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.