Maya says hello

There is the less-approved method of greeting...

...the greeting everyone can enjoy...

...and a certain amount of total WTF?.

sweet mysteries

It's gorgeous again and I have no real thoughts.  But here is Maya, seeking to unravel the mysteries of the universe.

Like eggs.

 

And there is the ever-present question of why I don't give her all the treats.

Or maybe why I don't go out and buy more treats after she has eaten all those I just gave her.

Happily, not everything requires such deep thought.

Good Friday

In the dark early hours of Good Friday, tens of thousands of pilgrims walk the roads of New Mexico.  In our area, they are walking to El Santuario de Chimayó, a particularly famous shrine.  Some of them carry big wooden crosses, and some of them walk dozens of miles,  but I am a little hazy on the actual theology involved...I live in a predominantly Catholic state, but am invariably surprised by whatever holiday is suddenly being celebrated.

But in the dark early hours of this morning, I left my own home.

And went for a very long drive to far-away places.

Pilgrims clogged the highways for much of the drive, but I was traveling against the flow.  Different journeys, different goals.  Mine was the usual:

The former owner of these two girls is heading off next week to start training in the Air Force.  She was having a lot of trouble finding a good place for her girls, not least because one is shy and reportedly a little bit bitey.  Which is not an unlikely outcome when you spend several formative days in your infancy sharing a small tank with a boa constrictor.  The things that people do to rats.

I wrote to the former owner and asked if we might arrange some way to get these girls up here.  Like most of my ratties, they've been through an impressive number of homes, and I am pretty sure they'll benefit from a little stability.  Anyway, I think they are cute.

The former meal is a little anxious, so I'm letting her settle in at her own speed.  But she is far from being the most fearful rat we've had.  She is already nosing around my hand, and took a pea from me with extreme politeness, so  I suspect we'll be friends before long.

Her friend is adorable, and comes with her own sad start in life (thoughtlessly purchased as a pet for a small child, which might not be so bad if anyone had bothered to take care of her).  When her original foster mom got her, she was apparently catatonic and wouldn't interact at all.  Until she met her forever friend, and began to blossom.  She's a cheeky little thing now, and already climbing around on me.

 

They are both about a year old, and I think will fit into our main group pretty well.  I'm just giving them a few weeks to settle in first, and getting to know them in the meantime.  Fun!

But phew, that was a long drive.  I am glad to be back home again.

just kidding

Ha! So much for spring.  I keep looking outside and laughing.  Maya is pretty tickled too.

my camera is fixed!

And it's spring!!

That's our apricot tree.  Apricots don't grow especially well up here, because a late frost comes along almost every year and kills the blossoms.  People complain, and sometimes chop them down, because they are essentially non-producers.  But I love that early in the spring, before anything is truly green or any intelligent plant would dare to flower, the apricots are waving their useless blooms all over town.

Maya loves spring too: the chipmunks are active again, delicious shoots of new grass are ready for grazing, the breeze is warm, and I am spending hours out in the yard with her.  I've been getting our vegetable bed ready for planting, filling containers with spinach & kale seeds, and generally cleaning up our yard.  Maya supervises it all.

 

Most of what I do in the yard fascinates Maya.  Digging in the dirt is a group activity (although I had to ban her from helping me plant last year -- she carefully watched me put the tomato seedling into the ground and pat the dirt around it, and when I stepped back to admire my handiwork she promptly reached out her own front feet and smashed it flat.  My Little Helper).  She distrusts the hose, but likes to run circles around me when I rake.  Her aim is to leap clean over the rake, mine is to to avoid a horrible collision.  I carried a dozen cinder blocks across the yard the other day, which Maya inexplicably found hilarious; it prompted a massive attack of the zoomies and lots of doggy laughter. 

Up in the mountains, there is still a little snow and a lot of mud.  Delicious, delicious mud.

Updated to add: apricot trees are insufferable optimists.  As of 7:00 tonight.