First Halloween party in this big old house....

As always, after a party I'm all wound up--- just as much from the cleaning-up as from the setting-up and the actual fun during the party. Who can sleep when there's so much to write about?!

We all had a great time tonight........ the costumes were all very good, very imaginative........ Miss C was a shark-- she dressed all in gray, right down to her gray sparkling shoes.... she made a shark's head out of poster board that she painted, complete with that pointed fin that sticks up out of the ocean..... she cut out an opening, filled it with paper teeth..... and when she put the shark's head over her own, her face was there right in the opening of the shark's jaws and she looked like she had either been eaten by the shark or was just about to attack a smaller fish.

I did my City Witch thing, complete with feathered hat and lots of rhinestones.... my husband was a pirate-- two weeks' worth of not shaving, pirate jewelry on his ears and around his neck, and a great hat with long hair attached that looks very real. S came with an orange blouse and black slacks, holding an orange sign that said "Nudist On Strike." That 'costume' made everyone laugh, so we gave her a ribbon for 'Most Original Costume." JD came as a ghoul (scary black make-up all over his face) and wife J was a witch's hat--- all black from head to toe, and she had to put on the costume after she had eaten because once that head-to-toe witch's hat was over her, she couldn't sit down, couldn't eat or drink, could hardly walk with that hat-brim all around her feet. We gave them the ribbon/prize for "Scariest Costumes."

J & L came as a Pimp and a Prom Queen--- the Pimp's costume was covered in jingly-jangly coin belts, a leopard-trimmed hat complete with purple lights, and he had on a white-haired, white-faced skeleton sort of mask that was hard to look at. L was in a long gown with a tiara and a Prom Queen sash....... we gave them the ribbon for "Sexiest Costumes." L & G came as a scarecrow and a farmer...... M was a Hollywood starlet, holding an Oscar statuette-- she was decked out in a sparkling skirt, sequined top, lots of bracelets and necklaces.

JS was a blond-haired, pig-tailed cowgirl..... every time she talked or moved her head, the little blond pigtails would be bouncing on the side of her head. Hysterically funny. B&G came as playing cards... B was the Ace of Spades, G was the King of Hearts-- they had huge playing cards attached to both sides of their bodies-- like those sandwich signs that stores use for advertising.... plus they had velvet and gold hats to match the colors on their cards. C's friend M came in his Camp Counselor uniform-- he couldn't stay for the whole party because he is working at the camp this weekend, but he was able to join us for dinner.

We had the "Guess how many candy corn are in the vase" game.....(327). I've done that for all of our parties...... people will start groaning after a while, but I think they all love the guessing, and how can you have Halloween without candy corn? I also did "Guess how many pumpkins are around the house."--everyone either tried to count every single pumpkin (152) all they just looked around and wrote down a high number. I'll have to think of another guessing game for next year's party-- unless I either buy a lot more pumpkins (which I don't need) or take away a bunch (which I don't want to do).

My husband and I weren't sure about the Charades game..... we didn't know if our friends here would want to play...... but we asked after the prizes were given out for the guessing game and the best costumes.... and more people than not seemed to want to play. It always amazes me how much fun Charades can be...... the guessing, the acting-out, the jokes, the laughs.... everyone, whether they're acting-out or just guessing.... everyone just ends up screaming and laughing so hard that you would think we had the world's best comedian standing in the middle of the living room.

We did a potluck dinner for the party (as we've always done) and the array of food was outstanding..... all kinds of fresh fruit, boiled shrimp, deviled eggs (always deviled eggs because just about everyone has chickens), vegetable salads, dips and chips (Miss C made a killer-guacamole), sausages with onions & mushrooms, pasta salads, Brownies, fudge, pumpkin bread, apple-caramel cupcakes........ and I know I'm leaving out some things because there was so much food that it had to be spread out on two long counters, plus the desserts went on the table in the breakfast room.

For the past couple of years, we didn't have a Halloween party because we didn't think anyone up here was remotely interested in such a party. Well, we stand corrected. Everyone came in the spirit of Halloween, intent on enjoying this holiday for what it is-- a chance to let your creativity and imagination run wild. This may have been our first Halloween party in this big old 'new' house of ours, but it certainly won't be the last.

Happy Halloween...... may The Great Pumpkin smile on you and yours!

Magic.

Almost time for the Halloween party...... the end of October, whether you're hosting (or going to) a Halloween party, always seems to have a little bit of magic in the air. Up north, where the leaves are glowing and bursting and screaming with color-changes, here in this part of Texas, some of the leaves are just quietly turning into a subtle gold, but most are steadfastly staying green.

Our young Miss C will be here tomorrow..... she and a friend are driving up for the weekend..... Miss C is staying here with us, her friend M is working in town for the weekend but joining us for the party. I have no idea what costume C will have for the party... she has changed her mind at least three times over the past couple of weeks. I can still remember the Halloween party when she came as a bag of jelly beans..... a long dry-cleaning bag over her head and tied at the bottom, then she blew up balloons of different colors and put them into the clear plastic bag..... she couldn't sit down all night long, and by the end of the party, she was losing 'jelly beans' all over the living room.

I've decided to go with my City Witch outfit.... I just couldn't find a pretty red top with white polka-dots at any of the stores here...... and you just can't do Minnie Mouse with those white dots on red........ so the City Witch it will be. As I looked through the closet for my black skirts, I had forgotten just how many black skirts I have. All of them bought with my Aunt Dolly's advice ringing in my ears: "You can go just about anywhere with a classic black skirt and a pretty top."


My friend V in Maryland..... we've been in touch via eMail and phone calls since we 'found' one another again. Isn't it funny/wonderful/perfect how you can pick up where you left off when the friendship that was interrupted was very real in the first place? With V and I, we each accepted one another just as we were.... no questions, no explanations, no compromises. We knew one another inside and out 'back in the day,' and after re-connecting this year, and realizing that we had been looking for one another from time to time over the years.... the bond we had back then is still there now, only older and wiser.

I'd been wanting to send something to V.... a 'one for you, one for me gift,' as we used to do so many years ago. We'd go shopping along The Avenue back then, and find something we both loved, and we'd each get one..... and just love the fact that we would have the same exact thing, to either wear when we were together or wear when we were apart. I searched the Internet sites, and the stores, the little shops.... looking for something special... something I knew we would both like.... something identical and special. Couldn't find anything that wasn't off-the-charts in cost or just-the-right-thing in sentiment.

And then I remembered something one of the antique dealers told me a good while back when I first started working in the antique co-op---- she would give gifts to her family and friends "from my jewelry box to yours," as she would say. Over the years, she collected so much vintage jewelry that from time to time, she would give some of her things to special people in her life. So with that in mind, I went shopping in my own jewelry box.

And there it was..... it took just moments to realize that I had the perfect gift for V all along, right here. V always loved turquoise-- the color, the jewelry, the mystique. V also believed that turquoise would keep 'the evil eye' away--- an old Greek (and Italian) superstition. There in my jewelry box was a one-of-a-kind gold and turquoise necklace. I had bought it at the jeweler's in Clear Lake..... it was made in Italy, with swirls of gold links and beads of Persian turquoise. The designer had made just one.... the jeweler got it for a song.... and I bought it for a song after many months of it sitting in her showcase. Why it sat there for so long, I have no idea... it's beautiful and delicate and so very unique.

I took that necklace to the local jeweler in town here...... I had him split the necklace into two bracelets.... one for V, one for me. I sent hers out at the beginning of the week and V got the package yesterday. Not only did she love it, but it brought her to tears........ she told me that she had bought herself a turquoise bracelet a bunch of years back, lost it a few years ago and never replaced it because she never found 'the right one.'

V didn't know what to expect when I told her that a package was on its way to her, and she said when she opened the box and found the gold and turquoise bracelet, she just burst into tears. It was the perfect gift..... and it was here all along as I searched for something to keep us together in spirit even though we're so far apart. That one-of-a-kind necklace has been transformed into two one-of-a-kind bracelets....... magic.

Wild Kingdom.

Every time we have a wildlife adventure on this property, I think of that old television show called "Wild Kingdom." One of these days, I expect to see Marlin Perkins standing over by our barn with his arms folded and ready to chastise us for not being able to live and let live.

Actually, we do let the wildlife live..... we're not shooting these night-time creatures, but we are setting up those catch & release cages so we can relocate what gets into the trap. We. I'm saying 'we' but this is really my husband's adventure. I just stand on the side-lines and watch everything unfold. (This doesn't count the cute little squirrel that I let back out into our yard last week, of course..... every day, there's a squirrel all stretched out in the sun on our gazebo, and I'm sure it's the same squirrel that I set free.)

Yesterday morning, there was a fox in the largest of the three catch & release cages in our yard. At first, I thought it was a raccoon because it was shaking the cage so much. But when it got a little brighter outside, I could easily see that the cage held a very pretty fox. Pretty, yes. Deadly to the chickens, definitely. My husband and J drove the entire cage over to the lake in the next town, then released the fox into the woods. Lakeside living... the fox should be pleased.

The lady at the Wildlife Management Office wasn't too pleased....... she didn't think we should be catching and releasing anything at all..... we're in their territory... it's we the people who have to adjust, not the animals who need to be relocated. I can see her point, up to a point. That fox could have had babies off in the woods here..... and now she's been taken to the next town. What would happen to the babies? By catching and relocating, we're disrupting the routine of the animals. But if we don't catch and relocate some of the wildlife, I won't have any chickens left, like S across the road, who has lost more than 40 chickens over the past year.

This morning, the traps were empty. If another fox did come by in the middle of the night, he/she was smart enough to stay away from the peanut butter inside the cage. I'm always surprised when I don't see Gatsby staring out from inside one of those traps..... that cat will eat anything that doesn't eat him first. I'm guessing he's too yard-smart to get into one of those traps. And I'm also guessing that for every critter that we trap and relocate, there's a dozen more out there walking around our property once the sun goes down.

There were four quail in the side yard this morning..... they were being very still and quiet in the grass because the black crows were screaming and screeching. When the crows get to screaming, my husband goes outside with an air horn... the sound of the air horn will shoo away the crows, but it also makes the parakeets screech and the chickens cackle. And that air horn is more annoying to me than the sounds of the crows.

Speaking of wild...... I have to decide what to wear for our Halloween party this weekend. Minnie Mouse? All black, with red/white polka dot accessories, my Disney Minnie-Ears, red heels, and Mickey and Minnie jewelry............ Or my City Witch outfit? All black again, black heels, my black velvet witch hat with the beautiful purple-feathered brim.... a purple sequined shawl....... and all the rhinestone jewelry that one City Witch can possibly wear at one time....... I will have to try on both outfits tomorrow night and then decide. I don't want any last-minute costume decisions on Saturday because I'll have enough last-minute things to worry about.

Speaking of costumes...... I was in the thrift shop one day last week and saw a bright yellow prom dress, just covered with sparkling beads.... it had "Gypsy Prom" or "Gypsy Tea Party" written all over it. I didn't try it on...... I was too busy finding things for the antique shop and by the time I was ready to leave, I had two baskets filled up with antique goodies, and I wasn't in the mood to try on that prom dress. One of these days.... we have just got to have a Gypsy Prom or a Gypsy Tea.

Chicken Sense.

When I was a kid, if you called someone a 'bird-brain,' it meant that they had very little common sense. Well, as far as I'm concerned, I think birds have more good sense than we give them credit for.

This evening after dinner, I went outside to lock up the coop. With the sun going down earlier these days, by 6:30 at night the chickens are usually in the coop and waiting for me to lock the gate. I went down the porch steps tonight and saw that the chickens were all huddled up underneath the bushes by the house...... very unusual at that time of the evening.

I walked towards the coop, to see if maybe Gatsby had curled up for a nap inside the coop... but he was on the back deck and nowhere near the coop. As I got to the gate of the coop, there was a pile of feathers heaped in a circle right near the spot where the chickens walk to get from the yard into the coop. It looked like a hawk had swooped down and captured one of the sparrows or barn swallows...... the only thing left of the poor little bird were all those feathers, and the bird's bloody beak was in the center of the pile. My chickens must have seen that, and wouldn't walk over or even around the remains of the little bird.

I took the broom and swept away all the feathers...... as I did that, the chickens were just watching me from the other side of the fence. When all the feathers were away from the coop gate, PittyPat and Audrey and Prissy walked into the coop and flew up on the roosting bar. Scarlett stayed in the yard, just watching me holding the broom. I put the broom away, thinking she didn't like the looks of that. Still, she wouldn't walk to the coop.... and then she walked back towards the porch and went underneath the bushes again.

Well, we can't have that..... Into the house I went and I came out with the yellow bowl that I use to hold all the food scraps that I give to the chickens. The bowl was empty, but Scarlett didn't know that. I held the bowl out to show Scarlett what I had in my hand, and she came out from underneath the bushes and sat down near my feet-- her signal that she wants to be picked up. And that's exactly what I did........ I put the bowl down on the grass and picked Scarlett up in my arms, and I carried that red hen all the way back to the coop as she coo-ed in my arms. Such sweet little sounds come from the hens at the end of their day.

I was sorry about the little bird that was eaten by the hawk, but of course I was happy that the hawk caught one of the countless sparrows and not one of my four hens. I'm sure my chickens must have either seen the hawk attack the little bird, or maybe they heard the screeching. It just amazes me that they would not walk across the pile of feathers outside the coop.

Small gifts...

Last week when I went to the thrift stores, I was looking around for things to bring to my space at the antique shop in town. (That's doing very nicely, and I'm thrilled..... I didn't realize how much I missed the buying/selling/displaying until I started this up again.)

Anyway.... two of the items I found last week were two little Christmas mice-- just fifty cents for each, and I bought both of them, marked them up, and added them to my Christmas shelves in the shop. Cute, cute, cute.... but I didn't keep them because I don't want to start another collection...... I have a Santa collection, so I don't need a Christmas mouse collection.

This morning, I was in the thrift shop again...... and the girl at the register told me she had a gift for me from one of the other customers. Apparently, a woman last week saw me buying the two Christmas mice, and after I left the store, she went into the Christmas room and found a third little Christmas mouse..... she brought it up to the register, paid the fifty cents for it, and asked the girl to hold it for me, and give it to me as a gift the next time I came into the store.

And that's exactly what happened today when I walked into the thrift store-- the girl at the register (who is almost always there and knows me) gave me the little mouse and told me the story about the lady last week who bought it for me because she wanted me to have the set of three. I was just amazed..... and of course, I was thinking of keeping all three mice, just because that other customer gifted me with the third one.... but honestly, I don't want to start another collection...... and with me, if I have three of something, I will soon have thirteen, and then sometime thereafter, I will have thirty little Christmas mice in a parade on the mantel.

I thanked the cashier at the thrift store for giving me the mouse.... she didn't know who the other customer was because she isn't a 'regular' at the store... but I asked her to thank the woman if she does come back again. Such a nice thing to do..... and that gesture alone tells you a lot about this very small town that we live in.


My own small gift today was for one of the squirrels in the yard........ Just before I left to go into town, I saw that a squirrel was trapped inside one of the catch/release cages that my husband set up in the yard. Of course, my husband wasn't here...... he went into his office..... not his home-office here, but his office-office at work. My friend J told me just this morning that if a squirrel got caught in one of the traps when my husband was in town, she'd be happy to put the trap in her truck and we would drive it over to the next town and release it by the lake.

But honestly...... that squirrel was screaming and carrying-on something awful out there in that little cage..... back and forth, back and forth, throwing himself against the wire metal cage.... I just couldn't stand to watch that.... and the sounds the squirrel was making were just heart-breaking, to say the least.

I looked at the squirrel.... he looked at me. I picked up the cage and brought it over to the gazebo........ I leaned the front of the cage up on the step.... the squirrel was down at the bottom of the cage..... and I unlatched the little door..... and out he ran.... and he ran, and he ran, and he ran........

"Free at last, free at last."

From now on, if my husband wants to capture and release the wildlife around here, then he's got to be here to release them as soon as they're captured. (And, of course, I know he won't release them right back onto our own property...)

I can hear my husband now........ "Once a city girl, always a city girl."

Guilty as charged. (But I received good karma today from the squirrels. Another small gift.)

Everyone knows it's windy....

Those words to that old song "Windy" kept coming to mind today..... we had awful winds all day long... windy enough to keep the chickens hiding under the bushes. The little birds stayed up in the trees, and Gatsby didn't want to stay outside this afternoon. Especially since he wanted to stay outside last night and the temperature dropped about twenty degrees after midnight...... not exactly purr-fect weather for a Texas cat.

We woke up to a cold morning... cold for here, anyway.... must have been about 60 degrees and being that yesterday's temperature was up near 90, this morning felt like Arctic air had been dropped into the hills. But we went walking anyway.... down the hill in the wind, up the second hill with just a little wind, then up the next hill with even more wind. Made us walk a little faster, that's for sure. Wasn't it just 99 degrees and we were saying how crazy we were to be walking in such heat? Oh well.... this little cold snap won't be lasting too long and then we'll be back to our warm and toasty temperatures.

Our side yard now has three small cage-traps scattered under the pecan trees..... my husband is waging war on the squirrels, raccoons, armadillos, skunks, possums, and whatever else is out there during the night. The cage-traps are baited with nuts and fruit.... and the squirrels have been over and around each of the traps-- not one has gone into a trap, of course. They must know that my husband would be driving them over to the next town and releasing them in the woods by the lake........ guess they prefer our huge pecan trees to lakeside living. Last night, a skunk came walking right down the driveway as if he lived here.... my husband went outside, certain that the skunk would go into the trap. Not a chance. The skunk is still out there somewhere and waiting till dark to walk down the driveway again. Watching that skunk in the driveway last night, I kept thinking of Peppe LePeu in those old cartoons.

I've been boxing up the Christmas gifts that I've been wrapping for weeks..... I intend to have them boxed up and ready for mailing way before Thanksgiving comes. After Halloween is over and those decorations go back into the closet, out will come the Christmas trees and Santas.... and I will be too busy Christmas-ing the house to be wrapping and boxing gifts. I just don't know how people wait till the first weeks of December to start shopping and wrapping and boxing....... they must not have a big family. If you only have a few people to buy for, I guess you can wait till December comes. Or maybe they just like the hustle/bustle (translation: stress) of last-minute shopping. Not so for this little elf.

7:30pm as I'm typing this, and it's dark outside...... I hate these shorter days..... and we'll be turning the clocks back the first weekend in November.... a sure sign that summer is over. Oh well. I'm sitting here with a sweater on.... I don't much like that either. We had an awfully hot hot hot summer, but even so, I'd much prefer the higher temperatures to the sudden cold snaps and windy days that scatter branches of the pecan trees all over the lawn.

Fried dough.

There is a Chinese buffet restaurant in Clear Lake that we went to every week when we lived there.... very nice place with excellent chefs keeping the buffet tables filled with everything imaginable. Lots of seafood and vegetables choices (which I eat) as well as chicken and meat dishes (which I don't eat). So many choices for lunch and dinner in that restaurant that you hardly know where to begin.

One of the options there were these little puffs of dough.... they called them "Dough Pillows." Delicious..... reminded me of the Italian zeppoles that you get at the street fairs in NYC, except the Chinese dough is sprinkled with regular sugar, not powdered sugar. When I treated myself to one of those puffs of fried dough, I took just one-- I knew they were deep-fried (not exactly what your heart needs) but they were just so good.

Moving here to the Hill Country..... there is just one Chinese restaurant in town, which neighbors have told us not to bother with (having had 'real' Chinese food in NY and Houston, we're sort of Chinese food-snobs with anything that doesn't come up to those city restaurants). We have found two very good Chinese restaurants up in College Station, though... excellent food...... but no Dough Pillows. Oh well. Who needs the extra calories anyway.

This afternoon, I had an eMail from my cousin F in NY..... she was telling me about going to her favorite Chinese restaurant yesterday, for an order of what they call "Chinese doughnuts." Listening to her describe these golden deep-fried puffs of dough, I knew that she was talking about the same little Dough Pillows that we used to get in Clear Lake.

F went into that restaurant yesterday and gave her order for the Chinese doughnuts to a young girl behind the counter who was certainly there for her first day on the job. The girl didn't have a clue about doughnuts of any kind, much less Chinese doughnuts. F pointed to the menu and told the girl that the doughnuts were on the menu. Still, the girl is shaking her head no. No doughnuts.

At that point, an older woman came to the counter, and F tried again.... "Can I have an order of the Chinese doughnuts, please?" The woman spoke to the young girl in Chinese....... she walked over to a fridge...... took out a blue can of Pillsbury biscuits..... smacked the can open, separated the dough, and dropped the flat biscuits into the deep-fryer. (This is a little take-out place up there, so you can just about see everything as it's happening.) Within minutes, out of the deep-fryer came the puffed up Chinese doughnuts...... the woman put them into a brown paper bag, tossed in some plain old white sugar, shook up the bag, and handed it to my cousin. Voila! Chinese doughnuts! (My cousin was just shattered.... paid for the doughnuts and walked back to her car in a daze.)

As I sat here reading F's eMail...... of course I got to thinking about the Chinese buffet restaurant in Clear Lake...... their little "Dough Pillows......" Could they be using the same not-so-closely-guarded 'Oriental recipe' from the little blue can of Pillsbury biscuits?! Is nothing sacred in this world?

I liked it better when those perfectly puffed up Dough Pillow confections were some heavenly creation handed down through generations of venerable Chinese chefs...... not something conjured up in the kitchen laboratories of Pillsbury.

What's that wet stuff?

Woke up in the middle of the night and it was pouring rain.... absolutely pouring..... fell back to sleep and woke up at 6:30 and it was still pouring rain...... fell back to sleep again, woke up at 8:00 and the rain was still pouring. Couldn't believe I slept that late, and couldn't believe all of that rain.

First thing I did was look out the balcony door and (wonder of wonders!) the shallow end of the pond looked like it was nearly filled up. It rained on and off all day long, but I was so busy for most of the morning and afternoon that I forgot to look out to see how much water was in the pond by the time the rain stopped. I can't remember when we've had such a cloudy, rainy, drippy, dreary (beautiful! perfect!) day. As I've said in here before... I will never again complain about a rainy day.

We had a busy weekend with company...... last night, our friends H & K came over for dinner. We've been trying to get together with them for a couple of months now, but they've been out of town... and when they were in town, we were out of town. So last night was our chance to see them before they go out of town yet again. H & K won't be able to come to the Halloween party, but they saw all the decorations last night and K said that one of the 'door prizes' should be my "Haunted House Birdhouse." Not likely. I found that old birdhouse in a yard sale a few years back, and bought it just to turn it into a haunted house for our Halloween parties. I had seen those in the magazines and in the stores, and the prices seemed just too high for the little bit of decoration they had on them.

As always, as my Aunt Dolly would do, I looked at those birdhouses-turned-haunted and said I can do that myself. And I did.... and if I do say so myself, the one I made is nicer than the more expensive ones I'd seen in the stores, plus I had fun making it. All you need is an interesting birdhouse, some Halloween miniatures (bats, ghosts, pumpkins, witches, black cats, etc) and a glue gun. "You can do just about anything with a good glue gun," my husband's mother used to tell me.

This afternoon, we had one of the neighbors over for lunch. I had cooked extra food last night, thinking I'd have left-overs for the next couple of days, and then it turned out that my husband called J and invited him over for lunch today so the left-overs turned into almost an exact duplicate of last night's dinner, with a different side dish tossed together this morning.

Inbetween lunch and dessert, I happened to look out into the yard and there was a huge raccoon out by the gazebo. In the middle of the day? I thought raccoons slept all day long and went hunting around for food after dark. (I guess this particular raccoon didn't read the rule book.) It had stopped raining when I saw the raccoon, and the chickens were out in the yard. (The raccoon wouldn't have to look far for food if he caught sight of my hens.)

I went out to look for the chickens, my husband and J went after the raccoon, but he/she (?) found a spot underneath the gazebo and there it went. Must be nice and dark and cozy under the gazebo-- perfect sleeping-spot for a raccoon. We don't know if the raccoon is still under there, but we've got the cage-trap set up, with some fruit inside of it..... hopefully, the raccoon will go after the fruit, get caught in the cage, and then my husband will drive it to the lake in the next town and release it in the woods. Lakeside living. What more could a raccoon want?

As for the chickens.... they've been inside the coop all afternoon. Thankfully, it was a cloudy, drippy day and they didn't seem to mind. After they followed me into the coop, I didn't hear any noise from them, so they seemed to be content in there, tucked in out of the rain. I went into the coop late this afternoon with some vegetable scraps and half of a banana for Scarlett (she loves bananas) and they didn't try to get out of the coop. I'm hoping the raccoon finds a new home tomorrow.... I can't leave the chickens inside the coop all day every day.

Today was the first day we haven't seen the sun.... not a drop of sunlight all day long. Just clouds, just rain. We needed a day like today, and we need many many more to fill up all the empty ponds. A perfect day. A perfectly good soaking, pouring, rainy, drippy day.

And the beat goes on...

I don't know why I thought of that particular phrase..... it's a line from an old Sonny & Cher song... and I guess that's just what is happening here-- the beat goes on.

Sonny & Cher.... my friend Fran and I used to talk about all the 'good old music,' and the early songs by Sonny & Cher used to come up in those conversations. I've been thinking about Fran a lot these days.... I don't write too much about her... it makes me very sad still that she's no longer here. No longer here. Such a polite phrase. There have been more than a few days lately when Fran would just pop into my mind when I wasn't even thinking about her, and one time when that happened, I said out loud (without even realizing it) "I know you're here, Fran... I know you're here." I surprised myself when I said those words. And then I hoped that she truly was right here.

Oh well. Our temperatures are cooling off some... mid to high 90s instead of the simmering broiling beastly mid 100s.... walking in the morning is a pleasure-- if you can call getting out of bed at 6:10 a.m. 'a pleasure.' Three mile walk..... down the hill, up the next hill.... flat for a while, then up a hill again..... then flat again...... somehow, the three of us get out there every morning with something close to a smile on our faces when we start off. (Bigger smiles when we're all done.)

Houdini and Bluebell have their own little parakeet-routine these days... they spend a little bit of time out on the back porch... I put the cage on the table and make sure they're not in the sun or the wind..... they eat their food and the seed coverings go all over the porch deck instead of my kitchen floor (much easier and quicker to sweep up the mess outside than inside). Gatsby has decided that he's no longer afraid of the parakeets, and has jumped up on the table out there to closely inspect the birds. Gatsby looks into the cage, Houdini and Bluebell look out. Six little eyes, and no one blinks. I can easily see the cage from the back door, and I don't put the cage out there if I'm not going to be in the kitchen. (I trust Gatsby only so far.... after all, he's a cat.)

When the parakeets are on the back porch, I let Mickey and Sweet Pea out of the TV room... they run into the kitchen and stand by the screen door and they watch the birds in the cage and the chickens in the yard. When they get tired of that view, they run back into the TV room and watch all their feathered friends from the screen doors in there...... and if one of them wants to get up close and personal, they will jump up on one of the kitchen windowsills that look right out onto the outside table-- close enough to the birds as Mickey and Sweet Pea can get (with a window-glass inbetween them). It's like playing musical pets in this house at times...... but it's working. The cats are happy, the birds are happy. Even the chickens are happy-- they walk up on the porch and stare up at the parakeets in their cage.... two parakeets staring down at the chickens... four chickens staring up at the parakeets...... all those little eyes. And no one blinks.

We nearly had rain today.... the sky got dark just before dinner time, and the wind kicked up some.... I thought for sure that we'd have puddles in the pond again within the hour. But nothing happened..... surely it was raining somewhere, with the sky as dark as it was, but we didn't get a drop here. The weather wizards are calling for rain this weekend. (I've heard that story before.)

Couldn't sleep last night, so I was up wrapping Christmas gifts after midnight. At this time of the year, I'm usually working on Halloween decorations and/or the Halloween party as well as the Christmas gifts. I don't like to push through one holiday to rush on towards the next, but (and I say this every year)-- once the Halloween decorations come down on the first of November, it seems that Christmas is knocking hard at the door. I figure that if I can get Christmas gifts wrapped before Halloween, then I can box the gifts up for mailing during the first couple of weeks in November when I'm putting up all the Christmas decorations.... then into the hands of the post office go all those packages as soon as the leftover turkey finds it way into the fridge.

I say this every year also-- while other people are fretting over this year's Christmas shopping in December, I've got my gifts mailed out and I've started shopping for next year's holiday gifts. Jingle bells to that. It works for me.

By the way, in case you're interested... as of today, there are just 80 more days till Christmas. Unless you have a live-in staff of house-elves, that's not really a lot of time for shopping, wrapping, boxing, mailing, decorating, cookie-baking, house-cleaning, Christmas-cards.... and the list goes on. As does the beat.

They're back......

The baby barn swallows that began their feathered lives in the nests around our porch have started to come back in the last couple of days. I saw two of them last night.... one was near the nest by the kitchen windows, and another was perched right in his nest on the front porch column. This has happened every year.... the adult barn swallows either build their nests or have claimed a nest that's already there..... they lay the eggs and sit on them till they hatch..... out come the babies.... back and forth go the adults with the care and feeding of those big yellow beaks.... they learn to fly right in our yard (I keep Gatsby inside the house during those first days).... the birds all fly to parts unknown once it gets too hot here in the hills..... and then the now-adult baby birds return here to their starting-point nests to start the process all over again.

I don't know where all the barn swallows go...... probably further north where the temperatures aren't over 100 degrees for three months running. And how in the world do they know where to come back to? Do they honestly recognize the property and the house? (Turn left at that big pecan tree near the pond....) I wasn't the only one who noticed that the barn swallows have returned... Gatsby was out on the porch last night and looking up at the top of the porch columns...... looking down was one of the baby birds. I'm sure that Gatsby was trying to figure out a way to propel himself up towards the porch roof.

Speaking of Gatsby... he is no longer afraid of Houdini and Bluebell (the parakeets). Either Gatsby has been to see The Wizard and received new found Courage, or he has come to his senses and concluded that two colorful little parakeets in a cage cannot possibly do him any harm. This afternoon while I had the birds' cage out on the table on the back porch, along came Gatsby and he jumped right up on the table and was sitting there, just staring at the parakeets. ("Let's see.... I'll have the blue one for lunch... the green one for dinner....")

I went out to the porch and told Gatsby to Get down! Get down! Get the heck down!.... which he did.... and then he went out on the deck in the backyard and sulked for two hours. When he decided to come up on the porch again, he came straight to the back door and ignored Houdini and Bluebell. I still wouldn't trust him out there anymore with the cage. Not only am I the 'cat police' but now I'm the 'bird police' as well.

The last couple of days have been glorious..... warm but not broiling.... sunny but not broiling... summery but not broiling. The Weather Gods have definitely turned off the broiler and given us the kind of weather that makes you stop whatever you're doing, look out at the endless views, and tell yourself that even with the snakes and the drought and the heat and the non-stop wildlife adventures, you're thankful to own a substantial piece of property in this part of Texas Heaven.

Speaking of snakes..... my husband and I went walking this morning..... enjoying the weather... talking about the past couple of days.... I had my little clippy-picker-up-thing and I was picking up bits of trash along the way (some people are still such slobs)...... and then I see my husband looking down at the ground and he's starting to say "Look out! Don't move! Stay right there!" -- but before my mind could register all of that, I had just kept walking.... and I stepped right over a coral snake. (For those not living in this snake-infested state--- a coral snake is deadly. It's pretty-- red and yellow and black, and it looks like a beaded necklace on the ground.) Thankfully, this was a baby snake.... and (more thankfully) it was dead.... a car had run over half of it so the first six inches were as big around as your little pinkie... and the second six inches were as flat as cardboard. Coral snakes don't get all that big, and in order to bite you, you'd have to be out walking barefoot (as if...)-- but their bites are poisonous. (Translation: you could die.) I don't think I'm really 'getting used to' the snakes up here, but I didn't get too too crazy when I realized how close I was to that snake. Okay, I got a little crazy, but not too too crazy.

Walking is getting to be not only an Olympic event here, but an obstacle course as well...... you've got to look sideways for snakes, up in the trees for snakes, and now you've got to look down on the road for snakes. The week before last while I was out walking by myself, there was a curled up Copperhead on one side of the road....... needless to say, I stayed on the other side of the road and just kept my eye on that thing till I was way past it. On the way back, the snake had uncoiled and gone on its merry way. Had that happened a year ago, I would have immediately turned around, run home, and then locked the doors when I got into the house and probably stayed inside for the rest of the day.

I told my husband about the Gypsy Prom idea....... he wasn't as thrilled about it as I was.... suggested that I do it, but let it be a 'girl thing,' maybe an afternoon tea..... rather than having it in the evening so all the guys would have to dress up in their best denim and escort their gypsy-prom-dressed wives. I told him that having a Gypsy Prom Tea was a better idea anyway. Men... they just don't know how to have fun.