Spring in February...

...that's what the recent weather has been like-- a beautiful Spring. After four or five days of clouds, the Texas sky has given us a glorious sun. Now this is the sort of 'winter' we enjoyed when we first moved to this state in 1993. I'm glad that the weather gods have been smiling on us.

The cat-gods are also smiling. In the last couple of weeks, we've seen three or four stray cats on our porch. Two of the cats looked identical, so I'm not sure if we saw two different cats, or the same cat more than once.  The mottled gray cat of a couple of weeks ago (who reminded me of Boo Radley) has decided to travel on, but one of the striped cats has stayed on our porch since last week. He suns himself in the yard during the day, waits for his dinner on the back porch, and he's there in the morning when I come down to the kitchen. This cat looks identical to our Sweet Pea, except he's a bit smaller and has brown fur on his chest. We even tried bringing him into the house one night, but he plowed himself into Sweet Pea like a dervish, and we quickly put him back on the porch.

Our outside cat Mickey is now getting acquainted with the new striped cat, who I've been calling Boo-Kitty... for the simple reason that some of his meows sound more like boos, just like that mottled gray cat. This cat is very sweet with me, very tolerant of Mickey (I guess he knows that Mickey is king of the feline kingdom out on the porch and the property). Boo-Kitty follows me down the driveway to get the mail and then follows me back to the porch, but he's careful to stay out of Savannah's way when I take her out into the yard.  Savannah is tolerant of both Sweet Pea and Mickey, but they were both here when we first brought Savannah home, and I don't think she wants any more cats to call her own.

We keep saying "No more cats!" but there always seems to be room for one more, if the 'one' is a good cat. Regardless of Boo-Kitty's bullishness with Sweet Pea, he is a good cat, and he clearly made it known that he's an outside cat and that's that.

As I type, the latest handyman is outside power-washing the porch of the guest cottage. This handyman shows up on time, works well and works quickly, and he's knocking chores off the to-do list every day he's here. Wonder of wonders... there is a handyman god after all.

I've spent the last week making invitations for our Halloween party.... which will be in October, of course, but who's to say one can't get an extra-early start?  I had taken out all the supplies for those invitations last week, when the ladies in the community came here for our First Thursday Of The Month Tea And Crafts. Well, there were so many ladies here last Thursday that no one was really interested in crafting... we all just talked and caught up on what was new with the world outside our own properties. And a lot was new since we all saw one another at our Christmas party, so the ladies who brought crafts just set them aside. So every morning since then, I've  put together a few Halloween invitations. In a month's time, I'll have them all finished, and then I may start making invitations for this year's Christmas party. (Don't laugh... Christmas will be here in a heartbeat.)