Six weeks of Harry Potter....

Just finished reading all seven volumes of the Harry Potter books, a result of a promise to the students in my Magic Wand Book Club.  The grand prize for the best Book Club student was a full hardcover series of the HP books, and I hope the girl who won the set has begun reading them also.  That's what prompted my promise to re-read those books... the winning student asked me if I had all of the HP books, and when I told her that I did, she asked me if I would be reading them over the summer. I told her I would... and I did.  Different experience with the HP series, to read them one after the other, without a break inbetween each volume.  The creativity and imagination of J.K. Rowling still shines as brightly now as it did when the first HP book was released.

Summer has hit us with a vengeance... we went from a breezy and comfy Spring to sweltering hot temperatures. So hot already that the flowerbeds have to be watered every day just to keep the blooms healthy and pretty. I have rocked-in four of the smallest flowerbeds... friend C did two of them, and I watched what she did and then repeated the process on the two smallest ones. Tiny rocks and big flat rocks, and now there are white ceramic ducks sitting in the middle of the pebbles instead of flowers that have to be watered every blessed day. Why didn't we think of this sooner?

The gray cat who has been sleeping on our porch for months now.... he is officially our cat, and I've named him Buddy-Kitty.  He started life at the across-the-road neighbor's house, and she had named him Tom.  Then Tom got her female cat pregnant and she ended up with kittens... she got the female cats fixed, but when she tried to get Tom into a carrier-crate for his trip to the vet, he raced away from her property and found his way to our porch. Of course if there is a stray cat out there, I'm going to feed it, and this gray cat was the skinniest thing on four paws.... so I gave him Fancy Feast. And he stayed... sleeping in the little wicker cat-house on the porch, which I covered up with warm quilts in December and January... and now the re-christened Buddy-Kitty is sleeping on the biggest lounge chair in the shade of the porch. He is a sweet cat, and he has eyes like our very wise Gatsby had.  I would still like to get him fixed... but I'll wait a while so he doesn't go running away to yet another porch where no one cares that he is intact and ready to make kittens.