The House!

And so it begins . . . But first, Cauley of the Day (In honor of the drought-breaking rain) It's so dry the trees are bribing the dogs.

the trucks arrive, and the logs are here!

the guys are doing this all by hand . . . no cranes. And of course, we're in the middle of a drought and our first day of building and it rains . . .

Cauley of the Day and We're Finally Building!

The Cauley of the Day, in honor of the house lumber finally arriving, is "Are we ready? Does a cat have climbin' gear?"

We're going as green as we can, from downsizing (we went half the square footage than we started with) and hand-applied stain concrete foundation to using standing dead timber for the outer walls and reclaimed lumber inside (from R's Fredericksburg family homestead).

Notice the cat butt prints in the stain . . .

Meet Atticus the Meany Cat

So, my writer pal Jan Yonkin called me almost two months ago and said, "Hey, do you want a kitten?"

My first thought was, no, not really. We just moved out to the country and I'm still missing Tahoe so bad I can't stand it. But something compelled me to come get him. Jan found kitty out in the garden, yowling his little head off, and he was emaciated, dehydrated and completely feral.

Well, Jan's guy, Dale aka "The Cat Whisperer," never met a cat he couldn't cajole, and soon the little kitty was eating out of butter tins and letting him hold him.

The deal breaker was when I heard kitty-boy purring over the phone. I was a goner and he found a new home.

He's not the timid puss hiding in the petunias. He is adapting well, and has taken over the house, yard, block and neighborhood. I had to put a jingle on him so he would stop terrorizing the wildlife. He's doubled his weight, but is still small, but he pounces the deer and the dog and me and anything else he can get his little paws on.

My thanks to Jan and Dale--Atticus is a lot of fun to play with. I named him Atticus, hoping he would take on some of the attributes of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird, but I suspect he might be taking after Baby Stewie on Family Guy . . . out to take over the world . . .