An Odd Sort of Morning...

Though this morning I had no particular reason to get up early, I woke up at 3 am anyway.  Dang it!  Debbie is up north competing this weekend, staying with friends north of Temecula.  She's got Miki (who's entered in the competition) and Race (who's going along to acclimate him to the show environment), so I'm at home without my wife and with just two dogs (Mo'i and Lea).  It felt a little empty around there this morning...

But Lea and Mo'i and I went out for our morning walk as usual.  The sky was clouded over nearly completely – in the eastern sky I could see but a single star (probably Sirius, from its position and brightness).  High in the southwest sky, though, I could see the disk of a full moon through the gauze of the thin cloud layer.  The clouds were scudding quickly in a wind from the west, and nearly the entire sky was brightly lit by the moon's glow.   The result was quite a bit of light in our yard – enough to see clearly without a flashlight, and for objects close to my face I could even make out a bit of color.  The light was coming from every direction, so there were no shadows. 

Mo'i and Lea were nose down, very intently sniffing for the entire walk.  Even for me, the morning air was full of spicy aromas.  Some were clearly chaparral plants, but others I fancy were of animal origin.  The dog's behavior reinforced that notion.  I suspect we were visited by some beast or other last night...

The crickets and frogs, who have been silent the past few mornings, were in full-throated chorus this morning.  I heard a new frog sound this morning, so I'm guessing that another species has joined the morning crowd.  This new sound seemed to be coming from the north, which is downhill from our house.  Probably these new frogs are in the woods around the creek below us; that creek has just started trickling after our recent rains...

Coming back into the house, I heard lots of meowing – all five cats that live in the house were sitting on top of the cat tree in our living room.  That's where we keep the cat food bowl, and it was empty.  The meowing was their way of letting me know that they wanted food, and right now!  I got their food...