A Comonplace Book

Mishka had a small seizure this morning.  Not too bad.  It's been about two weeks since the last one so not unexpected.

Yesterday a Willamson's Sapsucker visited our bird bath.  I'd never seen one before.  Very, very cool!  At first I thought this was a flicker, but the belly was yellow and the black bib went all the way down the chest, so not.  We get flickers a lot, but with orange bellies, not the yellow. 

It's a La Niña year, which is bad news for us.  It means a dry winter, which means a bad fire season next year.  We've had one snowfall in early November, and that's it.  Kind of hard to get into the holiday spirit because of that, but yesterday I went out and made my Yule wreath.  This involves lopping some lower limbs off of trees that can use it, cutting up the greens, and putting them into the wreath frame.  Add a bow and hang it up.

Am I sounding like a broken record?  If so sorry - I'm just trying to track Mishka's health and this is the place I chose to do it.  Small seizure yesterday (11/11), set off by my clicking a spoon on a dish of yogurt I was fixing for him.  Poor guy.

Yogurt seems to help with his digestion a lot, so I'm giving it to him every day.  He loves it, fortunately.  Unlike pumpkin - which he won't eat!  It might be the only people food he won't eat.  I've tried every which way to get him interested in it, but no go.

I need to bake up some pumpkin and freeze it.  Love the stuff!  I still have the big pumpkin from my garden and a couple that my friend Pat brought me, plus there's one coming in next week.

Off to get a slice of pumpkin bread and more tea.  There's the power of suggestion for you.

Well it took me longer than I expected to get to these, but here they are at last.  Photos of the garden, taken on the equinox.  I'm particularly pleased with the pumpkins.  Ghost pumpkins - I love the white skins, and the one I cooked up last year was delicious.

  

   

 

Just visited my garden.  Getting lots of tomatoes - which is good!  There's a freeze warning next week, so I'll have to get things in as much as I can - tomatoes, basil, and cucumbers.

The pumpkins are going great guns.  It's exciting!  Looking forward to lots of yummy pumpkin bread, pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie...

I love fall.

Lovely rain again today.  Looks like the monsoons are here.  I adore rain, which is no surprise since I live in New Mexico.  We get a lot of sun here. 

Planted two rosebushes today, and potted some basil.  Gonna try growing it in containers that I can move indoors when it gets cold.  Just not warm enough here for it to thrive in the garden.

Mishka had another seizure on Wednesday.  (Pardon all the seizure reports - I am using this Comonplace Book to keep track of when they occur.)  This one scared us because he had been lying on his grooming stand, which is about 3.5 feet high, and he fell off it when he started seizing.  Luckily, no broken bones.  That cat has the hardest head in the world (I know because he's whacked me with it.)

No more napping on the grooming stand.  Sorry dude.

In other news, we had a swamp cooler installed this week.  It has made a huge difference in our comfort especially at night.  Our bedroom is at the southern end of the house, and at about 3:00 a.m. the day's heat works its way through the walls and we wake up hot.  Not happening with the thermostat-controlled swamp cooler.  Yay!  Sleeping better!

For those of you wondering what the heck a swamp cooler is, it's an evaporative air conditioning system.  (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evaporative_cooler).  They're ubiquitous here in the southwest, where they function well in the arid climate.  Not so useful in humid areas.

It's now a year since my fantasy novel The Betrayal was published. The second novel was delayed because of the financial crisis, and won't be out until January 2011. Naturally, I was very disappointed about that.

I want my readers to have something new this year, so I've put together Many Paths, a collection of original stories set in the same world as the novel. It's an ebook, initially available only through Book View Café.

The stories range from short to novella in length and feature both familiar characters from The Betrayal and new faces. Together they make up a full book-length collection.

Contents: "The First Sword," "A Midsummer's Song," "The Three Veils," "Shades of Joy," "The Eighth Successor," and "First Love."

Available for $1.99 at Book View Café

read a free sample here:

http://www.bookviewcafe.com/index.php/Many-Paths-sample

Saw a hummingbird today. They're still coming through, but I've only been seeing one at a time at the feeder, instead of swarms. No fights.

Last night I put the heater in the bird bath. This morning, a dusting of snow. Wednesday we are supposed to get whomped.

We were out running errands today and a roadrunner crossed the road in front of us. Not very fast; we had to swerve to avoid hitting him.

The coolest birds we've seen lately were a flock of about 8 wild turkeys on the road to our neighborhood, Saturday morning. First time we've seen them in the area!

May Day was always a fascination to me.  As a child I had heard stories about May Day and May baskets, leaving secret presents for neighbors at dawn, that kind of thing.  I never really got to participate in it, though.  It was always one of those "wouldn't it be great" things. 

May Day is an ancient fertility celebration.  Some interpret that as meaning wild revelry ("Tra-la, it's May, the lusty month of May...") but I tend to think about gardening.  Unfortunately, where I live, May Day is not yet frost-free time, but I have plants growing indoors.  Some quite enthusiastically, practically screaming to get their little roots into the garden soil.  They must wait a week or two. 

There are some lovely May carols, with dairy maids and garlands of flowers left by mysterious suitors and all that sort of pastoral thing.  I love these.  I also love Maypole dances, which I've actually done.  And another May tradition - the "Belfire" or bonfire - is something I'm always in favor of (though I've never jumped over one).

For a while May Day was co-opted by communism, kind of the antithesis of the pastoral celebration.  It's also become International Workers' Day, which is fine but nowhere near as romantic and fun as the old traditions.

I'm a sucker for romance and tradition.  So I will at least light a candle for May Day and probably try to do something with flowers.  My schedule isn't going to permit more this year, alas, but maybe next year. 

Was all set to make a gleeful post about the daffodils and tulips that are sending up leaves.  Woke to snow this morning.  It's melting at the moment, so the water barrels will be replenished.  Moisture is always welcome; we've been having fire danger warnings lately, so this is good.

I am a little worried about the wildflower seeds I've been sowing.  But, ah well.  There are always more seeds.