Too Much Nature Part Four Hundred And Thirty Thousand

I took this shot last night in our hallway before I went to bed. I loved the way the trim on the porch was outlined through the window beside the door. It was raining.

No. Still no sign of Jack but I did have a cat-related situation last night which continued this morning. I was watching TV in the Glen Den after I ate my supper which is the room to the right of that staircase, when I heard the unmistakeable chittering meow that Maurice makes when she has caught something. 
And I'm not talking about the flu. 
I can only imagine that this is the sound a female wild cat makes when she has made a kill and is bringing it to her cubs. And sure enough, there was Maurice in the hallway with an animal dangling from her mouth, still alive, still kicking. 
And of course, the human of the house whose job it is to deal with these things was not here. 
I truly believe that Maurice, knowing I've been in distress and also knowing that I am obviously no good at hunting, went out and got something to bring to me to provide comfort and sustenance. I could be anthropomorphising here but I believe it. In a way, I am her kitten. So I got up off the sofa and saw the animal and said, "Goddamn, Maurice. Why do you do this?" And then I told her, "Look, I appreciate it but...really? REALLY?"
And then I got the broom and the dustpan and managed to get the small animal away from her and because it was still alive I just took it outside and gave it its freedom. Now, I thought it was a rabbit. But here's the thing- when I'm dealing with these animals that Maurice brings in, I don't really look at them any more than is possible. I do not know why, but I don't. I don't want to see the blood or anything else of that nature. 
So. I came back in, told Maurice again that she was a good hunter, and then I went to bed. 
I got up this morning and it was still raining. I got my coffee and my laptop and came out to the back porch where I basically spend my life, only to be greeted by Maurice, lying in a chair, who gave me a shortened version of the kill chitter meow. 
Oh dear god no. Not again. 
But oh dear god yes. Again. 
Only this time, because obviously I have no idea what to do with fresh game, she had done me the favor of skinning the creature which I assumed was the same animal she'd brought in last night, disemboweling it, leaving the offal and another bloody...something right there so that I could more easily enjoy it. 
Again, I did not really look. Again, I thanked her. Again, I said, "But really, honey. No. Don't do this again."
So I sat down with my back to the horrid gift she'd brought me in order to drink some coffee and steel myself enough to deal with this new bit of fresh hell. 
When I finally did, I could not help but look at the remains which were only the intestines and some other organ which was attached to those, and a small piece of a head which did NOT have rabbit ears, but a small pointed ear and I am sure that it had been a huge rat. 
Which hopefully, she had caught outside and not in this house because oh my god please no, please no, please no. There were a lot of largish  intestines. 

I scooped up all of that, covered everything with the broom in the dustpan which is how I do it in order not to have to look and also to make sure nothing falls off the dustpan and walked to the edge of the property where the woods start and threw the remains in there. I came back to the house, set the broom and the dustpan outside in the rain to rinse off the blood, then got out paper towels and my Fabuloso and white vinegar and water mix and cleaned the small puddle of blood off the porch floor. 

I am such a bad bitch, am I not? 
Well, no. Not really. I'm probably scarred for life. 

Now. Those might have been two different animals that Maurice caught. Or, I might have misidentified the animal last night. Either way, we know who the bad bitch is in this house and her name is Maurice. The mighty hunter.

So that was my morning and instead of working on Levon's blanket I decided to do some yard work because it finally quit raining. Here's the area of the yard I decided to go to work on.

Fun fact: I entirely cleared out this area last year. 

Before I started in on that though, I went around to the other side of that tree and the azaleas and dealt with several very large thorn vines, pulling them from the tree, cutting them up, and putting them in the yard cart. Those things have thorns that could tear your skin off. Gloves were worn. I also pulled a large piece of the water-oak branch that fell during some storm out of the azaleas. All of that mess went to the burn pile. 
Then I started in on the crocosmia, nandina, more thorn vines, deertongue grass, tropical chickweed (aka sticky weed for a reason), devil's needles, Yaupon holly and other assorted plants determined to live in my yard, including a type of red berry holly that is taking over North Florida. 
I tell you what though, the dirt beneath all that stuff is thick with worms. I have to figure out something to plant there that will hopefully be a more native solution to the landscaping. 
While I was out there, I took a picture of the aloe/dewberry bramble bed which now looks like this. 

Those aloes have edges like saws. Seriously. That is not hyperbole. And of course the dewberries are covered in briars. 

Florida is trying to kill me and probably will one of these days. It's not the alligators any of us should be worrying about. It's the invasive plants. 

Thankfully it started raining again because I was soaked through with sweat and I needed an excuse to stop. It POURED down. 

And within twenty minutes it looked like this. 

Here's how much of that patch of ground I got cleared before the rain came.

Impressive, right? 

Ha. 

I'm going to go make soup. The man reports that the waves were a bit huge today and there was quite a bit of, if not seasickness going on in that boat, very unhappy tummies. 

Love...Ms. Moon

P.S. I forgot to mention the ants in the kitchen this morning. The big, stinging, red kind. 
Sigh.