Friday, December 09, 2005, 19:40
Sparkles!
It was foggy out this morning, and of course, when there's fog in the winter, there is frost on everything. The whole world was white with frost. Not as thick as I have seen it sometimes. But still -- it was pretty.
After I fed the horses this morning, I tried to get a few pictures of the frost. I snapped one of the blue flags with frost,
, and the autumn sedum with frost, and a foxtail with frost.
I also got a picture of a little red pine in the backyard covered with frost.
Sometimes the frost is so thick in the winter that the wire on the fence in the horse pasture has a half an inch of frost on it. The frost, as I mentioned, was not that thick this morning.
My dad always used to say "winter's fog will freeze a dog." I don't know about that. Charlie and Pixie didn't seem to mind it too much. But I thought it felt quite raw out this morning. The wind is out of the south/southeast, and to me, there is nothing colder in the winter than a damp wind out of the south.
The wind out of the south means it will warm up, though -- and then it will probably snow.
Temperatures in the upper 20s will be very welcome after the past week of below-zero temperatures at night and single digits and teens during the day. Then maybe my hands won't feel so cold when I go out to the give the horses more hay and more warm water before I go to bed. I can't tie their pails with my gloves on, and when it's below zero, tying the pails is very cold with my gloves off.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Thursday, December 08, 2005, 19:12
As Much Help as a Broken Leg Sometimes. . .
I don't know how I ever managed to get anything done before Sophie came here in July. And as time goes on, my little gray kitty cat becomes more and more helpful.
Like the other night, for example. I had been doing some cleaning in my office (preparatory to painting), and the pail of wash water was still sitting on the floor when I decided that I ought to water my plants. Underneath an aquarium, I have a pathetic looking ivy in water in a glass jar, trying to sprout roots, an even more pathetic looking African violet and a fairly healthy aloe vera plant. I put the aquarium over the plants so the kitties will leave them alone. That's the only way I can have a couple of plants. Otherwise the poor things get knocked over and are chewed to pieces.
To water the plants, I lifted the aquarium off the plants and set it on a chair. And that's when Sophie came into my office to see what I was doing. No matter what I am doing around the house, Sophie usually has to come to investigate, to see if she can help me in some way.
Sophie came running, took a flying leap to the chair -- hit the aquarium -- bounced off -- and landed with her tail and back feet in my bucket of wash water.
I have to say, though, that Sophie did not stay in the pail for very long. She leaped out and ran off, dripping water as she went.
It took Sophie the rest of the evening to get her tail and hind legs dry.
Sophie also was helping me paint the ceiling in my office on Wednesday afternoon. Apparently, because I was standing on a chair and reaching up to the ceiling, she figured she should do that, too. She got up on the aquarium and then reached up to the only thing she could reach -- the Venetian blind.
While I was painting, I heard a pathetic meow from behind me. I turned around, and there was Sophie, dangling by one front claw from the string on Venetian blind. She was tall enough to reach it, but not tall enough to get her claw out of the string.
"Meow-er. . .meow-er. . .meow-er," Sophie said.
I hastily set down my paint and moved the chair so I could reach up and free Sophie's claw.
For some strange reason, she didn't help me do anymore painting for the rest of the afternoon, but instead, spent her time in the bedroom, up on the bed with the other kitties, sulking.
I don't know if Sophie means to be as entertaining as she is, but she's certainly good for a laugh once in a while!
LeAnn R. Ralph
