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CATS!!

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 This Chica kitten is going to shred my nerves for sure.  Between her and Smudge I’m a nervous wreck.  Look at her up this pine tree we have out front. She’s just barely visible halfway up.   Chica cannot help herself but take a run at a tree and shoot up it. This time she climbed down by herself. She went around and around the trunk descending from limb to limb, then jumped.  Thank goodness she is learning. I remember more than once old Matilda being way up a tree and coming down backwards.  I guess she learned the hard way somehow.  She was with her mama for much longer, maybe her mama taught her. Then there is this orneriness; From the end of Dec through January I had Smudge to the vet a couple of times because she has developed a tendency toward developing mouth/throat ulcers. The vet says she sees it in certain breeds of cats. The first time we tried antibiotics, which helped for about a week. But then in less than 3 weeks she was starting up agai...
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Two Walks

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 Two days ago I took Bella on a walk down to the creek bottom.  In mid Winter the scenery isn’t as colorful as in Spring and Summer, but it does have its own charm.  You can find interesting shapes and patterns you wouldn’t usually see.. The dry creek bed is kind of sad without water flowing through But it is pretty in a stark way.  A large tree fell out across the creek a year or so ago.  Now when it floods the water swirls around behind it and you can see how high the gravel is piled up behind it… in the foreground. I was standing on the gravel pile when I took the picture.  Over to the right on the bank is a tree that is clinging on for dear life because the bank is being eroded out from under it.  You can see above how precariously it is perched. Only the long roots are holding it up. I wonder how long it can hold on.  Then yesterday Bella and I went down there again in the snow.  The snow always makes it look like a different world....
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Clowning Around

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In the past couple of decades or so Gary misplaced a couple of vehicle documents he needs.   He’s not sure    whether or not he’d brought them up here or left them at his folks place when he moved up the road here. So he and Gail have been going through closets and files and whatnot.  In the search they are unearthing all sorts of things from decades ago when they were younger and goofier.  I guess this wig that one of them found today played a large part in their goofiness in days of yore.  Gary had to test it out again and said it’s actually great in this cold weather.    My funny husband   What a ham. 
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The Kitten up a Tree Story

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 Last month our new kitten, Chica, was outside past dusk one evening. It was quite dark when I went out and called for her. Usually she comes to me right away, but this time all I heard was her little mew. After some looking around I discovered that she was up a hickory tree quite close to the house.  I had no idea in the dark just how far up she was, but was confident she would come down on her own overnight.  She didn’t.  Turns out she was close to 40 ft up in the fork of the tree.  As the next day went on we were increasingly less confident that she would come down on her own. She made little attempts to descend, but chickened out each time.   The next night passed and it got down to 13 degrees.  I figured she’d freeze or get picked off by an owl. I barely slept.  But she was still there in the morning.   Finally Gary came up with his idea to get her down. He would put a little platform on a pole and use the dozer to get it up to her. We w...
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What We Have Going On...

 Maybe I will call this a House of Howard entry.  For one thing, I am here on the laptop, where I no longer have access to the photos on my new iPhone.  I think it has something to do with Google cookies, or some sitch like that.  I can never keep track of the whys; why one thing won't work but another one will. But for now, while I am on here, I won't post a photo..unless it's an old one I guess.   It is February 6th, 2025 and we are in the midst of frantically planning out our activities for the next 4-6 months or so.  There are so many different things going on I am not sure I will keep everything straight. Here is the run down: *Ellen has decided that she wants some sort of graduation party, so I need to find a place to have that.  It would just be a small one for her friends, kind of a drop in and hang out for a bit, then go home type of thing.   *Parties need invitations.  I need to figure something out there. *Ellen will grad...
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Aggravating

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 So I apologize for the radio silence on here as it were. About a week ago I switched from an android to an iPhone and now I have photo access issues when I try to blog ruin the iPhone.  I have stories to tell, but no photos to illustrate them.  Oh.  Wait.  I just figured out how to access them. Well, that’s a relief. Now I can get on with blogging when I don’t have access to the laptop.  As a consolation, here are a couple of random pictures.  Ellen, January 31, 2025, courtwarming queen candidate.    Her escort is a kid named Dalton. The girls didn’t get to pick their escorts, and I’m not sure if the boys themselves got a choice. At any rate Ellen’s friend Chloe was voted as queen. Ellen was thrilled for her, and wasn’t the least bit disappointed for herself. It really was an honor for her to just be a candidate.  And here is a funny selfie she took just this morning She took this with my phone for whatever reason, then giggled at herse...
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Sometimes there are no Words...

   Today's date is January 18, 2025. I actually started this blog entry on January 11th.  But I haven't had the heart to finish it.  I will let it stand as it is and continue on down below with an update. To put it mildly January 2025 stinks. January 11, 2025    ...just so many thoughts and memories. For the past 2 days or so I have pondered what to write in this post, and having sat down and opened this page to actually write..well, I have been sitting here for quite some time, not knowing where to start. So I will just throw some garbled thoughts onto the blank screen here and hope that you can catch the gist and make sense. My sister-in-law, Deb, passed away 2 days ago; January 9, 2025.  She had been battling ovarian cancer for the past...almost 3 years I believe it had been.  There is much that could be said there about her battle and the ups and downs of it.  But what is most important about it is that throughout it all, the treatme...
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