Updates on the cat and projects

Maui traveled with us recently when we went to the creek house for Thanksgiving. She travels very well and has finally become more friendly and she wants attention more than she used to. We were there a week and worked on various projects mostly related to getting new carpet on the floor. In the end they would not install it because we have tile on the floor that contains asbestos. It dates from the 1960's when no-one knew that it was a hazard. Next time down we will try to remove it but it will be a chore.

Note the damage to the trees in the photo above. These are chinese tallow trees and have been there nearly 50 years but we had a freeze a couple of winters ago and they were severely damaged. The near one will probably need to come out but the other one looks better now and may eventually survive.

While we were there we saw this flying machine go over the house. It is a powered parachute and it was quite interesting.

The weather was great the whole week but we did get a smattering of rain on Friday.

I have been working on a boat that my dad built a long time ago. I have been refitting it for sailing and also to use a trolling motor to go fishing here locally. It is getting close to finished so I wanted to post a couple of pictures.

That about does it for this post. Martha graduates from HPU tomorrow and receives her degree. She is very excited about that and so am I. I may post a picture of her in her cap and gown tomorrow.

Drinking from the fountain

Maui the cat has been with us for 6 months now and is still making progress toward total acceptance. When she first came she would not drink much water and in an effort to improve that and keep her system working, Martha searched the web for a solution. She found that cats like a fountain with running water and everyone who wrote about them said their cat just loved it. So I got a bowl and pump / filter and we tried a fountain. It seemed like a nice one but she totally ignored it. Once in awhile she would look at it or sniff near it but she would not touch it. We thought it was too big so we got a commercial one and tried it for a few weeks but had the same result so it was returned. We refused to give up though and kept it full of fresh water and in just the last couple of weeks she has begun to drink from it. She actually might have started sooner than that but we didn't see her do it.

We took her camping again last weekend and once again she behaves differently when we place her in that environment. She is much friendlier and wants to be with us. We are still learning to understand her behavior which sometimes is different from any cat we have ever had.

Rain and more cat

We had a good rain over the weekend. We have been in severe drouth and water restrictions for a while and the  rain was most welcome. Saturday saw a total of 3.5 inches and some places like in the lake watershed got even more than that.



 



The lake has risen a little more than 3 feet as of today and it appears that more is still coming in. It would be nice to get more rain now while the ground is saturated and maybe have a chance to get the lake full. It is still 10 feet below the spillway and we would like it close to full.

 

Sometimes she is so cute. She continues to improve and get more friendly. We will go camping again soon and see if that helps. It did last time.

 

 







The Cat - chapter 2

We have had the cat for 6 months, she is the strangest cat we have ever seen, in fact she is the exact opposite of what you think of as "cat".

When we got her I wanted a "lap cat", one that would love to lay in my lap and get attention. It quickly became apparent that she was not that kind of cat. She did not mind being nearby (several feet away) but not touching. At first she would get on the sofa but after Martha put a towel on it for her to lay on, she decided that the sofa was off limits and she refused to get on it again. Her attitude was "feed me but don't touch me". We wanted her to drink more water and everyone said that cats love to drink from a fountain. So we made a fountain with running water and she just looks at it and wonders what it is, she has never, as far as we know, taken even a sip from it.

Shortly after we got her, we took her camping in the pop up trailer. She warmed a little on that trip but when we came back home she reverted to her old ways. She still would not get on the furniture or accept attention.

In July we took her to the creek house. She travels wonderfully (six plus hours each way) with no complaints and only got frightened once at a gas station. Once there she explored the house and made herself at home. All the familiar things were there such as the litter box and food and water dishes. Before long she decided that the place to be was in one of the recliners. We can't find any reason for the change in behavior but suddenly it was OK to get in a chair. The next morning as Martha was having her bible time, Maui climbed in the chair with her and stretched out in her lap. That was a total surprise. The grandchildren came that week and she hid a lot in the bedroom but when she could she was in that chair and would get in our laps if we were also in the chair. It seemed that her attitude completely changed. When we returned home however, she reverted to her old self. Very puzzling.

There was little change in her behavior over the next month or so but then we got a 5th wheel travel trailer and went camping again. We took her with us again and once she had scouted out the trailer and knew where her stuff was she was comfortable. The trailer has 2 recliners and once again she adopted one and was there in the chair quite a bit of the time. It was like this house is different and it is OK to get on the furniture but not in that other house where we are most of the time. She really seemed to like it there, but when we came home it seemed that she was back to her old self.

A day or so went by and one day I was sitting on the sofa watching TV when suddenly there she was beside me. She pumped my leg a few times as if testing it and then climbed on it and laid down. It was her idea and there wasn't much coaxing from me. Since then she is almost like a different cat. She is still stand-offish and only wants attention when it is her idea but she has changed and is far more friendly than ever before. This cat may turn out to be OK after all. She is getting better every day but she still won"t drink from the fountain.

I'll report again later. 

Musical Wednesday

Here is a song that Martha pointed out to me. Listen to the words.




Thanks for listening

Leapin' Lizards

Here is an interesting thing, I went outside today to water the birds. As anyone who reads this may know, we are in a drouth and the temperatures have been well over 100 for weeks. So I try to keep water in a large bowl for the birds. So when I finished I noticed that the soil next to the house slab was pulled away with a large crack between the house and the dirt. So I watered it just a bit on the chance that it might help. Imagine my surprise when lizards (geckos) started surfacing and scampering away from the water. They don't like water very much. There were plenty of them of all sizes. I would never have guessed that we had lizards under or along side the slab. I knew that they came out at night and the cat loved to chase them and even eat them if she catches them, but I never knew where they lived, now I do.

Clarence

A new 5th wheel (to us)

Well it has been a while since I posted anything so here goes.

We just returned from picking up a new to us fifth wheel travel trailer. It is a 2004 Prowler by Fleetwood and it looks nearly new. It has double slide outs and a nice floor plan. We have been looking for a while onCraigs list and had driven up to the metroplex 3 times before we found and purchased this one. It is about 27 feet long so maybe a foot or so shorter than our previous fifth wheel.

This one has a nice island kitchen. The refrigerator, stove and pantry are on a slide out so there is extra room to the kitchen area. There are two recliner chairs (not shown here) at the back of the trailer with a large picture window to look out at the world.

The hole in the wall on the above picture is for a TV and the small black thing above the dinette is a radio / CD player with surround sound. All of that makes up the second slide out. There are a few more pictures including the bedroom and bath that are all on my Picasa Web photo site. The link is to the right, (you might need to scroll down to see it).

Finals

Tomorrow is the day for final examinations, at least for my classes. I have Greek in the morning at 8 AM and New Testament in the afternoon at 1 PM. After that I am through, at least for the summer. I haven't decided if I'll take more courses in the fall. Martha has 2 more courses to graduate, so in December she will really be through. The classes have been good and I have learned a lot. It was well worth the effort. Summer is shaping up to be a hot one again. We have already hit 102 once in the month of April.

By the way the new cat is doing fine. She thinks she owns the place.

The Cat

This post will be to introduce our "new" cat. Maui came to us last Thursday. As you may know, we used to have 2 cats who were brother and sister, part of the same litter. They died a year or two ago mostly from old age, they were about 15 years old. We had decided not to replace them immediately due to travel plans but here lately I have been looking at cats. Our local animal shelter has many cats for adoption and I had been looking at some of them on the web when this cat became available. An employee at HPU where I used to work found that she needed to find a new home for her "baby" and we were there to help her out.

Maui (pronounced like the Hawaiian island of the same name) is about 6 years old and will be a mostly indoor cat. She has her own personality and thinks that the world must revolve around her. She had been with her previous owner for quite a while and is quite spoiled to say the least. We are still in a period of adjustment, she to us and us to her. She reminds me a lot of my old cat who also had white feet and was named Boots. He loved to lay in my lap but Maui does not do that yet. She likes to be close, maybe a foot away but is not quite ready to jump in the lap. We are hoping that she will adjust.

Over the next few weeks I will try to post a few of our "adjustment" moments. Stay tuned.

Spring Break

We did go to the creek on Spring Break and had a good week. Martha's sister and her husband came for a few days and helped us put down flooring in the kitchen. We also worked on several amaller projects. Next will be new carpet in the main room and the front bedroom. I had a contractor do some work on the pier and I have plans to do more work on it myself in the next few trips down there. I did spend some time getting a lot of mud out of the boathouse but it will return on the next flood. The weather wasn't bad but it was very humid and muddy due to the amount of rain they have had. Mosquitos were bad as well.

On the home front we are 6 weeks away from school being over. Our classes are going well and we are looking forward to summer.

Bible Reading

This year we have committed to read the bible through in one year. This plan is a little different in that it is chronological. That means we will jump around a bit and not read in the usual order. We are in Genesis right now but the next book will be Job. It has been a few years since I read all the way through in a year so I am looking forward to it.

I am also taking two courses at the University and one of them will also require a lot of reading. The intro to New Testament will most likely require reading the entire New Testament during the Spring semester as well as a textbook about the New Testament. In addition I am still teaching Matthew on Sunday mornings and will not finish that until Easter. The other course is Greek.

So as you can see, my reading and study schedule will be pretty full for 2012. I hope I can find time to write some things here on the Blog as well. Stay tuned.

Christmas at the Creek



We began our journey on Dec. 19th and went to Nacogdoches to visit Cory & Kelly and their children. We had a wonderful time visiting and opening presents. The grandchildren are growing up so quickly I can hardly keep up.



The grandkids and I



After spending the night at a motel there in Nacogdoches we travelled on to the creek on Tuesday the 20th. It was my 71st birthday and we stopped at several stores to shop on the way. We did buy one toy but mostly stuff for the house or supplies for the next two weeks. We spent most of two weeks there and really got quite a bit accomplished. Our big task was to remove the ancient carpet from the floor and get it cleaned up for putting down new flooring of some sort. We eventually decided on new carpet but we will wait until Spring Break or later to do it. We also had a chimney sweep come down and check out our wood burning stove and chimney. He had to replace the cap on the chimney but otherwise it only required a good cleaning. I also contracted with a man to repair the fishing pier and hopefully that will be done by Spring Break as well. I am really hoping to be mostly done with all the major projects at the house by next year this time. 

We took one day to travel to Dickinson to spend some time with my siblings, Tom and his wife Simone and Frances and her husband David. We had a great lunch and enjoyed getting to see them and catch up on what all of us are doing.



Us Siblings

 Martha had to return to work on the 2nd so we came home on New Years eve but since I needed to complete a few tasks and I needed to meet the chimney man to replace the cap on the chimney, I traveled back down there for a few more days on the 2nd. The weather was nice for the last week but during the first two weeks it was cold and rainy. That is all the more reason to get the fireplace working. 


The house from the street

 We will return to the creek at Spring Break and see how much more we can get done. In the meantime, classes resume at HPU and Martha and I are each taking two classes. She hopes to finish her degree by next Christmas and I am just auditing my two, (Greek and New Testament).