Ambushed

Stalls in the barn were built with just half walls.  Steve added hog wire panels on top of the walls later when we discovered that goats could and did jump over.  I can see in, the girls can look out, and the panels keep the barn from looking like the catacombs.  Yesterday as I was going down the aisle in the back, suddenly Missy leaped at me from Tessie's room.  I was the one who jumped then.

When it's cold, Ralph and Celeste cuddle together on the bed and spend most of their time sleeping.  They are definitely more active on nice days.  Yesterday they took turns hiding around corners, in the stairwell, and behind doors to wait for the other to come by.  Then they'd race around the house, and that always ended in a tussle.  Goofy cats.

There were things I could and should have done, but I was ambushed by a book Arden had loaned me a week or two ago that I hadn't even opened.  She'd asked me several times how I liked it, and I had to confess I'd not started it yet.  After chores, guilt and a warm, sunny morning without any wind sent me out to the deck, book in hand.  Moving from outdoors to in, two hundred-plus pages later, I had to put the girls to bed.  "Beneath A Scarlet Sky" by Mark Sullivan is a docudrama set in Italy during WWII, a terrible time in history.  Like Ken Follett, Mr. Sullivan obviously researched the facts and then wove a fascinating story around them.  I don't imagine I'm going to get much done today, either.

It was still quite light when I went down to the barn.  I never hear the neighbors' big dogs during the day, but they do come to the fence to bark at sundown.  Tessie did her thing again and it was nearly dark when she finally decided to come in.  The photo doesn't really show the highlighted red and gold contrails. Drat.

It was a good day.