Let the selling begin...

Beginning tomorrow, I will have a small selling space in one of the local antique malls. I used to do this years ago when we lived in the Clear Lake area, and it was lots of fun-- fun to find the items inexpensively, price them for the shop and hope that what you display is exactly what the customers are looking for. The 'rescue of treasures' is what all the dealers used to call it..... going to estate sales and thrift shops looking for vintage/retro items that families don't save from generation to generation.

When Miss C was here a couple of weeks ago, she and I went looking around the little shops in town, and that's when I saw the 'Space For Rent' sign in this particular shop. It's the most popular shop in town because it's open seven days a week... half of the big store is devoted to new furniture and decorative household items, and the other half is the antique/resale side. I look around that store every time I'm in town, by-passing the new side and browsing around the vintage side.

There are also thrift shops in town..... filled with surprises and vintage treasures, just waiting to be bought up for pennies on the dollar and displayed and re-sold for a profit in an antique shop. I can't begin to count the number of times I would see items that I wanted to buy and re-sell, but didn't have a place for the selling part of it. When Miss C and I saw that little space for rent, C said I should "Take it! Take it! You love doing this!" And she was right... so I thought about it.... spoke to the manager at the store.... and paid for my first month's rent yesterday.

For the past two days, I've been going through cabinets and closets, taking things that I no longer use or no longer want... putting little ribbon-tied price tags on them and seeing my displays in my mind. I went to the thrift shop yesterday and bought yards of lace for just pennies..... I will use that to cover the wood shelves of the display cases before arranging my items. And then the search for more items begin-- the part I like best... the searching.

My husband suggested I sell on eBay, which I've also done before..... eBay is fine for well-known trademarked items.... and I've been successful on eBay years ago. But eBay has changed quite a bit.... there are now zillions of sellers..... if you do a search on any item at all you will get thousands of matches. Then you have to pack up and ship the items..... that's the part I don't like about eBay-- the packing. Our computer service out here in the country isn't as fast as when we lived in the Houston area... another reason not to get into eBay again... I'd get frustrated quickly with a too-slow computer on eBay's selling pages.

But I love the little shops, I love arranging the displays, I love searching for the items (whether they come from my own home or from various thrift stores and flea markets). This town is a well-known destination for antique-collectors.... and twice a year, people come from all over the state to shop in these small Hill Country towns during the bi-annual antique fairs. It should be a good adventure, and I'm looking forward to being part of an antique co-op again.

The birds...... Houdini and Bluebell..... they continue to sing and chirp and play.... they watch the chickens from the window when the hens walk up on the porch.... they entertain us with their little daily cage-show, which starts when we sit down to lunch. Happy little parakeets, both of them. They will soon have a little Halloween decoration on the outside of their cage.... it's getting to be that time of the year again. Right around or after Labor Day, I take out the boxes of Halloween decorations.... and I'm sure I will find some items in those boxes which will be making their way to my little space at the shop.

Welcome to the bird cage...

We drove to the pet store this afternoon (112 degrees today).... and we picked out a feathered partner for Houdini. There were lots of parakeets to choose from, but being that Houdini is green and yellow, we chose a blue and white bird to share his cage. I thought of naming the new bird Blueberry, but he really isn't that dark a blue.... my husband thought of "Bluebell" and that seemed to fit....... he's a delicate powder-blue shade with a very pretty face. (And of course, Bluebell ice cream is the be-all and end-all here in the Hill Country.)

So now we have two male parakeets in the cage-- we had bought a large cage last week, big enough to hold two birds more than comfortably. The cage looks like a two-story Victorian house. The idea crossed my mind last week to buy a parakeet to keep Houdini company, but after all, we thought-- Houdini just showed up in the yard... he was free, so why pay for another bird?

Why indeed. Houdini just seemed to need company, and the book suggested another bird would really be best unless we wanted Houdini to learn to talk and become a 'show bird.' He would chirp his little heart out when he heard the chickens outside, and also when he heard the birds singing out in the yard. I reminded Houdini from time to time that we rescued him from the 100+ degree heat.... according to my book on parakeets (found it in the thrift shop) birds can over-heat very easily, and when that happens, they just stop breathing and fall over. (As in dead.)

Bluebell and Houdini are chirping together in the cage... they share the little swing... they hop from branch to branch on the little tree I made them from small branches that fell from the pecan trees. They're both males, but in the bird world, that's okay... the lady at PetCo said that there would be no territorial arguments, no pecking order in the cage. And being that Houdini has been here for just a week, he's a new-comer to the cage himself, so he can't claim that much seniority.

The neighbor's cats...... I'm still feeding them.... bringing fresh water and food twice a day and feeding them on their own porch down the hill. The girl who owns them is supposed to be back in a couple of weeks.... she said she will take the cats with her and bring them to where she'll be living for the next year. I'll believe that when I see it..... but even if she does move them to her new place (in another state), I'm betting that she will just plop those cats outside her back door and expect them to not be stressed, to not be upset, and she'll neglect them there just the way she's neglecting them here. Stupid girl. She has two kids, four dogs, and these three poor little cats. She can barely take care of herself and the two kids, in my opinion....... so it's the seven pets that aren't getting the attention they need and deserve.

It is what it is...... people don't change... they are what they are, no matter what state they're living in...... and while this particular girl is in la-la land with her new beau, I wish she would just call the neighbors here and let us just adopt the cats out to people who really will love them and take care of them. Stupid dippity-doo girl. The more I think of how she walked away from these cats (in this heat! no fresh water! no regular feedings till I realized they were alone down there!)..... stupid, stupid, stupid.

Give me a blessed break........ and deliver me from people who do not love and care for their pets. Don't bring a pet into your home if you don't want the responsibility, damn it!!

August Pot-luck Dinner

For the past three days, I've been preparing for tonight's pot-luck dinner with our friends here in the hills.... the days of preparation may seem like a lot of work, but the end result is a flawless party with every little detail set up and ready to go. We can always tell when a party is a hit-- everyone just sits and talks and isn't at all in a hurry to leave after they've had dessert and coffee.

Coffee? No coffee tonight..... the outside temperature was 112 degrees so no one was in the mood for a hot cup of coffee before, during, or after dinner. (Our Clear Lake friends would practically clean out my 40-cup coffee urn, no matter how hot it was.... so I'll have to remember to leave that urn up in the cabinet for parties here.) Desserts were delicious tonight.... pineapple cake ("Have two pieces-- it's healthy... it has fruit in it!"), pecan pie, and oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Our neighbor A brought the home made cookies in a cute little basket lined with pretty fabric.

Food at a pot-luck is always good.... and we had a lot of great dishes on the counter.... a perfectly sliced pineapple (with the leafy-top standing up in the center of the serving plate), vegetable casseroles, a crock pot filled with tiny meatballs in gravy, a tossed salad with everything good under the sun in it, fried chicken, pasta salads, cold vegetable dip and chips, deviled eggs (there will always be deviled eggs at these parties because mostly everyone has chickens).... and I've forgotten the other dishes...... I'm starting to fade as I type this at one o'clock in the morning.... it's been a long hot day.

Everyone went home with Ghirardelli chocolate bars wrapped up in polka-dot cellophane bags (those bags have become my party-favor trademark-- the polka-dots make everyone smile).... and while I was cleaning up the kitchen, dining room, and breakfast room tonight, I was thinking about the Halloween party we will definitely be giving in late October. I've already taken out my stash of Halloween magazines (I read through the same ones year after year, adding maybe one or two new ones.... lots of great ideas)...... and the Halloween decorations will be coming out of the closet as soon as Labor Day has been here and gone.

While we were all enjoying ourselves here in the hills, my cousins in NY were preparing for Hurricane Irene...... batteries, bottled water, food that doesn't need a fridge or an oven (in case the power goes out), extra cat food, extra everything.... they're gearing up for the worst and we're all hoping for the best. We were talking about that hurricane at the party tonight... how it seemed surreal that a storm like that would be heading so far up the east coast.

High winds, pouring rain, high tide, a slow-moving hurricane.... not exactly a good combination. Towns that we visited when we went up to NY a couple of weeks ago are now being evacuated because they're too close to the Atlantic Ocean. High-rise apartments in NYC-- people were told to leave because of super-high winds on those upper floors, and the possibility of glass shattering from all those city-view windows. Where on earth do all of those people go? And I can't even imagine getting out of NYC during an evacuation....... it was hard enough to get out of Houston a few years ago when we had to evacuate from our old house as Hurricane Ike was heading into the Gulf.

I'm hoping that the storm up there veers off into the ocean... away from family and friends... away from the city, the Island, just away.....

Wet stuff.

As I type, rain (RAIN!) is falling from the sky. Not just in little drops, but in buckets, with nasty winds that are blowing the rain sideways onto the porch. So nice to see... I hope it rains all night long..... then stops in the morning so we can go for our walk before the sun comes out and sets the temperature to broiling.

I went into town today in search of a metal stand for Houdini's cage. Surely, one of the thrift or resale shops would have just a sturdy holder for a bird-cage...... and indeed they did. I found one in bright shiny brass that was too new-looking, and too expensive for a previously-used item. At the second store, I found just what I was looking for-- a vintage wrought-iron stand that had been painted white at some point but was fading and chipping just enough to give it character. Perfect size, perfect angle for Houdini's cage-- and a perfect price. The hardest part was fitting it into my little car, but that worked out just fine as well.

I thought that having the cage on a stand would be safer-- up higher and away from the cats. Well, think again. After I had the bird cage all set up on the holder, I let the cats into the kitchen. Mickey and Gatsby walked up and looked at the cage, then walked away to the other part of the kitchen. Sweet Pea, however, that cat is another story-- so determined to get anything that flies-- moths and butterflies and birds and crickets... he chased everything when I used to let him outside (even the chickens, who quickly let Sweet Pea know who was in charge of the yard). So there was Sweet Pea today, sitting on the floor and looking up at Houdini in his cage....... and there was Houdini, looking down at Sweet Pea. Within three seconds, Sweet Pea had propelled himself right off the floor and aimed his body at the cage....... I tried to grab him in mid-flight but couldn't get him till his front paws hit the bottom of the cage.

Of course, Houdini went swinging back and forth/back and forth on his little swing-- he must have been dizzy by the time I was able to stop the swing from rocking so quickly. The stand held its own, though-- even the direct hit from Sweet Pea didn't topple it over, so now I know the wrought-iron holder is sturdy. However.... I just can't trust Sweet Pea, no matter where the bird-cage is..... he is too determined to catch that beautiful green/yellow Houdini. No more chances. Houdini seemed to take it all in stride, though...... I wonder if he knows that the cage protects him from the cats.... but still... I can't have Sweet Pea dive-bombing himself into that cage.

Houdini seemed to love being higher up than on the side table near the windows...... he was chirping and singing this afternoon as I was talking to my friend J on the phone. As J and I talked, I was facing Houdini's cage, so I'm sure that little bird thought I was talking just to him. Houdini is also letting me pet him now... one finger on his little green chest.... he just sits there and lets me pet him.... so he's getting to trust me more each day. (I also apologized to Houdini for my misjudgment of the good manners of the cats.)

I discovered that Houdini likes green grapes..... the parakeet-care web-sites suggested treating the bird to fresh fruit..... so I tried the grapes first (peeled, because I don't know if they can digest the skin)..... and Houdini sees those bits of green in his dish of seeds and eats them up quickly. Maybe that's why he was chirping this afternoon-- a sugar-buzz from the grapes.

My friend J up the road has a bird also (a cockateil) and she suggested putting a small shallow bowl of water in the cage so Houdini can splash around in it if he wants to bathe. (The bird web-sites said the same thing.) The little dishes I had were either too deep or too small, or too antique-y to use as a bird-bath, so I looked in the thrift shop for the perfect little dish. Talk about perfect-- I found a fifty-cent blue dish that's about one inch deep, puffy blue porcelain with colorful painted fish along the outside of the bowl.... with a flat bottom so it doesn't move around if Houdini decides he wants to get his feathers wet. I put about half an inch of water into that little blue dish and put it into the cage.... I swear, it looks like a miniature swimming pool is in the corner of Houdini's cage.

So far, Houdini hasn't used his cute little 'swimming pool,' but it probably won't be too long before he gets into it and asks me to peel him a grape while he's busy splashing and preening his cute little feathered self.

Houdini

We now have a yellow-and-green-feathered parakeet named (appropriately enough) Houdini. The bird had been flying around the backyard for the past three or four days.... letting me come close to him, listening to me as I talked to him... and making himself at home with the birdseed we put into the feeders for the wild birds here.

I knew that Houdini had been an inside bird... he was out there panting his little heart out as the temperature was getting up near 109 degrees yesterday and today. I had taken a little decorative bird cage and put it out near the rose arbor that he was perching in, and within half an hour, Houdini was inside that vintage gold cage. Into the house he came... and upstairs I went to get ready for a drive to the pet store so we could get a proper parakeet cage and accessories.

Within minutes of being in the kitchen in his little gold cage, Houdini had managed to squeeze himself out between the too-far-apart metal scrolls, and off he went flying around the kitchen. Thankfully, the cats were in the TV room and didn't have a clue as to what was going on in 'their' kitchen. We really didn't have anything that could safely hold the parakeet until we got back from the pet store, so we let Houdini outside again. I knew that he would stay near the bird feeder and I would just have to catch him all over again.

Which is exactly what happened, except it took almost an hour to out-smart that little green and yellow bird. My husband suggested putting some peanut butter on one of the bird treats we got at PetCo, and that worked just fine. Within minutes, Houdini was inside the little gold cage again and my husband carried him into the house and we transferred him from the too-tiny vintage cage to the appropriate cage from PetCo-- complete with bird toys, a little ladder and a mirror, colorful plastic keys and twirling gadgets hanging from the top of the cage, and food and water dishes attached to the side. Parakeet heaven.... and Houdini has eaten his fill of seeds and treats, washed it down with fresh water, and now he's happily perched on the upper bar with his little green and yellow head tucked into his feathers. Surely, a well-accessorized bird cage in an air-conditioned house is safer for him than a sky filled with hawks who would be able to see those green and yellow feathers from miles away.

Houdini... he became famous decades ago as the master of escape...... and this little green and yellow bird (who I would have named 'Chartreuse' if it were a girl-bird) has also had a few escapes-- once when he got out of wherever he was before he found his way to our yard, a second time when we had to let him go because the first cage wasn't parakeet-worthy, and then again when I tried to capture him in an over-sized crocheted doily. It was my husband's peanut butter trick that caught him, and I'm sure he'll be happy that his days of bird-escapes are over. My husband thought of the name Houdini.... and he wouldn't have liked the name Chartreuse anyway.

The two-story cage is in a corner of our kitchen..... Houdini can see what's going on in the breakfast room and kitchen, and the laundry room if I have the door open there, and he can see out the window in the back door. Much better than finding a spot among the thorns in the rose arbor, don't you think?

After we had Houdini settled in his cage on the cabinet (which is about five feet high), we let the cats out of the TV room. Within seconds of their paws touching the kitchen tiles, all three of them knew there was a bird in the kitchen..... six little eyes stared up at Houdini and three little cat-butts plopped down on the floor around the cabinet holding the bird cage. As my husband and I were saying how cute the cats looked, they were so intent on watching Houdini..... Sweet Pea jumped up on the cabinet and was hanging by a paw on the wood top near the cage. I quickly grabbed Sweet Pea with one hand and the cage with the other hand.

Needless to say, the cats will be kept in the TV room from now on... no more adventures into the kitchen and the breakfast room unless I move Houdin's cage to another part of the house to give him a different view for a while and to give Mickey and Sweet Pea a break from the TV room. The TV room and the attached bathroom are very large rooms, but no matter how much room you give to a cat, they always want more. The 'cat-room' (formerly our TV room) also has big windows and wide screen doors so they can look out into the yard. I figured that Sweet Pea would be the most interested in the bird today, but I didn't think he could jump that high. Lesson learned, and quickly.

So now we have three cats (two inside/one mostly-outside), four chickens, and one parakeet. And my cousin F says there must be a sign on my back or somewhere near the house that says "Welcome All Stray Animals."

I keep saying that I don't want any more pets... that there's "no room at the inn." Somehow, there's always room for just one more.... for stray and orphaned furry or feathered animals that are super-cute and super-nice.

I wish people who get pets would take care of their pets. If they don't want the on-going responsibility, then just DON'T get a pet. Is that too much to ask?

Stray cats and parakeets.

Three cats down the hill....... the striped one that I had been feeding a few weeks ago, plus an all black, plus a black/white cat. We thought they were strays. Turns out they belong to one of the neighbors who made arrangements for someone else to feed them-- which wasn't happening on a regular basis. Why on earth do people take in pets if they're not going to be responsible for them? I just don't understand. And if you have to go out of town, then make sure that the people who are supposed to take care of your pets will take care of your pets. Is that too blessed much to ask?

So... until the cats' owner gets back, I will continue to bring food and water down there..... the cats are coming to me as soon as they see me now.... (food and fresh water will do that to a cat, especially when it's 112 degrees).

And the parakeet-- I was out near the coop after dinner, trying to get the chickens into the coop earlier than usual because we were going up to J & J's to play cards....... and there was this bright yellow and green parakeet sitting at the bird feeder, munching away on the seeds I put in there for the sparrows and barn swallows. The parakeet looked at me and started chirping, then followed me around that part of the yard and watched as I got the chickens to follow me into the coop. The parakeet seemed to be as interested in me as I was in him.

I was hoping that the parakeet would follow me into the coop as well..... safer there for him during the night..... but he stayed perched up in the rose arbor, so I just let him be. I'll see if he's out there in the morning, and maybe I can get him to come close to me. He's just too pretty a bird to be outside on his own...... and I know I told my husband that I didn't want another dog or another cat, but I don't remember telling him that I didn't want a parakeet.

Wildlife adventures... they just never end around here...... my husband shot an armadillo the other night..... he's getting tired of those creatures making holes all over the yard, and digging in the vegetable garden. Our friend J feels the same way-- too many armadillo holes, too many of everything that digs and crawls and comes out on the property after dark. The heat and lack of rain is making every creature and critter come too close to the houses.

The temperatures are still way over 100..... the heat is never-ending and the rain is never seen. Everyone is getting their hopes up when a hurricane is spotted in the Atlantic..... be careful what you wish for.

We went to the movies this afternoon to see "The Help." I had read the book a while back...... excellent...... and the movie did justice to the book.... very very good, definitely worth the money and the time to see it. I found out about that book in an issue of Oprah's magazine..... Nate Berkus recommended the book in an article about books he had recently read. When we were reading the credits after the movie was over, I saw that Nate was the producer of this movie. Best movie I've seen in a good long while.

Our young Miss C has gone back to her little house near the college that she and her roommates are renting...... she was sad and a little quiet yesterday morning because she knew she would have to leave after lunch. The house is once again really still and quiet without her...... not that she made so much noise... it was just nice having her here. Next visit won't be until holiday time, when the college schedule breaks for Christmas.

It's nearly time for Labor Day. Once that comes and goes, Christmas follows in a heart-beat. Jingle bells.

Welcome to The Barn.

That's where our young friend Miss C is right now.... up in her room above the barn, reading Pride and Prejudice. C drove up here to spend a few days with us..... so nice to see her again, after so many months. She is 20 years old now, no longer the little girl that I met when she was in the second grade. But she's still our own Miss C, and just as sweet as she always was.

When we lived in Clear Lake, C was in and out of our house all the time.... but we're two hours away up here, plus she's in college in Galveston now anyway, so even if we were still in the old neighborhood, we wouldn't be seeing her as much as we did when she lived on the other side of the bayou in our subdivision.

One of C's favorite movies is "Pride and Prejudice." She knows all the dialogue by heart... she has seen the film so many times. So as she's reading the book (she found it on my shelf of classics and I told her to take it-- I can always find myself another copy) she is reciting the lines and telling me "That's exactly what they say in the movie." My cousin F had sent me a DVD of that film last year, so C and I are going to watch it together tomorrow night.

We had homemade pizza for dinner tonight..... each of us topping our own individual dough with different sauces and cheeses and meats and vegetables. Lots of fun to make..... my husband made it easy by cooking up the meats while C and I went into town to look around the local resale shops.

Tomorrow morning starts with a walk, as did this morning..... I've been walking with two friends up the road here... we get out as soon as it gets light-- much cooler in the morning than after dinner-time, as we had been doing. Up the road we go, up the hills, down the hills, following the winding road to the main highway, and then we turn around and do the same thing back towards home. We've talked to neighbors, fed apples to B's horse, got fresh-grown okra from another neighbor, and seen countless cardinals as they fly from tree to tree up near one of the hills. C is going to set her alarm in her room and she'll be here at the house bright and early and ready to walk with us..... and then she and I will get ready for another day of exploring around town for a while before we come back to watch Pride and Prejudice. I am imagining watching the movie with C as she recites all the dialogue along with the actors.

It's been super-hot, over 100 degrees, still no rain.... same old story with the weather. By three o'clock in the afternoon, you feel like you've been in an oven for twelve hours and there's just no escaping the heat. The chickens stay in the shade, sometimes coming up on the porch if there's a breeze blowing there that they might miss if they stay underneath the bushes. This has been the summer of the never-ending heat wave.... the summer of a drought that shows no mercy.

You can go home again....

.... but it won't be the same.

We were up in the northeast for a few days.... we saw my husband's sister and her family, and then we drove further on to see my family. Cousins, cousins, cousins.... lots of them, plus one of my aunts is still in New York as well.

Family is family, and they stay the same... always welcoming, always happy to have a party. And that's just what we did, with a table filled with two generations of cousins... my Aunt Dolly in Florida would have just loved that day. The weather up north was hot and humid, and we were all wilting in the backyard before a rain shower made us pick up the food and bring it inside to my cousin R's dining room.

On another day, I saw my cousin T and her mother..... we all had lunch together, then T and I went off by ourselves for a few hours to catch up with one another. We drove around Queens and Nassau County for most of the afternoon before settling down in an Italian restaurant for dinner. During the afternoon, T drove me to the house where I grew up....... a quiet little street south of The Avenue (as we all called it back in the 1950s).

It was easy to find the house, but hard to grasp the fact that that little house was 'the big house on 97th Street' where we celebrated birthdays, decorated ceiling-high Christmas trees, played the piano, rode bikes to the corner, played with a white bunny in the back yard. My childhood bedroom had a porch and balcony on the second floor of that house.... the bay window is still there, the balcony is gone. The 'big' front porch where my cousins and friends used to play was so tiny that I sat there in my cousin's car and wondered how we all could fit on that small porch at the same time.

Had the house been in any other state but NY, I would have walked up to the front door and rang the bell, then asked the current owners if I could have a look around the house because I grew up there. I practiced piano in the dining room, I had a playroom filled with books and Lionel trains on the third floor, I played with paper dolls in my bedroom, and filled countless coloring books with Crayola masterpieces on the front porch swing. That was my house. I wanted to see the inside of it, but you never know in NY.... who would answer the door? Would they be as suspicious of me as I would be of them? Better not take the chance. My cousin and I just sat in her car in front of that house, hoping that one of the neighbors wouldn't call the police because there were 'two strange women parked in front of a house not their own.'

I loved that big old house. It was part of the reason I fell in love with the house we have now.... the balconies, the wooden slats of the porches, the stained glass windows. We left that house before I was ready to say goodbye to it, and actually, I never really did say goodbye to that house. I carried the memories of it no matter where I was, and finding this house we're in now seemed like a miracle. And did I mention the front yard? That yard always seemed so long and so wide when I was a kid....... looking at it last week, at its impossible smallness, just made me sad.

Speaking of miracles..... and sadness....... we also visited with Fran's family...... my friend who died of throat cancer in May, just two weeks before her first grandchild was born. We had dinner with her husband and her oldest son and his wife, and their new baby who has Fran's name as her middle name. The baby is adorable, gorgeous, beautiful, cute-as-a-button..... and I cried when I held her for the first time. All I could think of was Fran, and how she was hoping and praying to 'still be here' when the baby was born. Two weeks. She missed this baby's birth by two weeks.

I held that little baby girl for hours that night..... I just didn't want to let her go. I still have a tough time letting Fran 'go.' Before we left that night, I gave Fran's son and his wife a gift for their little girl...... my gold bracelet that my dad bought for me when I was a year old. I wore that bracelet for years when I was a kid..... until it no longer fit my wrist. When my dad replaced it with a bigger bracelet, he put the baby bracelet in his jewelry box, saving it for when I had a baby girl of my own, which just never happened. When Fran told me that her son's wife was expecting a baby, I started hoping for a little girl...... and I told Fran that if the baby was indeed a girl, I would give J & M my baby bracelet for their daughter. I kept my promise to Fran.... I held her tiny granddaughter.... I passed on my bracelet, and I hope that one day, that baby's little girl will also wear the bracelet my dad bought me so many years ago.

Missing from our trip to NY-- visiting Aunt Dolly in my grandparents' house..... the house is still there, but Aunt Dolly is now living in Florida. The house looks sad without a family member living in it. Also missing was me and Fran, sitting at her kitchen table for hours, talking and catching-up with each other's lives. I was wondering how it would be to walk into Fran's house without her being there, but her husband and son arranged to have us meet them at the son's house. It was a good idea...... it took away some of the sadness.

We also drove by the house where my husband grew up..... it was his one-and-only family home for over 50 years...... looking at it last week was also sad...... the house looks the same, but it also looks totally different. Anyone who knew my mother-in-law would know that she no longer lives there. All of her beautiful gardens are gone..... some replaced with grass, others replaced with fencing and a swimming pool. All those gorgeous roses.... had we known that the new owners wouldn't keep them, we would have dug them up and brought them to our own gardens.

Going home...... it's never the same, but it's still a good thing to do from time to time. You've got to always remember where you started out.... it gives you a better perspective on where you're going, and why you've gone in certain directions.

Triple digits.

That's what the television weather wizards have been calling the temperatures now: triple digits. It was 109 degrees on Monday night, and the 'triple digits' for today will be over 110. Can we really tell the difference between 109 and 113?

I went outside a little while ago to bring a cold watermelon rind to the chickens. They were nestled in the dirt underneath the bushes by the back porch. They watched me walk down the steps, Scarlett cooed and clucked a little bit, and she was the only one who came out to see what surprises I was setting down on the grass.

After having spent the entire morning in her nesting box, Scarlett wasn't too happy with the watermelon rind. You made me come out of the cool dirt for this? One watermelon rind? She pecked at the rind a bit, then went back under the bushes with the other hens. Mind you, watermelon rinds are one of their favorite things. But I guess in this heat, nothing less than a full ear of fresh corn will do. I bet that the chickens will change their minds later on and the watermelon rind will be history.

Very quiet outside.... not a tree is moving in the air, not a bird is singing. Not a tractor is running, nor a mower, not even a power-tool can be heard from the house they're building further on up the road. The pecan trees are filled with barn swallows and sparrows, but they're all just out there resting in the shade of the branches. Last night as the sun was going down, we heard a symphony of bird-song out there in the yard.... sounded like hundreds of birds. If there is indeed a heaven, that must be what it will sound like.... countless choirs of little birds, happily singing.

On Monday night, we had friends over for iced tea and cake...... J & J, J & G. Just the six of us, and it was the perfect group. Lots of laughs, good conversation, and of course we did our best to solve some of the world's problems. Whether the world will take our suggestions remains to be seen. Before the month is over, if and when this heat ever breaks, I'd like to do another pot-luck dinner and invite more of the neighbors. "Come and join us for an August pot-luck dinner and tell us how you got through the triple digits of July."

It seems to me that we've had hotter-than-normal temperatures since May. The month of April seemed as warm as June, and every month since then has felt like the middle of August. We were hopeful for a perfect summer, after going through one of the coldest winters in the Texas record books. My husband just finished fixing up all the winter's damage to the barn, and he has yet to solve the plumbing puzzle of the cottage....... and I'm hoping that this coming winter won't wreak havoc on all of my husband's repairs.

This is Texas, for goodness sake. I can understand the heat. I can bear the triple digits. What I'm having a hard time with is even the thought of one more horrible winter which will result in unknown plumbing surprises. As in: Surprise! The temperature dropped to 13 degrees over-night! Surprise! The plumbing gnomes have frozen your pipes!

Oh well. One day at a time. No sense in wasting worry on the coming winter when we're smack in the middle of summer. Right now, we're going through the hottest of the heat waves. The bright side of that: reading, reading, reading. I don't know how some people can get by without books. Bad television can zap your soul, but a good book can let you fly.

For the birds...

That's what this weather is: for the birds, as my dad would have said. Today seems to be the hottest day yet. I told J that we may want to reconsider our walking schedule.... maybe walking in the early morning would be better than walking after dinner. The sun wouldn't be so hot, the temperature wouldn't be so high, and maybe we'd even have more energy at the beginning of the day rather than after dinner. I was never one to get out of bed and start exercising, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Two of the three baby barn swallows in the nest above the kitchen windows have spread their baby-birdie wings and are exploring the porch and the yard. There is just one baby bird left in that nest, and the mama bird has been doing her best to get that last little one out of the nest and into the air. She will perch on the window ledge, singing and chattering to that baby of hers, and there he will sit, just watching her, waiting for her to feed him. Apparently, he is just not ready to leave the safety of the nest. Gatsby has been inside during the day, so he can't use that cat as his reason for staying in the nest.

It is amazing to me, how the birds communicate with one another. Different chirps and chatters for different things. When the baby birds are hungry, their chirps are loud and shrill. When they're just 'talking' to one another, the little chirps are soft and sweet. The cutest sounds of all are at night when they're settling back down into the nest and getting ready for sleep.... so soft, nearly sad-sounding little coo-ing as their busy little bird-day comes to an end. And no matter how many hours the birds spend flying around the yard, they always come back to their own little nest before it gets dark.

The birds. That's about what the days are composed of lately-- cleaning and cooking, reading and bird-watching. With the high temperatures, you can't really do much outside. My husband has been working in the barn and for the life of me, I don't know how he stays out there. I was outside checking on the hens a little while ago and I swear you can feel your skin broiling and simmering as you walk in the sun. Scarlett spent the morning in her nesting box, but she came out after lunch-time and dug a little oval-shaped hole in the dirt under the bushes for her red-feathered self. The dirt under the surface must be cooler than the dirt that the sun shines on.... all the hens have their favorite spots where they scratch out an afternoon resting place.

Twenty-three acres here, and this summer we have spent most of the time inside the house because it's been too blasted hot outside to do much of anything on these acres. I can't even remember the last time we had breakfast or lunch out on the porch... it's been too hot for that as well.

One of my NY cousins who came to visit us last year told me that she was thinking that Texas would be a great place to live. She's been watching our record-breaking drought and heat for the past few months, and A says she has changed her mind.

Oh well. It is what it is. The weather, the lack of rain, the property. And did I mention that the baby goats in the field across the road have been crying for the past couple of days? That can mean only one thing-- their mothers have been sold and carted away in a trailer. Another reason to stay inside the house..... with the air-conditioning on, I can't hear the baby goats.

Country life. City wife.