Spring... officially.

The barn swallows are renovating their old nests up on the porch columns, so that means Spring has officially arrived in our little corner of this country bubble.  And I call it a 'bubble' because that's exactly what my cousin F calls this part of the state.  "You're in a bubble out there... the rest of the world could be aiming nuclear weapons at every continent and you probably wouldn't even know it."  And she's right.

But... the barn swallows.  They are re-doing and up-cycling their nests. More little blobs of mud to make the edges more secure... and you can tell the new mud blobs from the old ones because of the darker color. A pair of sparrows tried to take over one of the refurbished nests and the barn swallows came back and just plucked out the bits and pieces of hay and grasses that the sparrows had added.... I found the discarded hay on one of the porch chairs. Which reminds me... I need to move the chairs away from those nests or they'll be covered with bird-poop before too long.

Speaking of birds... we found a young bird on the porch the other day. Poor thing was just sitting there, not even trying to fly as our cat Gatsby walked by. I was surprised that Gatsby didn't even look twice at that bird... I guess he's so used to having his food served in a nice little bowl that he couldn't be bothered with having to pluck feathers before enjoying his lunch.  We brought the bird into the house and put it in a birdcage. The little bird seemed happy enough, but he really wasn't doing very well on his own and he died later that evening.

The bluebonnets and paintbrushes have started to bloom... within a week's time, most of the fields will be covered in wildflowers and we'll have city-people driving around these country roads taking photos of the pastures. They will also be plopping their children and pets down into the bluebonnets for their annual Christmas card picture. That just gets me every year.... underneath those wildflowers are fire ants, scorpions, snakes, beetles, mice, all kinds of crawling and slithering things.... not the place where I'd want my photo taken, that's for sure. Maybe if one is born in the state of Texas, none of those wildlife and insect issues are a bother.

The orange cat.... he was on the porch all weekend long, and every day and night since his return from the Lake. We still look at him and shake our heads in wonder... and we do admire his determination. But I am still determined that I do not want that cat. We didn't bring him here, we didn't ask him to stay here, he is not our cat-of-choice. Period. The orange cat wasn't on the porch last night, however, and he wasn't out there when we woke up this morning. And so begins his 'regular' routine of hanging around our porch for a few days, then disappearing for a few days. I have no idea where he goes, nor do I care. (He is not our cat.)  I do, however, hope that he hasn't found a female cat somewhere out there in our little community. I would hate the thought of more little orange cats being born into this country bubble.

Water Heaters R Us

The plumbing fiasco continued this morning.... the plumbers were here first thing to check the work they did yesterday on the water heater on the third floor, and while they were here, I asked them to check the unit on the first floor.

Should I not be surprised?  Turned out there was a broken valve on the first-floor heater.... had there been a problem with it, we wouldn't have been able to turn it off and the water from that huge tank would have been pouring out... and who knows when we would have noticed the waterfall because that water heater is back by the storage closet holding the holiday decorations.  I can see it now... all my Santas and angels floating in two feet of water....

We told the plumbers to call their office and get a new water heater. New one for upstairs, new one for downstairs... it's a water heater party.  The new unit was here in forty minutes.... less time than it takes for other service companies in this town to return a phone call.  Bless this particular plumbing company.... they've been the only ones we've called since we moved here, and I hope they stay in business for a very long time. Other local service companies should be taking notes from them.

While all of yesterday's plumbing work was being done, my husband was peacefully at work in the city... while water heater hell was breaking loose out here in the country.  It wasn't until he got home last night that I told him what he'd missed while he was in the concrete jungle. One of his first questions was "How much did all of that cost?"

Cost? As in price? I have no idea.... they'll send the bill at the end of the month. When all of this happened, water was pouring out of the third-floor water heater, going through a ceiling light fixture and making a puddle on the carpeting, and I didn't know what would happen first---- the water heater crashing through the ceiling or the electricity sending a lightning bolt through the circuit breaker box. So pardon me.... I didn't ask how much anything was going to cost... I just called the plumber and took out the checkbook and at that point was ready to sign my name to any numbers they quoted me.

Men... they get caught up in such pointless details........

This country life...

... ain't all it's cracked up to be.

-- The following is a reprint of my "Country Life.... City Wife" blog:


Honestly, there are times I could just scream at the uncertainties and the ridiculousness of this so-called serene country life.

Thank goodness that I decided to go upstairs when I did yesterday (Wednesday). All hell was breaking loose up there and who would have known that if I had stayed here in the breakfast room with my book instead of deciding to read in the library.

As I walked up the back stairs from the kitchen, I heard the tinkling sound of a small waterfall. We have a few quaint amenities on the second floor of this hundred-year-old house, but a running waterfall isn't one of them. I followed the sound of the water and discovered that water was slowly pouring out of the ceiling fixture in my husband's office. What on this blessed earth?!?

I can always bet the ranch on this particular fact of my world: when this country life throws me a surprise, my husband is at work and blessedly unaware that I am up here in the hills having to make a split-second decision to either call a repairman or call a realtor.

Before I chose either of those options, I called a nearby neighbor who always seems to know what to do in a plumbing or electrical emergency, as well as a wildlife crisis. He and his wife were here within five minutes, and J quickly went up to the third floor to discover there was a problem with the water heaters up in the attic behind the library. He turned off the water valves, turned off the circuit breakers, and made sure that nothing was either sparking or hissing or threatening to fall through the ceiling and land on top of my husband's computer.

First thing this morning, I called the plumbers. Bless this wonderful company... they were here within half an hour, prepared to replace the water heater and also discover why the water didn't drain out of the over-flow pipe and end up in the flowerbed instead of that light fixture in my husband's office.

And here comes the country ridiculousness part of the story:  the water couldn't drain through the overflow pipe because bees had constructed a nest of honeycombs within the pipe protruding from the side of the house.... and their superb construction was so tight and dense that a drop of water couldn't have been released from that pipe if it been shot out of a cannon.

Now honestly.... do you think I could make this stuff up?!  Bees. A bunch of blasted bees.

The plumbers were here all day long. We now have a new and larger water heater in the third floor attic which replaces the two smaller water heaters that were previously there.  This house used to be a Bed & Breakfast, which is why the previous owners decided to have two water heaters up in that attic space. My husband and I don't plan to rent out rooms.... and friends and family stay in the guest cottage which has its own water heater. (And the new water heater is not directly over a light fixture on the second floor.)

Bees. A bunch of blasted bees.

When the plumbers told me they were on their way this morning, I spread old sheets over the carpeting in my library, which is the room they had to go through to get to the attic space. (Thank heaven for those little doors on both sides of that room.)  Out came the old heaters, in went the new one, and the three plumbers were kind enough to walk on the old sheets and not the light beige carpeting.  It wasn't until they went to replace the overflow pipe that goes outside the house that they discovered the complex construction of the bees.

It is 6:30 in the evening as I type... the plumbers left at 5:00 or so. After their truck pulled out of the driveway, I cleaned all the floors and vacuumed the carpeting in the rooms where their booted-feet had been walking back and forth all day long. I put the chairs and tables back in place in my library, and the last thing I did was mop the kitchen floor.

The plumbers had asked me to go into each bathroom and run the hot water after they'd been gone for an hour or so, to make sure that hot water was coming out of all the faucets. Well, I did that. Three of the four bathrooms were just fine. But oh my... that fourth one.... black water came out of the sink... and the commode had black water in it, and when I flushed that down, no water came back up to fill the tank. What in the blessed world?!?

I called the plumbing company.... such a nice woman works there... she has the calmest voice which immediately takes one down from "Oh-my-God-the-sky-is-falling!" to "Quite-possibly-I-need-your-assistance."

She's sending the guys back in the morning.

I can barely wait till my husband gets home tonight so I can tell him everything he misses when he decides not to work from home.

That cat...

Give me a blessed break.

I love cats. Truly I do. However, I like well-mannered and friendly cats who behave nicely in and around our home. Is that too much to ask of the cat gods?

The orange cat does not 'play nicely with others,' as friend C said today.

This afternoon was our usual Waldorf Wednesday tea.... every Wednesday at my house... the ladies in our little community come for tea and sweets and savories.... and conversation, of course. And today, we talked about that orange cat.  As each of my friends arrived today, the orange cat was right there in a corner of the porch, meowing at some of them, being silent for others, just watching as everyone came up the porch stairs and walked into the back door.  Which was a 'first' for the orange cat because he used to run off the porch when anyone other than myself or my husband came up the steps.  So I have to wonder if those little meows to the ladies was his way of saying "I'm baaaaaaack."

As I said, give me a blessed break with this cat.

I will admit that the orange cat has been somewhat mellow since his journey back here... he traveled about seven miles from the Lake back to this porch. How in the world? I am still shaking my head at his adventure. My husband keeps saying we have to admire his persistence. Well, yes, I do, but I also have to remember all the scratches and bites from that cat, and those are not to be admired.  So far, he has not scratched me, but I have also not petted him, nor have I even gotten close to him... I just put the food down on the porch and walk away as he looks at me and meows pitifully.

One of my friends today suggested that I name the cat "Boomerang," and all things considered, that name is appropriate. However, once I give this cat a real name, then he becomes a real cat here, and he belongs to us and we're responsible for his total welfare, not merely responsible for making sure he has a bowl of Meow Mix on the porch when he's hungry.

I do not want another cat. Period. As it stands now, we have Sweet Pea in the house, Gatsby on the porch unless the weather is not to his liking, and Mickey Kitty outside during the day, inside the garage at night, and Mickey is forbidden to come into the house anymore because of his questionable litter-box habits (or lack thereof).

And now we have that orange cat back. Again. The cat gods are out to get me. This is my punishment for driving that cat to the Lake on March 12th and doing what I have forever detested other people doing.... I abandoned that cat because I could no longer be patient with his biting, scratching, and general misbehavior.  And bringing him to the shelter would have been certain death for that blasted cat. I thought I was giving him another chance at a brand new life in the next town.

Little did I know that I was giving him a twelve-day adventure allowing him to ultimately cement the thought in my brain that perhaps that blasted orange cat is just supposed to be here.

Friend S across the road tells me that her father will take this orange cat to his ranch, which his 75 miles away from here..... the orange cat will then be one of his 'barn cats,' protecting that man's store of cattle feed from being devoured by field mice.  But before S's father can do that, I have to wait until the orange cat will trust the little cat bed that's inside the cat-carrier. It may be many months before he's willing to do that, but I'll be patient with him... just like I was for the whole of last year.... and sooner or later, he will be curled up in that little bed of his and the door can be shut on that carrier and then I'll call S and say that her dad's new barn cat is ready to be picked up.

I wonder how long it will take the orange cat to get back here after being driven 75 miles away to a cattle-rich ranch....

That orange cat.....

....... is back. Unbelievable. I am so ticked off I could just scream.

After over a year of having that blasted cat scratch and bite and behave so badly outside, I did what I hate other people doing.... drove him to the next town and set him down near cabins by the Lake. With help of friend C, we made sure he could find shelter and was not near any yards with dogs.... and we said goodbye to that ill-tempered, bad-mannered, impossible orange cat.

That was on March 12th. Today is the 24th, and that blasted cat was on the doormat this morning, right by the back door, meowing for his breakfast when my husband went downstairs to make coffee. I cannot believe this.  I cannot believe that orange cat. (He never had a name because I refused to call him my own, even after over a year of feeding him and trying to teach him some manners.)

So what did I do this morning when I saw him on the porch? I fed that blasted cat. He was skinny as he was the first time we saw him over a year ago. And he was meowing and crying and looking pitiful, of course...... and no, I did not pet him, because that's when he bites and scratches and carries on like a wild cat. Stupid orange cat........ stupid, stupid, stupid cat. He ate two bowls of Meow Mix.

As I type, I have again put that little cat bed into the cat carrier, right in the same spot on the orange cat's favorite chair..... hoping to once again catch him inside that carrier. And then I swear I'll drive that blasted cat to Oklahoma if I have to.   This orange cat is not going to just sit in that crate when he sees me.... if he does go into the crate, he'll be jumping out of that little bed as soon as I put one foot on the porch, just like he did last time. It was friend C who was able to close the little door on that crate as he slept in that little bed. I've already called C, who could hardly believe the orange cat found his way back either...... and I told her that I've got the little bed inside that carrier, and if she sees that blasted cat in there, please close that little door and start up her car because we'll be traveling again with that blasted orange cat.

I just cannot, cannot believe that orange cat found his way back here.....  he had to cross a main highway and railroad tracks to get here from the Lake. Unreal. Unbelievable. I could just scream.

And what did my husband say----  "Maybe you could sell this story to Disney."

Give me a blessed break.

Spring things....

As I type, there are dozens and dozens of birds outside by the feeders and getting themselves acquainted with the new birdbath we just bought this afternoon. At any time of the day, you can hear the bird-songs and the wing-flappings of happy birds.

With the warm weather we've been having (nearly 80 degrees today) the barn swallows have come back and are in the process of renovating their nests from last year. My husband took down some of the woebegone-looking nests that needed re-building rather than refurbishing, and the swallows have been busy deciding which nests to claim as their own.  Last year's baby birds have come back, and I'm pretty sure which ones they are because they don't fly out of their nests when I go up and down the back stairs... they just sit there on the edge of the nest and look at me, just like they did last Spring. ("Oh, look! She's back here again!")

The new birdbath has a gnome sitting on the bottom of it, so before I set that into one of the backyard flowerbeds, I moved a little red and white gnome-home from the front of the house and put it near the gnome birdbath. I doubt very much that the birds will notice, but the gnome-theme in that back flowerbed looks very cute.  I'll be looking in the thrift stores for other gnomes to join the party out there. I refuse to buy high-dollar gnomes from the garden stores, for the simple reason that the raccoons and armadillos dig around the gnomes and knock them over, usually destroying all or part of them. I've got a one-armed gnome out in the yard who lost an fight with a raccoon a couple of years ago. Poor little gnome... but he seems to be doing nicely with just the one arm, the lack of which is hidden by the front door of the gnome-home anyway.

And that's what happens out here in the country.... you start planning your afternoons around the placement of one-armed gnomes and little gnome-homes under the rose bushes in the backyard.  And in the course of doing so, I've gotten my first (and certainly not the last) bite from a fire ant. Within the hour, I expect that my right ankle will be swollen and red and throbbing.

And so begins another Spring in the Hill Country.....

Spring has sprung...

Finally.  I am looking at the pecan trees first thing every morning, searching for any signs of tiny green buds. We've been told that the pecan trees won't start blooming till every last blessed frost is gone. We've had our share of cold snaps this winter, and with each one, the weather wizards were saying "Just one more, folks, just one more."  Either they lie, or they don't know what they're talking about. Weather isn't a science, it's a crap-shoot... in my opinion.

No sign of the orange cat since his departure to the Lake in the next town. I've been looking out the back window every morning when I come into the kitchen, but the only thing I see each day is the door mat. That blasted mean-tempered cat would sit there waiting for his breakfast every morning, and also waiting to pounce for his first scratch of the day.  Heaven knows we tried with that cat, and I'm still sorry that we had to re-locate him. The only other choice was to bring him straight to the shelter, where he would have promptly been put down the first time he scratched or bit someone there. My only hope now is that the orange cat found a safe place to hide underneath those cabins by the lake, with a plethora of mice and birds on which to feast.

As I type, my husband is outside on the riding mower. With all the rain we've had, the grasses are popping up right alongside the wildflowers. We should have an abundance of wildflowers out in the pastures within a week or so... which will bring out all the city-people on the weekends, driving around looking for a lush spot of bluebonnets to plant their kids in for their annual Christmas card picture. How in the world a parent would ask their kids to sit in those bluebonnets is just beyond anything I can justify as reasonable. The fire ants, the lizards, the wasps, the snakes... they're all out there hiding in the wildflowers waiting for unsuspecting victims. I am perfectly content to view the bluebonnets and paintbrushes from the safe vantage point of our porch.

Our special friend Miss C will be off to Washington (state) within a week or so. Her job is sending her traveling again. Last month, she flew to New Jersey in the middle of a blizzard. Her thrill of being able to walk in the snow and dance among the snowflakes quickly vanished when she also had to cope with city crowds and public transportation. C told us that she felt like kissing the ground when her plane landed at the Houston airport.  And now she'll be off to Washington for two months, with the option of flying back home on weekends at the company's expense. She's not even packed yet, and she's already missing her horse, who will indeed also miss her twice-daily visits and training sessions with his 'mama.'   Growing up and having a 'big girl job,' as C calls it, isn't all it's cracked up to be, which she has quickly learned.

But on the bright side.... it's very warm outside... all of the rains have kept the ponds filled... in-between rain showers, we've had beautiful sunny days... and the bluebonnets are starting to open their buds and pretty soon our house will look like it's sitting in the midst of a blue ocean.  Life is good.

Today was the day...

....that I said goodbye to that orange/white stray cat. And it all happened so suddenly that I didn't have time to feel badly about it till everything was over and done.

Yesterday morning, I was hoping that my husband would just take the gun and shoot that blasted cat. And why did my cat-loving self hope for a death-wish for that stray cat?  Simply because my legs and arms have been bitten and scratched by that ill-tempered, bad-mannered unpredictable cat for the last year and a half.  Heaven knows I tried with that cat... talking to him, feeding him, making sure he had a warm place to sleep on the cold nights, and not even blaming him for the bites and scratches for the simple reason that one look at him told you that he'd been abused before and didn't trust a soul. His bites and scratches and hisses were his way of protecting himself, and he was, after all, a true outside cat. Our special friend Miss C guessed correctly last year when she said "That orange cat wants a family but he doesn't know how to get one or how to keep one."

After the latest scratches yesterday, which required four bandaids and a lot of Neosporin, I decided that without a doubt, that cat  needed to be caught and either taken to the shelter or taken elsewhere. And haven't I always been the one to detest people who take cats and dogs and leave them in another neighborhood?  I firmly believe that the orange cat had been dropped off right here just before Thanksgiving of the year before last. (That's not a typo... he had been here, off and on, for one year and four months.)  For the first three months after finding him on our porch, we tried to capture him in a carrier, but one look at a box of any kind, and he disappeared for days. But he always came back, most likely because of our two outside cats.

The other day, I put the cat-bed that the orange cat had accepted as his own into the largest cat carrier that we had. I put that on the porch chair that he always slept on, and covered the entire carrier with the same blanket that I had been using to cover the cat-bed.  The orange cat knew something was different about his bed and it took him a bit before he'd get in there, but he finally did. I kept watching from the kitchen windows because I was determined to go out on the porch when he was in that bed and slam the door shut on that carrier and drive off to the shelter with him.

I think the orange cat was able to read my mind. He was perfectly content in that little bed until the minute I set one foot onto the porch... and then he quickly got out of the bed/carrier and sat at the edge of that chair and just stared at me. Probably daring me to pet him again so he could re-scratch my wrists. No matter how many times I went out on the porch to close the door of that carrier when he was in it, he made it his mission to hop out of the carrier and sit there to look at me, not so much as making one little meow in protest. He just stared at me with those yellow eyes of his.

Just before eight o'clock this morning, my friend C pulled into the driveway and parked her car at the edge and walked towards the porch. The orange cat was in the crate and he watched her.... C is one of the people that he's familiar with because she has been here every week for the tea parties and she took care of our cats last year when we went to London.  As C walked towards our back door, the orange cat was still in that bed inside the carrier.  And he stayed put right where he was... and C walked over to that chair, closed the door of the crate very slowly, and then put the latch on it.... and that blasted orange cat was inside the carrier, curled up in that bed, and finally, finally, the porch no longer belonged to an ill-mannered, bad-tempered, unpredictable orange cat. Oh my goodness, what a happy day!  And we had all talked about that bed-in-the-carrier process at yesterday's tea party... and here we were today... and it worked!

I went out on the porch and saw C smiling and pointing to the crate... and as soon as I saw that whiskered face inside the carrier, I knew we had to do something right then and right there before my kitty-senses kicked in and I changed my mind or decided to give him another chance. Being that I'd used the biggest carrier that we had, I knew it wouldn't fit into my little two-seater car.... so I asked C if she would drive me to the Lake. It was only 8:00 in the morning, and the shelter doesn't open till after 11:00..... there was no way I was going to leave that orange cat in the crate all that time, so the next-best thing was to just drive him to the lake area and let him out in a safe place away from the main highway but close to places where he could find food.

So that's just what we did, and we were pulling out of my driveway within five minutes of that door being shut on the cat carrier.  Off we went.... towards the Lake... and we found a quiet street with a few occupied homes... no dogs in the yard, little cabins that he could hide underneath if it rained, lots of tall trees for climbing, and woods for him to hunt mice and birds. (My apologies to all the mice and birds at the Lake.)

We got out of the car and I opened up the crate and out flew the orange cat... I had pointed the carrier towards those houses and that's just the direction he ran for... towards the little cabins and the woods. I watched him go, never feeling badly at all, never even giving thought as to the fact that I'd just did what I hated other people doing on our own country road.

The only justification I have is that the orange cat was never mine, I never wanted to keep him, and I've spent the last year and four months hoping to catch him so I could take him to the shelter. Little Miss C pointed out to me the other day that a shelter would immediately put him to sleep because he wasn't a friendly cat... and even Miss C suggested that we just bring him to the Lake so he could have another chance at a cat-life instead of being put on the fixed-forever list at the animal shelter.

It wasn't until later this afternoon that I got to feeling badly about what I'd done this morning. But all I have to do is look at the old scars on my ankles or the new scratches on my wrist, and then look on the porch and see that both Mickey and Gatsby aren't hiding from that orange cat any longer... and I know I did the right thing with that orange cat.

It was a happy morning for me......... and I'm thrilled beyond description that the orange cat is no longer on our porch........ and I'm hoping beyond all hope that someone over by those lake cabins will leave a bowl of cat food on their porches when they hear his innocent but insistent meows when he gets hungry tonight.

And I hereby apologize right now for any future bites or scratches that the orange cat may inflict on anyone else in those cabins by the Lake..... but  I am so, so, so ridiculously blissfully happy that the orange cat is gone.

After the cousins....

The house is quiet.... my two cousins are at the airport now.... Miss C is on her way home towards Galveston as I type.... and my husband is at work. We all had a great visit these past three days, and C told me that she feels 'part Italian' now after listening to my cousins and I reminiscing about family holidays and 'the old days with Grandma and Grandpa.'  At one point, when we were talking about the big Christmas dinners we used to have, with the adults in the dining room and the kids at the children's table in the kitchen, C looked at me and said "You people are hysterical!"

The weather wasn't as warm as we were hoping for, and the first day it just rained and rained... but we managed to show my cousins a bit of our town, and they did appreciate the quaintness of it all. When we were walking along the main shopping street in town, my cousin S told me "There's only three people in this town... you must know everybody!"   I explained to him that if it had been a sunny and warmer day, there would have been more people out and about.  "Okay... that means there must be a dozen people in this town!"

My husband taught my cousin's daughter how to drive the riding mower and she spent part of one afternoon driving up and down the road with it, learning how to make sharp turns when my husband set up an obstacle course of trash cans. I think that was the favorite part of B's visit here... being in control at the wheel of the mower and yelling out "Yeee-haaaaw" when she passed our house.

When cousin S walked through our house for the first time, he realized how similar this house is to my grandparents' house back in New York, and he commented on that. I told him that's what made me fall in love with this big old house in the first place.

It was a very nice visit... went by very quickly since we had just the three days, and I'm glad Miss C was able to be here to meet them. My cousin S has already invited C to visit them in Florida, or come with my husband and I the next time we go there to see them. The dining room was filled with old family stories, and lots of laughs... and once again, I'm reminded that there's nothing like family because they share the same history and even though we've all had our differences from time to time over the years, you can always go back and start all over again as if nothing at all had happened.

The cousins are coming... the cousins are coming...

... and I've been cooking... and cooking....

I'm trying to get as much as possible done before my two cousins arrive on Monday. I don't know yet what time they'll be here, being that they're flying into Houston and S was talking about driving to Dallas before coming back down to the Hill Country.  Being that they'll be flying from Hawaii early that morning, he might just be changing his mind about a four-hr-drive up to Dallas, and then a four-hr-drive back from Dallas to get to us.  I told them to just call me when they land, let me know their plans, and then I'll know about when to expect them.

Our special friend C will be driving up here from Galveston either sometime tomorrow evening, or early on Monday morning. She's so excited to be meeting some of "the family," as she calls everyone. Another cousin visited us in Clear Lake years ago, but on that weekend, C was on a camping trip and not able to meet my cousin R.  Then a few years after we moved here, two other cousins flew in from New York for a weekend here, but C was out in Big Bend National Park exploring caves and climbing rocks... so she missed meeting family then as well.

So with this upcoming visit from my Florida cousins coinciding with vacation days that C had to use up, she's just thrilled to be driving up here to finally meet some of my family that she has only seen on birthday videos and in pictures.

I'm anxious to see cousin S's reaction to our house and property. My Uncle Mino always used to say that he wanted to buy a huge piece of property that the whole family could live on, and the only thing he wanted to see of his neighbors was their chimney sticking out over the tree-tops. And that's just about what my husband and I have up here in the Hill Country. Uncle Mino would have loved this big old place, especially since the house itself has so much of the vintage character as my grandparents' home.  I've already set the table in the dining room for Monday night's dinner.... with vintage china that's exactly like the plates my grandmother used for decades. I'm sure that cousin S will recognize the pattern.

Wonder of weather-wonders... it looks like the temperatures are warming up and we won't have to bundle up the Florida cousins as soon as their plane lands in Houston.  Today was sunny and warm, and the temperatures have been rising each day since that latest cold-snap hit the Hill Country last week. This afternoon, I noticed that the plum trees by the barn are bursting out in tiny white flowers, which can only mean that Spring is finally, finally, here. Now all we need is for the pecan trees to start budding, and we'll really know that winter is a memory. And after all the cold-snaps and hard-frosts we've had these past couple of months, that can't come soon enough for me.

If my New York cousins read that last paragraph, they'll be eMailing me to tell me that I have no right to complain about cold weather. And they're right.... they've all been dealing with numerous snowstorms, single-digit temperatures, icy roads and slush-filled streets. But honestly... how many times do I have to tell them that they're living in the wrong zip code?!

Colder than cold....

The weather wizards on TV keep telling us that it will get cold 'one last time.'  To date, I believe they've said that six times now, possibly seven.  Give me a blessed break. It is positively freezing outside... not just cold, but freezing. As in frozen solid.

We've kept faucets dripping... left extra heaters turned on in the cottage and the barn... and hoping beyond all hope that this is indeed the 'one last time' for these frigid temperatures. I could just scream, honestly.

My cousins will be here next week... and the weather wizards are promising that our usual mild temperatures are returning after this weekend. Remember that fable about the little boy who cried wolf?   We seem to have weathermen here who cry warmth.

Well, nothing I can do about the weather. My cousins live near Orlando, Florida, where it's almost always warm. (Disney World wouldn't have it any other way.) They will be visiting here after spending nearly a week in Maui, Hawaii, where it is always warm.  I am just hoping that they don't get off that plane from Maui and see the frozen Texas tarmac shining with ice crystals and decide to just get back on the plane and spend their extra days with Mickey and Minnie.

Oh well... it is what it is.  I hope they both packed sweaters and a jacket. Or, better still, I hope the weather people are correct for once and the sun will be shining brightly down on mild temperatures next week here in the Hill Country.

But on the bright side... I haven't seen that orange cat in two days... I have no idea where he goes when it's this cold outside, but his little bed on the porch has been empty, and the food I leave out there for him during the day goes un-touched.  Usually, he shows up on the porch after being missing for a day or two.... and then he meows loudly out there to let me know he's hungry. So far, no meows. I'm not getting my hopes up, but I really do hope he's found another home. And if I find out where that new home is, I will gladly give them his bed, his blanket, his food dishes, and a few months' supply of Meow Mix.

Monday stuff....

Another season of Downton Abbey comes to a close. And now what will we all watch on Sunday nights??

Three cheers to Julian Fellowes, who made sure that Anna and Mr. Bates are together again... and Carson and Mrs. Hughes are to be married.... and Violet arranged for her long-ago Russian Prince to be reunited with his Princess.... but sadly, Isobel Crawley won't be getting married to her intended because his sons didn't relish the idea of having a step-mother sharing the family fortune.

So many plots and twists and tid-bits to tidy up before the end of this 5th season of Downton, but they managed to do it quite nicely, and I was reaching for the tissues when Carson was asking Mrs. Hughes to be his wife... and then again when Tom announced that he'd be leaving for America, and then once again when Mr. Bates surprised Anna with his return to Downton.

And will Lady Mary ever, ever, ever have a kind word for poor Edith?!  Lady Mary needs to remember that ghastly night when the foreign visitor died in her bedroom and had to be dealt with in an Agatha-Christie-ish manner. Then perhaps she won't be so judgmental of Edith's choices.


To keep that orange cat company.... I've seen a gray and white cat on the porch this weekend. I know the gray cat is a female because that's the cat who has taken up residence at JS's property further up the hill, living underneath her garden shed. That same gray cat also had two kittens up there, and I've been wondering if the orange cat is the kitty-daddy of those two little ones. We'll never know, of course, but it is a fact that neither the orange cat nor the gray one has been fixed.  The gray cat is a feral, and runs away whenever she sees or hears something or someone out of the ordinary, so she's not likely to be caught. The orange cat is still doing his best to keep me wary of him... he managed to claw my ankle this morning when I put his food down on the porch.


We've had days of sprinkling rain... and misty cloudy weather.... and a cold dampness that just stays with you all day long. I can't remember the last time we saw the sun, and I'm getting downright cranky about that.  It isn't quite as cold as it had been, so that's a plus... but still... the sun would just be so very nice to see and everything would dry out and warm up and I'm trying to be very patient until that happens.