I have four cats. They’re all feral. They’re all sterile. As in fixed, spayed, neutered.

The other evening, on the first day of the most recent cold snap, the day of our wintery mix, I woke, as I often do, in the middle of the night.

I saw a cloud Friday evening. It had the shape of a leaf, standing on end. I could see veins and the midrib.

I walk some ground, look at the trees, and everything seems at ease.

A cruise onto the morning porch reveals a light, soft fog over the pasture, a refreshing chill in the air, and that’s about it.

45. The temperature this morning at my house. This seems right. Winter is coming. To Texas. It feels good.

Our little compound is fairly resistant to deer. It’s a combination of fences, vegetation, and location. We get occasional visitors, but little of our plant life is conducive to nibbling so off they go.

Home, again. Home, again. It feels good.

This past spring, I added a Gregg’s Mist flower to my plant collection. It’s done well. So, has the garden spider.

A midnight storm woke me up. Lightning crashed and thunder rolled. But like a passing goodbye kiss or a quick hug, it was gone before I knew it.

It’s always interesting to put new plants in the ground and see how they do.

Pretty and pink pretty much describes the current state of my gardens.

The nice thing about tile floors is they allow you quickly to stomp a scorpion when one makes it into the house.

It’s been a good summer for our pink turks caps. Actually, it’s been a good summer for everything.

And I wonder, if I only had one job to do in this life, that maybe planting one tree was a good thing to have accomplished. No one will write a story about me, but the world will know, or at least this part of it.

I use a turning fork when I work in the garden and the lawns. It’s better than a shovel or a spade.

Went time travelling yesterday. Visited the Chisos Mountains. Tried to imagine what it was like when that first hot vent opened up and out popped hot rock, lava.

Went for a ride yesterday across the bottom of the old inland sea they now call west Texas.

It feels like a good day in the neighborhood. I mowed a bit yesterday and pulled a few weeds, because khaki-weed is a real tenacious pest. I even worked up a sweat.

I stepped through the looking glass last Tuesday evening. Stepped out again yesterday, Friday, around noon. This is what happened.