Poor Stella

So Stella has been having a rough week. First, as you can see in the photo at left, she had a run-in with a rose bush. More like a tumble, actually. I was right there, and she fell over, like she does often, only there was a little down hill and she rolled/flipped into the garden (mostly small bedding plants, except for a few long rose branches--oops!) and proceeded down the slope. It all happened so fast, it's crazy how they move like lightning sometimes. Anyway, she had scratches like an Indian warrior on her face, and a few on her legs. She was such a trooper and only cried for like a minute, and not a peep when we washed and fixed them up with some ointment. Now those are gone, BUT...
apparently she was next on the mosquitos' list. Poor thing. And, trust me, it's not nearly as bad as it looks in person! See, we hadn't seen but one mosquito the whole time we'd been here. Well, I guess it was probably because it was no more than 65-70 degrees until last week. Not to mention rain everyday at some point. You'd think we'd have figured that one out. Then last week it got warm. Everyone knows what lots of rain and then warm weather will do. We left her window open a crack (like an inch!) for fresh air because the nights are nice and cool here. Ah, but there aren't any screens on the windows. In our temporary place there were. BIG difference, as you can see. The poor thing. Nick and I got a few bites that night, but she must have sweeter blood (of course she's sweeter, look at her!), because they had quite the feast. Thankfully, they don't seem to bother her much. I've never seen her scratch them or seem uncomfortable because of them. What a trooper, ya know? We bought one of those canopy things for her, and we're looking for screens to put on the windows. German windows are much different than ours, and we love them--Nick will have to tell you about them, he thinks they're the best thing since sliced bread--but there's no screens. We'll get those little buggers...just wait and see! So as for Stella, she's hanging in there. Really, she's having a great time right now, because where we're living (housesitting) there are 3 dogs (including Jackson), a cat, and three rats (they're not as gross as you'd think, though Jackson keeps trying to eat them). She's plenty busy!