Crises

I'm worried about Frank.  It's not an identity crisis; he knows who he is and answers to his name.  It's not a gender crisis although, as a neutered male, that could be confusing.  Frank appears to be having a species crisis, acting more like dog than cat.  Although there are several constantly refreshed water dishes, both indoors and out, I frequently find Frank drinking out of the toilet.  To do this, he has to get halfway into the toilet, with only his hindquarters and tail sticking out.  Bessie Anne likes Fritos.  Frank likes Fritos.  I don't think cats are supposed to like Fritos.  Frank hangs out now and again with Pearl, his sister, and they do hunt together, but his true love is Bess.  She is the one he runs to when he comes in the house, rubbing all over her, taking her face in his paws and looking into her eyes, lifting her ears to help her clean those hard-to-reach places.  Bessie gets a shoulder massage every night at bedtime (I already said I was a nut), and Frank joins me and "makes muffins" on Bess's butt.  The look on Bessie's face tells me she doesn't think this is normal behavior for a cat either.  I'm worried about Frank.

I'm having a small crisis of my own.  The blanket I've had on the bed for years and years has finally worn itself thin and ragged.  I bought a new blanket, but I'm having trouble letting go of the old "blankie."  Look, there's where Bessie chewed when she was a puppy.  Those holes are where Frank took a spell of attacking moving feet when he was just a kitten.  It seems so cold and indifferent to just throw this blanket that has warmed me on winter nights and has so much history into the garbage can.  Not left with many alternatives, I suppose I'll have to say goodbye come Trash Day Tuesday, but it won't be easy.  I haven't bonded with the new blanket yet.

Cool Days, Hot Goats

The cloud cover moved up from the south, the wind picked up, and a light rain began.  Opening the barn doors was like opening the starting gate for breeding season.  Goats (and deer) don't normally mate during the heat and long days of summer.  Waiting until fall ensures that the babies will be born in the spring when forage is at its best.  Given the conditions yesterday morning, the girls did everything but holler "Woohoo!!"  They pranced, they danced, they headbutted, and they took turns mounting.  They ran and spun in circles.  Unless they are in a flat-out panic, goats look like rocking horses bobbing up and down when they run.  The ones on the stand gobbled down their breakfast so they could get back to the party.  Talk about a celebration!  I didn't have the heart to tell them I wasn't going to rent a buck this year.

Coming back up from the barn, I noticed that the first naked ladies have come back to Farview.  A cluster of those pink amaryllis has sprung up by the wood pile.  Since they send up no greenery first, their arrival is always a surprise.

It's been too hot to read lately.  I preferred to sit in front of the TV and be spoon fed my entertainment.  The rain continued off and on all day yesterday and I picked up my newest favorite author, Patrick Taylor.  He writes Irish like Fannie Flagg writes southern with a lilt and cadence of dialogue and interesting characters I love.  There is a line in this latest book, The Past Is A Foreign Country:  They Do Things Differently There.  That pretty much describes how I feel when I reminisce about how it was when I was a child:  things were different then.  Because it is my wont to swallow books whole in a single day, I was determined to savor this latest.  Read a chapter, go do housework.  Read a chapter, fill the hummers' feeders.  Read a chapter.  Oh, go on and read a couple more.  I'm only half-way through so I have something to look forward to today.  I showed a little more self-restraint than the goats.

Almond Joy Day

"Sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't."  That old commercial for Almond Joy and Mounds started my day yesterday.  Buckets in hand, I was ready to step out the door when I saw the turkey ladies in the herb garden again.  There is a particular wild grass that grows unbidden and unwanted there.  Digging out most, I always leave some for the turkeys.  It sends up tall stalks covered in tiny seeds that are a favorite of the big birds.  They run the stems through their beaks, stripping the seeds like kids licking straws from a milk shake.  Telling myself that the longer I delayed, the hotter the barn would be, still I waited until the ladies had moved on.  Nuts do things like that.

How do they know?  I had to look up when deer hunting season will start, but the deer already knew.  One of the does I'd seen in the pasture was down by the woods in the morning and the buck streaked across the front drive at nightfall.  They've moved into my little patch of forest for sanctuary.  How do they know they'll be safe here?

It's back up into the nineties again.  Nuts.

Gentleman Caller

Not until he moved did I see the two-point buck at the edge of the shadow in the front pasture, and then I saw his two ladies over toward the right.  (Click on the picture to expand.) Bess had told me we had visitors, so we stepped out on the deck to greet them.  Our hospitality was evidently acceptable because when we went out at dusk to put the girls to bed, this handsome gentleman and his girlfriends were out by the goat pen.  They took off down into the woods before Bess caught sight, which was a good thing.  I don't think she could have resisted giving chase.

Dislike of dusting is hereditary.  My mother hated to dust.  She said that was why she had girls, so she could pass on that chore to us.  Not only that, she planned it carefully.  I was born on my sister's sixteenth birthday so that by the time my sister was ready to leave home, Mother had a trainee waiting in the wings.  When I was a kid, we had dark mahogany furniture (do they even make mahogany furniture anymore?) with filigree curlicues.  It showed every speck of dust and fingerprint.  Lemon oil was her polish of choice.  Zesting a lemon now takes me back in time and I feel I should pick up a dust rag.  I spent a good portion of the afternoon on Labor Day dusting.  I hated it.

Mouse Breath

The full moon has had more than the coyotes out hunting.  Last night at bedtime I went to the door to call the cats in, and there was Frank in the walkway, crunching and munching on something that I didn't want to see close up.  Pearl did not answer my call, busy on a hunt of her own, so I simply closed the door.  Frank sleeps on the bed with Bessie and me and there are just some things I'd rather not do - smelling mouse breath on a snoring cat is one of them.

Valentine is a full-size donkey who lives to the north of me and has as long as I've been here.  Shadow is a miniature donkey who recently moved in toward the south.  They are both very vocal animals, waking early and greeting the day like the roosters.  They call back and forth over the hill, and sometimes sing in unison.  Between the donkeys and the crowing cocks, there is no need for an alarm clock up here.  Since I'm up before dawn, it's nice to know I'm not alone.

Frank and Pearl came in a bit ago, very pleased with themselves.  They'll undoubtedly sleep all day, but not with me.

Just Do It

I find myself with a case of the blahs.  Not the blues...just a pervasive lassitude and no ambition.  It could be the arrival of fall, I don't know.  I do know the remedy, however.  It's time to pull out that To-Do list, shake the dust off the dust rag, and just do it.  There's no cure for the blahs like activity.

Sparrow's romance seems to have been short lived.  He's once again perched alone at night, his two ladies having moved on.  Was it something he said?  One wonders about these things.

Spiders are believers in DIY.  It sometimes happens while I'm taking a break while Ruthie or Esther is on the stand (they're nonmilkers) that I will swat a fly.  Then I drop said fly into a spider web.  If the fly is already dead, the spider has no interest.  The trick is to just stun the pesky thing.  Then the daddy longlegs will dart over for the kill and immediately begin packaging the leftovers.  Unlike Mickey Mouse in The Brave Little Tailor, I can't do seven with one blow, but I've got a pretty good ratio of eight for twelve on a good day.  It seems to be my mission in life to feed all.  Spiders have to eat too.

Now where did I put that list?

Changing

It wasn't because the delta breeze was blowing.  It was cooler, yes, but yesterday was that magical day when the air just felt different, that day when you know that the season has changed and fall has arrived.  I'd noticed a couple of dropped acorns in the drive; time to get out the hard hats for the hens.  I've been talking to the chickens anyhow.  They've been stripped down to their bikinis for the summer; now they've got to put their feathers back on.  This group of turkey ladies chatted amiably together as they pecked and scratched through the herb garden in the afternoon.  The marjoram, yarrow, and thyme have crept out into the walkway, but it's so hard to keep plants alive that I haven't the heart to dig these adventurers up and keep them confined.  Besides, it smells good if you should happen to step on a few.

Blue moon rising didn't look blue to me, but it was a nice thought.  I heard we won't get another until 2015.  The beastie boys, the "children of the night," (in other words, the coyotes) have been running the hills in the moonlight and singing their night songs.  They awaken something primal in Bessie Anne.  She tries to join in the chorus, but sounds, as I was telling Joel, like she was gargling with battery acid.

Temps back up in the high nineties are predicted for this week, but you'd never know it this morning.  I woke up frozen, wishing I had the quilt back on the bed.  It was easier to get up and put on slippers and robe than lie there trying to get warm.  Now that's a change!