Day 211, Friday, July 30th, 2021
The Herd Gets a Snack
(Posting 4 days late because Anna’s been going through a rough spell.) The deer have been bedding down in our yard at night. When I open the garage, they come running for a treat. I usually feed them deer nutrition in their troughs but I will scatter a handful in the driveway for them occasionally. We had even more than usual visit last Friday!
Day 212, Saturday, July 31st, 2021
Nana’s Ombré Cake for Dominic
My mom loves baking homemade cakes for everyone’s birthday. Dominic wanted a chocolate cake with vanilla frosting. Since mom hasn’t been sleeping and has been super fatigued during the day, I offered to bake the cake and she could do the frosting. Winner! Mom liked having the extra energy for the frosting and made an ombré design with Dominic’s favorite color, green. It turned out great!!!
Day 212, Saturday, July 31st, 2021
Jenny Gives Wyatt That Look
Jenny and Wyatt came down to celebrate Dominic’s birthday last Saturday. We waited to open presents until the family party (though we let him open a few things on his actual birthday on the 29th). He seemed genuinely happy with his gifts and especially enjoyed having his sister visit. I can’t remember what was said, but Wyatt was teasing Jenny and this is the look she gave him in response. Priceless.
Day 213, Sunday, August 1st, 2021
On the Road Again
We’ve been so lucky to have Curtis home since October 2019. He hasn’t had to travel hardly at all because of the pandemic. Well that hiatus is over now. Curtis left for Dallas Sunday afternoon to return Thursday night. I walked him out and actually had a pang in my heart seeing him back out of the driveway. The house felt super empty without him and it was a long, long week.
Day 214, Monday, August 2nd, 2021
Beautiful Wet Sunset
I had just gotten Anna to bed and was tidying up the house when I noticed a glow coming through my bedroom blinds. I grabbed my camera and went to the only westward facing area on our property. It had just finished sprinkling and the sun was setting. The light was a golden yellowy orange… it was so pretty that my photo does not do it justice.
Day 215, Tuesday, August 3rd, 2021
Stare Down
The deer like to follow me around anytime I’m outside. I was wandering out front with my camera and was inspecting one of the sago palms that we lost in the freeze. Two of our other ones have new growth on them but I think this one is a goner. This deer wasn’t quite as friendly as some of the others in our herd and I got quite the stare down as I was snapping away.
Day 216, Wednesday, August 4th, 2021
Jack Installs Rain Chains
Jack of This Old Man Handyman Services recently installed a gutter around our air conditioning units to help manage rain runoff from the roof and he recommended a couple of rain chains to further slow the water flow. He’s such a nice man, so easy to chat with, the dogs and the kids (and my mom) love him. We are so grateful to have found him, we think of him like family now. He’s going to fix a broken slat in the AC fence, tighten up loose boards in our outside fence, and build a little pergola/shade canopy over the pool equipment next.
Day 217, Thursday, August 5th, 2021
Volunteering at the Shelter
Since there are just a few weeks left before school starts, we suggested to Dominic that he volunteer a few days a week for the rest of the summer. One of the closest places he can help out is at the Canyon Lake Animal Shelter which welcomes volunteers Tuesday through Saturday 10am until noon. Anna was also going to volunteer here this summer with her caregiver, Andrea, but we couldn’t manage the timing quite well enough to get started. So I took them both up there Thursday last week. I didn’t have Anna do much since this visit was mostly to get Dominic acclimated but she did enjoy watching the cats run around. One of the other volunteers brought an older kitten in for Anna to hold at one point.
Cleaning Out Cat Cages
Dominic and I got the entire left cat room cleaned while we were there. Each cat is in one large cage that has two levels. The litter is on the lower level and the food and water on the upper. We took out all the newspaper and replaced with fresh, removed the food and water and replaced with fresh, dumped the old litter and replaced with fresh, spraying down with bleach water in between. Most of the cats were quite friendly but one was scared and I didn’t heed her warning quite quickly enough. Luckily it was just a surface scratch along my outer thumb and has healed up well.
Socializing the Kittehs
Once we finished the heavy duty cleaning, I let the kids sit out in the main room and play with the two tiny kittens in the front cage. This little tiny kitteh, Eugene, couldn’t have been more than 5 or 6 weeks old. He was itty bitty. He really loved cuddling with Anna. No, we did not bring him home. The kids actually did really well not asking me for a new pet!
Thanks for looking!
