Escapes

It is now September 1st. I haven’t written a post since August 4th. I apologize for that. In my head, I’ve been writing posts all along, but just haven’t sat down to actually, for real, write a post. I think it’s harder to do since EJ retired. Not necessarily because we are busier (although sometimes we are) but because I feel as if there are more mental distractions even when we aren’t busy.

So here’s what’s happened:

Every couple of days in August, the meteologists would forecast a high chance of getting rain. We’d look at radar on our phones’ weather apps and see storms heading straight for us. However, day after day, the storms would dissipate before they’d reach us or split around us. This seems to happen every August, which is why our gardens tend to wither a little at the end of summer–I don’t water because I think the rain will do it for us and then it doesn’t. We finally got a decent amount of rain yesterday, which is good.

We had very autumnish weather in August with much cooler temperatures. It felt so much like autumn that I kept thinking we were nearing October instead of September. But this week the temperatures have soared into high 80s, which feels more like we are going backwards into summer instead of forward into autumn. It be that way sometimes.

There were a couple celestrial events in August: A meteor shower and a lunar eclipse. EJ and I both love watching these type of things–meteor showers, eclipses, comets, northern lights–so we headed outside both times. However, we got too tired trying to stay up late so we were wimps and headed to bed after a short time. Also, we have challenges where we live: We had thought that living on a hill in Northern Michigan would enable us to see things in the night sky much better than when we lived downstate, but we actually see less because we are surrounded by hills and tall trees that block out the horizon. We watched the lunar eclipse for quite a while last week, but the moon never cleared the trees so that we had to look through branches. Sigh.

We figured out that of the six offspring of Richard VI that were born in the Spring, two are roosters. We named the silver/black/red one Philip VII. We considered naming the other rooster Henry VIII, but that seemed a bit much. Besides, I think that rooster is extremely beautiful–red/black with blue feathers throughout that shimmer in the sunlight. I thought he should have a more colorful name so I began to consider names from other countries. I liked the Welsh name Llywelyn VIII, but EJ says Welsh names are too difficult to remember how to spell and it sounds like Lou Ellen. He has a point on the spelling–I have to look it up every time I try to write it.

I asked Grok to list names of royalty from other countries. His suggestions are: Norwegian: Harald, Haakon, Olav, Magnus, Sigurd. Scottish: Malcolm, Duncan, Macbeth.  Welsh, other than Llywelyn: Owain, Grufudd, Rhodri, Hywel. Irish: Brian, Rory, Niall, Domnall, Ruaidri, Mael, Toirdelbach. We could also expand to German, Swiss, Swedish, Danish and so on. Some of the names I have no idea how to pronounce (or spell) and would have to look them up. We finally decided to name him Malcolm VIII. I’m been trying to get photos of Philip and Malcolm–as well as the other young chickens, which all have unique coloring–but it’s very difficult to get good ones. The photos below don’t do justice to their beautiful color, especially Malcolm’s, but it’s the best I’ve managed to do so far. Malcolm VIII is on the left and Philip VII is on the right.

Every time Philip or Malcolm try to crow, Richard comes running to put them in their place. He’s such a little tyrant. Right now he has the younger roosters cowed, but we think they are going to be bigger than him so eventually they will challenge his authority. Maybe we should have named Richard VI “Lord Farquaad.” Well, too late now. Besides, I had to look up how to spell “Farquaad” just now so it would have been eliminated anyway.

After EJ made the fencing around the garden higher to prevent Richard VI from escaping. I mocked him unmercifully–the rooster, not EJ. “Oh, Richard, you still in the garden? What’s the matter? Can’t you escape?” I think he viewed my mockery as a challenge so he studied the fence for several days and figured out how to get out again. EJ finally spotted Richard escaping so he put up higher fencing in that place too. I didn’t mock him that time because I didn’t want him to feel motivated to escape just to spite me. Still, after a few days, Richard escaped again. I told EJ that we might want to get Richard’s IQ tested because obviously he’s a genius. He hasn’t escaped again since that one time so maybe we have him contained. Or maybe he’s waiting until we relax our guard.

And then there’s Clara, our Impossible Cat. A few years ago, Theo, our outside cat, scratched at the screen on the window overlooking the porch. He didn’t rip the screen, but merely pulled a corner of it out where the band holds it in place. Clara somehow figured out it was a weak spot (we thought we had it securely fixed) and she pushed through the screen twice last month. She is a very affectionate cat, but when she gets outside she is almost impossible to catch because she runs away from us instead of toward us. She acts like we are complete strangers. We usually get her in by making sure the other inside cats are in the house and closing off the pet door into the hallway. Then we put a can of cat food in the hallway and keep the front door open. Eventually she wanders into the hallway and we quickly shut her in–but it can take hours to lure her in. Since the second time Clara escaped, we’ve kept that window closed. We thought our problems were ended.

This morning, we had the other windows in the house open. Clara actually ripped the screen in the master bedroom and escaped through the hole into the garden. At least this time there was a fence keeping her contained. EJ and I tried to either get her to come to us (nope, not going to happen) or chase her into the garage through the door which I had opened. We chased her all around the garden with the chickens squawking and flapping in alarm. Clara finally climbed up one of the wooden posts and was going to go over the fence but I grabbed her tail and EJ picked her up. I normally do not grab tails of cats, but if she got out of the enclosure it would be extremely difficult to get her back into the house. It’s important not to let her run free. Besides the fact that she’s a small cat and there’s predators around (bobcats and coyotes and bears–OH MY!). she’s not fixed.

So now we have to keep ALL the windows of the house closed, which I hate. When the house is closed up, the air feels stagnant to me. I like to feel the fresh breezes coming through the open windows and hearing the sounds of birds (including chickens). Sigh. We will have to figure out what to do next. Perhaps we can buy screens that cats can’t rip. Since we are approaching cooler weather, we won’t worry about it until next spring. That will give us time to research and plan.

EJ has been working on the exericse room. It goes rather slowly because there are times his back is extremely painful. The good thing about him being retired is that when he needs to take a break–for a few hours or a day–he can. He just finished the floor. He has to replace a panel in the wall still and it would be nice if we could repaint the walls. However, with the floor done, he moved the exercise equipment back into the room.