The Sun Comes Out and We Trade Up
We've had about 11 inches of rain in the last four days. It's all good. We didn't flood like Corsicana, TX did with over 20 inches of rain, or slightly further north where the heavy rains washed out under some train tracks and left 20 or so rail cars on their sides in the mud. We didn't flood like parts of Houston, TX did when they got as much rain as we did. Fortunately, we live on a slight incline that sheds water into the ditches pretty quickly. Also we have a very sandy soil that sucks up the water pretty quickly too. All the animals are fine - they spent the days of rain hunkered down in their shelters or wandering around in the rain looking for tasty bits of grass. Yesterday was the first day it was chilly. Before that it was warm but very wet.
I woke up this morning to glorious sunshine and not a cloud in the sky. All the clouds and rain have moved off to the east so Louisiana is getting wet at this point. This is just the kind of day I love the most. The sun is warm but the breeze is cool. It's in the middle 60's so I got to wear a sweatshirt when I was out feeding the animals this morning. I've opened doors and windows in the house and out here in the studio to let everything air out.
Yesterday was a much different morning. It was grey and overcast with a light mist of rain. My husband got up early, as he usually does, and went out on the front porch to feed the cats. He loves doing this. He can sit and work on a cross word puzzle or play games on his iPad and the cats hustle and bustle each other to get fed. Yesterday it was chaos. Pedy, our only male cat and youngest of the felines woke up on the wrong side of the bed and was bullying all the ladies. He's a young thin cat who doesn't weigh half of what the ladies weigh but he worked hard to push them around. Keeper showed up for the first time in nearly two weeks and Pedy managed to make her so angry and frustrated she decided she really didn't need a meal. Both Cammie and Tilly left quickly too. Pedy really is a pistol sometimes.
Once the cats were fed, Ron took the dog out in the back yard. Sadie is not very pleased with all the rain but she is totally housebroken so going outside was mandatory, even from her perspective. She did her normal thing of running all over the back yard and sniffing out anything that shouldn't be there. She has become an exceptional hunter although I would prefer she not bring me part or all of her catch - rats, mice, gophers and moles. Yesterday morning she caught a rat and managed to get back into the house with it in her mouth. Obviously, had Ron noticed the "catch of the day" in her mouth he would not have let her in but in she was.
Sadie has always been difficult for me because she doesn't think like any other dog I've ever owned. Cesar Milan says you get the dog you need not the dog you want. I guess what I needed was a dog to teach me patience and a totally new way of interacting with a four footed friend. At one point I was whining about Sadie and a friend of mine suggested trying "trade up" as a useful technique. When Sadie grabs something she is not supposed to have, I offer to trade up for a treat. She had figured out that when I say "Sadie, do you want to trade up?" she is supposed to lay down and drop whatever is in her mouth. We usually trade up for a small dog biscuit. This works great for a plastic water bottle lid or a piece of dirty laundry. It's not a high enough value trade for a nice freshly killed rat, however. Ron finally convinced her to trade up to a pig's ear.
It was great that I slept through all the hysteria yesterday morning. It was a dreary day. This morning I jumped out of bed, got dressed, started a load of laundry, had a lovely bowl of banana porridge with fresh raspberries for breakfast and was off and running. I have lots of administrative work to do what with two shows in the last ten days but I think I'll just weave. I have an empty loom that is calling to me.