Morning...

The sky was beautifully clear and moonless.  The dogs did their usual things; the brown dogs smelling everything, the border collie consumed with pine cone play.  Orion was well up over the horizon in the east, and the Milky Way brilliant straight overhead.  Dogs across the valley were howling; probably coyotes or perhaps a mountain lion within their ken.  The temperature was down a bit from the past week; there was a refreshing coolness that we haven't felt for a while.  It was a very pleasant walk.

Last night we brought little Jahar (our new Savannah Cat kitten) home from the breeder.  This is a traumatic transistion for the little fellow – coming from a home with dozens of fellow Savannah Cats (and mom, of course) and going to a strange place where he's all alone (as we have him in isolation for a while).  We brought him into our bedroom in a carrier, which we plopped on the bed.  Door closed to exclude the rest of the menagerie, we opened the carrier door.  Jahar blinked, laid down, and stayed quiet and still – and still in his carrier.  This went on for a couple of hours, but finally he got to the point where he decided that being in the crook of Debbie's arm wasn't so bad.  He ended up spending the night on the bed with us, mostly right between us, always quiet and still.  But around midnight Debbie got up and showed where all the vital things were (water, food, and litter box) and Jahar did a bit of tentative exploring.  There was a pitiful kitten cry every once in a while, but he did all right.  Then back to sleep for all of us...