Cold weather brings changes in our lifestyles. For one thing we get lots and lots of visitors. For example, several mice have found their way into our wrap closet. We didn't discover this until cold weather came because we didn 't get into our wrap closet when it was still warm. But the mice were more prepared for cold weather than we were. They had staked their claim on a warm cozy spot before they really needed the warmth.

I thought possums probably hibernated during cold weather but the ones in our neighborhood seem to have just put on an extra winter coat and are frequent visitors to see what morsels our cats may have left. The possums even learned to come in through the cat door into the cat's room at the back of the house.

When the heat lamp came on I could look out and see the cat perched up on the cushion on top of an old microwave oven looking down at the possum eating her food.

Nod, the cat, is a nibbler. She never eats all her food at once but takes a few bites and quits for awhile. That suited the possum just fine. He (I have never wanted to determine its sex) didn't mind eating after the cat at all. And he cleaned his plate nicely.

I put the verbs in the past tense in that paragraph because Lester has now put some barriers across the cat door that hopefully will keep out this fat possum and still allow slender Nod to get through.

We are now down to only one of our original three kittens we got 16 years ago. Blynken went to join her litter mate, Wynken, recently.

That just left Nod of that trio. She is demanding more attention and also wants to be in the house with us much more than usual.

In the meantime we still have our two young adopted strays that we call our outdoor cats. And since cold weather has come, our daughter Shirley's cat has found her and has transferred his abode from his birthplace where he had been being fed and housed in a smoke house to the platform at the top of the stairs leading to Shirley's studio apartment. Another heat lamp there has made warm quarters attractive.

Among the welcome guests that cold weather has brought are the winter birds. Our bird feeder now has cardinals, goldfinch, several types of the small woodpeckers, chickadees and other perky little winter birds.

At least three young squirrels from this year's litter also come to the feeder. They have not discovered the trick to getting into the squirrel-proof feeder that the mature squirrels have mastered. However they do hang by their rear feet to get into the wooden bird feeder. They greedily munch on the birdseed while hanging upside down.

A small flock of Canada Geese come to our shrinking pond most days. We can't be sure if it is the family that hatched here last summer or not. We are not outside enough in this colder weather to test their reactions to us. We assume it is "our family" because they return so often.

Another visitor that comes to our house more often since cold weather is the mailman. Several times a week he drives up our drive with a package too large for the box.

We are not getting that many presents. It is usually something we have ordered to give as gifts.

Which brings us to holiday visitors we hope to see later this month, especially the man in red. Even Middle Age Plus children watch for him.