D.O.P.-T.

High summer. This afternoon, Monty was curled snoozing in his hideaway; about half an hour ago, when I went out to pour water on the plants in the front yard, I spied him washing himself in the camellia thicket beside the driveway. A couple of nights ago, the dog wuffed once in the late evening, and when I looked out of my bedroom window, there was a raccoon in the tree next to the porch, so I brought in the kibble bowl a bit early and rewarded her for sounding the alarm. After midnight, she stuck her head under the curtain and was sitting on my bed staring intently out of the window; when I looked, there was a relatively skinny opossum polishing off the wet food. I opened the door and it vacated the porch. Meanwhile, one side of my potato patch has been wilting, but when I did some digging, the potatoes were still very small. Today I noticed a few on the surface, one (which I put in the compost) with two bite marks. Ratties or possibly birds, I think. Then when I went out a few minutes ago to move the sprinkler in back, what I think was a mockingbird was having a shower, preening on a toyon branch that reaches out overhead.

( Succulents. )