Ahhh, the Weekend

What utter, sheer bliss to be able to roll out of bed and have your only immediate worry be getting the dogs out before they pee on the floor. It's 48 F. and a sunny first day of fall is blossoming. I fix the coffee pot so I can flip the switch as the dogs pull me out the door. Pip is leashed again because Sister Grace says her cats are afraid to come out of their house. Don't want to risk the wrath of Sister Grace (remember what happened to the Blues Brothers?). The sight of us busting out of the barn door draws Thor over, snarling and spouting. His head is as big as a Volkswagen, and I'm a little scared until he rolls over and shows me his belly. When we got back in I took the basket of kittens living in the guest room on my lap and played with them for a while. I can barely remember life without cats. They are the most amazing, prolific creatures. Yesterday I saw a tiny little kitten, growling viciously under her breath, with the rear legs and tail of a mouse sticking out the back of her mouth. For years I had a group of cats who were never allowed outside. I considered doing that here, by putting a door on one of the hay mows to keep them in. But it's tough to do that on a farm. There are holes everywhere in this old 20,000 square foot barn. The cats have the run of the place and have kept the rats at bay. An Irish teacher I worked with in NJ, who lived in Manhattan all her life and was very familiar with rats, told me that if we have mice that's a good sign - rats and mice don't run together. Imagine that, a Manhattanite teaching me about rats and mice. We had quite a pidgeon population when we first moved in. They roosted on the uppermost peak of the roof, way, way up high. The kitties even got rid of them, banishing them to one of the silos, then going to work on them in there. I don't hear the echoes of pidgeons cooing. We live a little close to the road for my liking. Sure it's fine for getting your truck out to go to work, but I have always wanted a "mile long" driveway. I think that's the ultimate in privacy and country living. Before the road was changed, this farm had a mile long driveway. Chris Kupris pointed out that horses would never want to pull wagons up the steep hill nearby on the way to Brookfield. The road was down by the creek, across the hayfields. Makes sense to me, the creek water follows the path of least resistance. A couple of my cats have been run over by cars, making me absolutely crazy. I can count the cars and trucks that go by here every day on the fingers of my hands, yet they manage to run over my cats. There are thousands of road free acres behind me, yet the kitties go for the road. I wonder if they hear the cars coming, then wait to run across when the car is upon them, like a deadly game. I need the kitties in the tractor shed to keep rats out of my storage boxes and wool. The shed is right on the road. That's Lydia's domain. She loves it in there. I keep a bucket of her favorite kitty feed and water in there, in hopes that she won't cross the road to go hunting down by the creek. Chris tells me she hops over to his yard to catch chipmunks to eat. I didn't want to hear that...