New cat on board

Our Mac is having a bad day after running out of disk space while trying to back up to Mozy. And Mozy's support is pretty weak. "Life" happens on that computer, so no pictures, no banking, no ToDo lists, until this problem is resolved.

We now have our new kitty, Sophie. She's still on the Phoenix Association adoptions page, if you look quickly. This picture (copied from Phoenix) makes her look beefy, but she's actually quite small. She's about 14 months, a bit older than we thought. She's a real people cat, like Damian, and still playful and curious. She is always underfoot. Every door or cabinet you open, she wants to see what's there. How they got her to sit still for this picture, we don't know.

We also met Pippin, the funny-looking mutt you'll also find at Phoenix's adoptions. He's kind of an ugly duckling, bright, and a real sweetie. He's getting "snipped" today. We'll pick him up later this week. He and Sophie have already met. He has no cat fears and just wanted to play. She was relatively calm, but not appreciative of too much closeness. We're sure she'll have to put him in his place ... once.

The weather is turning to fall. It's nice to have it so cool again. Most days that we're out, we're noticing crops being harvested. The two big crops in the area seem to be sunflower seeds and feed corn (not sweet corn). In the spring there was quite a bit of colza (rapeseed) blooming; we never noticed what happened with those fields.

Ed's been working hard chopping and stacking the wood from the dead poplars. The garden is looking tidier without the big pile of wood. Inside, it seems like most boxes are unpacked now. Mostly, the only ones remaining are those with pictures and other bits of decoration.

Friday evening we took ourselves to the Festival L'Imprévu in Montemboeuf (the "unforeseen" festival). The festival happens every September, but this is the first time we've actually attended more than the Sunday market. It's four days of music, street plays, humor, etc., all to the benefit of handicapped people. We attended a concert of three groups, but only stayed for the first two. The concert was advertised to start at 20.00. The doors didn't open until 20.30 and it was almost 21.00 when the show began. The first bit was an Arab-Andolusian group, which was interesting for a while, but went on too long. They were followed by another group, much more fun, rock/pop/blues/whatnot. When they finished up, just before midnight, we decided we'd had enough and skipped the Irish folk group to follow.

We have a new appointment for the fosse septique tomorrow. Meanwhile, the sage which had grown through its pot into the ground, is quite unhappy about being moved.