Television, Art, and Fences

Fiorella woke up after a good night's sleep thinking that the new X-Files was ponderous, self-absorbed, and that its monster was ridiculous.  In contrast, Lucifer was light, clever, and its monster, the star. was charmingly naive and delightfully wicked.
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Fio hasn't drawn anything for a while, and her hands are getting so antsy that this morning she sketched herself in the bathroom mirror.  Not bad--Fio, you've still got it
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The property-line fence that Fio and neighbors Mike and Kathy have been talking about for years has finally been built. Fiorella recommended her yardman, Fernando, for the job, and neighbor Mike, who designed the fence, took over from there.  Good fences, good neighbors.

Outdoorsy Snippets

Yesterday Fio grabbed her loppers and entered terra incognita, the southern woods outside the chain link fence that borders Sonia's realm, and was met by a barrage of brittle branches and biting bugs.  Fio lopped off all the branches she could, but couldn't do anything about the bugs, who polka-dotted her legs with bites. Just one of the joys of country living.
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Fio has discovered what looks like another armadillo burrow.  We're the mother lode.
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Husband and Fiorella have a number of outdoor projects going on--cleaning up the southern woods, turning the meadow next to the dry creek into a picnic area, edging the cactus garden out front with bricks, talking to their neighbors about a boundary fence--and when these are finished off, there are more coming down the pike. If you come visit,we'll put you to work.

Neighbors

Fiorella's cup runneth over because she has wonderful neighbors. The most recent additions to her honor roll are Mike and Kathy Brown, who live on the other side of the dry creek.  Last Christmas, they brought over a four-pack of mouth-watering cupcakes.  And earlier this year, they came over again to be sure Husband and Fio still wanted to split the cost of a property-line fence with them.

We invited them in, of course, and the four of us talked about ourselves and fences and deer and trees and firewood.  Mike, who knows how to take down dead trees, volunteered to share firewood with us, and this weekend we took him up on it.  An hour later, he and Kathy drove a flatbed loaded with cut wood down our driveway and unloaded it for us.

We are blessed. And warm.