The other day, as I drove in down the drive, a burst of wind tore across the yard. It hit the last of the Lacy Oaks to still have its leaves.

Breaking news. The big red bull in the pasture is an interloper.

On Tuesday it was cats. On Friday it was cows. Love is in the air. Or, more precisely, a bull is in the pasture.

I took a friend’s advice yesterday and avoided hard work. I went shopping instead. Actually, I went buying.

There is something be said for hauling around bags of mulch and spreading the contents about the garden. It’s this. They’re heavy and they’ll make you sore.

The winter gardening has commenced. Bags of mulch line the back porch ready to create the world’s largest cat box.

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

I have a small cow in my front room. It sits beside my easy chair. I keep books on it.

I went to stand beside the road in the hills just south of town and watch the sky. Again.

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.

Kennels are down. Heat lamps are on. The cats are cuddled up. The cold is here, major league stuff. Low 20s.

Got up early yesterday, drove in the dark to meet my brother to play golf. We did. Ate lunch. Came home.

I plumbed and carpentered yesterday.

Lots of things running around in my head these days, some pleasant, some not so. This one is pretty ordinary and might be considered a late in life thought.

No sleeping child in the front room, no sleeping child in the guest room. It’s just me so I slept in.

Once again, I am writing from beneath a warm quilt and high-count cotton sheets.

I thought seriously about simply skipping my little morning word exercise today. There are children in the house and my writing area is temporarily a bedroom.

I’m on a roll. I’ve cooked dinner for friends two nights in a row. The kids are coming tonight. So, that means two more dinners.

I thought, going into 2022, I was going to avoid writing this sort of thing, because I really wanted to lighten the mood this year. But talk about elephants and rooms.

It’s really hard to beat a day at the cotton gin. So, I didn’t even try yesterday.