Good Morning Y'all, Well, I hope it is discovered and documented, but not on our place. When we had the male/female pair roaming our pastures here in southern Love County several years ago, we assumed they were a breeding pair but never saw any young ones. We didn't see them on our property, but we saw them in two different pastures about a quarter mile north of us, and so did several of our neighbors. I hope the cougar doesn't come back here. We have a huge deer population....I see them in the yard several times a week, if not quite daily. Still, something has been getting our poultry, which are no longer free-ranging, and it/they have been getting the poultry since January. We also lost a 1 year old male Maine coon cat back in the winter. We have everything here most years, y'all, including an occasional alligator that presumably wanders up from the river to somebody's stock tank, although the closest alligator to us has been found in a stock tank about a half-mile away to our southwest, so I am not real worried about finding one of those here. The feral pigs scare me more than the rare cougar sighting. One guy out west barely got away from them year before last--they chased him until he got to his ATV, hopped on it and turned it on. The pigs are a lot more common in our county than cougars, especially along the river and on the more remote ranches west of town, but there's only been one year that we've had them on our property. I am feeling a bit calmer now. Yellow Cat returned home this morning after being gone for 36 hours, and in a big way. I'd let three dogs out to "patrol" the property and chase off any wild things that might be around. It was about 5:30 a.m. While the dogs were off and running through the woods, chasing something and barking, I'd called and called Yellow Cat but didn't see him. Suddenly, the dogs reversed course and came running out of the woods, yelping and carrying on and with their tails between their legs. I thought "Oh crap, something is chasing them." And something was and it was Yellow Cat. LOL Now that I know these three dogs can be chased by an old yellow tabby cat (admittedly a very muscular and aggressive one because he was feral for so many years), I don't know that I'll trust them to keep me safe from any varmints that are running around. Scott, my best guess is that this juvenile male might be from the cougars that have been prowling the rocky hills along the Love County-Carter County line about 17-20 miles north of us. There have been numerous reports of them in that area this year. There's a big rock quarry there and some hills with small caves, etc. and lots of missing pets the last few months, etc. It is an incredibly rugged area. Almost all of our big winter wildfires were there and it is such rugged land that often the firefighters couldn't get up into those rocky hills off Oswalt Rd. except on foot so they'd have to wait for the fires to burn out into the more open areas. Of course, the cougar also could have traveled the river. The river and its thousands of acres of bottomlands seem to serve as a "highway" for all the wild things. When our creeks here dry up, as they often do by mid-summer, the coyotes and bobcats seem to travel the creekbeds too. Fred told me last week his creek is already dry, but ours still has water, so it shouldn't be serving as a "roadway" yet. We had tons of coyotes a couple of months ago but we don't now (as evidenced by all the cottontail rabbits that are all over our yard at night), and I don't know where the coyotes have gone. (I'm not complaining.) I do know a lot of ranchers were shooting them during calf season (for obvious reasons) because one of the ranchers who lives slightly north of us told me he shot 5, and I think 3 of those were in one week. I don't think anyone here shoots the coyotes just to shoot them, but they were killing calves. I hope the only wild animals I see today are the cute little ones like squirrels and rabbits. In general, I like seeing all the wildlife. Seeing the occasional ringtailed cat is pretty cool because they are so reclusive. I think bobcats are beautiful animals and I even like seeing coyotes, and love hearing their howling at night. It is a little harder to appreciate the cougars because they have the potential to be so dangerous. I have noticed a huge decrease in the number of possums, armadilloes and raccoons the last couple of months, and we've hardly had any skunks at all, so I've been wondering what's happening to all these smaller animals. Dawn

Rickey, I think it was Billy J. because the cougar travels from our property onto his, through his woodland that separates us, and then gets his cats. The other Billy lives a half-mile north of me and his house is set back about 1/2 mile from the road---he is fairly new here and you likely wouldn't notice his place unless you noticed the green mailbox by the gate. He lives between the big new house west of J. road and the houses that face Old Burkhart. He stopped by the garden a few weeks ago and told me something was killing some of his chickens, and he'd seen a pit bull around and wanted me to watch out for the pit. I told him to watch out for the cougars, as I'd recently had the June cougar encounter. By the way, it is his property that they were seen crossing the other day, and that surprises me because he has several dogs. Unfortunately, none of his dogs are very large. I hope they're all OK. Keep an eye on your chihuahuas! The cougar I ran into along my garden fence the other day was walking along very slowly and stealthily, looking from side to side, and clearly hunting. It blended in really well with the dry grass so your little dogs might not notice it....and it absolutely did not make a sound walking through the tall grass. (We've since cut the grass back to stubble. I mean absolute stubble so a cougar cannot sneak up on us. First we mowed the grass as short as we could, and then I cut what was left with the weedeater.) I am about to go out to the garden to pick some more peppers to add to what I harvested this morning so I can finish the jalapeno bread and butter pickles. When I was out at this time yesterday, the rooster in the trap was having a crowing contest with my roosters. Of course, I didn't know it was a rooster in a trap, and was wondering why they suddenly had a rooster when they've never had chickens at all since we moved here. : ) So, if all is quiet when I go out in a few minutes, then maybe that is a good sign for us and a bad sign for the cougar. You probably did see a cougar's tail crossing into Fred's pasture. His neighbor that lives on the property kind of behind him has lost 12 or 13 chickens this year, and all but one disappeared without a trace. Fred has seen cougars in the past, although usually when he told me about them, he'd seen them at the old home place on the river west of Allen Rd. Back later after I finish all the pepper processing. Dawn

Talley: What about the music stand? I know you're just dying to fall over that cheesey metal music stand (in the middle of the night) that's issued to each lucky band student! Actually, the flute is so beautiful. It's really a treat to listen to them practice. My oldest daughter played it for several years, and now my second daughter will begin this summer. My kitchen stackers look like a skyscraper, but I have to say that when it was time to find my Girl Scout cookie money return envelopes, I located them in each girl's stacker (I have four Girl Scouts). What a relief. One more fundraiser that I didn' screw up or turn the money in beyond the deadline. I found a great way to do a family calendar. Actually, my friend Kathy showed me this: use a dry erase board for weekly activities. So I found a nicely framed monthly dry erase calendar at Bed Bath and Beyond ($20 less $5 coupon, so it was $15) that has five weeks. So rather than Monday being a square, it's five squares (all down the calendar). Everyone who can read knows what's happening the whole week, and I have something that communicates what's going instead of my personal monthly calendar. The bottom row (that is the fifth week) is where we put important things for next week so we have a reminder the entire week what's coming up. Talley, this sort of thing would be great for your family b/c each of you could still have a square for each day, plus you could have a "Looking Ahead" row at the bottom. I plan to use my new P-Touch to make labels for the bottom row to help everyone remember to put in future events. This system has been an answered prayer for me. This calendar was one new thing that actually worked!

Dilly beans are on the shelf. Last year I made some sweet relish, I'll pass on it this year. This evening, I will make some peach preserves. I have a Reliance peach tree in back and I have dozens of peaches. The missus doesn't care for peaches, so I have been eating 4-6 every day and I cannot keep up. Some have fallen and the ants are feasting. I also have a critter, I believe a squirrel from a block away (no trees big enough on my street, we're a new one) that has taken a few bites of the peach and then left. Yesterday, I saw a peach across the yard. The only way it could have gotten there is being carried. Today, it was gone. The branches on my tree are sagging with the weight of the peaches and one actually broke. Nothing bigger than a squirrel would be able to do the nipping and carrying.