It's raining again *yawn*

Does this rain and spotty radar mean I'll be home today? And then, which home? The new digs where I'm housesitting are great, but of course, no place is home. The dogs are nice. The cats are fluffy. The chicken is demanding. I didn't see the bats, oh darn.

When settling in to a home not your own, there are bumps and thumps that you have to learn. That scritchy scratchy sound...what was that? Are the bats coming inside? But on investigation, it's the edge of a mat like wall hanging hitting the edge of a rattan loveseat. Those thumps are the shutter in a suddenly strong and cool gust of wind that disappeared as quickly as it came rushing through the house.

My new view for the next couple of weeks

Where are the plates & glasses? How does the stove work? Most importantly, where are the light switches I was told about and shown only a day before? In the dark dark dark of the country, that is good to know. There is this very cool light by LL Bean that has a clicker to turn it on. Yes, it's a complete gadget but I love a good gadget that does something practical and this one fills the bill. The trick of course is being absolutely sure where the clicker is. This one lives on an elephant's trunk, I should be able to find it just fine.

Of course, there are the things you forget to bring over. Like laptop cords and camera cords and much more importantly, contact lens cases and glasses. So after my eyes were weary of contacts I was basically Mr. Magoo for the rest of the night. And when you don't sleep well, the night can be long indeed. I watched the battery on the computer go to the red zone, almost finished a book, toddled up and down the stairs a few times, cooked dinner that I'd skipped at 2 in the morning, peering closely at the contents of my pans. Being a chicken pesto pasta dish (say it out loud, it's fun!), I think I could have made it blindfolded but half blind was close enough.

The sound of water running prevails around the island these days. The low spot where the old cattle pens are on the way to Zoni is a complete waterfall. Yesterday there was a beautiful great blue heron, perched on the edge of the concrete spillway looking mystically elegant. If you look hard, you can see him. He was there for hours and hours but finally one false move on my part had him flying.

He's not easy to see - there were a lot of things

the camera wanted to focus on - but he's in there

The sun seems to be coming out again, maybe I'll get to open the cart today...except...it's raining again! Oh well, if not, I'm remembering the cords and my glasses this time before I head back to the country. Free Range Friday will be coming up next!