I'm in Potlatch, Idaho. Looking behind me I can see a beautiful view of the Paloose, with low hills and horses and fields of hay. It would usually be mostly wheat, but I don't know how much of that got planted this year, what with the weather and everything. I feel obligated to let you know that my cats are fat and happy and as irascible as ever. We are keeping them locked upstairs because of Pottus Contentus (which is 'Happy Feet' in Latin). Pottus is my Dad's girlfriend's cat, a grey manx tabby, who about fifteen minutes ago brought me a chipmunk she had killed and who is very unhappy about having to share her house with two uncouth boys from the city.
Dad has put four birdhouses up along the railing of the new porch and a family of swallows has moved into one. It's nice to watch the parents zooming in and out in the evenings, collecting insects for the kids. The father likes to sit on the roof sometimes, surveying his domain and watching for any signs of danger. There are quite a few chipmunks in the woodpile. I sat in a chair on the porch and watched them run around for about an hour today, enjoying the shade and the birdsong, the scent of the pine trees. One of them is sounding an alarm right now.
I'm reading The Summer Tree by Guy Gavriel Kay. I have read others of his books before and am finding interesting congruences and remembering references in his other books to this one.
How do the swallows and the cats get along? I miss your cats!! I spent some time looking up WPI's mascot this week, it is Gompie the Goat. They have a statue of a goat behind one of their main buildings and someone named him Gompie. :)
ReplyDelete@alpha_adelle
ReplyDeleteWell, the swallows are outside and the cats (Tiger and Alan Path, not Pottus) are inside, so they don't really interact. Alan does still love to sit on windowsills though, so I assume he watches them. As for Pottus, the swallows' house is on the top of a six foot (or so) piece of PVC pipe so the family is beyond her reach.
Gompie is a good name for a goat (haha, alliteration ;). I'll have to ask Dad what Sarah named her goats. She has a painting of the three of them that one of her neighbors did hanging over her table in the dining room. It's actually really good.