More Maka Le'a

Maka Le’a is growing quickly — I think he’s nearly doubled in weight in the past couple of weeks. And he’s plainly getting stronger and more confident, even starting to climb our cat trees just a little. He climbed a short way up this tree a few times yesterday, making up perhaps three feet off the ground to the first platform, and falling off partway up on most attempts. It’s a good thing the bottom of the tree is nicely padded! Of course he’s in that stage of kittenhood where he plays at being the mighty hunter with anything that moves (and even a number of things that don’t!). His claws and teeth are gradually getting more effectve — and the rawness of my hands is growing progressivly worse! Another few days and I think he will start drawing blood; another couple of weeks and he’ll be taking pieces of meat from me…

Maka Lea got a whole bag of toys for Christmas, including this little stuffed mouse (blue with red ears — what was the designer drinking?). For some reason, he’s taken to sleeping with this little stuffed mouse, making for a very good photo opportunity…

New Citizens

Meet Vera and Konstantin Stankevich — two of the newest American citizens. Their history is almost unimaginable to most Americans: growing up in the Soviet Union, then participating in the Estonian independence movement and living there for ten years as Estonia shed its Soviet experience, and finally living in the U.S. for six years until they could get their citizenship. Their story is an inspiring one, especially when you get the chance to learn some of the details. It gave us great pleasure to raise a toast to these fine new citizens…

Today they live in Lake Forest, about 120 miles from our home. We invited them down to see us, and yesterday they did so (after some driving adventures trying to find us!). We spent a very pleasant afternoon swapping stories, sharing some laughs, introducing them to those members of our menagarie that weren’t hiding, consuming intoxicating beverages and food, and even taking a short walk through through the hills around us. Konstantin instantly found a new “best friend” with Mo’i (our male field spaniel), and Vera was able to easily win over Lea, our normally very shy female field spaniel. Jim Barnick (our friend and neighbor) joined us, and afterwards commented on what very, very nice people they were. As indeed they are!

Konstantin is an avid photographer, and he took a lot of photos during their visit. They sent us a collection of those photos last night, and it was a lot of fun for us to see ourselves through someone else’s “eyes”. We weren’t surprised to see that Mo’i and Lea were in the limelight a lot — but we were a little surprised (and very amused!) to see a fine portrait of my little Kubota tractor in the collection!

Vera was a little worried about all the fierce wild animals that we have out here, but she went for a walk with us anyway. I’m sure the fact that we had five people and two dogs along helped considerably. We met a rather small woman walking alone, which struck Vera as impossibly brave. I’m not sure Vera entirely believed us when we said such things were commonly seen <smile>…

Debbie and Vera are making plans to meet when Debbie is up her way for an agility show. I’ll bet Vera would enjoy watching one of those shows. And we’re hoping to see them down here in the springtime, for desert flowers and the green growing season, so we can show them the high desert at its best.

Ah, we had such a good time!