Oh, what a relief it is!!!!

e-NOUGH!!

Have we paid our weather dues yet? Surely we've finally gone through the final indignity, and get some respite. Here's the latest: winds over 65 mph Thursday night. The cedar tree shed most of its top across (just missing) the front of the house. One-third of the horse chestnut fell across the driveway - the third that held one of the yard lights. The cedar Bill raised from a seedling was uprooted - again across the drive. The last of the ancestral fruit trees was felled. An oak limb fell exactly across the area we've been planting to Japanese maples. Another blocks the drive into the woodlot. A third one landed in the neighboring orchard.

Have I forgotten anything? Oh, yeah, there aren't even words for this one:

So rich, so moist, so tender

Given that we had about 12 inches of rain in November, it might surprise you to hear this was a great week in the garden. All that rain left our soil the consistency of gingerbread - moist, crumbly, and smelling a lot like heaven. Those rooted cuttings we tucked into the nursery bed back in March survived the hottest, driest summer we've ever seen, and we planted 55 lavishly-rooted native trees and shrubs this weekend.

All the posts for the vinyard are cut and curing in the shed, too! They came from the black locusts Bill planted 30 years ago - posts on demand and reproducing faster than we're cutting! There were adventures involving most of our vehicles and lots of cable, but no one got hurt, no equipment was smashed, and all the trees in the orchard are still standing. You say it would have been easier to just buy posts? Sure, but where's the fun in that?

It was that tricky kind of weather all weekend - freezing overnight, and the house got cold in all the corners. But when we were outside in the sun, working, it felt balmy. OK, it would have seemed warm inside if we'd been cleaning house or something, but that's not the kind of dirt we like! And I secretly don't mind the shorter days when it starts getting dark just about beer o'clock. Seems about right.

Read the *&%$# label!

. . . or, How I Nearly Killed the Kitten

So, Bungee, the elastic kitten, has an eye infection that's responding s l o o o w w l y to treatment. The vet thought an antihistamine might bring down the swelling and itching (and give me more practice pilling a whirling dervish).

Yesterday was a busy day, but there was a moment in the early evening when Bungee was calm (asleep) and there was an extra pair of hands available to pinion him for me. This is not an excuse; it's just what happened. I didn't read the label carefullly. It said, "GIVE 1 / 4 TAB . . ." and I gave him a whole one.

For some reason, I looked at the label again (too late) and saw my mistake. While Bill googled "chlorpheniramine dosing in cats" I paged the vet. We watched our dinner plates cool to unpalatability while waiting for the call back, and I imagined horrible outcomes, several of which were patently impossible.

Long story short: Bad or life-threatening reactions were only possible during the first few hours, and all he did was act sleepy and a little out-of-sorts. He'd get stuck in really impossible positions - all stretched and twisted - and apparently too stoned to adjust. You know how cats tuck their tails when they're frightened or miserable? Bungee's was stuck in a lovely spiral against his flank until about 10:30 when he joined the warmups for the 11PM heat of the cat olympics.

It was great to come downstairs this morning and find him right there with the other two at the foot of the stairs, tail up and purring, this morning.

Sleepy thought on the way to the bathroom at 2AM looking at those long tails waving about with handy curls at the end: isn't it nice cats have handles?