Story Intrusion

I'm popping in here at the old blog - it seems so much smaller now - to let you all know that I moved. http://jeffekennedy.com or click here.

The Fur Family

I'm over at Word-Whores today, introducing the Fur Family.

Blue Coyote

I had this dream, you see.

I was inside the house and David stepped out onto our patio, with his hands outspread. He was warding off the coyotes, I realized. There they were, streaking through the draw just below us. Only they were blue. Blue like jays.

The coyotes have become an odd subconscious symbol for me. I love to see them, in all their wild and beautiful glory. I'm also afraid of them. Not for myself, but for the cats. One day - the day of this photo, actually - one had a fresh-caught bunny dangling from its mouth. The coyote happily tossed the dead rabbit about. And I pictured Isabel in its place.

I can't deny Isabel and Teddy the joy that going out into the sun gives them. And yet I fret about them being unsafe. It's the eternal push/pull of suffocating what we love by keeping it safe.

And yes, I know I've written about this before. I said it's become a major symbol for me.

The blue coyotes, though - they were different. Both more fantastic and more dangerous. How David could hold them off, I don't know. I'm just grateful he could.

Perhaps that's my valentine today, to David, the man who keeps us safe from the Blue Coyotes.

(Thanks to the amazing and fabulous Tawna Fenske for saving my whiny behind and helping with with this pic. All hail Queen Tawna!)

Tao of Kitty

Bougainvillea from Thanksgiving in Tucson. No need for autumnal tradition there.

Every day my cat Isabel waits for her chance to go outside. It's her very favorite part of the day. She loves to stalk the birds, roll in the dirt sit in the sun. With these short days, she has to wait longer and longer to go out, because I won't let her until the sun is high enough that there are unlikely to be coyotes hiding in the shadows.

Fifteen minutes ago, just after 7, three coyotes trotted by. Well after sunrise, but the shadows are still long. Isabel wanders into my office, mewing with charm, coaxing me to let her out.

Not yet.

Because it's colder now, and sometimes blustery, she doesn't stay out long. She's spoilt with me working at home. Ten minutes after I let her out, she's outside my office window, asking to come in. I don't mind - it gets me out of my chair, after all. I've threatened to tweet every time I let her in and out, with cheerful encouragement to bring it on.

And they say Twitter has no real substance.

Every morning, though, Isabel seems to head out with supreme confidence and joy. Sometimes a cold gust will hit her and she'll crouch down, flattening her ears. Other mornings are still and she'll venture out with tail high, but come in sooner to warm up.

I wonder what she understands of the seasons. Does she have a sense that we're just heading into winter and that there will be a long cycle of cold before her hot summer days return? Perhaps every day is new and immediate for her. She could be expecting to walk into flowers and heat any day now.

It's likely more that she has no expectations. If animals live in the moment, then things are what they are. Yet, I know she misses us when we're gone and she remembers good hunting spots. I watch her making the rounds of places she's caught mice and gophers in the past. From the moment the alarm goes off, she's prancing around, excited to start her day. I believe she understands past and future.

Some people say you should never let cats outside at all. That if you never do, they can't miss what they've never experienced. I'm not sure I believe this. The world is the natural habitat for all of us. We retreat to shelter, for warmth, for safety, but that's not where any of us belongs, cloistered for our entire lives.

So, I wait for the sun to get bright enough - not yet, and it's almost eight now - and I watch her go embrace the world for what it is.

I try to do the same.

Scaredy Cat

Something frightened Isabel last night.

It was one of those nights anyway, when all the animals are on the move, inexplicably to humans. I could hazard guesses why. We had a good rain the night before, for the first time in quite a while. The rain brought welcome relief, dampening the dust and refreshing all the grasses and shrubs that had been curing for days and days in the relentless dry breezes. Not unlike a convection oven. Makes for pleasant weather for people, not so great for the natural world. Also, we're at the new moon, so the night was dark and cool.

We noticed the animal activity in the evening. On our walk, we saw a young bull snake lying in the road, soaking up the heat. We gently chased it off the road, so it wouldn't get run over by the people zooming home from work. Then, walking back up a different road, on the other side of the greenbelt, we saw an identical bull snake, also lying in the road. When a nest of snakes hatches, the young tend to radiate out in all directions, scattering to maximize survival of at least a few. We coaxed that one off the road also. Finally, we saw a Jerusalem cricket on the blacktop path. If you've never seen one, they're seriously funky. I didn't have my camera, but here's a pic from bugguide.net. That's about the size of my palm, by the way.

Bizarre creature, no?

The evening passed without further incident, until I woke sometime around three in the morning to an odd scrabbling sound. I thought the kitties had brought a mouse in from the garage, via the cat door. It was a lot of loud scrabbling and I realized Teddy was curled up next to me on the bed, so I finally got up to investigate. But no, Isabel was sound asleep on the back of the chair in the living room. Following the sounds, I discovered that the dog, Zip, had trapped himself in my shower, where he goes when he's frightened. By "trapped" I mean that he was behind the shower curtain, circling in an endless frenzy. Fortunately I had the power to sweep aside the silk curtain and free him.

Not always the brightest dog.

I get back in bed and may have fallen asleep. David and I both heard coyotes howling, which isn't unusual. Then Isabel leapt on the bed, which isn't unusual either, except that she wouldn't lay down and vibrated with tension. She leapt off again. I heard her throwing up and figured her for hairballs. She jumped on the bed again, acting frantic and had some moisture on her, then dashed off again.

Half asleep - by now it's four in the morning - I get visions of Isabel being ill and puking up blood. I finally get up again and search the house for her. I find where she threw up a bunch of water. No hairballs in sight. I finally find her in my bathroom (clearly the place to be last night), standing on her hind legs on my sink counter with her head under the little half-curtain that screens the window. When she looks at me, her pupils are so dilated the black swallows up all the color in her eyes.

I've never seen anything like it.

So I sat on the floor and she crawled onto my lap finally, curled up and purring. She settled somewhat, though the nictating membrane was covering her eyes to protect them from the bathroom light, since her pupils were still so dilated.

My best guess is she saw a pack of coyotes. She's seen one at a time before. We know because we've taken photos of them on the porch. I love the one on top because I think it captures him throwing his head back to howl. And it reminds me of that scene from Jacob's Ladder (which I know is a really old movie now, but it freaked me out at the time). Here's a more clear shot of him.

Isabel finally settled down. We all went back to sleep, though David and I are a bit groggy this morning. I'm actually contemplating driving into town for a Starbucks Pumpkin Spiced Latte. Probably a 45-minute round-trip. How desperate am I? Hmm...

Frankly, though I hated to see her so frightened, I'm not sorry that Isabel got a scare. She needs to be afraid of the predators. She tends to think she is a predator and forgets she can be prey, too.

Sometimes a little fear can be educational.

The Body Gift

I worked on the novel all weekend.

And it was good.

All day Saturday we sat under the grape arbor. I wrote, David worked on a project for his herb class and Isabel hunted a packrat through the grape vines.

All day, she hunted this rat. At one point, it came crashing through the leaves, hit the ground and dashed over to the massive climbing hydrangea to hide. That was a dramatic moment though. For the most part, her project was as quiet as ours: lots of stalking. The occasional creeping over the vines and wires, pink jellybean toes wrapping for purchase.

She sat in the sun on the adobe wall for so long she had to retreat to our shade and lie there, panting.

And I'm nearly done. I think I have about 25 pages to go. It's been slow-writing as I tie in each plot thread. Much like the beginning of the book, the ending has seemed to require that I immerse. I only wrote about 4,000 words over the weekend, but I was in it for hours all day Saturday and Sunday. When I started back in February, I did the same thing: low wordcount, lots of noodling.

I'm excited to see it come together like this, seeing moments from early in the story bear fruit.

I've decided on a working title: The Body Gift. The ending is confirming that choice, with all kinds of resonance. Of course, I don't delude myself that the title will make it all the way through publication, but I'm happy with it for pitching and querying.

But now: to finish.

Vigil

This is Isabel outside my office window, watching the Bewick's wren nest.

I originally thought it was a house wren, but the song and behavior has me now convinced that it's a Bewick's wren. Apparently they're easily confused. And, sadly, the house wrens are driving out the Bewick's wrens, so much so that they're pretty much gone from the eastern half of the country.

The males go around building several nests in cavities, like inside the cow skull on our front porch, and the female chooses her favorite. Our male worked away to build the nest and sings his heart out. But I'm not convinced he has found a mate, much less that there's anything going on in that nest.

Isabel, however, is certain there is.

She spends her days watching that nest. With unwavering intensity. She never tires of it. It's the same method she employs to catch mice or lizards. They hide and she sits and waits. For hours. Until they finally come out and she catches them.

Part of the reason felines sleep so much is because they're such efficient hunters that they can. Among all predators, cats spend the least amount of time actively hunting. Part of this though, is that persistence. They never forget or lose interest. Isabel's been watching that nest for two weeks now without much reward. If there ever are chicks, I'll have to keep her inside, because she won't rest until she gets them.

Writers talk about persistence all the time. Persistence to finish the book in the first place, to see it through the tough spots, in the face of ongoing rejection, to write the next book even as everyone apparently hates the one you're trying to shop. People throw around phrases like "thick skin" and "hanging on to your dream" and "never give up," which all sounds so grueling.

I wonder if it shouldn't be more like a cat hunting. Work on it every day, never lose interest, always check the nest. For Isabel, watching the nest is just as fun as finding something in it.

For her, it's not grueling. It's just what she does.

Wistful Wisteria

A moment before this, an Isabel tail was sticking straight up through the iris blades, fluffed with furry excitement.

Alas, I missed the moment. Whatever she'd pounced on moved, or bit back, and she shot out of there like a bolt of grey lightning.

Fine cocktail hour entertainment.

And a lovely end to a lovely day. I worked my way back into Sterling. (Thanks to KAK for nattering with me about it.) We went for the first bike ride of the season, checked out the local garden place.

I bought a Wisteria vine.

Does this seem like not such a big deal?

It is. It truly is. In fact, it's enough of a deal that I've apparently already blogged about it before. I'm always amused to find, after almost 1.5 years of blogging, when I've used a label before on a topic I thought I'd never mentioned. But there it is: Wisteria. And the post is even titled Wisteria Hysteria.

It's interesting for me to read that post from May 28 last year. (Apologies if it isn't interesting for you...) We ended up not moving to Canada. And even though I could have dragged all of my plants to Santa Fe, in the end we flat ran out of room, at 11 o'clock at night, in the moving truck. So I neither had a plant sale, nor gave them away - I left a bunch of them there in the sun room, for the new owners.

I wonder sometimes if they've taken care of them or if they all got kicked to the curb.

I'm not allowed to wax sentimental about my abandoned houseplants, however. The bougainvillea made the cut, but the hibiscus and orchid stayed behind. The orchid was in pretty dire shape anyway and people would give me these "are you completely nuts?" looks when I talked about how it could come back.

I get those looks a fair amount.

But, yesterday I bought and planted a wisteria vine, which I know will grow here, because I've seen them on other houses. One house we looked at shot straight to the top of my list because it came pre-wisteriaed.

Now I have one to nurse along. Funny how things work out.

The Great Backyard Bird and Coyote Watch

All the animals are out and about now.

Spring may not begin until March -- which I quibbled about previously, so I won't reiterate my arguments, much as I enjoy reiterating my favorite peeves -- but the wildlife around Santa Fe is gearing up for warm weather.

Tuesday evening, as dusk fell, a couple of bunnies came out to hit up the game bird block out front. And a jumping mouse hopped by. Then, yesterday morning, I awoke to fog outside the window -- and a coyote walking by. Last night, a bobcat came up on the porch to nose around. And sniff around the game bird block.

Predators following prey in the eternal cycle.

The flickers have been diligently hammering on the house. If you've never heard a woodpecker at work on your house, well it sounds like the roofing crew showed up again. Maybe just the finish crew. But you could swear someone's out there pounding nails. If you look behind the suet feeder in this photo, you can see the fresh hole in the portal post that this selfsame bird drilled into it.

I assume that's her, anyway. She refused to give her name.

Being a woman, I decided food was the answer. The gal at the local Wild Birds Unlimited was dubious.

"Are you sure they're not looking to carve out a nest?"

"It's about the size of a quarter," I say. "If so, they've got a ways to go."

I'd walked in and asked for the Woodpecker's Friend. Which makes sense to me, but I apparently live in my own delusional world. I'm at peace with that. At any rate, the thing I thought I saw at Christmastime wasn't what I thought it was and it wasn't called that anyway. The upshot? I have to be my own woodpecker's friend. So I got the basic suet frame and the recommended suet and made David install it all over the hole, so the flickers would eat the suet and not the portal.

Right, he thought I was nuts, too.

And for a while, all we got on there were the bushtits. Which turned out to be really neat because they hadn't visited us other wise.

Then, a couple of days ago: the flickers found the suet. They've been happily cracking away on it -- and no other part of the house -- ever since. I know. I am totally vindicated. I *am* the Woodpecker's Friend. One day all you people learn not to scoff.


The Great Backyard Bird Count starts on Saturday. No qualifications required to participate. This year, if you tweet, you can use the hashtag #gbbc to report bird sightings. Hey, it does NOT get more fun than that people!

Nobody seems to sponsor the Great Backyard Coyote Count. But we caught one on the night-vision camera last night. It's actually an amusing sequence as he and the bunnies visit throughout the night. Tonight we'll see if we can't snap one of the bobcat and maybe I'll post the whole sequence tomorrow.

Oh, in this photo? I'm pretty sure he's looking at Isabel in the window.

She's hiding in the laundry basket today.

Snowy Sunday in Santa Fe

Oral Surgery

This is actually a setting October crescent moon. Held by an unstable hand. Turned out kind of cool, actually. I took this after our first party in the new house, at which I drank a fair amount of wine. Hence the unsteady hand.



The serendipity of over-indulgence.

Yesterday was all about getting ready for the party. Which made a good break for me. No working on the book. No working on work. No blog post, even. No, yesterday was packed with buying food and booze and getting the house clean.



Which, apparently I hadn't really cleaned since we moved in.



That doesn't seem like such a big deal, except we've been here two months now. And that's a little long to go. We needed some rebound time from having our house on the market for six months, show-ready all that time. But, that was plenty long enough.



So the mundane tasks demanded my attention and that was okay.



Except for the kitty medical emergency.



I was vaccuming away, only ten minutes behind my intended in-the-shower deadline, when David came in carrying Isabel. I thought he'd captured her before the party, so I nodded and smiled when he said something to me.



"She's got a cholla burr in her mouth!" He said louder.



Oh. OH!



I turned off the vaccum cleanerand went over to him. Sure enough, there was a big cholla burr hanging off her lip. She was frothing and salivating and I quickly yanked it off.


These things are nasty - big and spiky. Every one of us has stepped on one now. They hurt like hell, but they come out fairly easily. Even Zip, who's not that bright, has learned to yank them out of his paws with his front teeth and spit them out again.



But, though, the cholla burr came off Isabel's lip quickly enough, she jumped out of David's arms, still licking and frothing, and raced for the sanctuary of the bedroom.

"She's got one inside her mouth, still." David said.

So, we dug her out from under the bed. I held Isabel on her back on my lap, as I sat on the floor, back against the bed. From my angle, I could see the burr embedded in the roof of her mouth. David held her paws and I tried to grab the thing, but couldn't get a grip. White fur was flying everywhere.

Meanwhile the guests are arriving in 45 minutes, I haven't finished the vaccuming and I'm filthy from house-cleaning.

While David fetches the tweezers, I'm thinking about how we could put a note on the door while we take her to the vet, which may or may not be still open this late on a Friday afternoon. Isabel is alternately hissing and pitifully meowing.

I got closer to a grip with the tweezers, but everytime I touched it, Isabel would yank away in pain. So David got a beach towel -- the big one we bought in Culebra with the multi-colored giant polka-dots on it. We wrapped her up in it, so only her little white furry face poked out.

This time when I pried open her mouth, we could hold the mummy-cat steady. I yanked that burr right out.

Isabel went to the closet to recover her composure, then slept the rest of the afternoon and evening.

I finished the vaccuming -- including a redo of the bedroom -- managed to clean-up and cute-up before the first guest arrived.

Fortuntately, no one was right on time.

Life Lists

Isabel caught a lizard this morning.

Another species crossed off her life list. She's hit most of the new species around here: the mouse, the rat, several birds, including a humming bird.

She really wants a gopher or a quail, but I can tell she's a bit boggled on how to go about it.

It's funny -- I know immediately when she's captured something and brought it into the house. She has a certain bright meow. A trill of triumph, alerting us to her prize. She's always so proud, submitting her contribution to the household.

She has a gentle mouth, so usually what she brings in is alive and unharmed. This can be both a good and bad thing. I'm always relieved to see the birds fly away again. I'm not so pleased to see the mouse or rat take off across the floor.

This morning, I went dashing in trepidation (this is difficult to do and takes much practice) in response to her trill of triumph. My heart sank to see Isabel digging around in the basket by the fireplace that has my movie-watching blanket in it. Yes, the cozy soft blanket I bought myself from Bath & Bodyworks one Christmas, which was a huge indulgence since that kind of behavior is strictly against Christmas-shopping rules. I just knew there was a rodent in my blanket.

I was already figuring what else I could wash with it on this non-laundry weekend.

David got his rodent-capturing gloves and, following my suggestion, simply carried the whole basket outside, so that we could maybe skip the whole process of sliding around whatever heavy piece of furniture the rodent had dived under. Isabel immediately dived into the corner of the fireplace, where the basket had been.

And there was our lizard. A New Mexico Whiptail. Widespread and abundant. Don't tell Isabel.

David had predicted she'd catch one, once the weather cooled a bit. You can see this is probably the one she earlier pulled the tail off of -- the blobby-looking tissue is his tail growing back.

David caught the lizard and we dutifully documented it. Isabel is happy now, preening on the patio like the queen she is. Terribly pleased with herself.

Coincidentally, I hit my own version of a 10K day: sometime last night I received my 10,000th page load on this blog. Hardly the big time, but I feel good about the accomplishment.

And I didn't even have to rip anyone's tail off. Mostly.

Dream a Little Dream of Me

I've never had a cat before who curls her toes.


Isabel curls even her back toes, when she's especially deliciously at rest. If you pet her in this mode, she'll purr and flex her toes, then curl them tighter.

She makes it look enviable.

I've always been a good sleeper. David says that if the house burned down, he'd have to carry me out over his shoulder. Indeed, when I was a girl, the house across the way, outside my bedroom windown, burned down, complete with excited neighbors and screaming fire engines.

I slept through it all.

But in the last few years, I've developed this weird sleep thing. I'm actually not sure when it started. At first it felt like a kind of anxiety. I would worry at night about where my rings were. Why my rings, I don't know. I wouldn't even wake up, really -- just fret in this kind of limbo state about them. And no, they're not incredibly valuable rings, nor have I ever lost them. I have lost other jewelry, and it bothered me greatly, so I suspect that's where the fear comes from.

The point is, though, that it doesn't matter what the object is, it's the emotion that troubles my sleep.

I put it down to stress, though it doesn't always seem to happen when I feel most stressed. It waxes and wanes, occurs in little clusters. Over time, the object of my concern has changed. (Possibly because I keep telling myself to quit thinking about the damn rings.) It some ways, it has expanded to involve some incredibly important object that I've left in a hotel room drawer (yeah -- there's my business traveler anxiety) and, since last fall, a cat that I've contrived to forget about and leave to die somewhere.

I can even see it: a grey, tiger-striped short haired cat. Unlike one I've ever owned.

Once I found myself up and out of bed in a hotel room in San Francisco, rummaging through the bedside table drawer, looking for the thing. Which sometimes feels like a puzzle box. Interestingly, when I have the thing about the cat, I connect it back to that hotel room in San Francisco, as if the cat is still there, dying and alone.

Yes, I'm probably crazy.

In fact, I spent time thinking about this. I'm a writer. I tend to be dreamy, to read in omens and signs. Who is this cat? What does the puzzle-box mean? Is it some deep meaning about my inner self? Some part of me neglected, locked away? Am I really a were-cat and I'm going to Fight Clubs at night while I think I'm sleeping?

Hey, crazy, but also imaginative!

It happened again a couple of weeks ago and, for the first time, David was there to witness the whole thing. I had been asleep for about half-an-hour and he was still lying awake. (Recall I'm the girl who's out the moment her head hits the pillow.) I sat bolt upright, thinking the grey tiger cat was out being chased by coyotes. I'm always deeply confused in these moments, if you hadn't gotten that already. Not sure where I am, even who I am.

I was struggling to remember how many cats we have and why I thought there was one missing, when David stroked my back and said everything is okay.

"I thought we had a kitty outside," I tried to explain.

"Both kitties are happily walking around inside," he told me. And he rubbed my back until I laid back down and, of course, went instantly back to sleep.

In the morning he told me that he'd been listening to my breathing and that I'd been really deeply asleep and then stopped breathing. He was on the verge of waking me up when I sat up.

So, now I'm thinking it's some kind of sleep apnea. Which means the waking up is a healthy thing and the formless (and formed) anxiety might be related to that.

Now I'm just watching it for that. Fortunately, I'm not one of those several or hundreds of times a night people.

Eh, I'd probably just sleep through it.

Desperado

Isabel models her new collar for you.

As requested: this is the radio fence report.

It was difficult to get a good pose, since her luxuriant ruff blocks it pretty well. For a radio collar with little shocker-nodes on the inside, it's reasonably small and lightweight.

This was taken right after a nap, when she first moved out to the patio, so when I tried to pose her, she simply collapsed into belly-rub mode.

As you can see, the collar itself poses no trauma. It's bigger and heavier than her old, typically kitty-thin collar, but she took the change in stride. The radio fence instructions have all kinds of suggestions on habituation and training, most of which I skipped.

Isabel is a smart cat.

And I'm a lazy woman.

Anyway, the collar was fine off the bat, so I just went with it.

For those who've been off reading books instead of keeping up with inane blogs (we won't discuss Sunday/NFL activities), yesterday we installed the radio fence around the house, to keep Isabel from running off into the desert. I had to mail-order it, to get the lower-power cat version. To keep Isabel, who loves to push her boundaries from being munched by a coyote, bobcat or mountain lion, we're letting her out only in the bright light of day and only into this circumscribed area, so she can always be found at dusk. Or should some clock-shifter predator wander by.

So, yeah, it's a PITA. It takes time. But there's enough wire in the initial kit to make a nice big loop around the house, plugged into a receiver in the garage. You bury the wire 1-3 inches deep. Which isn't that difficult, unless you're digging around cholla. (Our neighbor told us about a guy who ran into a cholla without a shirt on and he had to be taken to the emergency room to be treated for shock, because of the pain.) We got part of it buried before the cocktail bell was rung and we were forced to stop for the day.

But I tested it. First on me. Now get this, there's five levels: the first is sound only, then the next four play a sound as the cat gets near the wire, then administers a little shock of greater levels. So Level 2 is suggested for timid cats, 3 for timid to average, 4 for stubborn and 5 for insanely difficult. Okay, I forget how they described the type of cat requiring a 4 or 5 shock, because I debated between 2 and 3.

No setting for intelligent cats. (No remarks from the peanut gallery, Kev.) So I picked 3.

What you do is hold the collar in the bracket they provide and walk along with the collar at cat-neck height. (Yes, you look like Quasimodo.) As you approach the wire, you can hear the beep and determine that it's working. No shock because the bracket they provide protects you. That's right: they fully expect you'll strap this onto your beloved kitty -- of course beloved, because you're not going to invest the time and money into this project if not -- and never feel the shock yourself!

No no no no no.

So I took it off the handy bracket, held it in my hand at Level 3 and the damn shock nearly made my hand numb.

Level 2 it was.

So we try it on Isabel. I should add the caveat that I've now skipped the two weeks of training they explain in great detail. Where they think you're going to put your cat into a harness, walk her up near the wire and then, when you hear the beeping, yell "run away run away!" and run with your cat back to the house.

I kid you not.

Since I couldn't envision doing this without using Monty Python voices and making pointy killer bunny teeth with my index fingers while I ran, which would mean I'd drop Isabel's leash, which, oh yeah, doesn't exist, I skipped that whole section and went for the "tie-out option." This is where you tie your cat out and let her find the wire herself. Except with us there's no tie-part. Just Isabel and the desert.

We watched her on her evening constitutional. She walked up to the wire, where we'd left off with the onerous burying, wondering why we'd been messing with it, looked around for that beeping noise, stepped on the wire and wandered off.

Okay, the collar was too loose.

Hey, those prong-thingies looked uncomfortable!

But I tightened it up -- after testing it on my hand again, ow -- and went for trial 2.

{Overnight intermission for cat to stop being paranoid about why I'm following her around.}

Isabel walks up to the wire, intent on a distant juniper stand with enticing baby quail noises. What's that sound? She looks around for the beeping. Sees the red wire. Hmm. She bends to sniff the wire and snaps back! Just like her nose was shocked. She sniffs again. Same thing! Isable shakes her head, sniffs again, shocked, and leaps over the wire to escape it.

Yeah. Not quite what we hoped for.

But it is working. She's been staying closer to the house and not messing with the wire. The collar was bugging her some -- hey, little prongs in your neck -- so I might rotate it with the other.

In the meanwhile, there's lizard-hunting, except when they run under the yucca, which poke you in the face most uncomfortably.

I'm going to call it a provisional success.

Any questions? Feedback? Bets on how long it will take us to finish burying the wire?

Winner gets a free stay in our guest room!

Settling In

Yes, we are.

To answer all who've been asking.

There's been particular concern over the kitties. It's true: kitties have a major rep for hysterics over this kind of thing.

Not ours.

Yes, the three-day stop-over at my mother's was traumatic. Ted and Isabel stayed at her house in Denver from Thursday to Sunday morning. A plan intended to avoid the more intense kitty trauma of having to See Furniture Being Moved. But they hated being separated from us and were apparently convinced we'd abandoned them forever.

But within hours of arriving here, they'd already established patterns. Teddy has her morning nap room and evening nap room. And Isabel is LOVING the secret garden. Here she is, crashed out after a morning of leaping after bugs and spinning among the flowers as the hummingbirds dart overhead.

We have been similarly finding our patterns. Cocktails on the patio watching the sunset is a no-brainer. We've managed to have five meals at home in a row -- that were not pre-prepared in any way.

And the food is so good.

If you haven't lived in a rural, dare I say, underserved, community, you don't know what I mean. I remember when my writer/photographer friend, RoseMarie moved from New York, she had a fit because she couldn't get lettuce that wasn't wilted. She even bullied the Safeway produce manager into telling her when the produce truck would arrive, so she could be there to get her lettuce fresh off the truck. "It ARRIVED wilted!" she wailed to me.

You get inured over time. Accustomed to making do. To buying one of the two varieties available. You don't expect much. No one up the highway from you expects more, so the good stuff never comes into towns like that.

Not so here. Last night I made Shrimp Newburg. The shrimp were succulent and tasty. The skim milk was organic, fresh and came in an adorable bottle. They have spelt sandwich bread! Am I sounding silly?

That's the thing about low expectations: it makes the new world that much brighter and tastier.

Having a wonderful time -- Wish you were here!