Peace

Peace has been restored.  I no longer jump to attention and run out of the house, reaching for a stick to brandish, threatening violence to whichever cat has the chooks sqwarking like crazed banshees.  The chooks now cluck quietly and contentedly.  It appears all feral cats have been dispatched. 

The birds, also, are more relaxed.  The plovers used to send out the first warning that a feline was lurking.  One sqwark from them and the sparrows would take off.    They, too, are now quiet.  And the sparrows?  

This morning, after the fog cleared, something caught my eye in the paddock just on the other side of the fence.  Something was out of place.  Maybe it had just moved and that's what grabbed my attention.  Don't know but I was interested enough to use the zoom on the camera to see what it was.

I thought it was dead and immediately thought the worst - there's still a cat around!  I went over to have a better look.  To see if there had been a struggle, if it had been attacked.  I swear I'm lucky to have survived the fright I got when it did a half somersault and flew off.  I suspect it got quite a scare, too.  Sparrows don't often do half somersaults.

When I let the chooks out of the coop this morning the fog was quite heavy and had fooled them into thinking it was still bedtime and they were all snoozing on their perches.  I thought their body clocks would work better than that.

I like foggy mornings now that I don't have to drive to work in them.  By the time I took this shot I would have already been at work.  I used to guess how thick the fog was by whether I could see the bridge at the bottom of the hill, just down from my driveway.  Not too bad by the time I was out and about but wouldn't have been good earlier on. 

First sign of the coming of the end of summer?