be careful about wishes

Well that was seasonal weather: 0.95" of rain in the last 24 hours!  That doubled the October total, and more should be along midweek.  A fresh south wind was blowing maple leaves off the hill-top, we watched them drift for 20 seconds or so before reaching us 35 feet below the crest.  Leaves drifting, seeds spiraling and a bit of sun between showers - but after dark came a decent deluge.

Indoor weather has been interesting as well.  Duncan and Zuzu met and the territorial wars have been civil but present.  Zuzu hisses at Duncan and he falls back; he has been impressively patient for the most part.  Still, he clawed at the rug a few times to vent before remembering the scratching post!  Hopefully they will find a peaceful solution and start chasing playing & napping together.  Time will inevitably tell.

Update 10/27 - and then we have this:

Generally speaking, W.Underground has been high with its precip forecasts.. but the NWS

Fri-Sat chart shows several 5-inch totals in the high hills.  This could be a correct call!

transition time

Several transitions this weekend.  While recent wet forecasts have ended up less wet, the odds improve a lot by late October.  With that in mind, I mowed the uppermost lawn one last time, and munched up plenty of leaves in the process!

We also took Zuzu in for her neutering appointment so she can become an indoor cat before cold rains make her miserable.  She's a bit freaked by Duncan so far (24 hours in), but he is mighty thick compared to her family thanks to his Siamese coat (Zuzu is a short-hair study in black and white, Duncan more of a downy caramel mocha).

I also took partial advantage of the last dry day to get our wood-pile in a better place, and under some rain protection.  It will now sit near the wall of our metal outbuilding to minimize carpenter ant interest in a pile of wood leaning on our home! The main stack must sit under a temporary blue-tarp roof.  At some point it will be more of a wooden lean-to structure, but time's up to get that project underway. It's a longer walk now, but perhaps later I will set up a staging area with some wood near the front door (after the porch roof is built - another item that didn't get done in time!).  My wrists already ache from picking up and setting down so much wood, and I didn't get finished either - so the next dry spell will see me out there again.

It would be nice to see some seasonal weather though; we were quite mild last winter and quite dry since early Springtime.  Real October weather would be a nice change of pattern, in more ways than one.

sad farewells

Duncan the King of Indoors has been really stressed lately.  So much so that he's torn (scratched) out much of the hair on his forehead!  We knew the house was still suffering from our slow move-in, so we quickly moved some things to better places and actually put some back in the garage - but it didn't help much.

After research and agonizing we accepted the obvious answer: Duncan sees cats outside everywhere and doesn't like it.  More than that, he smells cat food he's not eating, and Zuzu's demand for head rubs brings more stress and confusion.  It's time to thin our herd of cats - and most notably the fertile mom, before she repeats her performance.

On Friday I put our two travel cages in the garage with food inside.  Hungry Spook fell for the trick easily, and both Zuzu and Pinky gave it some thought.  In the end Pinky got her hind end shoved in and off we went to the Humane Society, wailing all the way.  It turns out they have a one-cat limit, but being semi-feral I could not guarantee a recapture so they took both and told me to stay away for a few days.

friendly Zuzu is still here

So Zuzu and mama remain.

This actually was what I had hoped would happen, as the other two youngsters were still enjoying their wild nature, and not being sociable like Zuzu. Perhaps Duncan will relax and (after mama is relocated) we can manage two cats, whether indoor/outdoor or combined under one roof. As Sadie tolerated then mentored Duncan in his early days, perhaps he can pull off a similar task for a step-sister.
 Perhaps.