Happy Thanksgiving!

It’s hard to believe it’s nearly Thanksgiving already. We will miss being able to be with family or friends but just intend to spend it quietly here in the apartment with our cat family. Yes, we now have another addition—a cute, sweet little girl we picked up from the Portage County Humane Society on Saturday. She had a rough time during the fall, having been picked up as a stray at the beginning of September and being extremely emaciated, dehydrated, and full of worms and fleas. The shelter nursed her back to health and put two pounds and a pot belly on her tiny frame. She is definitely a chow hound so we’ll have to watch it that she doesn’t become obese!

She’s very quiet, calm and affectionate compared to Rocket and doesn’t appear to have nearly his energy level so we’re hopeful she will make the lap cat that Rocket never turned into. Rocket was getting a little better with me that way just before her arrival but now he is in a bit of a snit and trying hard to remain alpha. I keep them separated if I am not here to supervise, but they are getting better at getting along every day. We’re having trouble coming up with a name for this little girl (estimated to be between 9-12 months old) but she is a pretty little thing on her short pudgy little legs with her direct gaze.

On another note, we made an offer on the lot across the street that was our favorite but the owner is unrealistic as to its value in this market so we weren’t able to come to an accord. We may move further afield to other villages to search to see if we like anything as well; prices seem to be more reasonable and maybe with sellers who are actually motivated to sell rather than choosing to continue to own their property as the highest bidder. 

Enjoy your holiday everyone and be safe!

It Finally Happened

This is what we woke up to this morning! The weatherman had been threatening us almost daily it seemed and for weeks it didn’t happen…until now. Since it’s a nice sunny day it is rapidly melting and actually is due to stay fairly nice into next week and Thanksgiving although we are due for bitterly cold temps this weekend of around 2/15 degrees.

Rocket was at first a little taken aback that things went from green to all white but within minutes of touching his first snowfall he was enjoying the snow so much he didn’t want to return to the apartment.

Oh Baby, it's Cold Outside

Temperatures have been running about 15 degrees colder than normal for the past six weeks in Central Wisconsin, causing an early seasonal hibernation on my part. It’s just not fun to go out exploring when the wind chill brings things down to zero to twenty degrees! Thus, I added a new addition to our apartment in the form of a treadmill so I can keep up with my walking. Even Rocket says he might like to try it out.

We’re at that in-between season when fall’s glorious colors have faded but winter’s whites haven’t shown up just yet. I guess we could call it the Dead Season, although some patches of grass are still green and there are a few lingering rust and orange colored leaves left on the oaks.

Amherst Pond seems to already be gearing up for its freeze-over with the first encroachment of ice so the gulls were seen massing on the flowing Tomorrow River instead. One has to wonder where they go in the dead of winter since even the Great Lakes freeze over.

The Muted Colors of November

I haven’t been getting out much since my last entry as temperatures have dropped substantially and we’ve had a spell of off and on rainy days. Fall is just about gone and once again Marc is due to leave tomorrow for his week in North Dakota.

Marc and I just got back from wandering into town for our first breakfast out at Sciortini’s, a small café on the main drag. Pancakes and coffee were the perfect foil to the chilly morning. The skies decided to dump a little more than mist on our way home so I snapped raindrops falling on the Tomorrow River.

Rocket and I have been enjoying some of our last days in the town park. Every day seems to get a little colder or wetter and all too soon it will be covered in white stuff. Rocket has enjoyed running through the crunchy leaf piles with me tagging along at the end of his leash as though he was a little kid playing in the yard. When it’s time to go, I herd him back towards the car, open the door and tell him to get in and he obeys just like the (mostly) good boy he is. He reminds me all afternoon on the days the weather is too inclement for me to want to stand in the park for a half hour, that I am being derelict in my duty to him, in not getting him out. The park trips really are the highlight of his days where he gets to cavort over three acres of grass, trees, and dead leaves hiding field mice and moles as squirrels tease him from the trees.