Hope You All Had a Merry Christmas

And I guess I'd better say Happy New Year too since I don't seem to be posting often these days.

Both my girls, Lil's boyfriend, and my mom came down for Christmas.  It was fun, but my oh my, what a lot of work.  Next year we're having spaghetti.  Out of a can.  Brownie left Sunday, Mom left Tuesday, and Lil and her boyfriend just left this morning.  It's a relief having time to myself again but also a downer watching them drive away - knowing it could be six months or more before I see them again.

I feel terrible about this next part.  After helping them load the car, and believe me, it was loaded to the max, I noticed feathers on the deck, or what I thought was feathers.  Then I noticed spots of blood, and big smears where it looked like the cat had chased the bird around the deck.  Hubby thought the cat brought me a gift, and it got away.  But when I went out to clean the deck, I looked closely at the pile of "feathers" and saw that they were really long strands of cat fur, and the smears were claw marks, probably from fighting.  The cat hadn't come for his breakfast milk and he didn't come when I called after cleaning the deck.  Finally, I checked the dog house and he poked his head out, and then came out limping.  He had been in another brawl and had scratches and a couple of big holes in his shoulder.  One front paw was swollen and his dew claw (I guess you call it that on cats too?) may be gone.  I slathered him with dog antibiotic ointment and he made his way to his hiding spot in the flower bed.

I know there is nothing I can do to keep him from going off and getting into fights, but this happened in our backyard, and in fact there were spots of blood on the back door threshold.  It must have happened when we were out the evening before, and I wonder now if a cat or other animal came up on him while he was eating there.  We had an electric fence across the part of our backyard that doesn't have a chain link fence, and last night Hubby put it back up so at least the cat can be safe from dogs in our backyard.  We also put a board over the dog house door to make it small enough that dogs can't get in, and I put the cat in it last night while the neighbor kids were shooting off fireworks, and he seemed to relax and stayed the night.

Now I'm waiting until the thrift store opens to take a load of junk great stuff that I had been saving for the girls and they declined to take to their homes.

Until next time, may you have blessings and precious time with family,
Marti