Visitors

Baby Dog kicked up an especially loud fuss the other night to announce the arrival of the daily raccoon. Since she refused to quiet down, I was forced to do my alpha dog job and go to the door to investigate. Out on the deck, just before dusk, I saw one of the regular cats to the cat feeder and the raccoon. The cat sat safely atop the feeder. The raccoon was chowing down.

After a few seconds of calm, the cat decided it would be safe to come down and resume its own meal. But one down on the deck on the same level as the raccoon, the cat chickened out. The raccoon didn’t act aggressively towards the cat, but the cat decided eating from the same dish at the same time as the raccoon was probably not as safe as it looked and vacated the premises, leaving the raccoon to enjoy its evening snack.

As it has been virtually eveywhere, it is unbearably hot here. When I left work at 5 p.m. yesterday, it was 98 degrees. By the time I got to the cabin, protected somewhat by the canopy of trees instead of heat-gathering macadam, it was 90 degrees. That's a big improvement and the main reason why I don't have air conditioning. Most of the summer I don't need it. When it's 90 degrees in the city, it's only 80-82 at the cabin, a comfortable temperature. But then we always get some days when it's in the upper 90's and the temperature at the cabin is pretty hot too. I keep trying to tell myself that an air conditioner is a pretty expensive thing to buy when it's only going to be used 5-7 or maybe 10 days a year, but on days like yesterday and days like today will be, it keeps getting harder to say no. But since my windows are all the crank-out kind, and I'd have to cut a hole in the cabin wall to install it, sanity usually returns and I just wait out the heat. Winter is coming (I hope!).