My friend Fran.

Just a little while ago, I found out that my friend Fran passed away up in NY. It happened just yesterday.... her husband J called me this morning to let me know. Fran was just my age..... I've known her since high school days.... I've known her husband since the 5th grade.... we've been friends all these years.

I've written about Fran in these pages..... she was 'my friend F' who called me a few years ago to tell me that she had throat cancer. We had been keeping in touch via letters and eMail since I moved from up north, but her 'cancer news' (as she called it) was something that wasn't 'eMail-worthy,' as she said. She wanted to tell me, in her own words over the phone, in her own voice.... because she didn't know if she would even have a voice at all after the surgery.

Fran's voice did return.... not exactly the same as before, but I still knew who was calling when she said 'hello' over the phone. She went through surgeries and treatments over these past few years.... every time I spoke to her on the phone, she would tell me that her biggest regret in life was her very first cigarette. Because after that first one, there was just no going back for her, she said. When I think of all the times her husband tried to talk her into quitting, I could just cry. We all talked to her about giving up smoking. It just didn't work.

And now she's gone. To make the sadness even sadder..... Fran's oldest son and his wife are expecting their first child in a matter of weeks. I'm sitting here just shaking my head at all of this....... Fran was such a good mom.... she would have been the best of grandmothers.

During one of the long phone conversations Fran and I had (when she still had her voice), I told her how much I admired her. She was the kind of mom who made everything so much fun for her children...... she and her husband were united in the upbringing of their sons, both of whom have grown into such wonderful men. Fran was always confident enough to allow her children to see the world through their own eyes..... she never peppered them with her own views, her own likes and dislikes...... she wanted her sons to form their own opinions and come to their own conclusions. Fran gave advice when they asked for it ("and sometimes when they didn't ask for it," she told me) and then she told her sons to study the situation and do what they thought was best.

My heart was breaking on the phone this morning with Fran's husband J. I wanted to scream out and just cry..... for her husband, for her sons, for her brother, for her daughter-in-law and the tiny baby who will never be held in his grandmother's arms.

When Fran's sons were born, it was at a time when I was trying to have a baby of my own. That just never happened, and I told Fran how jealous I felt that she was pregnant and I couldn't get pregnant. I worked hard to get rid of that jealousy before Fran's oldest son was born..... jealousy is an awful gut-wrenching emotion that shows no mercy and has no bounds if you let it overtake you. Shortly after Fran gave birth, I brought gifts to her baby boy and held him in my arms. I had been able to let go of that jealousy long before Fran's due-date, but holding that little baby in my arms cured me forever of any jealous feelings, for anyone, for anything. I don't believe that I've had a jealous emotion in all these years, and that was over 35 years ago now. That's one of the greatest miracles of babies..... you hold one in your arms and nothing else, absolutely nothing else, can give you more joy and let you feel more love. Fran's sons grew up calling me "Aunt L" and the sound of their voices saying that was just priceless.

Fran's husband had called here a few weeks ago, to tell me that 'Hospice' was coming to the house to help Fran stay comfortable. She had lost her voice for good then, so her husband put the speaker-phone on and I could talk to Fran and J could hear what I was saying also, and tell me that Fran was shaking her head 'no' or nodding her head 'yes.' I held myself together during that phone call, until the very end when I told Fran that I loved her. I lost it altogether after I hung up the phone. Funny thing....... for all the years we had known one another, Fran and I hardly ever said "I love you" to each other. But that changed when she was first diagnosed with the throat cancer.... we began saying I love you both over the phone and in our eMails.

There is such an irony here...... one of the things I admired about Fran when we were in our 20s and 30s was that she was never afraid to voice her opinions. She didn't care who agreed with her or not.... she knew who she was and she didn't hesitate to 'put her two cents' into a conversation. And 'two cents' from Fran, in any given conversation, was worth a fortune because her opinions were well thought-out and meant not to aggravate a conversation, but to enhance it. And that was the voice that was taken away. And that, to me, is just so very sad.

I cried when I got off the phone with Fran's husband J this morning...... I told my husband that Fran will never get to see her first grandchild, never get to hold the baby, to know him or her. My husband disagreed...... he believes that Fran will indeed still be around, will still be here to see that little baby.

I want to believe that also... and I'm choosing to believe that Fran's spirit will forever be here, for that baby, and for all of us who loved her for the genuine person that she was. And I do intend to visit her family after her first grandchild is born. Just as I held both of Fran's sons in my arms after they were born, my intention is to hold her grandchildren as well.

Life goes on in a sensible way...

I'm still getting over all the snake-stuff that's been happening around here lately. I told my cousin F in NY that I feel like I'm living in the middle of that old TV show called "Wild Kingdom."

The adult birds who lost their four babies to the snake last week have finally stopped circling the nest in the far corner corner of the back porch. They are still here in the yard and on the porch, sometimes sitting on the blades of the ceiling fan outside closest to their nest. I thought the mama bird would lay more eggs because she would sit in the nest from time to time. Maybe she's not ready to do that yet, but nor is she ready to just leave the porch and fly elsewhere.

There is a nest on top of one of the kitchen windows..... just built a couple of weeks ago, and another set of barn swallows had worked very hard to get the nest built 'just so' on top of the window moulding. The mama bird had laid her eggs, and during the time she sat on the eggs, she got used to my husband and I as we walked in and out of the kitchen door. I think the birds get to recognize who comes and goes in this house, because before too long, the mama bird didn't even leave her nest when we opened the door and walked onto the porch.

I noticed that the mother bird was flying back and forth to the nest all morning long today, so I went out there with the binoculars. Just as I thought-- there were three little baby birds peeking their heads over the side of the nest, waiting for the mama bird to come feed them. The babies are so tiny, but their beaks are so very yellow that it's easy to see them. Hopefully, this family of barn swallow babies won't be destroyed by another snake.

No matter when I go outside now, I'm constantly looking down on the grass and around the flowerbeds. I have my boots on when I'm out there... no more sandals, no more flat shoes for walking around the property. I was very lucky that day when I had to jump over the copperhead that was so close to my feet outside the chicken coop. Our neighbor J told us that copperheads move very slowly, especially after they've eaten. Well..... I don't care what the snake-rules are.... who knows if we'll come across a copperhead that's faster than most.

Sleeping has been the pits lately...... my imagination can just run far ahead of me, and not in a rational way. Not only am I looking for snakes outside in the yard, but now I'm looking into corners of cupboards and closets. Just in case, mind you.... just in case.

But on the bright side.... there are new baby birds in the nest over the kitchen window.... mama bird is flying back and forth feeding them.... papa bird guards the nest.... we have so many barn swallows flying around the house that it looks like a bird sanctuary out there on any given day. Life does indeed go on.

Sanctuary. This property always seemed to be just that very thing.... a sanctuary. But with all the wildlife sightings lately.... the foxes who walk along the road in the middle of the day, the coyotes who howl at night, the snakes that slither along in the grass and manage to hoist themselves up the porch columns, raccoons that can kill a cat and destroy a vegetable garden, hawks that can swoop down and pick up a chicken as easily as a bird can catch a bug....... it's no longer such a sanctuary. It's more like a war-zone studded with obstacles and booby-traps and things that go bump in the night.

And each one of those bumps will take away another hour of sleep. I thought (as I always do with a house that I love) that I would be here forever and ever, taking my last breath under this roof. I told my husband the other day that I no longer believe that. The house is beautiful... it's a dream Victorian that makes our furniture look as if it has all been here since the house was built over a hundred years ago. But the property.... as beautiful as it is, it's becoming a nightmare filled with creatures and critters that are beyond what I can handle on any given blessed day.

My husband's mother always said 'No matter what happens, life goes on in a sensible way.'

Life does indeed go on. I'm sitting here waiting for the 'sensible' part.

Just when you think it's safe....

.... to go out on the porch..........

We haven't seen a snake in what....? two days? three? I've been wearing my boots every time I have to put a foot into the grass outside, and I've been very cautious as I walk in the grass, even with the boots on. I'm looking down so much that I will probably walk into a fence or smack into the side of the garage or the cottage.

Just a little while ago..... I was in the kitchen by the screen door, talking to my husband who was on the back porch. And what did I see out of the corner of my eye? A snake? No. A tarantula. Not a little bitty spider, but a tarantula. A big one. Black, hairy, just sitting there on the back porch right near the door. And there was Gatsby, my so-called-fearless outside cat, just a few feet away. Did Gatsby see the tarantula and chase it away? Of course not. Gatsby was sound asleep.

Wasn't it just yesterday that I told my husband that I don't even want to read a book on the back porch anymore because I'm afraid a snake is going to slither by my feet, or worse, drop down from one of the porch columns to see what I'm reading. My husband said I'm letting my fears control me. He said my imagination can cause more harm than the facts. I told him that I knew all of that, but I didn't care.

As I type, my husband is in the car, along with the tarantula that he captured in a plastic container. He's driving the damn thing up to the main highway so he can release it. I hope he makes sure that the damn tarantula doesn't have a map with directions back to our porch. Had that been me, I would have whacked that thing with the shovel, or sprayed it with an entire can of bug-spray (which is what I did last year when I saw a tarantula on the back porch).

So now.... not only am I going to be looking for snakes in the grass, I'm going to be searching for tarantulas on the porch. And if there's one tarantula, there's got to be two. Or three. Or an entire tarantula family. Damn it. Damn it. Damn it.

And my husband wants to know why I don't let Mickey Kitty and Sweet Pea go outside anymore....... is he freaking kidding me?!

Give me a blessed break from all things crawling, slithering, creeping, sneaking, stalking in these creature-filled hills.

Not a good day for the mama-bird.

We had a horrible rainstorm last night, complete with thunder and lightning and bits of hail. We truly needed the rain, and our storm was nothing compared to the weather in the rest of the country. Your heart has to go out to the towns that were turned into piles of lumber and bricks by a passing tornado.

My heart also goes out to the mama barn swallow who had her nest at the far corner of our back porch...... the same nest where my husband knocked down a snake the other day who had one of her babies in its mouth. Well, sometime during the night or early this morning, another copperhead got up into that nest. This snake was bigger than the first one that was perched in the nest..... the bulges in the snake's body told us everything we needed to know: all the babies were gone. My husband shot the snake, not once but three times.

The mama bird was circling the nest this morning, but she wasn't screeching or chirping like she was the other day when the smaller snake was in that nest. This snake may have gotten in there during the middle of the night. The three babies were getting bigger and the mama bird had no room for herself in the nest, so she was sleeping on another porch column, close to the nest. Not close enough, however, to protect the babies from a snake. I wouldn't imagine any small bird could chase away a snake.

It's been quiet outside all morning. The birds usually sing all day long. Not today... it's been as quiet as an empty church out there. I was heart-sick this morning. Literally. As soon as I saw the snake hanging out of that nest, I knew what must have happened and I had to run out of the kitchen because I quickly got sick. My husband was right there in the kitchen with me when I looked out the window.... he knew what happened to the baby birds as soon as he saw the snake in the nest. I heard the shots from the bathroom. I knew the snake was history. But so are the baby birds. It's after lunch time as I'm typing.... the mama bird is still circling the back porch and peeking into the nest from time to time.

"Where there's one snake, there's two." Someone who works with my husband told him that just yesterday. Well, in the past four days, there have been three snakes. The smallest was about 16 inches long. The one in the nest this morning was three feet long. The one near the coop the other day was a little over four feet long. Our friends J&J up the road have also been killing snakes... in their yard, on their driveway, in their pool.

I don't like the thought of killing animals. However, I draw the line with the snakes. They are innately evil. They will capture anything that's alive and breathing and helpless. If there is or ever was a god in the heavens, surely a good and loving god would not have fashioned such a creature. I can more easily believe in the presence of a devil, and without a doubt, the heart of a devil beats inside every snake.

Since we've been in this house, I've had to learn how to kill scorpions. I no longer scream for my husband to 'rescue' me from either a live scorpion, a near-to-death scorpion, or a stone-dead one. With the spray that my husband has been using, the scorpions I've found inside the house are so close to death that I just whack them with my shoe and scoop them up with a small dust-pan. I don't even hold the dust-pan at arm's length anymore.

But.... the snakes. I don't know if I could ever kill one. I think I would need a very sharp blade at the end of a very long pole...... and I would need enough strength in my arms to be able to kill the damn thing with one good smash. If you just injure or corner the snake, it's going to get mad and it's going to come after you. That would not be a good thing. You've got to kill it..... you've got to want to kill it... and once you start that process, you've got to follow it through to the bloody end. My husband says you can't just aim for the tail.... you've got to aim for the head.... whether you're using a blade, a shovel, a rake, or a gun.

As I said yesterday...... whose idea was this..... to live in the countryside where the air is unpolluted and there are no traffic jams and the sky lights up with a zillion stars at night and gourmet restaurants are two hours away and billions of wildflowers fill the fields in the Spring and the nearest SteinMart is an hour's drive and the damn copperheads slither up into nests to devour baby birds?!?!?! Damn it all to hell.

Snakes R Us.

I can't stand this....... but if I don't write it down and get it out of my mind, I will never be able to fall asleep tonight.

I went outside to lock up the coop at 7:45 tonight..... went into the coop, made sure all four chickens were in there, made sure Gatsby wasn't in there, and I locked the gate. Just as I turned around to step out of the yard in front of the coop, there it was in the grass, about ten inches away from my feet--- a very long copperhead snake. I couldn't run into the coop because it was locked (plus that wouldn't have been smart because there's not another way out on the other side).

The only thing I could do was jump over that damn snake... thankfully, the tail-end of him was near my feet, not the head-end of him. I ran back to the house.... couldn't even open my mouth to get a word (or a scream) out. Into the house, through the kitchen, into the front hallway, and I was able to yell "SNAKE!" when I reached the bottom of the stairs. My husband came running down the steps..... and I told him where the snake was, and how close I had been to it. I also told him that this one wasn't a small copperhead like the one yesterday..... this was a full-grown adult snake, damn it.

Once again... the shovel, the hoe, the hedge clippers...... my husband managed to kill the snake with the hoe and drag it from the grass to the concrete..... and then he smashed it again. And again. And again. And then he used the clippers to cut off its head.... just to make sure it was deader than dead. (I honestly don't know how I'm able to type all of this.)

My husband said the snake had turned around to face him..... I guess it knew it was cornered in that little part of the yard and it was ready to put up a fight. My husband slammed the hoe into the copperhead so many times that his back was stiff and hurting when he was done. And even after all of that, when the snake was on the concrete and my husband went into the garage for the clippers, that damn snake started to open its mouth and move its tail a bit. One last breath? Or bracing itself for one last try at a bite? We never did find out because my husband slammed it with the hoe again, and then finished it off with the hedge clippers.

Thankfully, my husband didn't get bit...... thankfully, I was able to jump over the tail-end of the snake..... thankfully, neither the chickens nor Gatsby got bit by the snake. Mickey and Sweet Pea were in the house-- and they may never again see the outside of this house. That blasted snake was over four feet long. This was not an itty-bitty copperhead going after teeny baby birds. This snake could have bitten and killed a cat or a chicken, or bitten one of us and we would have had to drive into town to the hospital's emergency room. (And I would have missed the last show of 'Dancing With the Stars.' Damn snakes.)

I have vowed to never walk around the yards without wearing my boots. Snakes can't bite through leather.... and those red-leather resale shop boots that I bought for walking around the property will now be on my feet every time I have to step into the grass, or into the coop, or go near the vegetable garden.

Peaceful country life. Whose freaking idea was this anyway?!

Baby birds and pirates...

Wonder of wonders...... that snake yesterday only killed one of the baby birds. I'm sure he would have gotten the other three if my husband had not been able to get the snake away from that nest. The first thing I did this morning was look out the kitchen window at the barn swallow nest.... and there they were-- three tiny heads peeking out from the nest as the mama bird was feeding them. Birdie-business as usual.

All is once again right in the world of our barn swallows. Every time I go outside now, my eyes are searching up and down the length of the porch, looking for snakes. It still amazes me how the snake managed to get up the porch columns.... and how on earth did it know the babies were up there in the first place? I guess snakes have a good sense of smell? Or do they just know that a bird's nest means baby birds are probably inside there?

I have gotten used to a lot of creepy crawly slithery things since we moved to Texas in 1993. I don't cringe at the frogs and lizards anymore..... I don't care if an armadillo is making holes in the garden... the possums are ugly, the raccoons are a pain. But I have to draw the line at snakes. Especially copperhead snakes. This is the second one I've seen, and I know it won't be the last. Heaven help the baby birds if my husband isn't here to save them.


As for pirates...... we saw the latest Johnny Depp movie yesterday.... Captain Jack Sparrow, at your service. That character just makes me smile all the time. I told my husband to get his pirate costume ready because we're having a Halloween costume party this October, without fail. He's worn that costume before, but that was at our old house.... the costume will be 'new' to everyone here.... and with the latest 'Pirates of the Caribbean' movie being released, it's just the perfect time to get that costume out of the box.

Bye-bye birdies.

Ever since we've been in this house, there have been countless barn swallows building nests on top of the porch columns. The nests are carefully built..... the little eggs are laid... the mama birds sit on the nests... the papa birds stand guard. When the eggs hatch, both birds fly back and forth constantly to feed those tiny hungry babies.

The nest on the far back corner of the porch had three baby birds, possibly four.... we watched the adult birds flying back and forth every day, and tonight after dinner, we watched through the binoculars as the mama bird fed the baby birds. The beaks on the babies were bright yellow, easily seen even without the binoculars.

Just before "Dancing With the Stars" came on tonight, I went upstairs to check my eMail. I was walking back down the stairs just minutes before seven o'clock and all I could hear were the shrieks of the adult birds. One look out the kitchen window told me all I needed to know-- there was a copperhead snake up on that nest with a baby bird in its mouth and the two adult birds were flying around and around the nest, screaming their little hearts out.

I ran back up the stairs, telling my husband that a snake was in the birds' nest...... he was down the stairs in a flash..... grabbing the broom, a shovel, the cutting shears. He managed to grab the snake by its tail and he swung it around in a circle to get it a bit dizzy... then he smashed it with the shovel and cut it with the shears. During all of that, the adult birds were screaming and circling that nest. One tiny lifeless baby bird was on the back porch, and there were two or three more inside the nest. The adult birds kept circling and calling, but we didn't see the little baby birds peek out of that nest.

My husband got up on the ladder and tried to see if the other babies were still alive, but he just couldn't tell..... they were deep inside the nest, and the adult birds were still shrieking and circling. He will check that nest in the morning, but I don't have much hope for the rest of the baby barn swallows. I'm guessing that the snake just bit them all and killed them, or else they just shrieked themselves to death.

A copperhead. Not a good snake. Not your ordinary garden snake that you can shake a broom at and let it go on its way. Once again.... another reason to keep Mickey and Sweet Pea inside this house. Those two cats might never again see the light of day except through the screen doors of the TV room. Gatsby seems to stay out of harm's way when he's outside, and he much prefers outside to inside. He's more of a street-smart cat than the other two.

I felt so badly for the birds. We've been watching that nest for weeks now... and it was just minutes before all of that happened that we were ooohing and aaahing over those tiny babies. How in the world did that snake get up there so quickly? And how did it even know there was a nest way up there in the first place?

I know those bird-shrieks will be in my mind as my head hits that pillow tonight. Such sad sounds...... I can't even describe the screams. When things like this happen, that book "When Elephants Weep" comes to mind...... how anyone can say that animals don't have feelings and emotions is just beyond me.

"Peaceful country living.' Tell that to the mama bird out on my back porch.

Uncle Tony

My Aunt Margie called from Arizona today, to tell me that Uncle Tony passed away on Friday night. All of us knew that he was getting more and more frail, weaker and weaker, but no one was thinking about any particular day being 'the last day.'

Well, Friday was the last one for Uncle Tony. He watched a baseball game, went to bed early, and took his last breath sometime before 10:00 that night. That's when Aunt Margie went into the bedroom... and she knew he was gone. They had been married for more than 65 years.

Uncle Tony was the last of my dad's brothers... the rest are all gone now. Of all my grandparents' children, only my Aunt Dolly and my Aunt Jaye are still here. Aunt Dolly will be 98 next month..... Aunt Jaye will be 91 in December. They are both in excellent health.

I called my cousins in Arizona to tell them how sorry I was.... they are already talking about the deep void they're feeling without their dad, but they're also laughing about all the good memories they shared as a family. And Uncle Tony's family was a family. Uncle Tony let nothing get in the way of his family's time together, not even the rest of the family. Their time was their time, and when they were done, they would join in with the rest of the family, whose number was considerable. My grandparents had ten children, seven of which lived past childhood to marry and establish families of their own.

And out of all of those 'established' families, Uncle Tony and Aunt Margie's family was the only one not torn apart by divorce. So keeping their own family time to themselves must have been the right way to go.

Uncle Tony's legacy to us all was his opinion that 'Life was meant to be fun, and if it wasn't fun, then what was the point?'

Of all the memories that I have of Uncle Tony, one stands out above the rest. Just about the whole family was at my grandparents' house the week after Christmas... having yet another holiday dinner and exchanging gifts. The first dinner celebration had been on Christmas Day, but not everyone could be there, so all during the week, we kept getting together again and again.... more macaroni and sauce, more lasagna, more presents, more pastries. Christmas kept going and going and going and we were all just having a good time.

My Uncle Bernie's gift to my Uncle Mino that year was a wristwatch. The wrapping paper was silvery and shiny, and My Aunt Dolly told Uncle Mino to fold it neatly so she could re-use it. The watch came in a heavy wooden box which caught my father's eye. My dad didn't think a watch was a 'real' watch unless it hung on a chain, so wristwatches didn't get his attention... but that nice fancy wooden box seemed more interesting to him than the watch itself.

As my aunts and uncles were ooohing and aaahing over the watch, my dad was turning the box over in his hands and looking at how it was made and put together. Uncle Tony got my Uncle Bernie's attention and they watched as my dad kept singing the praises of the craftsman who made that box.

The following Christmas, all of my uncles were as silent as mice as my dad opened his gift..... they had wrapped up the wooden box from the year before, the same box that once held Uncle Mino's wristwatch........ Uncle Tony and Uncle Bernie just about fell out of their chairs laughing as my dad unwrapped that empty box. My dad loved that wood box..... kept it on his dresser for years, to hold his pocket watch and loose change..... and for many holidays after that, everyone laughed all over again about the year Uncle Tony and Uncle Bernie wrapped up that empty wooden box for my dad.

My father always talked about the day Uncle Tony got the letter from the NY Yankees. Uncle Tony loved baseball, and he was an expert player. So much so that the NY Yankees sent scouts out to watch him play when he was young. Unfortunately for my Uncle Tony ("and unfortunately for the Yankees," my dad would say) the team had a height requirement, and Uncle Tony was about an inch shorter than their minimum height. The Yankees couldn't sign him to the team, and they sent Uncle Tony a letter stating just that. He kept the letter, in its original envelope, and he showed it to me on one of our trips out to Arizona. That height requirement was eventually changed, but by that time, Uncle Tony's life had gone in another direction.

The last gift I gave Uncle Tony was a NY Yankee bat, signed by Alex Rodriquez. Uncle Tony's eyes puddled up as soon as he saw the bat..... I didn't wrap it up in paper, but I had streamers of red, white and blue ribbons all over that bat, and I had it hidden behind my back as I walked into his house when we were out in Arizona. Uncle Tony loved that bat so much that he had a special plexi-glass case made for it and he hung it up on the wall in his living room. I will never forget the look on his face when he saw that bat.

My Aunt Margie sounded okay on the phone this morning..... for a woman who has lost her husband after more than 65 years of marriage, she's taking his passing as well as can be expected. She's grateful that his last day was at home, that he didn't suffer, that he didn't have to be hospitalized, that he went to bed peacefully and then went to heaven peacefully.

I have no idea what heaven is like, nor am I even sure that I believe such a place exists. But if it does, then I hope in that place called 'heaven,' everyone who passes from this earth is able to meet up with everyone they've known on this planet who has passed away before them. In my mind's eye, I can see my grandparents, daddy, my mother, my aunts and uncles, my close friends...... they're all in that place called 'heaven' and they're talking and laughing, they're happy and peaceful, nothing is there to spoil the moment or disrupt the joy. Nothing happens to pull anyone apart.... no one is unhealthy or unhappy... everyone is loving and forgiving.

No one is unhappy... everyone is loving and forgiving. Nothing is there to spoil the moment or disrupt the joy. Sort of a shame that we can't have that right here on earth.

Friday Pot-luck dinner.

We hosted a pot-luck dinner here last night, with friends we've made and neighbors we've met along the way in these hills around our house. We've had small dinner parties before, but never a bring-what-you'd-like pot-luck dinner..... and my husband and I were surprised with last night's success.

Which proves my point about hosting parties-- bring together an eclectic group of people who share just one common thing: having a good time (a sincerely good time, not a boozy good time) and what happens is just that-- everyone comes together and has a good (make that great) evening.

The energy here last night was unbelievable..... you would have thought that all the people here had known one another for years and years and got together on a weekly basis. I had set up tables in the living room, as well as the dining room table, and I thought everyone would just pick a table and enjoy their dinner and visiting with neighbors. The party started in the kitchen even before the foods were served, and then as everyone filled their plates with the home-made food choices, they all got settled into the dining room around the large table, pulling chairs from smaller tables so everyone ended up sitting elbow-to-elbow all through dinner. And no one seemed to mind..... everyone was perfectly content, the conversations never ceased, and at any given time, there were two or three separate conversation threads going around the dining room.

Last night's small dinner (for 12) proves that we can invite still more of the neighbors... and anyone else we meet along the way here.... and what we'll have will be similar to the large parties we used to have in Clear Lake. My husband and I kept thinking that the neighbors here weren't 'party people,' simply because we didn't see them being as sociable as what we were used to in our old neighborhood. I'm guessing now that if people weren't being sociable here, it was only because they had no invitations being tucked into their mail boxes.

Ta-daaah....... I am very good at tucking party invitations into mail boxes. I got a lot of practice with that back in Clear Lake. We will definitely have another pot-luck here.... before the summer is even at its hottest point..... when the S's have unpacked their Pennsylvanian boxes and have settled into their Texas home here--- for good this time, not for just a summer visit. It will be yet another reason for a party... and any excuse will do just fine.

New Braunfels

We spent the day further up in the Hill Country today, in the town of New Braunfels. We drove up there with friends J & J, leaving here right after breakfast this morning. It was a beautiful day, a little cloudy this morning, then clearing up to a 90-degree sunny day.

We had lunch at a little cafe in the old part of New Braunfels.... I remember the name, but I can't spell it correctly...... delicious food with a Tex-Mex flair. We also stopped at the 'oldest bakery in Texas,' coming home with a small shopping bag filled with homemade pastry-- all of which is now in the freezer. The pastries are delicious, 'real' bakery items, not the run-of-the-mill supermarket bakery stuff that's so popular here. My husband and I are 'bakery-snobs,' coming from the northeast where every neighborhood had an Italian bakery and a German bakery.... real bakeries with from-scratch recipes, not cakes from a box.

J & J drove to an outlet mall up near New Braunfels... acres and acres of brand-name stores surrounded by a sea of parking spaces. I'm not a mall person.... I don't like paying for brand names.... but it was interesting to see all the stores. Every brand, every chain store you can think of-- it was there. J said that the outlet mall popped up there in an area which was just pasture land years ago.

We walked through some of the small shops in the town, and there was an antique co-op store that was of course filled with vintage treasures of all shapes and sizes-- those are the stores I love to browse through, so that was fun. And my husband found an old steel and iron bridge built in the mid-1800s that we could walk across and see the Guadalupe River down below. The bridge is closed to vehicles, but it was nice to walk across the old wooden planks and see the river flowing across the spillway.

Between our town and New Braunfels, there are countless acres of farmland, pastures, ponds... property for as far as your eyes can see, and then some. Because of the lack of rain, a lot of the ponds were dried up, or very low. Even with that, just the sight of all the land is enough to take your breath away.

When we came home, I found a surprise in the mailbox.... my friend J in England sent me a magazine and newspaper featuring the Royal Wedding. I read both from cover to cover and sent J an eMail to thank her for her thoughtfulness. The Royal Wedding is still going on... front page photographs on most of the magazine covers at the store yesterday. Which is fine with me..... I'd rather see William & Kate than any number of breaking-news stories that have hit the fan since the end of April.

Sunday adventures...

Yesterday was the commencement at the university..... my husband delivered the 'keynote address.' I had planned to go to the ceremony to watch, but the speakers and faculty had to get there extra early for a private reception of sorts, so I decided to watch the ceremony from home. My husband downloaded the university's web-site on his computer, and all I had to do was press a button when the ceremony began and I was able to watch everything live, as it was happening.

For the past four weeks or so, my husband had been constructing and editing a video for the graduates, plus writing and re-writing his speech. The result was an outstanding video and an excellent commencement speech.... both of which will soon be on YouTube so family and friends will be able to see it also. (The magic of technology!)

I have to admit that the Pomp and Circumstance music always gets to me.... it brings tears to my eyes each and every time. And seeing my husband standing up there at the podium delivering a flawlessly perfect speech to the graduates... that was the icing on the proverbial cake.

About half an hour before my husband got back home yesterday, I saw two foxes walking up the road towards our driveway. Not one, but two! Walking along as if they lived here, for goodness sake. One fox was carrying a lifeless quail in its mouth... the other fox was just following along, probably hoping to share in the feast.

As soon as I saw the foxes, I went outside to see where my chickens were.... I wasn't happy when I saw three of them just standing in the driveway in front of the garage doors-- just standing there and watching the foxes. If those foxes had been just a little more hungry, they would have charged towards the hens and most likely been able to catch them easily. As it happened, when the foxes saw me, they continued on down the road, not stopping to detour into our driveway.

We now have two female turkeys walking around our yards on a daily basis. I was judging their sizes by the weights of Thanksgiving turkeys that I have cooked in the past.... the smaller female would be about twelve pounds, and the larger one would be close to eighteen or twenty pounds. Needless to say, neither one of those turkeys will ever see a roasting pan in my kitchen. Last night after dinner, the larger turkey flew up on the breezeway roof between the house and the garage. She just perched up there looking down at us for a while before she flew back down into the yard. The wing-span on that turkey was unbelievably wide.

Another week has begun..... today has seemed to go along very leisurely and slowly..... after all these weeks of preparations for the commencement ceremony, my husband was able to just sit on the front porch and relax a little bit.

This moo's for you....

..... wherever you are....

The cows cried all night long..... we went to bed around 1:00 and we could hear them off in the distance. When I opened the back door this morning, the sounds of those cows were as sad and as mournful as they were last night. As I type, it is 1:30 in the afternoon, and I can still hear the cows crying.

In my mind's eye, I can see the cows just pacing around their new pastures on the other side of the hills here, desperately searching for their calves who were not brought with them. The moo-ing is just so awful....... they start out with a low moo, and then it goes up an octave or two into a distinct moaning sound... then their moans go up another octave so it sounds like they're asking a question. I swear, for as long as we're in this house, I don't think I will ever get used to such sad sounds.

There's a TV commercial, for a cheese company, I think... they talk about their cheese coming from 'happy cows.' Well, I can tell you this.... if you separate a mama cow from her calf, you do not end up with a happy cow. This makes me wonder if the calves are also screaming out for their mamas once the babies realize their mothers have been transported to different pastures. Heaven only knows how sad those sounds can be.

The cows are crying.

Again. And again.

It was such a beautiful day that my husband and I had lunch out on the front porch. As we were eating, we watched as two livestock trailers were being pulled by pick-up trucks at the base of our hill. I've learned that when those trailers are empty, the trucks drive a little faster and the trailers make a rattling sound as they get pulled along the road. When the trailers are hauling cattle, the trucks drive a little slower and the trailers have sort of a heavy sound as the wheels turn against the road.

We watched as the two trucks pulled the trailers around the road across the other side of the hill, headed for the property owned by the man who has hundreds of wildlife and livestock in his pastures. We can't see that property from here, but we can hear the sounds coming across the hills.

If there's a hunting party going on over there, we can hear the rifle shots. I don't know how something like that is described as a 'sport' when the wildlife being hunted are enclosed in fences. Is having a trophy-head on a wall over a fireplace that important to one's sense of self?

I know for certain that the livestock trailers today were bringing cows to that man's property on the other side of the hills. And I also know that those cows were taken away from their calves, put into those trailers, and driven over to that property. How do I know that particular fact? Because since just after noon-time today, as those cows were being released from the trailers, they have been pitifully, mournfully, passionately crying. They began just after noon... and it is nearly midnight as I'm typing this.

That's a long time to listen to heart-broken mama cows who are over there on the other side of these hills, continually searching those pastures for their calves. My husband asked me just a while ago if the crying of the cows bothers that property owner. My answer to that question was "Apparently not." Nothing against that property owner.... he's a farmer. He raises livestock. He shoots wildlife. He has built a thriving business around those two activities. I'm sure his livestock have never had names. Most likely just a numbered tag in their ears.

After three years in this house, you would think that I'd be used to hearing the cries of the mama cows as they search for their calves. Think again. It's just as heart-breaking to me now as it was the very first time I heard it. After listening to these mournfully heart-felt sounds, I absolutely refuse to believe that livestock and wildlife have no feelings, no emotions, no souls.

I do believe, however, that there are people walking on this earth without feelings, without emotions, without souls.

Baby birds, foxes, and things that go bump in the night.

There are so many baby birds in the nests around our porch... tiny baby barn swallows with blue, white, and black feathers. There are two baby birds in a nest by our front door and this evening after dinner, we saw the babies sitting on the edge of the nest, as if they were making up their minds whether to try their wings or stay safe under the porch roof. I'm betting that by tomorrow morning, the mama bird will have convinced those babies to fly.

Another pair of barn swallows have built a nest on top of the wood trim around one of the kitchen windows. The cats can see that nest from the screen doors in the TV room, and both Mickey and Sweet Pea have been watching the birds flying back and forth with bits of grass and thin twigs. The nest looks like it's complete now, so I'm sure the mama bird will be laying eggs in it pretty soon.

I let Mickey and Sweet Pea outside the other day-- the first time Mickey has been outside since the day before Easter when he caught the baby bunny. Thankfully, no more baby bunnies have been captured, but Sweet Pea did catch a baby sparrow yesterday, leaving it by the back door for me as a gift. I guess there's no way to keep cats from catching birds, and Sweet Pea is so agile that he can climb up into the trees and balance himself on the fences. That cat catches everything, from crickets to butterflies to tiny birds.

As I was going up the stairs tonight, I just happened to look out of the window on the stairway and saw a fox walking across the driveway. There was no mistaking that profile... long thin nose, bushy tail, thin and compact body... just walking along the driveway as if he lived here. We've seen foxes before, bigger than the one tonight, some red, some gray, all very pretty-- and very dangerous for the chickens. Our coop is very secure, with a concrete floor which would prevent a fox or a raccoon from digging underneath the fencing to get to the hens.

Heaven only knows what's outside at night here. We can hear all sorts of sounds and noises, and I know that on any given night, there will be some critter crunching his way through the pine mulch of the flowerbeds, looking for something to eat. Skunks, armadilloes, possums, raccoons, foxes... we've seen all of those.... and there's plenty out there that we haven't seen. I used to let Gatsby sleep outside at night, but I've been bringing him inside, to keep him safe. Gatsby is pretty much street-wise, but he's a coward at heart, and he wouldn't have a chance if a coyote came along anyway.

The female turkey is still walking around our yard every day, following the chickens, drinking water from their bowls, and sometimes eating vegetables or fruit or bread that I give to the hens. So far, I haven't found any turkey eggs in the flowerbeds. I don't know if the turkey would lay an egg under a bush or in a quiet corner, but I've been looking just the same.

I'm amazed that the turkey is so calm when she sees us walking in the yard. She will tilt her head to the side to give us a closer look, staring at us from head to toe, and then she'll slowly walk the other way. I've yet to see the turkey fly... seems like it wouldn't be a graceful flight at all, being that she's so bottom-heavy.

So many creatures and critters on the property at any given time, day or night. There are nights when my husband will go outside after dark and look at the millions of stars that we can see out here..... he will come inside to get me, telling me to come outside and have a look at the sky. My answer is always the same: "You want me to go outside in the grass? At night? In the dark? With all those animals out there? Are you kidding?!"

And then there were four...

Four chickens now instead of five. Daisy died this morning, sometime before noon. That poor hen managed to get herself up into a nesting box yesterday afternoon, and she stayed there all night and all morning today. I guess she thought she'd be safe in a nest, and she seemed comfy enough, but still, the wounds from Willie's paws (or teeth) were just very deep.

The chickens have all been very quiet today, and have been since their episode of screaming when Willie attacked them yesterday morning. I haven't heard a squawk or a cluck, not so much as a peep, since I got Willie away from the coop yesterday after his bad decision to catch one of the chickens. Makes me wonder if the chickens realize that one of them was hurt and now is missing altogether.

Yesterday morning, we brought Willie to the shelter, and yesterday afternoon, a wild turkey found its way to our yard. Huge turkey, looks like a female, and it may be the same one that's been hanging around our across-the-road neighbor's property since last week. My husband got a picture of the turkey as it was standing under the rose arbor by the cottage, and the turkey seemed to just pose there as if it knew her picture was being taken.

Seems like with every week, there's something new either flying or walking on the property. Last week I saw a gray fox and a possum within minutes of one another as they walked across the courtyard in front of the house. Maybe they're coming up from the woods looking for water..... with all the creeks and ponds drying up (no rain here since mid-January) the wildlife have figured out that there may be fountains and water dishes close up to the houses.

We're still talking about Willie... he was such a good dog in so many ways, but his last action here was such a bad and unforgivable one. When we were driving Willie to the shelter yesterday, he sat on the back seat of the car, right on top of the towel we laid out for him, as if he knew what was expected of him. All the way into town, he just looked out the window, sitting there like a perfect gentleman, looking at the farms and the livestock along the way. We're hoping that Willie finds himself a good home... one with a huge backyard, a pantry filled with dog food, and a yard without chickens.

Willie and the chickens.

Willie. That's what we had been calling the stray dog that popped up here on Saturday. I named him William, after Britain's Prince, but we were calling him Willie and he seemed to like the name. He also seemed to like it here, sleeping on the porch, following us around the yard, trying to make friends with the cats through the screen doors. We were thinking about keeping him, even though he was a much bigger dog than either of us would have wanted. But still, he seemed like such a good dog. Until this morning.

Then Willie remembered he was a dog, and dogs chase chickens. And sometimes, dogs will catch chickens. Willie caught Daisy, which set all the chickens to screaming. I heard the screaming and the barking at the same time. By the time I got out of the house and over to the coop, Daisy was caught inbetween the slats of the picket fence and Willie was laying on the grass in the middle of hundreds of chicken-feathers, with his belly ready for rubbing and his paws pointing towards the sky. Oh Willie. (Which is exactly what I said to him.)

I didn't even raise my voice to that dog. He was just doing what a dog will do, and unfortunately, Daisy was the target. Right now, Daisy is in the coop, with a bloody gash above her right leg, her right wing no longer able to fly, and her right leg a bit twisted. As for Willie... we brought him to the shelter just a little while ago. Which is what we had decided to do last night, but still, we were both thinking about keeping him because he was just so good.

Oh well. We really didn't want another dog. And even if we did, we wouldn't have went out looking for such a big dog. The larger the dog, the larger the vet and food bills, and the more care and time they take out of your life. We didn't want a big dog.

But, if Willie hadn't tried to make a meal out of Daisy, maybe he'd still be here. Maybe. But I doubt it. Every dog we meet from here on out will forever be compared to Gracie, and neither one of us believes there's a dog out there who can out-shine Gracie-Girl.

Once again, I am sitting here wondering why people who no longer want their pets can just bring them out to a country road and drop them off. There are animal shelters in every town... take your unwanted pets there. Or better still... if you know you can't give a one-hundred percent commitment to a pet, then just don't get a pet, damn it.