A Snowy Day and Meeting Cary

Early morning, looking West from my porch: I take this picture over and over ... every morning it looks like this I just feel compelled to grab my camera and take it again.

Walking home from Church I ran into my friend, Cary Sarlo, who used to live next door to me in my old neighborhood. He bought me a cup of coffee at Spruce Confections where we caught up on neighborhood gossip and our lives in general. He told me all about the area around Taos and Santa Fe in case my father would like to go home that route when he comes to visit me next week.

What a charming smile Cary has!

CARY AND THE RAT - A good story!

We laughed all over again at a shared experience: Once upon a time I was on the phone in my old house and looking out into my backyard when suddenly A RAT came skipping out from under the half fence between my yard and Cary's. I gasped aloud! A RAT! in my backyard. It went straight over to the pan of sunflower seeds on the ground at the base of the tree which I kept out for the squirrels and helped himself without fear or apology. I thought, "He doesn't know he is a RAT! He doesn't know he is considered vermin!" Here was a pan of seed left out free-to-all and he was happily helping himself.

Cary and I didn't know what to do about this rat who had probably come up from the creek that ran through our neighborhood looking for someplace out of the cold who stumbled on this shangrala of an opportunity... from a rat's perspective. He gnawed a hole in Cary's house and started living between the walls and in the crawl space above our townhouses. One night I heard him gnawing on the rafters above my bedroom. Clearly he had to go. But he was such a happy rat! I hated to do anything that would harm him.

Then one day Cary happened to be looking out into his back yard and saw the rat leave his hole and slip under the fence to go into my yard. Quick as a flash, he got out the board, hammer, and nails he had ready and blocked the entrance to the rat hole. From my side, I saw the rat eating at the feeder and then go the long way, around the end of the fence instead of under it, to go back to Cary's. He rounded the fence just as Cary started around it from the other side and they met face-to-face. The rat froze! Cary froze! And then the rat ran for its life back to the creek. We never saw him again!

I am afraid I have to confess that I teased Cary unmercifully... for a long time... about having a "face that would scare a rat!" : ) and yet, good-natured person that he is, HE was the one that brought the story up again today.