Our last peppers of the summer came in yesterday. It’s getting too cold for them to continue to ripen anymore. But I don’t think we’ll be lacking fresh produce for a while. Look at all these beauties!
We’ve eaten our last blackberry, the squirrels ate our watermelon, and there are only a few green tomatoes left on the vines.
Farewell, backyard garden. You’ve educated and served us well.
While undertaking nightly ablutions last night, suddenly a racket arose from the bedroom. Lots of thumping kind of noises and scratches and scrambling. (Hardwood floors means you can tell where any mischief is taking place pretty easily.) Eliza had found herself a nice juicy spider to play with — one of her favorite passtimes. Usually if a bug runs for cover under the bed, she sprints from one side of the bed to the other, waiting for the poor creature to make a break for it and run into her open paws. This spider must have been awfully tempting, though, because she went for it.
The bed is just high enough that she can crouch down and scoot herself under. Once there, she must either flip her hips (so she’s sort of reclining) to turn around and come back out the same way, or keep inching toward the opposite end (which results in her repeatedly hitting her back and the top of her head on the underside of the bed). And I should mention that the bed is set diagonally in the room, so that the head of the bed and the corner of the walls forms a triangle of space. Which is where the unlucky spider decided was the free zone. And where Eliza decided she would have it cornered.
The spider did meet its untimely end at the paws of Eliza, and she clearly relished doing the deed. But a problem arose when it was time for her to make her way back out of the corner: She forgot how to get out. Without the bug to motivate her, she just didn’t know what to do. So she just stood back there, occassionally sticking her nose low as if probing for the exit route.
It took much much cajoling and excited-voice “good girl”-ing to get her to this point. She can see where she’s supposed to go! But still, she wouldn’t do it on her own. I had to grab both paws, flip her like a calf being hog-tied, and drag her out on her side. (Guess that takes care of sweeping behind the bed!)
But clearly, no harm done. Happy as ever after a quick shake. She must have the memory equivalent of a goldfish.
We weren’t the only ones displaced to Fredericksburg by Ike. Most of the other guests were from the Houston area, escaping the confusion and pandemonium back home. This meant that Sue and I had to do a switcheroo for our last night: We moved from our log cabin to the farm house next door. This house was built in 1925 as a wedding present when one of the homesteader kids got married. It was a very sweet house, and the rooms were enormous! (Or perhaps that was just the feeling after staying in our teeny cabin.) And it was really fun to be able to see inside another one of the houses on the property.
Our activities in the new house differed not at all from how we spent our previous days: reading, chatting, watching the sheep march past.
This feller decided to take a closer gander. Maybe he thought he would get some of our chocolate from the specialty shop in Fredericksburt. Dream on, little guy!
On Friday we packed up and drove back home, with a stop at the wildflower center for some planning implementation for Sue and some daydreaming for me. Then before I hot-footed to the airport we wandered around the Riverwalk in San Antonio and took a boat ride to learn more about the history of the park. See! We got our cruise! So it was half an hour and not one week, but it was fascinating. We got to smell fresh sassafras, see where LBJ spent his wedding night, bird watch, and learn about the architect behind it all, Robert Hugman.
My plane was of course delayed (it’s me traveling, don’t forget). But I returned home safe and sound to a happy hubby and puppy, thoroughly pastried-out and with my brain 5 books fuller. Not too shabby. Not at all.
Here are our digs in the Fredericksburg area. Our cabin was built in 1861, almost the oldest building on the property. Not a lot has been changed to the building, we’re pretty sure: there was a crack of sunlight at the corner inside Sue’s bedroom, for example, and the window panes sure looked like period glass. Each of us girls got our own bedroom, and there was a full kitchen so that we didn’t have to drive back and forth from town all the time. Mostly we sat on the front porch in rocking chairs reading, while a cat who came with the house sat sentinel. It was quite charming.
My favorite farm innovation here was the weighted gate. By attaching a chain with a weight from a stationary post to the hinge side of the swinging gate, it ensures the gate won’t be left open. Brilliant!
And here I am waiting for someone to kiss under the mistletoe. There was gobs and gobs of the stuff on the property, but no one ever walked into my waiting embrace. Not even the resident donkey. Do you think I was being too forward?
As many of you know, I was scheduled to go on fabuloso cruise with my equally fabuloso mother-in-law and aunt-in-law. For 15 months, there was much dreaming and planning and saving for our week in the Carribean. We had rooms with balconies; we had sundresses and sunhats; we had diets to make room for all the future ice cream; we had new knitting patterns with a nautical theme. And we were scheduled to leave on Sunday last, from Galveston, Texas.
Ha. Hurricane Ike had different plans.
So down to Texas I flew with my bag packed for Jamaica and no idea where we would end up. If the cruise left a day or two late, we were gonna brave the roads down there. If the cruise left from a different port, we were gonna cash in those frequent flyer miles for a new airport. If the cruise was cancelled, we were gonna make the best of it.
And so we did. On Monday, with the cruiseline finally seeing reason and throwing in the sombrero, Sue and I drove ourselves around the Hill Country, making our way to Fredericksburg, Texas. We stopped for cowgirl boot shopping and lunch in Wimberly, Texas. We found a restaurant next to the creek . . . so it’s almost like we’re on a cruise . . .
Okay. But we are at least as relaxed as we would have been on a cruise. And, after all, that was mostly the point. Many times we counted ourselves very very lucky to not have been on the boat when Ike hit (with our cars left on the island and our non-refundable plane tickets expiring with no hope of getting a hotel room, not to mention provisions and necessaries). And since we all have family and friends in affected areas, we were also grateful that all those folks made it through the ordeal unscathed.
Stay tuned to see exactly where we ended up and hear about our taxing vacation life-style.
Magrilless 