Where We Live

This is our living room. As you can see, two of the walls are solid glass, which makes for good raccoon and wildlife viewing. We have a meandering 8' hedge in the front, so people cannot see in from the street. This is where I spend most nights surfing on my laptop and this is where Chloe falls asleep on the couch or floor, as long as she can touch me. I suppose this is a very bad habit, but we have tried the alternative for a long time, and it just isn't worth the trauma. When it's time to go to bed, I carry her upstairs and put her in our bed. I really love being this close to her and am no longer looking forward to the time when she will sleep in her own bed.

Even though it usually tops 100 degrees here in the summer, our house is shaded by the big trees and our air conditioning works great, so it is very comfortable. It does get cold in the winter, where the temperature does often dip below freezing. However, we have that fantastic 6' wide fireplace where we can stoke a roaring blaze in to keep us all nice and toasty. I really love the winter nights here and will miss this house if we can ever sell it.

Our yard is like a forest with very tall trees, mostly pines. This is quite unusual for our town which is hot and a little bit deserty. Every year a hawk family builds its nest in one of our trees. Pictured here is a baby that is nearly full grown, sitting on our safety fence around our pool. The adults don't come this close to the ground, but the younger ones are often found roaming the yard at or near ground level. This one is a red-tailed hawk and he is screeching for his mama. I think he's a tad too heavy for our fence. Not shown in this shot, is a very agitated robin who keeps flying around his head trying to chase him away.