the new delightful normal

 Millie is adjusting. The new routines are awfully much like the old ones. She is finding her place in them,

It's a beautiful day and our spirits are high. Our morning time over breakfast on the porch is grand. My girl is restraining her barks now. Not everyone gets a rousing greeting and in any case, her tail is wagging. She wants to make friends. Me, I'm enjoying a warm beginning to the day, looking over at all that I planted this year. July is a gardener's dream month. It's a peak time for blooms. It's hard to take in the fact that we;re already one week into the month. 

 

 

 

... Where the potted roses (to be transplanted later) are coming into full bloom.

I get a very welcome message from Ed: he'd been losing a lot chickens to predators. Oh, we've always lost an occasional one to hawks, possum, raccoons. But very rarely. And almost never during the day. But this spring -- three were snatched in broad daylight. Ed has been keeping them under lock to assess the situation and maybe redirect the racoon if indeed it is a raccoon. But yesterday, two things happened -- in the late afternoon, he found a coyote staring into the sheep shed window. And Dance had gone missing for going on 24 hours. He put two and tow together and came up with the obvious -- this animal had been taking chickens, and if non could be caught, she (likely a mom of young ones) could easily go after a cat. There was your answer as to why Dance had not shown up for three meal in a row.

It was a sad ending to the day last night. I'll admit it -- Dance was by far our favorite. The oldest one, named "Dance" by Snowdrop when she was just 3 years old, this cat knew us so well that she could actually have a conversation with us about her needs and desires, about our annoying habits. She loved me, she loved Ed and we loved her right back. In many ways, Dance was to Ed now as Millie is to me. The loss of her was devastating. Plans were hatched -- Ed felt he needed to hire a trapper to go after the coyote who was lurking to find his next feast. We have a half dozen cats at the farmette. Are they all at risk? Along with the chickens?

But in the middle of this night, Dance came back. Without a scratch. We can only guess as to why she was gone for over 24 hours. But hearing this morning about her return, I breathed a huge sigh of relief. You gave us a scare, Dance, you really did!

And Millie rested, and then I took the girl to doggie day care. 

(on the way there...)

 

My big task for today is to say good-bye to Sally's House. (Meaning I have to go over and clean it -- mostly of the mud and debris movers brought into it. Not their fault. There's construction mud everywhere on that block.)

I have positive enough feelings about the place, but at the same time, I always felt it to be transitional housing. Not something I would have ever chosen for a long term home, even ignoring the fact that it was just plain too big, rented to me at a (more or less) affordable rate only because no one in this town starts a lease in February. We're not that kind of a city! And then along comes this renter (me) who wants a short term lease, starting in February. The landlord felt lucky. I felt lucky! It was a good place. And since I managed to keep it spiffy for the time I was there, the clean up was straightforward. 

From there to Steffi's -- to plant the odd plants that have been drying up in pots because I have had not time to put them in. All the plants would benefit from a solid watering and I had the couple of hours to do it today. It's manageable -- setting up Steffi's garden was very challenging, but maintaining it should be just the perfect amount of work for me. 

I'd put up the bird feeder this afternoon and noted that it had had a few visitors already. Finches, sparrows, red tipped blackbirds. They've not used the bird baths yet, but of course, they have plenty of sprinkler water in the area. The house next to mine had turf rolled out around it this weekend and sprinklers are set to spray water at regular intervals. 

 

 

Ed comes over to deal with my mechanical frustration: the thermostat needs adjustments and the online literature on the little gizmo is voluminous and totally incomprehensible to me. We work on that together and then I am back to planting. and watering. I like the way the garden is developing. I'm trying hard to create a cottage look, but without over-planting. Most of the the flower fields at the farmette are over-planted. It's not that the initial planting was excessive, though some would argue with me there I suppose, but the issue comes up over the years when I do maintenance work, prioritizing weeding and snipping lilies. I could not get to dividing and even discarding some of the lilies. Too much to  do elsewhere. When I drove over to pick up some more compost soil today, I took a moment to inspect the more prominent fields.

(the Big Bed)

 

They have the potential to still look great this year, but it really is too dense in there. Beautiful, but definitely overgrown. And a bit too weedy.

 

I bring Millie home in the late afternoon. There is so much that delights her here. The yard of course, The porch as well. The fact that I no longer gate off the upstairs and doors stay open to all rooms. (Before, she had access to the upstairs only at night and only to one room.) And of course, she loves watching the world go by. Not sure I share her passion for selectively yelping at dogs or people outside, but she cant possibly disturb anyone here, and if this brings her pleasure occasionally -- so be it. I'm sure I have foibles that possibly irritate her (brushing heads the list!) and yet she puts up with it. 

With each day, she is more tuned into the new routines (which do mimic the old routines after all). And so am I. And we are happy.

with so much love...