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Our weather this week has been of the more pleasant variety. The week before was hot, about what you would expect in July. But this week has been cool, not getting out of the seventies some days and only in the eighties when it did. The mornings have been particularly nice. The combination of cool, as low as 58 one morning, and calm made each day feel fresh and clean. There was some cloudiness, welcome because in spite of the cool air that ol’ sun was still hot. But if it was cloudy or one was in the shade, well, it was just tough to beat for those of us who toil outdoors.
We lost another guinea this week. It was nesting across the street, Chris’s gate being no impediment, and refused to spend the nights in guinea tower. As we all know, a guinea out after dark is usually an ex-guinea and so it was with this one. Barbara called Joyce while Joyce was walking Friday morning to tell her that there were guinea feathers strewn up and down the street. I didn’t notice them when I left for Wildcat Bluff shortly after 8:00 but that doesn’t mean they weren’t there. Joyce told Barbara not to worry, she would clean up the mess when she got home. Nevertheless, Barbara had cleaned up the feathers and the partly devoured carcass by the time Joyce got back. Can’t say as I’ll be sorry when the last guinea meets its fate. The other day I mulched the little flowerbed I helped A&R make next to the lily pool as a Mother’s Day present for their mom only to come back the next day to find the mulch kicked all over the place from guineas using it for a dust bath. Chickens do that sort of thing, too, but we get eggs from the chickens. In my view the guineas have no such redeeming qualities.
Tino the dog will soon get to celebrate the homecoming of his long-absent pack. We’ve got our little routine down, now. I let him out at appropriate intervals and, when feasible, I leave him out while I’m working. He seems to like work. He’ll find a shady spot close by and observe contentedly. From time to time he tires of this and goes exploring. It was on one of these jaunts he discovered Joyce’s watermelon vines on the dirt mound. He ate one grapefruit-sized, unripe watermelon and destroyed the other, smaller and even less ripe one. This I learned after I looked up and saw her coming with that tight-jawed expression those of us who know her well dread. Hell hath no fury, you see. Tino had returned to my area but the jig was up because Joyce had seen him in his watermelon depredations and told him what she thought of it. I was prepared to go back to the leash but, after she’d had time to cool down, she said she didn’t want me to do that. I didn’t want to either because being tethered to that animal is no fun.
So, all is well on SA. Joyce feeds her feral cats. We’re getting dry. There was rain in the forecast much of the week but we only managed two tenths of an inch. There is plenty of watering to do and we are enjoying the bounty of the garden. Our complaints are minor and not worth voicing. By in large, we are satisfied.