Last evening Pooch kitty stretches supine on a knitted afghan Dawn made especially for him. Tongue lolling, paws in begging position, he fits snugly in the depression between the big overstuffed cushions and back of the couch. "I remember when you were little," she says to him. "We thought we'd lost you." Two years and a healthy diet of raw chicken livers and Purina One, he no longer disappears in the folds of the couch. It's difficult to adjust to the evening/morning contrast. Couch kitty and panther. I look at him snoring on the couch as we sit enthralled with another musical number in the Glee series. "You need to learn to relax," I chuckle.

Early this morning chairs rumble in the attic as God rearranges the furniture to send Mandy running for cover. The Pooch is unconcerned. This is prime hunting time. Johann remarks about the blood stained threshold to the breezeway. I casually explain Pooch's caught another deer mouse trying to sneak cat food spilled from his dish . The mice are unaware that once they cross the doorway from garage to breezeway, they're trapped. The Pooch bats at the mouse at it scurries along the log siding looking for an exit. I snatch it from a growling cat, gripping it by the end of the tail as blood drips from his mouth.
Checking out the weather map, I click-on first frost dates for this area. Muggy, warm temperatures and thunderstorms forecast for the morning and early afternoon will soon be replaced by a cold front. The average first frost looms between the autumn equinox and the end of the month. Folks around here and this person will be scrambling to harvest those jalapenos. After a quick run for butter, the inclement weather allows me an excuse to make raspberry freezer jam, hotter sauce ( without the seeds, the first batch is too mild) and perhaps more of my mini loaves of white bread. Actually they're supposed to be hamburger buns/rolls, but frequent gaffs make them large enough to hold a one pound burger-mountain man style.

Speaking of mountain men, Johann with his full bushy red beard, plug of snoose between lip and cheek and a kerchief tied do-rag style over his bald pate leaves us on our own to drive to Cashton and find a new window for the rear entry. I knew it was a bad idea to leave him behind, but good weather waits for no one. When he does call, supposedly he was in a dead zone for cell phones. I know better. He's got a lady friend down south.

Dawn laughs when we finally find the window place. Johann's directions are hazy at the best, wrong if you want to be critical and Marco Polo, my navigator has never been to Whispering Pines. It's Monday-wash day for the Amish. " I guess Amish do wear underwear," she chuckles seeing a line filled with white linens. An hour and a half later and two phone calls to Johann I figure I could install this window myself. Brick mold, argon, j-channels, rough openings, window wrap, low-e glass are no longer code talk.