Cats, Cows and Cupcakes

 Our neighborhood kitty friend has been coming back around this week. I've taken to calling him Stripes.

He was about in the summer, driving Winston crazy, but then we didn't see him for months. This week, one afternoon I'd left the big garage door open, and when I went into the garage from the house, I saw a scurrying out of an animal. I guess he was nosing around the cat food? He's super friendly, but we must try to keep him out of sight of our resident kitties.

Winter is a short season here for some of our plants and trees. It's January, and the mock pear is already all abloom.

Exciting times here - the home and field bordering our favorite nearby walking trail has new owners, and they've acquired cows! Or, young steers or bulls. Not entirely sure on the right word; they are young and male. 

Violet would go several times a week to walk and visit them, if she could.

On Wednesday, after youth group, Vi and I took a walk at Bridgeport and then went to Lowes to look at solder. We came upon a VW meetup! 

On Saturday, we had Eloise with us for a half-day, and Violet was in charge for a few hours. She did a great job with her - they played the Cupcake Game and then made chocolate cupcakes from scratch!

Yum!

Also this week, I dropped Violet off with her school hiking club for a walk at Vasquez Rocks. I wasn't able to stay, as Stace wanted me to go with him to an appointment. But, the advantage of having another driver in the house - Cora went to pick her up. More solid freeway practice!