It was 13 degrees when I woke this morning and Jack Frost was on the windowpanes. I loved those mornings when I was a girl, waking up snug under the covers  and looking at the patterns in the frost on the window next to the bed, tracing them with my finger.

Britches

Ishmael

I was cleaning today in preparation for family coming this Thanksgiving week, and smelled an awful smell in the room where guests stay. Its source was a nearly intact vole, half digested, which Britches had spit up. It must’ve been what was stuck in her gullet last week when she wouldn’t eat. I recall saying then that her breath smelled like something had gone down in there and died, and I’ll be damned if that wasn’t just about the truth.