Cat run

We are into summer and what we all the call the monsoon rains here in New Mexico. Everything is green again - well okay- green for a New Mexico high desert. It feels so wonderful to go outside in the morning and sit with the hummingbirds chirping and humming around the feeder. Later in the day the clouds and lightening have been rolling in. It doesn't rain everyday. It didn't rain yesterday but the evening before we had a heavy slanted downpour that included three quarter inch hail!
This season isn't very conducive for my blogging. I tend to not spend very long at the computer in the morning and if a storm comes in later in the day the computer is turned off. Mid day - most days I go into town to check on my mom. This schedule and lack of desire to sit for hours inside at my computer has really changed my blog habits. I've let it all slip and barely go to anyone else's blog to read. I feel bad about that like I'm not playing well with others in the blog playground - yet I haven't quite figured out how to rework the routine so I can have the time to come visit. I hope maybe others will forgive my absence for a little while longer.
Ah, but I have found ways to soothe myself and take care of myself. I've been busy setting up some support and supportive routines. I think a few weeks ago I was in a low spot. As tough transitions go - change is a constant and now I feel I have come through that initial low spot and I am finding ways to respond and re- ground myself so I can help without completely losing myself in the process.
Meanwhile living moves on - last week, we finally got the cat run gate installed. What is the cat run you ask? Well it is a little 9 foot by 12 foot space we designed so the cats could go outside. It is surrounded by our house on three sides and a high wall on fourth side - but on that side it needed a gate to completely enclose it. It has an open ceiling to the sky with some beams going across. It is connected to my studio. I plan to make it into a little secret garden sacred patio space for me and the cats. So this weekend the cats spent some time out there and I spent some time planning - where to put a small patch of grass - and where to lay pavers. It was fun to see my cats roll in the dirt. Here are a few pictures of them. You can click on them to make them bigger.

Bad karma

Anonymous spam comments....ugh.....I've dealt with the occassional one or two. I could accept that while still allowing for anonymous real comments. I've reached my limit tonight so I'm changing the preferences. I hope these anonymous spammers get the bad karma that's coming to them and soon!

The nose knows.......

I say little by little I'll come back to blogging......easy to say but now I feel I am faced with how to do that exactly. There are so many of you out there that have left me comments and I want to come back and visit and leave comments and yet......my little is really next to nothing right now. I am grateful all of you are still showing up to read here. Please consider this my thank you even if I am unable to respond immediately to each of you.
As you may know if you've been reading here lately - my mom is sick. It has changed everything. Little by little we all are navigating our way with this transition. I really have no intention of blogging about this because I feel it isn't fair to my mom or my siblings to put this all out there in detail. This is my thing to do not theirs. Then, why do I even bring it up at all? I bring it up because it has already begun to change how much time I can spend on this wonderful creative process.
I am not much in a place right now where I can reach out and touch base with all the blogs I was reading before. I find my mind isn't focused in the same way as it was a few short months ago. I need other things to soothe myself. I want to be more internal. I want to read books not read at a computer screen. I need more nature and less technology. Drawing bad ugly cartoons with oil pastels that I share only with myself has more potency to me right now than making my whimsical creations and sharing them with others. It is all just where I find myself these days.
However, this creative process of blogging continues to pull at me. I feel I need it to be able to focus my mind on other things - really good things. I still intend to keep blogging. I just have to find a new way with it. Whatever routine I had before with it has now changed. I really want my blog to be a place of refuge. Somewhere I can come and share a little bright spot. I also know that my frequency of posts or visits to other blogs may be a lot less. Grief and change is something that all of us have so little control over. It's like a current of water that sometimes is more like a flood or sometimes it is a still quiet pond and all one can do is navigate as best as one can and perhaps pray to a Higher Power.

So for now I will leave you with a little bright spot photo. Tango's nose. He was one of our recent house guests - though not very welcomed by my cats! I know he would wish you a good day and happy nosing around.

It finally rained and oh did it rain!

Our recent rains have taken us out of the extreme fire danger and the forest you see in the above photo was reopened yesterday. As you can also see in the above photo we have some sandbags holding our driveway together.
We have lived in our house for about 8 months. The most precipitation we experienced in those months was a couple of light brief rains and one 4 inch snow. When it did decide to rain - it was in the form of torrential downpours with hail and lightening. The worst rain started at 10:30 PM on July 4th. It rained hard and I've never seen so much lightening. The power went out for 4 seconds dozens of times but we never lost power completely. The thunder was so loud the dishes in my cabinets rattled. In the morning my husband was able to calculate that we had 4 inches of rain. To put that into perspective - our annual rainfall in this area is 8-10 inches.

Now that we've had a chance to see how the drainage works around our home we have a lot of work ahead of us to get some retaining walls in place and some rain channels and just basic landscaping. Though I know that these recent rains are not enough to get this state out of the severe drought -it is a relief at least to see this rain - even if it means a lot of frustration for us. It is really neat to see the ground come alive again. There are just so many little plants sprouting up and the texture of the ground is so different.


It's time to ease back into posting on my blog again. I must also get around to everyone else's blog and catch up. There has been a lot going on - all the house guests have come through. Oscar my cat is all healed from dental surgery and is eating hard kibble again. It's been two weeks since I posted because of all of that - but also our internet provider messed us up. Suddenly they thought we had 199 modems and the one modem we did have they said was rented to someone else! That took several days of being off line while we waited for a technician to come out and straighten it all out. Then the lightening limits my ability to have the computer on sometimes. So all and all it just means that I took a two week break. Little by little I'll come back.........