to. We had friends from Clear Lake here and the time with them was much too short but very sweet, and spread out during the afternoon. No sooner did I get to sit down and chat for a few minutes, and someone new would come to the door and I had to get up.

We had expected the fields to be filled with a carpet of blue and yellow wildflowers, but due to the lack of rain (not a drop since early January) the fields have turned green but the wildflower patches are sparse. That was a disappointment to us and to our friends, but what can you do? The rain gods have not been kind to this part of the state, and the entire county, known for its bluebonnet trails, is just lacking in local color this Spring.

We did have very pretty weather this weekend, though.... very sunny, hot without broiling, but it was too windy for anyone to sit outside at the tables and chairs on the porches and decks. My husband took small groups for walks around the property, showing them his vegetable garden of corn, tomatoes, and eggplant, and walking them around the rose bushes, showing them all the work he and the handyman have done to brighten-up the trim paint on the house and the cottage.

Everyone loved "The Coopacabana" and I was surprised to learn that a few of my husband's co-workers not only knew who Barry Manilow was, but they liked his music as well. I'm always surprised to meet Manilow fans in this state. I know they're out there, but they're quiet about it, being surrounded by a multitude of country-music lovers.

We've been eating leftovers all weekend, so tomorrow it's back to reality: cooking. Also back to laundry. Kitchen towels and tableclothes have multiplied in my laundry room, and tomorrow's the day to make them all disappear.

I wish I could make all those chocolate brownies disappear. My cousin F told me that Rule #1 is that you can never have 'too many' brownies. I should have wrapped up some brownies and given them to our guests along with the cute little bags of Easter candy.

Time to bake the brownies...

That's what I've been doing this afternoon-- baking brownies. Four pans in all, two different kinds. Tomorrow will be cake baking-- a carrot cake and an angel food, I think. My husband will drive up to Royer's Cafe and buy some fruit pies. And why are all these calorie-laden foods going to be on our dining room table? Because we invited a huge list of people this weekend... people my husband works with, friends from Clear Lake, neighbors from here.

If I were living in NY, I would have just gone to the closest Italian bakery and ordered cakes and cookies and pies, and I would have been proud to put everything on our table. But we've never found a bakery like that here. Not in Houston, and certainly not here in the country. There is a little bakery in town here and we tried it once-- tasted right out of box, from a mix. Not exactly a 'real' bakery.

And so... I bake. Which isn't a problem. The problem part is not tasting everything. I cut all those brownies into squares this afternoon and there were so many little crumbly parts that were so tempting. I put them all in a bowl... they can be used to put on top of the BlueBell ice cream which we'll also have at the party. There will be so many sweet things at the party this weekend that everyone will have a sugar-buzz.

The weather has turned into Summer. I think Spring lasted all of 28 minutes before the temperatures got up to the Summer mark. We're still waiting for rain, which we haven't seen since January or early February. The wildflowers are blooming, but not as full and as carpet-like as last year. I'm hoping that the wild yellow daisies will continue to pop up out of the dry ground and brighten up all the green fields.

With the surprise onslaught of the heat, the chickens have been resting from their egg-laying. The only eggs I've been finding have been from Scarlett and PittyPat. Both Prissy and Daisy have been on an egg-strike, and Audrey only gives us an egg when she's truly in the mood, which she clearly hasn't been lately.

I even walked all around the yards, looking under rose bushes and palms, inside and around the barn, underneath the cottage, in the flowerbeds around the house. I thought maybe Prissy and Daisy found a new spot to use as a nest. I didn't find any eggs around the property, so I'm guessing they're just not laying right now. A real ranch wife would have had those two hens in the oven already and new hens in the coop. But I am far from a 'real' ranch wife. About as far as one can get, actually.

Sooner or later, the five hens that we have will all stop laying eggs. "And then what?" said my husband one day. "Then I guess we either buy some new chickens or buy eggs from the store," said I. "And what happens with the hens that we have?" he wanted to know. "Well, we keep them, of course. What else?"

His answer to all of the above: "City girl." Yes, I am. And once all the brownies and cakes are done and the dining room is all set for company, I will make sure my nails are polished and my best shoes are on my feet and not in my closet. City girl indeed.

Morning adventures....

We were up before dawn this morning... my husband woke up at 5:30 and I must have heard him going down the stairs because I got out of bed right after that.

By the time I got downstairs, he was having coffee and toast. Does anything else smell as good in the morning as one slice of toast? I ate some pineapple and we were just talking in the kitchen. The cats were quiet in the TV room... Gatsby slept outside last night and I guess he didn't notice the kitchen light because he wasn't knocking his paw against the screen door.

All of a sudden, I hear my husband saying "We've got company," and then he starts walking towards the closet that holds the furnace unit. We keep a few sticky-traps on the floor in that space, and every once in a while, a bat or a tiny mouse finds its way inside there (from inside the walls?)-- the sticky traps keep them from getting out of the closet and into the house. (One would hope.)

My husband opened the door and sure enough, there was a little mouse with all four of its feet stuck to the trap. Poor thing, but I'd rather have it stuck on a trap than lost somewhere in the house with my cats trying to chase it down. My husband brought the trap outside, mouse and all, and tossed it into the trash can. He hates those traps-- says they are 'inhumane.' The last time this happened, my husband pried the mouse off of the trap with a screwdriver-- it worked, and the mouse ran away into the field (along with three inches of grass on its feet, I'm sure).

I heard my husband come up the porch steps, then I heard him saying "Oh my god..." I looked out the screen door and there was a dead baby bunny. Gatsby must have hunted it down during the night. My husband picked up the bunny with a plastic bag and into the trash can went the poor little thing. My husband told me a few hours later that half of the bunny had been eaten away. Which explains why Gatsby didn't want his cat food this morning. Heaven only knows what Gatsby eats when he's outside-- he keeps gaining weight, so I guess that's not all cat food in that cat-belly of his.

My husband went back upstairs to his office, saying that maybe he should just go back to sleep and wake up again. Gatsby, who had come inside after the bunny was put into the trash can, wanted to go out again, so I opened the door for him before I went to feed Mickey and Sweet Pea.

Less than an hour later, it was time to let the chickens out of the coop. As soon as I opened the kitchen door, I saw half a snake on the doormat-- the back half. It was a small thin green snake... Gatsby must have caught him and eaten the front half of it, leaving the rest of it as a gift for us. Such a thoughtful cat.

I must be getting used to all of this because instead of calling for my husband to take away the remains of the snake, I just stepped around it on the porch and got the broom. I swept the half-snake off the porch and into the flowerbed.

Within the next hour, my husband went outside to pull up those big thorny weeds that everyone hates so much, and I noticed the neighbor's cow on the road outside the fence. The cow was just standing at the side of the road munching on the tall grass and wildflowers. No big deal, but the cow was heading down the hill towards our fields, which wasn't such a good thing. Just as I told my husband about the cow, our friend J was driving down the hill and going into town. My husband got into J's car and off they went to let the neighbor know his cow had gotten outside his fence.

Within a few minutes, down the hill came that neighbor, armed with a cattle prod and he got the cow back onto his own land. J drove off into town, my husband went back to pulling up weeds, I started the washing machine.

All of the above happened before 8:30 this morning. As I type, it's close to 11:00. I've got clothes in the dryer, and I've got salmon burgers and zucchini casserole prepared to go into the oven because J is having lunch with us at noon today. Gatsby is in the house and sound asleep under the sofa in the TV room and my husband is taking a nap.

The little mouse, by the way, is no longer stuck to the trap and in the trash can. My husband checked on the Internet and found out that nail polish remover will free up whatever is caught on those glue-traps. So before he went to pull up weeds, my husband took the mouse (on the trap) and a bottle of nail polish remover, and drove up the road a good ways from our house. He poured the nail polish remover on a piece of cardboard near the mouse's feet, and was able to get the little mouse free of the glue-trap.

My only hope now is that the little mouse doesn't find its way back to our property, back to whatever teeny-tiny space it had found this morning which enabled it to get into the closet with the furnace and stuck on the glue-traps in the first place.

As we keep saying-- just another day on the ranch.

It's April already?

Once again, the weeks are flying by too quickly.

Our friends V & S stopped by the other day... they were up here in one of the nearby towns, checking out some of the antique shops. I told V that she has no room in her house for anything else, but V has her own system with antique shopping-- the item has to be vertical (like a floor lamp) or it has to hang on the wall. If it takes up floor space, then that just won't do.

V's son is getting married in the summer, up in Austin, so we'll be going to the wedding. Weddings, of course, mean that you have to find a dress-- I looked in my closet first, but the wedding-appropriate outfits that I found in there just weren't light and cool enough for a summer wedding.

An afternoon in town, three hours in one store, and I found two dresses-- both on sale (two for the price of one) so I bought them both. When V was here, I showed her my choice for her son's wedding, and she approved... she especially loved the red heels to go with the dress. V had sent me a web-link photo of her mother-of-the-groom dress... she's going to look just beautiful in champagne-satin with beaded cuffs on three-quarter sleeves. I told V's husband that he'd better make sure to look 'extra fine' for his son's wedding because he'll be standing next to V and she's going to be gorgeous.

The cows in the neighbor's fields have stopped their moaning and his goats haven't gotten stuck in the fence lately. The quail in our yard are still here... I see them every morning after breakfast. There must be a nest around, and I've looked for it but can't find it. One good thing-- the cats haven't found the nest either, nor are they bothering the quail. The weather has been picture-postcard beautiful. April is starting off very well.