Puca's Ponderings

More sneezing today. Maybe it'll quit if I buy a 3-pack of boxes of tissues at our next supermarket visit.

I managed to sneeze less today by dint of running a couple of long errands on foot. One of those peach trees suddenly has ripe fruit.

Last night I left the back door open to cool the house off since I'd cooked pasta. The dog had been walked and was sprawled in the hallway, when I looked out the door and there in the dusk was Prudence, sitting on the middle step, staring at me the way her mother stares at me from the flower bed below when I'm refilling the catfood on the porch. So I fed her. And closed the door in case the dog saw her on the way to her waterbowl.

I'm noticing more peach trees in people's gardens now. One near us has started casting down unripe peaches on the pavement/sidewalk. Somebody else has a fig tree that basically acts as an unruly hedge. It's been dropping figs, but I'm not familiar enough with figs to know whether they're ripe.

Saw all three cats today. Mama Violet waited in silence while I took the water bowls away and changed the water, then started efficiently engulfing her breakfast. Monty prevented me from finishing the watering by hosing down near the tall fence. I left him food, which he ate despite hissing at me. I went out again in the evening after walking the dog, and he'd moved enough for me to get to my flowers, but Prudence was also there, as usual panicking and running exactly where I needed to step. I managed the watering and they both emerged and followed me into the back porch room to stare at the door, so I fed them.

The fluffy little trees that were planted along that tall fence all died of neglect, except for a couple where my watering appears to have given them enough water under the fence. The dead ones have been ripped out and replaced with a couple of ornamental trees of a different kind, with little bell-shaped flowers. The switch involved dust clouds rising over the fence from power tools opening up the hard-packed soil. I wish the little trees well; I hope an automatic drip system has been put in.

It would have been Wulfy's birthday today. In his honour, when the housemate and I took a walk around the park at 9'ish to beat the heat, hordes of dogs were out.

Ours declined to walk past the end of the front lawn this evening.

The housemate has periodic social engagements. The other evening, I took advantage to vacuum out the house (she can't stand the noise). The dog has been shedding; I almost broke the vac by over-filling its cylinder beyond the point where the stirrer inside it could move. Fortunately it worked when she went off at short notice for another in-person thing this afternoon and I vacuumed out the back porch room. There was dog hair in there, too, though, mostly from the top step where the dog lolls outside the back door.

And yes, it was hot.

Better on the animals front. When I took out kitty breakfast, Monty was there; he looked under the car, probably checking neither of the calicos was skulking under there, then fitted himself under the front bumper with his tail sticking out. I just got done vacuuming out the house, and when I took the vacuum cleaner out, Prudence was peering at me hopefully from the garden. When I returned with food, she was stropping her claws on the carpeted steps. Like old times. In between, the dog was quite spry about her walk across the street, although she couldn't be persuaded to prolong it past more than 2 front gardens. As we came out, Mama Violet fled from under a bush, but the dog made only a half-hearted attempt at a lunge towards her. And Mama Violet had already licked the wet food bowl clean on the porch.