Fleamarket is Back

Unfortunately it didn't work out between Fleamarket and Mark's dog, and the experience was stressful for Mark's wife. So the little guy is back on our back porch again today, and the search for a home for him goes on.....

Fleamarket finds a Home

Fleamarket has a new Daddy.
His name is Mark, and he is otherwise known as our Electrian.

The reason Mark originally came over today was not to adopt my little feline friend though.

Late last week, while working at my desk in my Office, I saw the Reading Room light come on.

By itself.

It startled me, and without even really thinking, I immediately jumped up from my desk, ran outside and into the room underneath the old part of the house where the fuse box is.
I flipped the switch marked, "bedrooms" and went back upstairs to make sure it was off. Thank goodness, it was. My next move involved my cell phone- and Mark's phone number. He came over about 15 minutes later, and within about 5 minutes of that, he was showing me the wiring behind the Reading Rooms light switch. Y'all, it was not a pretty sight. Think: singed wires and a big pouf of old threads. Long story short, there was some major arcing going on between the two live wires in there, and would have caused the old fabric coating around the wires to catch fire if I hadn't shut the power off.

Yeah, I know. Scary stuff. I was thankful it didn't happen in the middle of the night. I would have never even known. My smoke detectors didn't have batteries in them at the time either. Not cool. (They do now, don't worry) :-)

I asked Mark how much it would cost to get the old part of the house re-wired.

He told me to sit down.

I asked him if he was serious, and he said, "yeah, you're probably gonna want to".

So I slowly lowered myself down onto the beer garden bench, told him to go ahead and lay it on me, and mentally prepared myself for a number.

He hit me with the number, which was lower than I had expected, but higher than we had anticipated spending on home improvements this month. I'm not a huge fan of living in fear though, so he's going to start the re-wiring process tomorrow, and should be done by Thursday night.

Back to little Fleamarket. Mark is going to surprise his 14 year old daughter with him tonight. She's going to be so excited, and that just warms my heart. I wasn't expecting to have to say goodbye to him today though, so I'm sort of sad right now. However, I am thrilled that he'll have a loving home, just one short mile down the road. Mark even said I can visit him if I want.

Wonder if they're done with supper yet? ;-)

Fleamarket finally feasts!

Little Fleamarket finally has a full belly. I shot this today after he dined....

A foundling named "Fleamarket"

I shot this video this morning...



Kevin and I decided a long time ago that we didn't want anymore inside pets, but we'd love to make sure he's got a comfortable, safe place to eat and sleep on our back porch.

I'm calling him "Fleamarket" because he is just that! He's covered in the things. :-( I hope I can get most of them off of him today. I hate to see him suffering.

Speaking of pesky bugs, I mowed the yard after I shot that video this morning and I must have been standing on a fire ant nest for a bit too long. All of a sudden I felt stinging sensations and looked down to find that my feet and ankles were under attack!

The rest of my day will be spent sitting in my office doing consultations. No biting insects in here. Whew! :-)

Hope you're having a wonderful "bite-free" weekend!

Cottage Kitty

I've been hearing lots of tiny meows, outside my office window, for a couple of days now. At night, the meowing really seemed to pick up- which made me feel like whatever was doing it was afraid of the dark.
:-(

Turns out my neighbor, Jessica, at the Half Note Cottage has been hearing it too. This morning I set a bowl of food out where I thought it was coming from, and later in the day Jessica set out a bowl of water right next to my bowl of food. Tonight around supper time, I grabbed my video camera because I finally spotted where the meowing was coming from. Watch this video and be prepared to get the warm fuzzies...



...and, of course, I brought him in the house within two hours of filming the video. He's currently much more tame, and is nestled in an old blanket in our laundry room. (I couldn't bear to hear him crying outside another night!) :-(
I covered an old cookie sheet with aluminum foil and poured a generous amount of kitty litter onto it. I'm hoping he just instinctively knows "what's up" with that. :-)

I'll have to put him back outside tomorrow, but I'm hoping he decides to call our back porch "home". I would love can have an outside kitty- just like back in the day, on the farm in Minnesota. He's definitely going to need a name. Any ideas?