December 26, 2005

Christmas 2005

Twas the night after Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring except maybe Joyce. She's a little blue this evening because Christmas is over and Jill has gone back to Garland. Nothing can be done for it, I suppose. We had a lovely Christmas and lovely weather, though not typical of late December. Christmas morning after grattimann we went outside to play. Chris helped Abigail with her new bike for a while. Then Abigail and I went over to SA where we were soon joined by Joyce and Jill. We got a game of kickball going that eventually included K & C, Genna, and Ethan and Spencer from across the street. Abigail and Spencer had only a passing interest in kickball and would drift off to play on the swings, etc. or play on the sandpile. The rest of us had a spirited game that eventually ended in a tie, 18 to 18. Maybe we got tired and quit when the score was tied. I was pooped and no one argued for playing until there was a winner when I suggested we quit.

Friday I had the afternoon off. ICS closed at noon, so I went out to Preston West and played a round. There weren't many people there and playing by myself I played in under two hours. That left a little time after for a few chores. Saturday was a blustery day. I hadn't planned to work anyway. It was Christmas Eve, after all. Genna and I had our bagels and I spent much of

the rest of the morning visiting with Joyce, Kari, and Jill while they were hanging around the kitchen. Jill and I got a birdseed cake for the sunflower patch in the pasture. The one I got a couple of months ago had been consumed so I got another, much larger one. Christmas Eve we spent here enjoying a nice fire and a variety of finger foods the ladies had assembled. Late afternoon Christmas Day we worked on the leftovers from the evening before, then opened our presents. Everybody did pretty well, I think. I know I did.

Today I spent most of the day trying to get water down the north tree line. Instead of going around 1911 like I had been doing, I routed the water through the trees around the backyard and down the lane. There isn't much slope south to north on the west side so I had to fight breakouts all day. I would take dirt piled up when we cleaned out the pond and build up the edge of the ditch so it wouldn't run over. I did not succeed in getting water all the way down the north side but will be in a better position to do so next time I try since I'm gradually building up the irrigation ditch so the flow of water that makes the turn at the northwest corner is sufficient to run on down the tree line. It would be nice, though, to get some rain so I didn't have to bother.

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December 20, 2005

Frosty Morning

Kari got tickets for her church's Christmas pageant, enough for Max, Juanita and their daughter Sherry and her family to join us. She and Joyce fixed dinner before the pageant. Then we loaded up and headed for the civic center. Kari and Sherry went earlier to save us seats. They wanted to get next to the aisle so the kids would get to pet the animals as they come down the aisle. The only one they got to pet was a lamb one of the performers carried in his arms. It was pretty sweet. There was a llama and a donkey, too, but they didn't get to pet them. The pageant always deals with the birth of Jesus and his life, as you might expect this time of year, but they weave different subplots around that main theme to make it fresh each year. It is well done and well attended.

We had an insider this weekend. It was already cold and cloudy, but by the time Genna and I finished our bagels and poked around Home Depot a little it was beginning

to drizzle, which was all the excuse I needed to leave the tree trimming to another day. Genna loaned me the copy of Million Dollar Baby she checked out of library and I watched that during the afternoon before it was time to get ready for the pageant. Million Dollar Baby (I wonder where they got that title) was entertaining if one could overlook the Hollywood cliches. Anyway, it was nice to be inside next to the fire. The inclement weather extended through Monday but it cleared off this morning and the frost didn't last long once the sun came out. My walk to work before sunup was through a silent winter scene, cold and still, with enough moon to put a frost on the frost.

Jill arrived this afternoon. The weather prevented her from coming yesterday. I think she got into some rain in her area. I wish she could have brought it with her. As soon as she rests up a little she can wrap the Christmas presents I have for others. I'm not much good at that myself.

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December 13, 2005

Abigail and I went to see the Nutcracker Suite produced by the Lone Star Ballet. Neither one of had been to a ballet before, although I had seen one on TV. I was impressed with the talent and dedication of the dancers, which they must have had a lot of in order to dance like they did. A couple of the gals spent a lot of time on their tippy toes, which looked like it would hurt. I noticed the men didn't get up on their tipsy toes but I did see one hold a woman above his head with just one arm and not drop her. In fact, I didn't see anyone flub up even though there were plenty of opportunities to do so. Even the little tiny people that were turning cartwheels, hand springs and back flips performed flawlessly to this untrained eye. They looked like colored popcorn bouncing around the stage. I'm not sure Abigail enjoyed the performance too much. She began to ask if it was over pretty early on and said when we got home we could watch a movie. We hung in there, though. I saw several people with small children give up and leave.

Our weather is a little warmer so far this week. Last week it was pretty frigid. It tried to snow one day but it was just too cold. The air was filled with ice crystals. Maybe they were snow flakes but very small ones. They were very pretty when the light caught them. Today it tried to rain a little but didn't really have the heart for it. What moisture did fall almost got the sidewalk wet.

Grady Howard stopped by this evening and gave us a beautiful poinsettia, one Les Howard raised in his greenhouse. Genna and Kari got one as well. The Howards are good neighbors.

Saturday evening we had dinner with the Shewberts at David's Steak and Seafood. We hadn't been there before but liked it a lot. It's in the Wolflin Village area, not a big place, and we got there early enough to get a table. We hadn't been there anytime before people started queueing up.

Earlier Saturday Genna and I got back to our tree trimming. We got a load and let it go at that. Neither one of felt us inclined to overexert ourselves. Joyce and I did a little more Christmas shopping after lunch. We may be pretty well done with that little project.

Chris and Abigail had us down for breakfast Sunday morning. He whipped up some gratiman. I'm not sure of the spelling, but they are kind of a biscuit in human shape that they dip in their hot chocolate in the old country. It was very good. Kari was in Dallas galloping around White Rock Lake with her running buddies so Chris dropped Abigail off with us about mid-afternoon because he had to catch a flight to his gig for the week, Denver I think.

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November 30, 2005

We got a little snow Sunday afternoon. In fact, we drove into it on the way back from Jill's, probably about Claude. Before that there had been a little rain. Luckily I stopped for gas in Clarendon, deciding I wasn't going to quite make it home without doing so. If I'd stopped even earlier I could have avoided the cold north wind that was blowing but any later and it would have been even more unpleasant. The snow didn't accumulate much but it persisted until today (Wednesday) when the temperature got up close to 60 or so.

Everyone had a pretty good Thanksgiving at Jill's, I think. I know I did. John and I golfed the day before and the weather was just lovely, which was nice for a couple of poor, pathetic wrecks like us. While I didn't do so hot in the Turkey Trot due to the lingering effects of a cold, I suppose, Kari accomplished her goal of staying under 10 minutes a mile over the eight mile course. Again we had nice weather. However, the day after Thanksgiving the weather deteriorated.

Golf Friday wasn't near as much fun because of cooler temperatures, overcast skies and wind. I bowed out of playing on Saturday because I didn't feel like fighting the elements again and rain was predicted. Some actually fell, at least it did at Jill's house, though not much. Still, it was much nicer to sleep in and loaf around the house all morning drinking coffee and playing on my laptop. That afternoon Kari and Chris went to the new shopping center by Jill's house. Abigail stayed with us. Seems like she helped Jill decorate her Christmas tree. Dave came over that evening and helped as well. The new shopping center isn't a mall. It's built more like a traditional downtown area with storefront parking, narrow streets and lots of different shops. There is quite a variety of store to choose from, most of the ones you would expect to see in a mall. I liked the concept. Jill and I went over there in the late afternoon and it was pleasant to stroll around from shop to shop.

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November 20, 2005

Our Indian Princess

Kari has been preparing us for the Turkey Trot Thanksgiving morning by gradually increasing the distance we run each week. That is, of the two times we run, if there are two times and often there is only one, one of those she has increased in something like half mile increments each week so that this past week we ran six and a half mile in preparation for running the eight mile Turkey Trot. Last year we just went out and did the distance. Now Kari runs six or so miles with her friends about once a week, I understand, but it sounds like there is some walking involved over that distance. We, on the other hand, do not walk. So, we (I) should be better prepared this year. We'll see. Anyway, the course we ran the last couple of weeks took us down the Santa Fe Rail Trail and past Margaret Wills elementary school. I commented to Kari as we passed the school that it was old when I went there 50 years ago. I walked home from there along the railroad track that is now a nice trail and the Sears/Sunset Center shopping center was a golf course (wouldn't that be handy). It's interesting to look back from the perspective of half a century. However, as Mark Twain said, "I have never met an intelligent person of 60 who would consent to living their life over again."

In spite of a stiff north wind that several times blew over our step ladder, Genna and I spent yesterday morning trimming trees on the south side. We both felt pretty good about what we had accomplished when we were done, but we were both happy to call it a day at noon

and get in out of the wind. Today is calm.

Joyce went with Phyllis Shewbert to the Shewberts' cabin in Red River Thursday. Phyllis needed to go get it ready for their tribe's Thanksgiving congregation and wanted some company. Prior to the invitation Joyce had told me we would put up the Christmas tree this weekend so she wouldn't have to face that when we get back from Dallas next weekend. So Tuesday evening after Joyce had talked to Phyllis we dug the tree out of the attic and put it up. It isn't decorated but I think it is the assembling of the tree Joyce dreads. It is, of course, too heavy for her to handle. But now that's done and she can decorate it at her leisure.

You can see from the pictures how cute Miss Abigail was in her Pocahontus costume complete with moccasins we got her a couple of weeks ago when we were in Santa Fe. That's what she went to school in, Kari's response to being told several weeks ago the children would dress as native Americans for their Thanksgiving bash. Kari took that to me she needed a costume and took steps to procure one. She was feeling pretty good about the costume she found for half price after Halloween. Turns out, though, the kids were to make their costumes in class. So there was Abigail looking really cute while the other kids had to make do with grocery bag cutouts.

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November 13, 2005

Abigail's Halloween

Last Sunday I took Genna out to the river and let her run around. We parked at the north end of Riverland and hiked mostly along the rim of the Canadian River Valley. We didn't hike that far, but it was a lot of up and down so it was a pretty good workout. I collected a piece of "drift wood", some rocks and a few plants which I brought back and placed in the new xeriscape area in front. The plants are so small they don't look like much but if they prosper they should look pretty good eventually. We'll add more as time goes by.

Yesterday started off cool and breezy. The breeze made it uncomfortably chilly initially but where we were working in the south lane we were mostly protected from the wind and in the sun so it wasn't long before we were plenty warm. The wind died down yesterday afternoon and it was about as nice an afternoon as one could ask for. Joyce, Kari and Abigail went to Coulter Gardens and Joyce came back with the Shumard oak I suggested she get. Genna had gotten one during the week and planted it in the southeast corner. I decided that would be a good replacement for the pecan on the west side of the meadow that didn't survive this summer. The pecan that did survive in about 20 years should have a nice fall display of yellow while the Shumard will display red. Should be nice. Hope I live to see it.

As I said, yesterday afternoon was really nice. It was so calm I don't think the yard art, which I greased, didn't turn a single revolution until the wind picked up during the night. The temperature dropped into the 30's when a cool front moved through the area. I took advantage of the cool temperature to burn a little elm. Since the sky was cloudless this morning I didn't try to have a serious fire and burn any of the oak, pinion or mesquite I have stockpiled on the porch.

Instead I burned some scraps stacked out back. While the elm has a bad reputation as fire wood, it really works pretty well in our fireplace.

I dug more grapevine holes yesterday. I've got all the holes done on the west side of the garden. The ground is beastly hard. I dug four holes in all but took a long break between each one to work on less demanding chores.

Joyce went with me to Santa Fe where I had software demonstration at the school district week before last. We stayed over after the demo to mess around Santa Fe some and returned home the next day. It was kind of nice little trip. The drive is only about four and half hours, which is reasonable. With Kari's help we checked C.S. Lewis's Screwtape Letters on audio tape out of the library and entertained ourselves with it on the drive. It is worthwhile listening.

Kari and Nicole let the kids, Abigail, Parker and Riley, play over here yesterday afternoon. I had gotten another load of sand to augment the dwindling sand pile and of course they played on the playground equipment as well. Although Parker had his football helmet, shoulder pads and jersey on, he asked me to play baseball with him. For him, baseball seems to consist strictly of someone pitching to him. We were using plastic bats and balls but I had to still back up from the 15 or 20 feet I was pitching from at first because the lad can, if he connects and he often does, knock it right down your throat. More distance is required to give one a chance to react. Abigail played some with us and was willing to do her share in the field, but she may have gotten a little frustrated trying to hit the ball and Parker refused to take his turn in the field.

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October 30, 2005

Rivulet

We fell back last night and this morning we have a beautiful fall morning, chilly but bright sunshine and calm. Yesterday was warmer but still cool, and it was blustery. We even got a thundershower but, while it rained hard, it didn't rain long so we don't have much in the way of moisture to show for it. A quail (shall we call it Dan? You're right, too obvious.) was perched on our gate. I also saw what I thought was a wren and later confirmed that when I was outside and heard it call. And there was a bunny by the garden. The rabbits are around but not so common right now.

That quail seems to have taken up quarters just to the east of the house. It can be seen most anytime around the stand of sunflowers in the pasture. Friday I bought a birdseed cake and put it among the sunflower stalks to further encourage it to stick around. While multiple quail, a covey, has been seen around, this fellow seems to prefer his own company. He's usually alone. I've read that quail like brush piles and we often see them when we take our trimmings to the brush site, so I restacked and added to the fairly large accumulation of juniper limbs in the gap on the north edge of the tree line and tried to do it as sloppily as I could so the pile would be "loose." That way the birds and other animals can get into it to shelter. I received some immediate gratification watching a mockingbird that wasted no time in making itself at home and later I saw a thrasher hopping around inside the pile. Dad made several brush piles, I recall and I never noticed anything taking up residence. I think the mistake he made was being too tidy according to his nature. By piling the limbs all going the same direction in a nice, neat pile, there wasn't sufficient room for the birds and other critters to get into the pile.

Another reason I restacked the juniper limbs was to get them out of the way of the rivulet I formed down the north side. During the week I trimmed the trees on their north side so I could run a ditch down between the line of elms and the line of junipers. That was much easier to do than it had been on the south because the trees were

younger and had smaller limbs, because there had already been some trimming done and because I was trimming on the north side of the trees where there is naturally less growth due to less sun from that direction. At any rate, by yesterday morning I was ready to start working on the rivulet itself. I used the weedeater to trim out the irrigation ditch that borders 1911. I thought it would be more efficient to use it than run the water through the trees back of 1911 as I have done in the past. Those trees probably receive sufficient water from the watering we do in the back, mostly for the grass. The irrigation ditch ended a little south of the point where it needed to start going east down the tree line but it wasn't a problem to scratch out a ditch with a rake. Before I had gone to far, Chris showed up and took over making the ditch while I got the water started. I used a piece of PVC pipe where the north irrigation ditch meets the ditch around 1911 rather than siphons. I buried the pipe even with the bottom of the ditch so water flows right out. That worked well. Once the ditch was complete and the water started, we cleaned up the trimmings and hauled them off, two loads worth. It took all day for water to reach nearly to the end of the ditch, it being so dry it soaked in rapidly. But this morning I started it again and it didn't take anytime to get back to where it left off yesterday. Once it reached the end, I created a breach here and there on the juniper side to encourage a broader soaking. Because it was calm and the traffic noise wasn't bad, I was able to hear a little burbling sound from my rivulet, . It was very faint but unmistakable between the bluejay screeches. Very gratifying.

Abigail spent the night with us last night. The three of us had dinner at the Olive Garden and afterward Abigail and I watched a movie. This morning, Grandma made pumpkin waffles while we played Easter egg hunt, horse and other games. They've gone to church now. Joyce went along because Janice wasn't going and she wanted to keep Kari company.

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October 23, 2005

That granddaughter! The other evening she grabbed my hands and wanted me to lift her up or swing her or something but I was tired so I just let her gently down to the ground, which she did not want me to do, so she reclined on her back still holding my hands with me astraddle her and deftly kicked me in... Well, anyway she kicked me and it was lucky for me her little leg wasn't an inch or so longer.

Yesterday evening K, C & A had friends over for a weenie roast. This was Julie, Kari's running buddy, her husband Steve and their daughters. Genna and I got to participate in the hot dogs and ice cream Kari had made. It was a lovely evening, cool and calm. Genna and I had spent the day on our ditching project. We managed to reach the southeast end of the tree line and get water to run down there. That will allow us to keep over half the tree line watered when we get into these extended dry spells which will go a long way to keeping those trees in good shape. It also cleans up the appearance of the lane even though it isn't generally seen. Still, it makes me feel better when things are tidy and when we moved in the trees on the south were crowding the fence. Now there is a wide boulevard, relatively speaking. Next we'll turn our attention to the north side east of the house. I have run water down there before in a sort of quasi-ditch north of the elm tree line but we'll trim the trees so we can run the ditch between the elm line and the juniper line. Eventually we will run the ditch down the east side so we can water the trees all the way around. In times past they have gotten watered when water was run over the grass but there were still places like the southeast that were difficult to get the water to run to overland. My philosophy is to not water the grass except around the houses. The native grass is very well adapted to periods of drought and it may be that watering favors weeds as much as it does the grass. One just has to accept the "brown phase"

that goes along with relying exclusively on rain. I don't know if Genna has fully bought into that strategy but this past summer she didn't try to water except to water the trees in the interior and her immediate yard.

Speaking of the pasture and meadow, they have now been mowed and raked and really look quite good. The grass is in good shape and was even still a little green lower down when I cut it. That is disappearing, though, as the sun drys it out. I used the mower to blow the trimmings into a few rows that I was able to rake in an hour or two. Now I've got 20 some odd piles I can disperse for weed control at my leisure. I left the stand of sunflowers so the birds can eat the seeds. Genna said she saw the quail in it yesterday evening. Maybe I should get some quail food and put it out there. It would be interesting to keep them around.

Last week I spent a few days in Miami. The hotel was right on the beach and I had enough spare time to spend some time strolling along the beach and even took a dip in the refreshingly cool Atlantic.

We're still not having much luck getting water to stay in the pond any length of time. I see drainage ditches here and there with water standing in them, run off from lawn sprinklers, I suppose. Wonder why water would stay better in a drainage ditch than in the pond. Of course, the whole enclosure looks green and verdant because the water is going horizontally as well as vertically. The numerous trees and shrubs in the enclosure are certainly benefitting from the water in the pond and we know that the cottonwood down by the shed has roots that extend all the way to the pond. Still, it would be nice if the pond would start holding water a little better. Some rain would help I think.

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October 2, 2005

October 2, 2005

Some quail visited us last week. One evening while I was cleaning up twigs on the west side of the meadow Joyce and Kari, who were by the garden, called my attention to some quail they saw near the well/gate area. I didn't see them at the time because of the intervening vegetation. Later, though, as I was walking through the meadow to put some tools back in the shed I scared one up. On my way back to the house from the shed, I scared up two more as I walked through the meadow. I'm not sure what kind they were and we haven't seen them since. I would think the length of the grass on the north end would be just to the liking of quail. It would present a problem if they took up residence, though, because I plan to cut the grass soon and, of course, I couldn't if there were quail living in it.

We had a beautiful day yesterday and took advantage of it to do some cleanup work in the garden. Joyce and I spent a little time at it in the morning. Then she got called away when Janice brought Bernice over so Janice could go watch Parker play soccer. I hear Parker is a heck of a soccer player, scoring several goals (maybe even all his team scores) each game. We got back after it after lunch and K, C & A joined us to help. We took down the beans, the okra and the sunflowers, harvested pumpkins, mowed, trimmed and generally tidied up. Joyce is understandably ready to be through messing with the garden. However, she did keep the tomatoes going. We scared up a mouse in one of melon beds but it made itself scarce pretty fast. We did not see the box turtle we put in there when John and Kathy were here but it could be living quite nicely in the tomatoes and we would never see it. Pretty soon I'll start working on the setup for my grapevines, which are due to arrive next April. I got a soil test kit from the county extension office and need to collect my sample and send it off so I'll know what, if anything, I need to do to amend the soil for grapevines.

Genna and I also worked some yesterday on extending the irrigation ditch down the south side tree line. We are running it between the line of elms and the line of junipers so we have to trim the junipers enough to allow us to get under them and rake. The new ditch isn't nearly as deep as the old one. It doesn't have to be because there is no need for running a siphon out of it. Therefore, it can mostly be carved out with a rake but I anticipated having to work at getting the water to turn the corner. I expected to have to move more dirt than I did but it turned out to be pretty easy. Once the corner is turned the slope to the east makes it easy to get the water to run properly. We ran water down the new ditch to test it and it worked without any problems. Of course, we have a long way to go to get it all the way down the south side and then we'll have to do the north side but it's a good start. We are so dry we are motivated to press ahead with the task.

Speaking of dry, we're not having much luck getting the pond to retain water for any length of time. It still requires almost daily filling. The situation has given Genna the fantods. She's worried about running the well dry. That would certainly create problems trying to keep the trees watered on the rest of the place. The well may run dry some day, but we would have little to do with that even if we ran the pump 24/7. That's because we're pumping from the Ogallala Aquifer and we're not the only ones. The water isn't inexhaustible but farm irrigation will be the main culprit if it runs out, not, I think, our meager withdrawals. I saw a kingfisher scrutinizing the pond from a high branch, no doubt hoping for a quick meal. Slim pickins, I'm afraid. There are a few water bugs beginning to inhabit the pond but not much else. We found the gold fish that lived in the well pond lying on the ground nearby quite desiccated. It may have committed suicide but I don't think so. I suspect human intervention.

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September 11, 2005

Labor Day picnic and pond

We got the pond filled up today. It took about eight hours. Yesterday Chris helped me move the slab off the island. I didn't think there was really room for it on the island but it might make a nice picnic table in the shade of the trees on the north side of the pond. I had been trying to figure out how to get it moved and thought maybe I could recruit Terry Lopez and John Tversky to help Chris and me carry it. Saturday morning, though, while Joyce and Genna were touring gardens I decided to take a crack at it myself. I was thinking I might be able to scoot it, flop it and otherwise manhandle it to where I wanted it. I did manage to crowbar it off the island into the pond bed but by that time I realized how heavy it was so I waited for Chris to show up. When he did we tried several things and finally managed to move it using a block and tackle and several pieces of round concrete pipe lying around the place. Those worked well to make it roll and the block and tackle with both of us on the rope gave us the leverage we needed. We felt like slaves in ancient Egypt building the pyramids.

After we got the slab moved, and by the way it makes a nice place to sit in the shade of trees, Kari, Chris and Abigail finished moving the loose dirt out of the pond. They have been very helpful in that regard. I moved a few wheelbarrow loads one evening last week but Chris ran me off saying they would take care of it, so I let them.

Anyway now it is done and ahead of schedule. I've located a source for fingerling cat fish so I'll get them ordered soon. Stay tuned. By the way, there is a gold fish in the well pond, the survivor of several Joyce and Jill put in it. I noticed it the other day. It has grown and is comparable to the ones in the lily pool. Filling the pond cleared up the water in the well pond so we easily see it. Although I had put some screen in front of the pipe it didn't get out of the pond, a most sensible fish.

Yesterday afternoon Joyce and I visited the Rock Ranch and bought flag stones to build a path across the front yard from the driveway to the front step and from the front step to the gate out into SA. It looks pretty good. I'll include a picture one of these days.

We had a weenie roast last Monday to celebrate Labor Day. The Lopezes joined us. It was a pleasant evening with a cool breeze. Cool enough in fact that we had to move close to the fire when we ate our ice cream.

The plant in this picture is one I collected out on Riverland Labor Day a year ago. It has rewarded me for my efforts. I think it the equal in beauty of anything you can get from a nursery and, of course, it is well adapted to our climate.

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September 4, 2005

SA in early September

Thank goodness for the traffic noise from I40. Without it I think the cricket cacophony would drive us even battier than we already are. Joyce gets them in her bedroom. It is not uncommon to hear the vacuum cleaner going in the night.

We got the rototiller back last weekend (I've spent entirely too much money making that silly thing run) and I ran it over the pond bed one evening last week. Saturday morning Genna and I worked at removing the loose dirt. Later in the day the Zbindens teamed up to move more. Two or three more sessions might actually finish the job. Based on the research I've done, channel catfish seem like the best fish to put in it. They can thrive in small, shallow ponds and can be fed commercial fish foods. They can also be fed minnows so stocking minnows occasionally during the warm months to control mosquito larvae would serve a dual purpose. Of course, the catfish would need to be culled occasionally to keep the herd in good shape. That might be fun for the chillin, to catch ol catfish, and I think we all like grilled catfish. I found a Web site (Overton Fisheries) that has some pretty interesting information and also sells channel cat fingerlings.

Unfortunately they appear to be too far away (Buffalo, TX). There is a state fishery close to Electra that stocks channel cats, but I don't know if they sell to the public. I don't need many. A couple dozen ought to do it.

The sunflowers in the garden with their bowed heads sort of remind me of druid priests, except they don't chant.

We're getting dry again. I've got the sprinkler going back of the house. Yesterday I trimmed off the blue gramma seed head/stems with the weedeater, raked them up and mulched several hazelnuts and the butterfly bush with them. I've found that grass trimmings makes excellent mulch. It holds the moisture probably better than anything else and suppresses the weeds well. It looks like we're going to get a good hay cutting this fall so we should have plenty to fight the weeds with. We need it.

Speaking of hazelnuts, there are only three or four left of the dozen we planted last spring. We've about decided they just don't like it here. We have been assiduous in our watering. Still most have died and those left don't look all that healthy.

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August 28, 2005

It rained a little over half an inch in the wee hours Saturday morning. That makes three weeks in a row of significant rain, albeit diminishing each week. The timely spacing is probably more important the quantity, to a point, of course. So, the grass has greened up and is growing rapidly. I spent several evenings last week and yesterday afternoon mowing. When I wasn't mowing, I was pulling weeds. The pasture and the meadow are growing up nicely. I won't mow them until maybe October but I'll try to keep the other areas tidy in the mean time.

One of the foxes got run over in the street a couple of weeks ago. Kari found it when she was headed out for a run early and called animal control. They were supposed to call her back but hadn't by the time I got home at noon so we buried it. I had moved it out of the street. We're sorry to lose such an interesting local character but Joyce has seen a couple since so while we're bereaved, we're not bereft. On a happier note, yesterday as I was trimming around the spreading juniper south of 2005 I scared out three little cottontails about the size of toy bunnies. I had to leave off trimming and heard them back to the relative safety of the juniper.

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August 21, 2005

Jill just left. We miss her already. She's been here since Thursday and she and her mom have been having a high old time. They spent Friday preparing chili rienos for our happy hour repast. It may be a while before Joyce fixes them again. She tells me it is a lot of work.

Yesterday morning Jill, Abigail, Kari and Chris helped Genna and me work on the pond. After bagels, Genna and I went to the plumbing/electrical store on Avondale in the old Furr Food building and bought some PVC to connect the inlet pipe of the little intermediary pond with its outlet pipe. I'm filling it in with pond sediment because I think it would use water unnecessarily when we start keeping water in the main pond. I hope to plant wild plums there. Anyway we got some 3 inch PVC pipe and a right angle connection. The pipe comes in 20 foot lengths but the man that sold it to us was kind enough to cut it to the proper length for us. Chris had already piled quite a bit of sediment in one end of the little pond so after connecting the pipe we piled dirt under it to the proper hight. Later we spread the rest of the dirt evenly over the little pond area. It will hold more but not a lot more. The tiller has been in the shop for two weeks now because it wouldn't stay running. When we get it back we might be able to finish up moving the layer of sediment out of the pond and be ready to restore water to the pond in the next few months. That is, if it doesn't keep raining.

Friday a week ago while John and Kathy were here we got over two inches of rain spread over a 24 hour period. Last night we got another inch. We may get a hay crop yet. John and I had two wonderful rounds of golf, one Thursday at Commanche Trail and one Friday at Ross Rogers. Both days we were able to get right on the course and play by ourselves with no one ahead to slow us or behind to push us. The mornings were pleasantly cool. It was golf the way it should be for a couple of poor old shit heads. Chris, Gary Shewbert and I played at Preston West Thursday evening last week and had a similar experience. We didn't have to wait and while it was pretty warm when we started out at 6:30 it cooled as the sun dropped toward the horizon.

Sunday before last I drove to Flagstaff, AZ on business. I met with some people on Monday morning. The drive there was made less pleasant by the huge volume of trucks on I40. I was surprised at that on Sunday. The return trip the next day was not nearly so bad, traffic wise. I like Flagstaff. It is an interesting little community up in the mountains with the cool mountain air and the smell of the pines. They tell me, though, that the Californians are moving in and driving up the real estate prices.

It looks like for the second Sunday in a row rain will prevent me from working. Darn.

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August 8, 2005

Garden and Red River

It rained some sometime during the night. Joyce said it was raining about 4:30 when she got up to start the bread maker. I slept through it. Probably not a lot of rain but we'll take anything we can get.

We spent last weekend convalescing in Red River at the Shewbert's cabin. I had an appointment Monday morning in Dulce, NM so we took advantage of that to goof off all weekend. We mainly ate and slept with just the occasional stroll. It was nice to get somewhere cool. Driving to Dulce early Monday morning I passed through beautiful mountain country, as pretty as I've ever seen. That alone made the trip worthwhile.

Yesterday the three of use worked in the garden early. Joyce wanted to take out the corn, which had done about all it was going to, so I pulled it up. Joyce pulled the ears off and Genna and I whacked up the stalks and put them into the compost. Yesterday afternoon Joyce and mowed and trimmed in the garden as best we could around the plants. It had been a while since I had done so and it was a little overgrown in spots.

Genna bought a small rechargeable chain saw and we tested that out yesterday. It is small and light enough for her to handle and, of course, it doesn't require starting, which can be a chore with our other chainsaw. She'll use it where she might have used lopping shears and it seemed to work nicely. Between what she trimmed off a juniper using her new chainsaw, what I had raked up in the lane last week and the piles of weeds around the pasture, we got a pretty good load. We also got a big load by trimming on the Russian olive in the enclosure. It is the last one on the place, thank goodness, and we are debating on whether to take it out or not. Joyce thinks it has personality, and maybe it does, so we're trimming it up for now.

I have an appointment in Flagstaff tomorrow morning so after breakfast I'I/ve got to hit the road. That will be a nice long drive and I'll get to drive back tomorrow after my appointment.

We're looking forward to Kathy and John's visit this week. Maybe John and I will get in a little golf.

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July 24, 2005

Garden and Bridge

We're not much troubled by mosquitos these days. It is difficult to keep things watered though. We're getting a lot of hot wind from the desert southwest and no rain. The transpiration is terrific. Just this week we lost one of the hazel nuts which had been doing so well. Also, the Stewart pecan I planted last spring is not prospering. It has taken a turn for the worse and may not make it. Its Pawnee partner seems to be doing all right and the plum and apricot we planted also seem to be doing fine. They say more trees suffer from over watering than too little water but I'm wondering if that is when they are in one of these lush green yards seen around town, the ones where the runoff from the sprinkler system creates a rivulet in the gutter.

The pasture is looking better these days in spite of the rapidly browning grass. It was looking pretty weedy but I devoted three evenings to knocking weeds down last week, to good effect. There were so many weeds I didn't try to bag them. Part of the pasture I raked and part I just left them where they lay. Saturday I loaded the pickup with the rakings and drove the load out to the dump. Genna didn't go because she had to stay around to be there when the man came to replace her air conditioner outside unit, which gave up the ghost Thursday.

Our project for yesterday was restoring the bridge to the island. I had been turning various designs over in my mind and finally came up with one that seems to have worked pretty well. Genna and Joyce pitched and helped me. We bought 1X2X8 treated lumber which we cut into two foot spans and pre drilled on either side to screw into the lateral pieces. It was these that I had such difficulty figuring out how to make. The problem was to replicate the arc of the pipe frame of the old bridge with something that we could screw the cross pieces into, namely wood. At first I thought I would use 2X4 pieces,

of which we have a supply of scrap the would work. The difficulty was in cutting the pieces to follow the angle of the pipe and attach them to each other. Lots of room for error with that approach. After further thought, I decided I could use a single piece of 2X6 on either side and cut it to fit the arc with a jigsaw. The hight of the arc was 6 inches. However, a 2X6 is actually a 2X5+ and that would mean the lateral piece wouldn't quite come up to the top of the arc to support the cross pieces. Then it struck me that the 1X2 (1X11/2) pieces we were using for the cross pieces could be bent to follow the arc. At least I thought it was worth a try. That turned out to work pretty well, although we learned not to cut a piece with a knot toward the top of the arc where the most bend is. I think the three of us are fairly pleased with the outcome. Esthetically, it works. Only time will tell if it will hold up satisfactorily.

It's birthday weekend. We had dinner at Joe's yesterday evening, then came here for cake and ice cream, which Kari supplied. Abigail gave me a golf ball and some tees for my birthday and Chris gave me a gift certificate to Preston West where we've been playing golf some this summer. I think Kari and I are going to Barnes and Noble later so I can pick out a book which she will buy for my BD.

Joyce is beginning to haul the produce out of the garden: tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, some okra and beans. She's been snapping some blackeyed peas this afternoon. The tomato vines and the sun flowers seem to be trying to grow as tall as the horse (weather vane) pole, which may be something like 12 feet or so.

I'm off to sunny California on business the first part of the week. I expect to be home Wednesday afternoon none the worse for wear.

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July 17, 2005

Hiking in McBride Canyon

Genna and I rolled out early this morning so we could visit McBride Canyon and Riverland in the relative cool of morning. We got there about about 7 a.m., shortly after sunup. Genna wanted to hike to the falls so that's what we set out to do first. In the 40 odd years since McBride Canyon was confiscated for public use that trek up to the falls, never an easy thing, has become much more difficult because of the lack of a trail. It used to be that the creek bed gave you clear passage at least half way. Not so now. We had to walk down the canyon to one of the camp sites to even get over to the creek bed, which is now so overgrown that instead of a broad, sandy wash it is nothing more than a rut between the plum bushes, grapevine and poison ivy festooned with spider webs. Back in the old days the ranch kept bulls in the canyon and they would wear paths that could be easily followed but there are no paths now.

We pressed ahead as best we could, though. I carved a trail through the spider webs with my walking stick. Eventually we made it to the falls and found it to be about the same as it has been for many years. While it was interesting to hike up to it, we chose the overland route to return to the car. In fact, we swung wide over the prairie and descended the side of the canyon rather than follow the road down. My stick came in very handy in keeping my balance on the steep descent. Genna didn't have a stick and covered part of the way on her hind end. Once she covered five or six vertical feet by executing a sort of barrel roll.

After we got back to the car we drove to River Land where we cruised around some. We saw three horny toads. I saw the rear end of a deer bounding off through the trees as we nearly completed our descent of the canyon wall and on the drive back out to the highway we saw a turkey hen with eight or ten robin-sized little ones in her wake. We were home by noon.

Yesterday morning we concentrated our efforts on the enclosure. We took a fairly large limb off one of the elms and cleaned out the hackberry and honeysuckle on the northeast side of the pond. We have the vegetation cleaned up now and once we get the silt dug out and the bridge repaired, the pond will be ready for water again. One evening last week Joyce and I moved 20 wheelbarrows of silt out of the pond. Another 200 or so should do it.

We're dry and getting drier. The rain we had before the 4th of July gave us a respite, but it is long gone now. The grass is beginning to turn brown but the weeds are still green so they stand out. Wes mowed the south half Friday and it looks good. At least it looks even. Last week I hoed a bunch of weeds and I'll have to do a lot more this week. Some of them are beginning to go to seed. I tried to hire a kid to pull weeds after the last rain but couldn't find anybody. I guess I could try harder, but I'm not sure I would be satisfied with the work if I did find someone to hoe weeds for minimum wage so I guess I'll just do it myself in my spare time

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July 10, 2005

Abigail's birthday party, garden update

Joyce just came in from the garden with a case of the fantods over a couple of squash bugs she caught in a conjugal embrace. She said she spoiled their romantic moment. It beats a slow death from insecticide, it seems to me.

We got a good rain last Wednesday night, I think it was. It was a pretty wooly storm that came through. It packed a lot of wind, which I blissfully slept through. Some of the tomato cages were blown over and some of the corn, too. I'm responsible for the corn and in keeping with my practice of benign neglect, I didn't do anything about the blown over corn. While the stalks that suffered the most haven't exactly righted themselves, they have reverted to growing perpendicularly so they make a sort of arc. That shouldn't affect the crop. We'll see. Joyce and I did add stakes to the tomato cages to give them extra support. We also lost a few midling large elm limbs but Genna and I got those hauled off yesterday.

The next night another storm developed northwest of us and headed southeast. Storm chasers were reporting funnel clouds and hail. Big hail. This was a really big storm and it seemed headed right for us. I was too tired to care and went to bed, but Joyce stayed up to monitor conditions. We didn't blow away and the next day Joyce said the storm split in two and each piece went on either side of us so that we only got a little rain. The next day I drove to Clovis and the bar ditches were full between Umbarger and Hereford.

Joyce has begun to pick some produce from the garden. There was one nearly ripe tomato that a rabbit apparently sampled. That didn't make her very happy but she salvaged what was left. It had an excellent flavor. She gave Genna a cucumber and she's gotten a couple of Zucchini squash as well.

Genna and I continued our work on the shed and enclosure. We hauled another load of detritus from the shed to the dump. There isn't much of that kind of thing left. A little bit more and I think we can start rearranging things so the space will be a little more useable. We hauled another load of trimmings out of the enclosure and ran some rakings through the mulcher. Genna spread the mulch under some trees along the street on the west for weed control. Week before last I experimented with running the tiller in the pond area to see how it would do to loosen up the layer of silt. It did that rather well, which makes it then easier to simply scoop it up into the wheelbarrow and haul it off. Which is not to say it will be easy. There is a lot of dirt to move. One evening last week I painted the bridge supports with some aluminum paint I got at Gebos. I think I'll try to use 1X2 treated lumber from Home Depot to rebuild the bridge. Dad originally used aspen he cut on a camping trip we took to New Mexico. That design worked well and might still be working today except for the vandalism we experienced a few years ago. However, times have changed some and I don't know that it would be approved of if I tried to do the same thing. It might not have been when he did it if anybody in an official capacity had known about it.

Joyce and I got to go with Abigail and her folks to Chucky Cheese yesterday evening to celebrate her birthday. We had a pretty good time there and then went back home to open presents and eat cake. Abigail made out pretty well. After cake we played some with her new toys. Joyce tried to teach her to work the hoola hoop she got as one of her presents. Joyce could do it pretty well, but Kari and Genna couldn't quite get the knack. I didn't even try.

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4th of July, 2005

4th of July Celebration

A little warm maybe, but our 4th of July Celebration Saturday was enjoyed by those present. We tried to keep the sun off people as much as possible and still catch the breeze. We were not always successful but I think everyone enjoyed themselves anyway. Of course, the kids didn't have any problem with the heat.

Jill had to work late Friday evening, and several nights before that, so they didn't get away until Saturday morning. We had things set up pretty much by the time they arrived. Joyce's clan began showing up mid-afternoon and by 4 o'clock or so just about everybody was there. Grady and Barabara joined us as did Ethel. We started warming up the hotdogs around 5,

maybe. I say warming up because there was no grilling skill involved. After the dogs, several of us played a little touch football. I managed not to get permanently damaged but was in pretty poor shape for the volleyball we played later.

Yesterday was hotter than blazes. We were lucky it wasn't that hot Saturday. We might have had some people fall out if it had been. The heat and sore muscles kept me indoors yesterday mostly. This morning I got an early start on getting things put up because I wanted to avoid the heat. I needn't have bothered, though. It was plenty cool and stayed that way until mid-afternoon.

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June 26, 2005

Chicken house, etc.

A Six Acre icon for over half a century, the chicken house is no more. We finally got around to knocking it down and hauling it off to the dump Saturday. At one time Genna thought it might be nice to have some chickens, but she finally decided that the chicken house could go. It was getting to be an eye sore. I also took the chicken wire off the cage next to it. We don't plan to cage anything and even if we did, the chicken wire would have to be replaced. It was bit of maintenance problem to keep the weeds down in it. Maybe sometime I'll put some juniper limbs across the top, figure out how to get grapevines to grow up over it and make a grape arbor out of it.

We also hauled off a couple of loads of trimmings from the enclosure. We're about to get the foliage under control. I guess we need to repair the bridge and finish cleaning the layer of silt out of the pond. Then maybe it will be ready to be put back in operation.

Chris and I have played golf after work the last two Thursdays. We're playing Preston West, which is a par 3 course and it can be played in a couple of hours. It is also lit so you can play after dark. It makes for kind of a nice break in the week.

Joyce has been spending the night at her mother's for the last couple of weeks, giving Janice a hand after her surgery. Janice is doing fine but isn't supposed to lift things. Sometimes Bernice requires assistance getting up and so forth. Linda is there during the day but someone needs to be available after Linda goes home.

Kari and Chris did the cooking for a Father's Day meal last week. Kari also fixed waffles for breakfast and invited me down. Jill and I talked a little on the phone when she called to wish me happy FD.

We're planning on a 4th of July celebration here next Saturday. Joyce's clan will be here in force. We'll roast a few hot dogs and, though no one has mentioned it, I'm hoping for homemade ice cream. Joyce got a Skeeter Vac to try to thin the mosquitoes out a little. Last Thursday night on the golf course they were really bad. The Skeeter Vac may be helped by the fact we haven't had any rain for a couple of weeks and it has been sunny and hot. She has also sprayed some goop she bought that is supposed to repel mosquitoes. It's made of garlic and other things. I slapped one or two mosquitoes while I was working in the yard this morning but they aren't too bad.

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June 12, 2004

About an inch and a half. That's how much rain we go yesterday evening, at least. We put in a long day and got some good things done, but by the time we were ready for dinner the weather was really jumping. The civil defense sirens went off and they were talking about possible funnel clouds at Soncy and I40. We weren't even getting rain at SA but we decided we would stroll down and watch the weather on TV with Genna. The cellar is the safest place around and I was afraid we would mess around waiting for developments until it was pouring down rain, hail, you name it and then they would say there is F5 headed your way, take cover. So I suggested we go down to 2005 and hang out just in case. Joyce agreed and by our actions we forestalled disaster. Since we took precautions, nothing happened. Had we not done so...

Joyce reported no damage in the garden this morning, although she did see a rabbit within the confines. However, it was so little she at first thought it was a toad hopping away. It slipped under the fence and into the junipers on the south. I pulled a few weeds today, it being ideal weed pulling with the ground so wet. I thought it was pleasant to sit out on the back porch and watch it storm since the wind and tiny bit of hail didn't cause any damage, but Joyce said she'd had enough. Our weather is still pretty unstable. We got a little bit of rain this morning as we ate breakfast and we could get even more before it clears up. Joyce is going to order a mosquito machine.

We collected a load of detritus and hauled it off to the dump yesterday. First we put all that steel shelving business I moved from the garage at 2005 to the shed when Genna took up quarters so she would have room for her detritus, in the trailer. It fit nicely but the trailer was too heavy for the tractor to back so I had to leave it out of the east shed. Maybe I can get Chris to help me shove it in there sometime this week. The objective was to get some wiggle room so we can start reducing the stuff in the west shed. It has been over half a century since the candy business was a going concern so maybe it isn't too early to part with some of its stuff. There have probably been advancements in candy-making equipment over the interim. So, after getting the steel shelving out of the way (it is very heavy and bulky), we loaded up scrap lumber and other obvious things and hauled them to the dump. Then we cruised over to the mulch place and got a load of mulch. There isn't much anymore but we managed to get a pretty good load. I just piled it in the xeriscape because it was after five by the time we got back.

Looks like I'll be batching it starting about Wednesday this week. Janice is going into the hospital for repairs and Joyce will be spending her nights with her mother. She'll be around during the day, though, so maybe I won't suffer (read have to fix my own dinner) too much.

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June 5, 2005

Garden status, etc.

Nice weekend here. Lots of sunshine and reasonably cool. Oh, the west wind kicked up yesterday afternoon and it got a little warm, but when it died down again yesterday evening it got cool again. Why, it was just the nicest weather to walk to Braums for an ice cream cone with our granddaughter and her mom and pop. Saw a fox as we approached home. Cheeky devil was headed for an early dinner.

Last week we totaled up to about an inch of rain, the last falling Friday morning. They tell me there were high winds early Friday morning but I guess I slept through them. We took advantage of the recent rain, the prospect for sunny skies Saturday and mild temperatures to spray the weeds. There were certain kinds getting good starts here and there and we wanted to head them off at the pass. After spraying, we rented an aerator and ran it over the immediate yards, both of them, up and down the lane in front and in the area between the garden and the enclosure. The latter area and the lanes weren't really what we planned to do. We were just taking advantage of the remaining time we had on the rental. Having had no experience with the contraption, we also wanted to experiment with it and see what kind of chore it was to operate the thing and how effective it might be. Turns out it isn't hard to operate once you get it unloaded from the pickup. As you might expect, it is pretty heavy, far too heavy to lift. We managed pretty well, though, and once we got the hang of operating it, it's really the equivalent of taking a brisk walk. The machine does all the work. It does an OK job of putting holes in the ground, if the ground is a little moist. When we returned it, we went on and got another load of mulch. I think their mulching machine is malfunctioning because there isn't much mulch and there are pallets of wood scraps lined up waiting to be mulched. I hope they get it going soon because I still need several loads to get the new xeriscape area the way I want it.

Joyce took out the iris that edged the driveway on the south. They collected trash and really didn't look very good. She also planted seven honeysuckles along the yard fence east from the perimeter fence. Besides liking honeysuckle, she wants to block off some of the view from the street from the direction so we can trim the

juniper up in that area and give her more room to work on plantings underneath it. She got pretty excited when I told her I didn't object to the honeysuckle. She knew I was prejudiced against the stuff but that goes back to Garland where it was difficult to control. Because it is drier here, I don't think that will be a problem and I like the blossoms, the aroma.

Abigail and I watched The Wind in the Willows again Friday night. That movie has really grown on me, and apparently also on Abigail because she always picks the movies. The first time we watched it I didn't think it was too great but I've really grown to appreciate it. It is very soothing and parts of it, Mr Toad in particular, are pretty funny. Abigail spent the night with us.

This morning I finished the edging around the bed in front of the kitchen window. That will save time when mowing and trimming and look nicer. I don't mow in back of the house very often and the front, because the grass area is much reduced, only takes 20 or 30 minutes. Even Genna's goes faster now that she has put some edging around her beds. I'll probably let the rest of the north end grow long now, except for around the barn, garden and play area. Maybe that will give me time to work on some other projects, of which there is a never ending supply.

Chris is in charge of the garden drip system and he spent a lot of time today getting it set up properly. Things are growing well and Joyce stays on top of the watering and the weeds. The drip system will help her a lot. There is already a tomato on one of the vines. Grady Howard gave Joyce a cherry tomato plant but she's trying to figure out where she's going to put it. I don't think she wants to put it in the herb garden after the way the one she planted last year took over.

Sidney the kitty is getting out of the pen. Sidney is still svelte enough to get through a wide place in the wire the other cats can't. Joyce has mistaken her for a fox a couple of times when she sees her roaming around in the middle of the night. Of course, she's mistaken a fox for Sidney a couple of times, too.

Robert/Dad's Wish List

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May 31, 2005

Three day weekends go by so fast. I guess if we had a three day weekend every weekend we would look forward to a four day weekend. Anyway, we got a few things done around the place this weekend past. It was nice not to have to go anywhere. Oh, we went out to Riverland Saturday evening and stayed until dark. We were all tired and there wasn't much conversation on the way home. I for one was having to work at it to stay awake, which I needed to do since I was driving. Our first project that day was to build a gate to the garden. Genna helped me and we cobbled one together from scrap lumber in the barn. We used hinges from the hinged top of the little enclosure I had them build to cover the pool pump and filter when we added the sunroom/utility room in Garland. I later took it down and saved the hinges, which were just what we needed for the gate. Genna even scrounged up the hook and eye we used to fasten it shut, so we built the whole thing from materials on hand, which earned us bonus points.

When we finished that we had about an hour before lunch and Genna and I used that time to load up some of the trimmings we still had on the ground in the enclosure from several weeks ago. After lunch, Joyce and I got a load of mulch for the area in front we're turning into xeriscape. Sunday morning I went to Home Depot and bought edging which I put around the mulch between it and the house. I'll need to get more mulch to

get it the depth I want it, but the area has now been defined. Monday morning I replaced the tree ring pieces I had used to edge Joyce's herb garden with a couple of extra pieces of metal edging I bought when I bought that for the xeriscape. I took the ring pieces and formed a ring around the birdbath in the back, an area Joyce had planted geraniums in. K,C&A made it home early afternoon Sunday and came over to visit later. By then I had cleaned up and was snoozing on the swing. There was no snoozing once Abigail showed up, though. We were, of course, glad to seem all.

Memorial Day I helped Joyce clean windows. Abigail showed up to help and wound up spending the day. I cleaned the outside of the windows while they cleaned the inside. I hope the rain we've been getting the last 24 hours doesn't mess up our work. The three of us went out to the cemetery to check on the ancestors. They were right where we left them but I wished I had my trimmer with me. Some of the markers were a little overgrown. From there we got ice cream cones. We had cool weather all weekend. We're still pretty cool and we're getting a little rain. This afternoon the civil defense sirens went off because the weather computer indicated a funnel cloud in northeast Randal County. So far as I know, nothing materialized.

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May 22, 2005

We're winding up a busy weekend after a busy week. It was catch up time after being gone the previous week and two weekends in a row. There was mowing to be done. And stuff like at. Jill was with us all week and she and Joyce got the garden planted. Genna and I got the chicken wire put up around the garden Saturday. We used a block and tackle to good effect and were satisfied with the results. Just let bunnies try to raid our garden. After squaring away the fence we worked on cleaning up the worst of the twigs from the lane so it could be mowed. There was a hail storm while we were gone and between it and the natural accumulation of the winter, there was a lot of debris. There still was after we finished but it was small enough I felt comfortable running the mower over it. Picking up what we did involved a lot of bending over and I think we both had had about enough by the time we finished. Can't speak for Genna, but I found the tireder I got the larger the twigs I felt didn't need to be picked up. Anyway we got er done and this morning I got it mowed.

Besides getting the garden planted, Joyce and Jill also helped Genna clean out the lily pond. Jill brought her apparatus for draining water out of a pond and the expertise she's developed in pond maintenance and the three of them got it looking pretty good. They even shelled out a dollar for four small fish, just for fun. Jill supervised the replanting of the lilies and maybe they,

and the new one Genna bought, will provide more blossoms. Photos to come.

It turned hot this past week. We finally had to turn on the AC Saturday. We had a few days where an open window was sufficient and felt great at night but all to quickly more was needed and we had to close back up to keep the cool in. Genna complained bitterly about the abrupt transition and I don't blame her. Shoot, we had snow just three weeks ago. Joyce has been watering the tender things the last few days. Last year when it turned hot in May it caught us a little flat footed and we didn't keep some things watered good enough. There is much more ground moisture this year but she is wise to err on the side of caution.

I'll spend most of this week in Orlando so I won't get to work on the garden gate I plan to build. I scrounged around in the barn and found sufficient scrap lumber for it and really it shouldn't take too long to put together. It won't be fancy. I already have the hardware for it but I guess it will just have to wait until next Saturday. I do hope to make use of some of the dead time surrounding the week's activities to recap our trip to Switzerland. I have lots of photos but I want to select the best ones rather than dump the whole lot on you. Since this page is maintained chronologically, the Switzerland recap will be below so you'll have to look for it.

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May 15, 2005

Switzerland

Getting to and from Switzerland is something of a chore, at least for Joyce and me. Our flights there, Amarillo to Dallas and Dallas to Zurich, went off as scheduled but there is something about losing a night's sleep that I've never cared for. We're not that good at sleeping under normal circumstances and much less so after being on a cramped airplane for several hours. But, enough whining. Switzerland was just as nice as ever and once the pain subsides we were left with pleasant memories. Now Abigail, there's a sleeper. She has a tremendous store of energy but when she gets sleepy, well you might as well stash her some place until she comes to. Our second day there at dinner in a nice restaurant overlooking some lake she laid her head down and couldn't be roused even when the food came. She adjusted to the time change much better than I did and, when she wasn't sleeping, it was full steam ahead, unlike me who at times must have resembled a character form The Night of the Living Dead.

We visited a couple of mountain tops, the Niesen and the Stockhorn, by cable car and took in the view. We also got in several nice walks in spite of weather that threatened rain often during the week but never did so when it would have hampered our activities. Hans is pretty good at perusing the weather forecast, more reliable it would seem than what we are used to, and planning the days activities accordingly. H&E were excellent hosts, as we've come to expect. They even had a new bathroom put in upstairs so there wouldn't be such a bottleneck at the one shower in the bathroom off their bedroom.

Other than one morning when I had lain awake all night and could not roust myself, Kari and I went for a run or a walk about 6:30. The first part of the week it was pretty chilly at that time but is was less so as the week progressed. Even so it was a pretty good temperature for exercise and that activity made us look forward to our Swiss breakfast of bread, cheese, jam, honey and so on. Come to think of it, that sounds pretty good right now.

Switzerland is a pretty good place to take a few pictures. I bought a 128 meg storage card for my digital before we went and still had room on it after shooting over 150 pics. Most of the color shots are at 1 megapixel resolution but most of the b&ws are at 3. Since I mostly just publish my pics to this web site, the lower resolution is sufficient. As usual I was doing a lot of experimenting and a digital camera sure facilitates that. Abigail even snapped a few but she needs to work on her composition so they got culled, as did about a third of the ones I took, before publishing them here. Chris and I tried to buy Hans a digital camera for his birthday but, though he wanted one, he was all wrapped up in figuring out which camera was the perfect one for him. I offered what little advice I could give but it didn't seem to help. The upshot of his pickiness is he will probably get to buy his on digital camera.

You will recall we went to help Hans celebrate his 70th birthday. That was Saturday, the last day we were there. It is the custom among the Swiss we know to pick up the dinner tab when it is your birthday. I guess you wind up none the poorer than if you pay for part or all of several other people's birthday dinner as we are apt to do. Anyway, H&E were playing it close to the vest and weren't telling anyone where the celebration was to be held. We were simply told that a bus would pick us up at the bus stop just up the hill from their "flat". We were

all there in our nice clothes at the appointed hour and sure enough here comes this old bus they had chartered for the event. The driver told us it was a 1954 vintage and it was in beautiful shape. I regret we didn't take any pictures with the digital camera but if you will remind me, I will show you the pics we took with the film camera. The bus took us down the mountain to the train station in Spiez where it collected the rest of the invitees who rode the train to Spiez from their homes around the country. We met Hans' brother Heinz, various ex-girlfriends and ex-wives plus new wives of their sons and other assorted characters. We also met Heidi, Hans' sister who lives in Vancouver. When the bus headed out from the station H&E still weren't telling where we were going. It didn't matter to us, though. It was fun to ride the bus through the beautiful countryside, through the little towns and wind our way through the mountains. People we passed really got a kick out of the bus and would smile and wave. It felt like we were in a parade. The bus had a horn which sounded about like you would expect the horn on a 1954 Swiss bus to sound and the driver often had to use it as we approached curves on narrow streets and mountain roads. Sometimes, though, I think he honked it just because it sounded so great.

We finally wound up in the Emental region where the cheese we call Swiss cheese comes from. There we had dinner in the banquet room of a little restaurant overlooking a valley. We were lucky to sit across the table from Rolf, Heidi's husband, also Swiss in origin but Canadian by choice, whose English was easy to follow. Everyone else spoke Swiss German. Since it seemed to me much less effort was made to speak English this trip, Joyce and I had grown accustomed to not understanding what was being said and didn't mind. Still, Rolf is an interesting guy and it was nice to have him as a dinner companion. After dinner the bus took us back to the train station in Spiez where most of our crew dispersed throughout the country. The rest of us rode back to Aeschi tired and happy.

I guess the best part of the trip for me was the time I spent with Abigail. As I previously mentioned, she is in constant motion unless sleeping and it often fell to my lot to play with her while the big people talked. Since I often can't think of anything to add to the conversation, it was just as well we did it that way. Best of all, though, was watching her play with other little kids. There were several times when she had an opportunity to play on playground equipment and mostly there were other children around. Abigail is pretty outgoing and she didn't let any old language barrier get in her way. She practically adopted a whole Dutch family at the base of the Niesen after we got back from the top. There were several children, two girls, one a little older than Abigail and one probably 10 or 11. It can be quite deceiving to watch her play with other children because often she is as big as girls (and sometimes boys) several years older than her. Of course there motor skills are much more advanced but that doesn't stop Abigail from wanting to do the same things they do. She is most likely to gravitate to the oldest girl on the playground and shadow her. It can be heartbreaking, though, to see her try to keep up when the older girl is indifferent or prefers the company of an even older child rather than that of a three year old. Mostly, though, the other kids, boys and girls, were very good about playing with Abigail and watching them, seeing Abigail enjoy herself so much, was a treat.

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May 2, 2005

May Snowstorm

A rattling good thunderstorm came banging through early Monday morning and left in its wake a winter wonderland. The snow continued until nearly noon but quickly began to melt as the afternoon wore on. Our rain toad held an inch of moisture after the snow melted.

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May 1, 2005

Weener Roast

It was chilly yesterday evening in spite of the sunshine. The air was pretty cool and there was a south wind gusting. Earlier in the day it had been still and the warm sunshine and cool air inspired plans for a weenie roast, which we followed through on even when the wind began to kick up. As the evening wore on we moved closer to the fire.

Saturday morning Genna and I serviced the tracter. I hadn't done that before but fortunately we had an instruction book to follow. So we got the oil changed, new air and fuel filter and spark plugs put in and some spots greased that have been neglected for some time, I think. It sounded like a much happier tracter afterward when I ran it, less metalic. That took a big chunk of the day but we still managed a little lane maintenance. I did quite a bit of mowing last week during the evenings, getting all the north end mowed and the weeds knocked down in the lane. Wes mowed a little last weekend and will be back in a couple of weeks to clean up the south end. We're just mowing weeds now. The grass hasn't started to grow much. It is probably worthwhile to knock the weeds down beyond esthetics. Surely there will be less seeding for next year.

The fox is a regular again. It doesn't even wait until dark to visit Joyce's nature area. The other night even Abigail and Kari got to see it. Abigail startled it but all it did was circle around the house, even running down the front porch, and went right back to eating. Joyce planted some geraniums around the birdbath and this morning she caught a big old black dog in the backyard drinking from the birdbath. She startled it when she knocked on

the window and whenit jumped it broke off the only geranium with any blossoms on it. Made her cuss. There has been a white cat hanging around the birdfeeder area. I ran it off last night and was mildly admonished for doing so. I think Joyce likes it so I guess I'll tolerate it.

The hazelnuts are doing pretty well. We planted 12 of them a few weeks ago and all but maybe one have leaves. Well, I guess there is one that something, a rabbit most likely, lopped off. It will probably come back. I've read that getting nipped doesn't bother them much. One of the two pecans I planted in December has promising looking buds. The other isn't as far along but it is a different variety. It still feels like it is alive. The orchard is begining to look like an orchard and it appears we'll have a cherry crop. The little volunteer cheery tree south of 2005 was covered with blossoms and two of the big cherry trees in the orchard have little green cheeries on them. The cheeries on one of those trees are really big already, maybe the size of my thumbnail.

Joyce wanted to get a hiking stick to take to Switzerland so this afternoon we went to a new place here called Gander Mountain and found something suitable. It will be a short week this week since we will leave Friday, first flying to Dallas, then to Zurich. K,C&A will fly to Dallas Thursday and spend the night with Jill. They will join us on the same flight direct from Dallas to Zurich. It will consequently be a couple of weeks before I update this page. Joyce and I will return on Sunday, May 15 but K,C&A will stay a couple more weeks.

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April 24, 2005

Jill's pond pictures

We spent the week in Garland with Jill, I on business and Joyce on pleasure. That pleasure included helping Jill give her pond a makeover. Joyce said they had planned to other things, including painting the desk that languished for years in Kari's garage, the victim of neglect and good intentions, and that they did do but once they got started on the pond, it soaked up all their time and energy and most of the things they planned to do didn't get done. They ignored my advice to get a handyman to help them and with the help of Jill's neighbor got er done. It was no small task to move all the rocks and remove the old liner, which was in shreds by this time, and it wasn't easy to find a replacement pump and get it installed, all of which they managed by themselves.

They persisted, though, and again the pictures show a very nice result.

We got to see Kathy and John's new house. It is a really nice place. Kathy had us over for dinner Friday night. I was already there having played a round of golf with John and stayed the night because we played again Saturday. With his golf sidekick Bob just a couple of houses up the street, John is pretty well fixed up. The course there is fun to play and not crowded. It is priced to keep the rifraf out. Some of us sneak in from time to time disguised as guests of the residents. Anyway, they have a beautiful home and I plan to take every opportunity to impose on their hospitality.

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April 17, 2005

Gardening

Working weekend here on SA. After bagels Genna and I went to Home Depot to rent a posthole drill. Chris offered Friday night during happy hour to help me and, though I suspected it was the vodka talking, I took a chance and got the two-man unit. I also rented a little light tiller that Joyce could operate so she could work the horse compost into the beds. I got a good days work out of my crew and where I had been worried about having the fence posts up before we left for Switzerland, that is no longer a concern.

True to his word Chris was on hand at the appointed hour to help me set the fence posts. My objective is to build a fence that we can grow grapes on. It will serve double duty by supporting the chicken wire we had last year, a defense against rabbits and dogs, but mainly it will just support two strands of wire for the vines to grow on. Though it will take a while to get them all planted, eventually there is room for 18 vines.

Although sleep last night was elusive after such a strenuous day I managed to get out of bed this morning and, after fortifying myself with Joyce's waffles, headed outside to work off the soreness by pulling weeds. We've made a lot of progress on weed control within the confines of 1911(elsewhere on SA they are horrendous) but there are still quite a lot behind the line of junipers on the north. Last year I took the iris I had moved from the east side of the house when we first moved in to the area surrounding the birdbath and strung them out down the wall on the north. They seemed to like that spot and have sprouted up nicely. Some are blooming but the weeds

have all but hidden them so my first objective was to clean the weeds out from around the iris so the blossoms would show up.

Several consecutive days of strong west winds a couple of weeks ago managed to dislodge a couple of sections of the privacy fence. Last Sunday I remounted them and added extra screw nails to keep that from happening again. This past week we had another day of strong west winds and it undid my good work. As a silver lining to the storm cloud of not being able to sleep last night because of aches and pains from the fence-building, I worked out how I'm going to reinforce them when I put those sections back up. The idea is so good I may go through the whole privacy screen and retro fit it.

One evening last week after mowing weeds, Abigail and I stopped off at her play set for a bit of relaxation. We were sitting up there and thinking how pleasant it was and she said she would like to have a TV with a remote up there. No doubt that is all that is missing to make it the perfect quarters for rest and relaxation.

Kari and Chris had us over for dinner this evening. Chris grilled some mahi mahi and Kari contributed beans, salad, and rolls. She also contributed fresh-baked brownies and vanilla ice cream. A good time was had by all. Joyce and I made it home just before it started storming. Genna got hailed on but it is thought the effects of the blows to her head won't be noticeable from her normal behavior.

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April 9, 2005

Caprock Canyon

We left about 8:30 Saturday morning for Quitaque where Clyde and Renee took us on an excursion to Caprock Canyon State Park. Clyde is a ranger there so we got to ride in a park vehicle rather than hike, public vehicles being prohibited. Not that we would have minded hiking. It was a nice day and what little hiking we did was pleasant, but Abigail, trooper though she be, is still only three years old so we felt it best to accommodate her. So, we first drove to a jumping off spot for an area we were going to hike to and had a little picnic. We passed several hikers along the way, youngsters mostly, but not many. They passed us later as we were having our lunch.

After our picnic we headed up the trail, which followed a small canyon through which a little stream runs. Our destination was a pour off, a rocky outcropping where runoff falls 30 feet or more to the bottom of the canyon. The rock has been eroded back behind what would be the falls if there were any water and the cavity, 30 feet tall and 50 feet wide, give or take, offered a cool respite from the sun. Later in the season the ferns which grow on the ceiling will be green. As it were, they were brown.

Abigail did a pretty good job of scrambling over the trail and rocks. It's easy sometimes to forget she's only three. It hasn't been long since she was pretty unsteady on her feet and apt to take a tumble at the least little

thing. Now she handles the trails, even descending, with aplomb and even refuses help when offered, in most cases.

We also visited a train tunnel along the former Fort Worth & Denver railroad right of way. In 1995 I think it was Genna proposed a bicycle outing along that and we rode from Esteline to Quitaque. Turns out that is the less-scenic part which passes mostly through farm land. The section from Quitaque to South Plains traverses the edge of the caprock and offers some pretty interesting scenery. We got to ride along in relative comfort in the park vehicle. It was later in the day and no one was complaining about having to ride. It was also nice to be enclosed while passing through the tunnel. One is unlikely to get through there without getting sprinkled by bat pellets.

After making it up on the caprock we took the farm to market roads back to town. Driving along the flat plains it seemed impossible there was country so rough and broken so close at hand even though we had just driven through it. It isn't visible from any distance up on the flat land. Back at the Dudley's, Renee made sandwiches for dinner. Afterward the adults sat on the porch and visited while us kids played. It was a really nice evening and we didn't get home until after bedtime. Before too long I hope to go back and do more hiking.

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April 5, 2005

We had a beautiful weekend and took advantage of it to get a lot of outdoor work done. I sprayed weeds, mainly, although we did plant the plum tree Joyce bought. It now resides in the meadow in a spot where sometime in the distant past another tree was planted. I don't remember what it was.

We were expecting a load of horse manure or mulch and it finally showed up about mid-afternoon. We didn't try to do anything with it other than place the bags next to the rows in the garden. Abigail and Chris were on hand to help and we made short work of the 25 bags. I had them just drop it off next to the driveway so they wouldn't drive on the grass. The ground is still pretty soft and they might have caused ruts. Abigail had a high old time riding in the wheelbarrows.

After the mulch was delivered Joyce and I went out to the Rock Ranch and bought fence posts for the garden. We got 19 cedar posts and the plan is to put strands of wire at about 36 inches and 54 inches and train grapevines to grow on them. We'll attach the chicken wire we used last year to keep the bunnies out. Now I need to set 19 posts, plus two gate posts and build the gate. I plan to rent an auger and weather permitting I'll get the posts set by the end of the month. Joyce will want to plant as soon as we get back from

Switzerland(May 15th) and the fence will need to be up shortly thereafter.

As I said, I did a lot of spraying Saturday and Sunday. With the moisture we've had the last six or eight months the weeds are really bad and they are everywhere. So far I have gone through 16 quarts of Weed Be Gone and I probably need to spray another eight, and that's just on the south half of SA. Genna is inclined to grin and bear the weeds. One has to pick the right time to spray. The cost is significant and so is the time so it's important to maximize the effect. That means it should be warm but not hot, the sun should be shining and recent moisture helps, all of which were present last weekend so I had to strike while the iron was hot. Time will tell whether it will be worth the expense and effort and it remains to be seen when I'll get an opportunity to spray again when conditions are so favorable. I think it is better to spray while the grass is still dormant, if possible, but it won't be so for much longer.

We had a weeny roast Saturday evening. Joyce got to try out the outdoor fire container she got for Christmas. It worked very well. We used juniper wood and a piece or two of pinon just to add fragrance. It was such a nice evening, ideal for that sort of activity.

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March 27, 2005

Easter

We have snow on the ground this morning, but a bright sun is reducing it rapidly. Good thing, too, because the chillun need to hunt eggs and the less snow the better for that. Joyce worked on various components of today's Easter meal yesterday and she and Jill are at it again this morning. The womenfolk put a lot into Easter dinner, bless em, while I try to keep a low profile to avoid as much work as possible.

I took Genna to the airport this morning. She wanted to leave about 7:45 to catch a 9 o'clock flight. I was backing the car out of the garage when she drove up. I was on schedule but she had gotten antsy.

We've had Jill visiting with us this weekend. She arrived Friday afternoon. Yesterday she went with me to Gebo's where I wanted to look at what they offered in the way of fence wire. It was snowing at the time and we weren't getting out much. They had some bunnies for sale at Gebo's and Jill was taken with one in particular. It was certainly sweet but she was not encouraged to get it for Abigail when she called Kari. While it seemed things would turn out otherwise, we did manage to leave Gebo's without any rabbits. Personally, I prefer the wild kind we have on SA. No, they won't let you hold and pet them, but they do take care of themselves and since they all look alike one is spared the heartache when one turns up missing since

one is not really sure the rabbit in question hasn't simply taken up new quarters.

So, the plan for the day is for the kiddies and their handlers to congregate here today to hunt Easter eggs. It started off around freezing this morning but there isn't much wind and no clouds so it could be a nice, if soggy, day.

The Easter egg hunt is over and to my surprise the kids got them all collected. We must have scattered a hundred over the meadow and pasture. For a while there I thought they would tire of finding them before they got half of them picked up. Riley seemed more interested in swinging than hunting Easter eggs from the gitgo although she wound up doing her part. It seemed to me it would be more entertaining if you starved the kids for a few days prior and then hid only one egg. That might spark some competition. Anyway, they stayed after it until they got them all collected. As you can see from the pictures, there was quite a contrast in weather. The first shots showing the snow were taken about 7 am this morning while the rest were taken this afternoon. We got to enjoy a snuggy day next to the fire yesterday and have a balmy afternoon for an Easter egg hunt. Life is good.

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March 20, 2005

March Snowstorm

As you can see from Genna's pics, SA got quite a snow last week. Alas, Joyce and I weren't here to enjoy it. Joyce did have the pleasure of driving through the storm to Albuquerque. She reports that the countryside was beautiful with its fresh mantle of virgin snow, but the trucks made the drive harrowing. We had planned to drive to Albuquerque together, where I was to spend a couple of days at a customer site, but our plans changed late the preceding Friday afternoon when I was asked to stand in for a colleague at a trade show in Chicago. I got up at 3:45 to catch a 5:45 flight Sunday morning and worked till 8 pm Sunday evening. We worked the show Monday until I had to catch a flight to Albuquerque. I arrived around 8:30 pm and Joyce was there to pick me up. I was feeling sorry for myself after working so much the past two days with so little rest, but Joyce was feeling even sorrier for herself after her difficulties with traffic. The streets in Albuquerque were pretty bad and consequently so was the traffic so just the drive to pick me up at the airport gave her the fantods, not to much her trip from Amarillo earlier in the day. I sucked it up and let her have precedence in the oh, poor me category. The rest of our week went much better and we were satisfied. Joyce didn't win any money at the casinos, but it wasn't from lack of trying.

Yesterday we planted some trees Joyce had ordered

and which came in while we were gone. She bought four cherry trees of different varieties to replace several in the orchard that had succumb to their benevolent surroundings. The planting was much easier than the first time because the ground is moist. You may recall my complaining when we originally planted the fruit trees because we had to use Genna's digging crowbar to loossen the ground. The new trees are several feet tall, bigger than the seedlings we tried to get by with the first time around. They might reward us for our efforts in a few years while the others might have taken much longer. Joyce also got an apricot tree at the urging of Janice and we planted that in the southwest corner of the meadow.

Friday night everyone but Chris, who wasn't home in time, went to see the Lipizzaner Stallions. I had never seen them before and now I have. Yesterday evening Kari had everyone over for dinner and Genna's birthday cake. She and Abigail had put up some balloons and had party hats and whistles.

Week before last I drove to Kansas City. Passing through Oklahoma I saw a man working a team of horses pulling some sort of implement. It could have been a scene from a hundred years ago.

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March 6, 2007

The heather is in bloom on the moor, such moor as there is here on SA. And the heather may really be henbit, but it is purple and pretty if one can overlook the fact that it is a nasty weed. Also, the daffodils are blooming nicely in the meadow.

Yesterday we worked in the enclosure all morning. We invested in a chipper/shredder and we put it to work as we cleaned up and created more trimmings. It worked as advertised and we harvested several wheelbarrow loads of nice mulch, which Genna spread under the junipers on the west to cover up the weeds. She saw a pair of mallards eating moss in the lily pool this morning and we are wishing the pond was functioning again so such as that might want to nest there. There is so much work to be done, though, it doesn't pay to get too antsy.

Chris and Abigail worked on the watering system for the garden. The first step was to attach the fawcett/hose holder to the weather vane post and run a garden hose to the water valve by the barn. Another day they will work on the drip system, bringing it from the new fawcett location instead the arrangement we had last year. Joyce has ordered horse manure from WTAMU to add to the beds. We should be in pretty good shape by planting time in May. However, the fence I plan to build will need to be finished by the time things start to sprout so I'm under a little pressure to get going on that before time slips away.

Abigail spent the night with us Friday night and got to see the foxes and the possum. We're concerned for them because apparently someone has bought the Mok(sp?) place. Apparently it is someone with some money because there is a lot of work going on around the place.

A crew is building a fence and some trees have been removed. A new garage door has been installed. The wildlife probably made use of the large backyard where they would be undisturbed. If so, it looks as though they will have to seek other quarters because it looks like whoever bought the place is going to clean it up front to back. No doubt at one time the wild folk enjoyed SA, when no one lived here and the gates were always shut. There would have been nothing or no one to disturb them, except for each other. Now with dogs and people constantly moving about the place there really isn't a good place to hide. Genna and I talked making a hiding place or two. Hard to tell, though, what might suit a fox or old possum. Now that we've started cleaning out the enclosure, which is pretty overgrown, they won't even have that, though I have noticed no evidence that anything other than a rabbit and that old black cat we see around ever inhabit it, the rabbit regularly but the cat only in passing.

I made a jaunt to Atlanta this past week. I wasn't looking forward to the trip since I felt a lot of things could go wrong. As it turned out, everything went well. For some reason the La Quinta where I stayed put me in a suite so I had very comfortable accommodations for the one night I was there. My flights all went off more or less on schedule so all in all I count the trip a success. I'm scheduled to go to Kansas City this week but I'll be driving. It will be nice to drive after a steady diet of flying. It is more relaxing and I'll have the chance to pass through some country I've never been through, namely Southwest Kansas. I don't anticipate that it will be that much different from this part of the world but we'll see.

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February 27, 2005

We managed to have fair weather on Saturday again. Maybe it wasn't the nicest day of the week but it was nice enough and we took full advantage. You may recall last weekend we spent a lot of time on the garden getting it ready to put down edging to raise the beds more and make maintenance easier. Last Sunday afternoon Joyce, Genna and I went to Home Depot and bought the metal edging so yesterday we were ready to get started putting it down as soon as Genna and choked down our bagels. Genna preferred to load the trimmings we had accumulated in the enclosure in the pickup while I worked on the garden. I had told her I would simply plunk down the edging around the existing rows and rounds and move on. Of course it was no where near that simple and I wound up investing a lot of energy in the project.

Chris showed up before I get very far, full of enthusiasm for helping with the project. I had already figured out I would need to go along the row and scoop the dirt to the middle so the row would be narrow enough and the edges more or less level for the edging. I had also realized I didn't have enough edging for the length of the row. The edging comes in 10 foot lengths. The rows are about 32.5 feet in length so I got six lengths of edging for each row plus an extra 2-foot length, or 32 feet per side. Close enough, I thought, but forgot that the pieces when butted together overlap by six or eight inches so I was coming up several feet short. I could shorten each row by that much, get more two-foot pieces, get more 10-foot pieces and cut them in half, or get more 10-foot pieces and lengthen the row. Joyce didn't want

to lose any length and I didn't want to cut the 10-foot pieces so I decided to lengthen the rows. It was a good thing that Chris decided to help. He put down the edging after I did the ground work and we finished the job by mid-afternoon. Genna and I hauled off the load she built and called it a day.

Friday I flew to New Orleans to meet with a potential customer. Everything went off without a hitch and I was home by eight o'clock. As we began our descent into the NO airport we were well above the cloud cover, which looked like a vast snowfield, unbroken as far as the eye could see. Unbroken that is except for the seemingly disembodied top of a tower that poked up through the cloud cover. I don't know how high we were, how high the cloud cover was, how thick the cloud cover was and could in no way gauge how much above the clouds the tower towered but it seemed like a lot, which made it all the more strange since there was nothing else that showed above the clouds. It must have been a pretty tall tower and it seemed more than a little ominous, a merciless spear to rip open the belly of a passing airplane. When I saw it, of course, it was plainly visible in the bright sunshine and set against the whiteness of the clouds. Before long we descended into the clouds where the visibility was zero and it was more than a little disconcerting to think about tall, unseen objects which might clip off a wing. One knows that the airlines know where these things are, can see them with radar, pass them several times a day and so on. Still, a person's imagination begins to work and...

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February 20, 2005

Garden Improvements

We've got another beautiful Sunday morning going here on SA, maybe even better than last Sunday, which was pretty nice. Yesterday morning was very inauspicious, being chilly and windy. The day before was even worse, with drizzle on top of everything else. Yesterday's forecast was for it to remain windy but to warm up. Genna suggested we wait until after lunch to try to get any work done so I took advantage of the morning indoors to finish my taxes. The afternoon did warm up, even to the point where the breeze wasn't unpleasant (except for the eau de cow lot).

We used the afternoon to clean up the garden and get Joyce's weather vane up. She agreed to letting me mount it on top of the pole once used to support a basketball goal. Dad put that up for me next to the driveway at 1911 when we lived there in 72. It was on a Sunday and I would have helped but I came down with the flu so Dad went ahead and put it up for me. He would have been around 61 then and managed the whole thing by himself, including digging the hole, attaching the goal and muscling the whole thing into the hole. I had lots of help yesterday and it was still a lot of work. As you can see in the photos, K,C&A joined us. We have Kari to thank for the pics. I was too busy.

The roadrunner you see in the fist picture came prowling around last Sunday as I was about to wash the car. They usually give a person a pretty wide birth, but this one wasn't too concerned with my presence. It got up on the car and inspected the windshield for edible remains of insects while I went in the house to get my camera.

I saw what it was going to do and wanted to get a shot of it on the car but it had moved on by the time I got back with my camera.

I travelled to Sulphur, LA last week and spent the night there. I flew first to Houston. It had been some time since I had been there and it was mildly interesting to drive from there to Sulphur. The drive is only a couple of hours and the country is much more verdant than I've grown accustomed to over the past couple of years. It is interesting to see but I still prefer the High Plains. Cooler, dryer and less populated suit me better.

At Houston Hobby Airport I saw a group of young men who apparently had a lot more money than sense. Their mode of transportation was a Ford 650. A 150 is Ford's standard size pickup. A 250 is a serious working vehicle and a 350 is industrial strength. A 650 most closely resembles a semi tractor. Theirs had a king cab, if you will. That is, it had four doors and a back seat. The bed was something like a camper only a singles piece and much nicer. It looked like it might have been made of fiberglass and was built to look like part of the vehicle rather than something stuck on the back. This thing in size was to a Hummer what a Hummer would be to a Ford Explorer. It was parked next to the curb in the passenger pickup area and stayed there some time. It looked to me like they were getting special treatment because no other cars were allowed to park there that weren't actively taking on passengers. The group must have been some sort of royalty (sports, entertainment or illicit pharmaceutical) and it's entourage.

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February 13, 2005

Beaver's Bend, OK

There was a beautiful sunrise this morning. The clouds were gray above and tinged like cantaloupe below. I was moved, but not enough to go get my camera and take a picture.

Abigail has entertained us since yesterday afternoon. K & C needed a little time to celebrate Valentines Day so they dropped her off her after the circus. We played the rest of the afternoon except when she watched a video and I worked on taxes. Joyce whipped up some nice Thai food by dialing the appropriate number and going to get the order, so we had a pleasant dinner. This morning I read the description by Cabeza de Vaca of the fair he shared with the Indians when he lived among them along the Texas coast. Apparently they ate anything they could get their hands on and were constantly on the verge of starvation, except during pricklypear fruit season. Just the thought of that bountiful time kept the poor things going during the famine of the rest of the year. I feel fortunate to not have to look forward to pricklypear season.

We watched Stuart Little after dinner. Abigail is beginning to narrate that movie ahead of the scenes. She needn't bother, though. I've nearly learned it by heart myself.

Our visit to Beaver's Bend, OK was a pleasant one aside from the nine hour drive to get there. Saturday was our only full day there and, luckily, it was a very nice day. We spent most of it taking short walks here and there. We were also extremely fortunate to draw the new cabin. As you can see from the pictures it was pretty doggone nice, a big improvement over the old cabins we were used to.

In fact, it was the kind of place one would want for oneself if one were to build a cabin somewhere.

Sunday was chilly and rainy. Since I had a meeting in Tyler on Wednesday I went home with Jill. We left about 11 o'clock but Joyce, Kari and Abigail had to get on the road earlier to get home at at decent time. Next year we may have to do something differently to break up that drive. Maybe we'll take an extra day and go to Garland first.

Yesterday was windy, chilly and wet but Genna and I still managed to get a little work done in the morning. We transplanted a juniper from under one of the bigger junipers on the south to the southeast corner. The little tree was between three and four feet tall and had escaped detection because it blended so well with its parent. Since the little (12 inches) tee I transplanted bareroot from the enclosure several weeks ago looks like it is doing OK we decided we would just bareroot this tree. That way we didn't have to go to so much trouble to dig up and replant a ball. Genna read that junipers can be started from cuttings so we decided to experiment with bareroot transplanting this tree in spite of its size. I just loosened the soil around it with the spading fork and yanked it up, which made the whole process of getting it up much easier. It also made it much easier to replant since it didn't take much of a hole. We have it staked up against the wind and its new quarters will work nicely if it prospers. We'll see.

It is a beautiful morning so I feel the tug of the outdoors. Genna is out in the garden clearing some of last years growth and Joyce has gone to stay with her mother while Janice goes to church.

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February 2, 2005

Joyce finally got to see the fox she's been feeding for the last several weeks. As it turns out, there are at least two. We know because we saw two outside the back porch at the same time. Sunday evening she looked out about 4:30 and didn't see anything. She turned on the spotlight to see if the food in the dish was gone and saw a fox looking in at her. She quickly turned the light off but it was gone. The next evening she woke me up at 3:30 to come see the two and last night there was one out there at 9:30. Before long they will be sitting outside the backdoor waiting for her to bring their food out.

They are very small critters and hard to see in the dark, being more like shadows or puffs of smoke than four-legged beasties. They make no noise. At least, they haven't yet. Joyce thinks the one she saw last night wasn't one of the two the night before. I don't know because I can't tell them apart. Anyway it is interesting to see them. At least it was the first time at 3:30 in the morning. I'm not sure I need to be awoken from a dead sleep to see them again.

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January 30, 2005

Some Old Slides

We're suffering through another cold, wet Sunday morning. Can't go outside and play. Stuck inside with our books, our music, TV, the Internet, a nice fire, and food. Life is hard. We can't complain much, though, because yesterday was really nice. The air was cold but there was no wind. By noon the clouds burned off and the sun made it positively balmy. I was prepared to help Joyce vacuum the barn but once she got going there wasn't anything for me to do so she dismissed me. I rousted Genna and we worked on a couple of elms between 1911 and the enclosure. We managed to get one truckload of trimmings hauled off before lunch. After lunch I didn't want to trim trees anymore. A little of that goes a long way but I had some energy left so I went to Backyard Adventures to see if I could get a load of mulch. We are putting down landscape fabric in the front yard and covering it with mulch to create a xeriscaped front yard rather than a lawn. We live in a sea of grass and don't need anymore. We like the way the xeriscape area west of the house has worked out so we're going to apply that strategy to the front. We may retain a little bit of grass but it won't be a lot. We've seen rock used in xeriscapes as the ground covering and think we might like to do that at some point, but for now we'll use mulch since it is far cheaper and easier to handle. Also, we don't exactly know how we want it to turn out and the mulch will give us more flexibility than rock would. I think we can put the rock on top of the mulch once we get the layout like we want it.

So, yesterday afternoon while Joyce finished her work on the barn I drove to Backyard Adventures for mulch. At one point last fall they didn't have any. Apparently they stopped producing their play sets probably in anticipation of slow winter sales so there wasn't any scrap to grind up. Because of that I didn't know what I would find when I got there. As it turned out they must be gearing up production again because they had lots of

mulch. When I drove in there was a man sitting in a big John Deere frontend loader and I wondered as I backed up to the pile if things had changed and he was going to run me off. He was talking on a cell phone when I got out and started forking mulch into the back of the truck. I hadn't gotten far before he walked over and asked me if I would like him to load the mulch for me with the frontend loader. He said he was waiting for a truck. I didn't have to think about that long before acquiescing and he pulled his machine around to my pickup. The bucket, which was wider than my pickup bed, was already full and he just dumped the load in the bed. That was actually more than the pickup could hold so in one fell swoop he got me loaded up. I strapped down my plastic covering and was on my way. Imagine my disappointment when I went back for a second load and he was gone.

Friday evening Kari and Abigail joined us at Genna's for happy hour. Kari had sworn off HH because she thinks Abigail keeps some folks from enjoying it. While sometimes Abigail's three-year-old's agenda conflicts with that of the old and infirm who simply want to imbibe their medicine in peace, it isn't the same without them. This time Abigail got occupied with some beads and could hardly be persuaded to interupt her work to eat some pizza. After we ate and she had finished her project she was ready to go to her house and watch a movie. She was trying to move me along (I wasn't the hold up) and said, "Come on old Grampa." And so it starts. Anyway we spent a nice evening watching movies.

Next weekend we'll be in Oklahoma for our annual visit to Beavers Bend. I'll take Friday off because it will probably take us six or seven hours to drive there. Jill will meet us there but we don't yet what K, C & A will do.

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January 23, 2005

Joyce and I put down a wooden floor in the barn stall the dogs use to try to keep the dust down. The dogs kick up a surprising amount of dust just being dogs and Joyce thought it might help if the floor in their stall was something other than a dirt floor. So we used the concrete foundation and 4X4s to support the 1/2 inch plywood we bought. The most difficult part was getting the 4X4s level with the foundation. We had to dig out trenches to get the 4X4s low enough. Below the layer of dust the dirt was packed pretty solid as one might expect from a horse stall. Chris and Abigail pitched in some but even still it took us from 9:30 to 4:00 and we were pretty tired when it was finished. It looks OK but time will tell whether it stands up. We still need to do something about the

corridor back of the stalls but we may be less ambitious. Maybe we'll just put down some old carpet. Just something to keep the dust down when the dogs go in and out of the barn. Joyce plans to vacuum once we have the corridor taken care of. Unfortunately she is suffering today from all the dust she breathed yesterday.

Joyce will spend her day at her mom's today, staying with Bernice while Janice goes to church and to Blake's birthday party. I have little ambition for the day and since there is a cold wind blowing, I may just hang around the house. There are a couple of football games on this afternoon I think I'll watch and there are plenty of leftovers from dinner last night so I won't suffer.

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January 16, 2005

Saturday I boarded a plane bound for Bradly Field in Connecticut by way of Dallas. It was gloomy and cold when I arrived, just what I've grown accustomed to in New England over the years. Since almost my total experience with that part of the world is in January and February, when gloomy and cold describe the typical weather, it's understandable that that is what I would expect and why I was not disappointed. After quickly downing a bowl of clam chowder at the closest Friendly's I made my way to the ICS office where I found Betsy working away. This time of year our customers are trying to print their W2s and 1099s and many of them need help. I told Betsy last week I would help her when I got there. She said she would likely be working in the office on Saturday. She told me to call her but the office is on the way to the hotel and it was too early for check in anyway so I just went there instead. Turns out I was able to help a little bit and after we wrapped things up I took Betsy and Bryant out to dinner. Bryant was out buying ceiling tiles when I first arrived at the office but showed up before long.

In past years I have been ambitious and tried to "do something" on the free Sunday I have in New England. This time, however, I was supposed to pick up colleagues at the airport, one around noon and the other around 1:30, so I decided to sleep late and loaf all morning until time to make my pickups. Sunday evening we had dinner at the Andrews' house. It started snowing lightly while we were there and the roads were a little slick in places on the drive back to the hotel. I was surprised at how much difficulty people were having, though. It really wasn't that bad and you would think people in that area would be used to it.

Our meetings during the week went well and my stay was pleasant enough in spite of the cold. There were a couple of mornings where the temperature was in the middle single digits. The car sitting out all night didn't help. Anyway, the sun was shining and it was 70 degrees when I landed in Amarillo and I finally had a chance to thaw out.

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January 9, 2005

Other Photos

We enjoyed some cool weather this week, lows in the high teens. There was even rain before it got too cold to rain. Genna says more than an inch here on SA. It didn't soak in very fast, either, the ground being pretty moist. Water puddled in the low places and even walking across the grass there was a squishyness to it. Once it froze good the grass made a satisfying crunch when walked on. The moisture should be especially helpful to the new trees we've planted on the place.

Genna and I spent some time trimming trees yesterday. The wind chill was pretty low when we went to the bagel shop because of the wind. It also stank because the wind was out of the southwest. It was not the sort of morning that makes a person want to jump out and get started on outdoor activities. In due time, though, we managed to stir ourselves and as the day wore on it improved, as forecast, into a pretty nice day. We cleaned up the big pecan at 1911 and a couple of the elms in back, then tackled one of the elms on the west border between 1911 and the enclosure. We had worked on it last year and, in fact, when I had the elm next to the driveway at 1911 taken out I started to take that one out too because it had so much dead in it. I decided to work with, however, and continue to work with. I have hopes it will eventually be a decent tree and am encouraged with how it is doing so far. There were still several hefty dead limbs, one in particular that stretched out over the fence and was probably about 30 feet high at its highest point.

For some time I've been wondering how we would get it down without damaging the fence or ourselves. By use of the extension ladder I was able to get up high enough and tie off a piece with a rope to other parts of the tree so when I cut it it wouldn't fall on the fence. By this means we piece-mealed it down without too much trouble.

Chris was in San Francisco this past week and we had dinner with Kari and Abigail several evenings. Abigail and I got to play some before dinner. Mostly we looked for monsters in the closet. One only catches glimpses of them because it is dark and they are very good at eluding the flashlight beam. Our tactic is to hold still and be quiet, then flip on the flashlight and shriek at what monsters are caught out in the open. They disappear so fast that is about the best we can do.

Though it is the dead of winter, Joyce has begun to thumb through the tree and seed catalogs. We're considering whether to get some hazelnuts and plant them around the perimeter back of 1911. They supposedly make good under story bushes and produce edible nuts, at least for the squirrels. We have a lot of maintenance to do in the garden but Joyce doesn't plant anything until May so we've got time. This year ought to be much better for planting things because the ground is moist. Last year it was so dry it was a trial for anything that develops deep root systems, such as trees, to prosper.

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January 2, 2005

Yesterday we spent a few hours out on Riverland trying to locate the boundary markers. We managed to finally find the southwest corner marker but the northwest corner boundary still eludes us. However, since we know three of the four parameters and we stepped off the west side, we know probably within 50 yards of where the last corner is. Turns out there is a pretty good view from there. The land starts falling away toward the river valley on either side of an area level with the surrounding plain. From that vantage point there is a sweep down to the edge of the caprock and out into the river valley. Very nice.

K,C & A took their dogs and they got to chase a few rabbits. At least Max did. After the first one I think Harley new better. Those old jackrabbits can scoot. The wind was blowing and I think we were all afraid when we first got there that it was going to be uncomfortable. New Year's Eve had been so nice. Soon, though, the clouds cleared off and it wasn't long before the breeze felt pretty good. Abigail sat on a prickly pear and regretted it. Mom and Grandma had to pick stickers out of her poor little bum.

Back home Joyce cooked our traditional New Year's Day dinner. She had put blackeyed peas in the crockpot before we headed off to the river. They were smelling pretty good when we got home. I backed the cars out of the garage and rolled the grill out on the driveway so I could grill the chicken. I was sitting in a chair in the garage waiting for the chicken to get done when K,C & A showed up. Kari thought I was doing a Hank Hill impression, except I wasn't wearing a gimme cap.

New Year's Eve we congregated at K,C & A's for fondue, first cheese then chocolate. Abigail and I played some in her room but I was tired and thankfully got to creep back home before the evening got late. I got to welcome the new year from my cozy bed. I had the day off so Joyce and I planted the pecans I ordered in early November. They arrived Thursday evening, which was very good timing. One is a Stuart and one is a Pawnee variety. They came bare-root and their stems are about as big around as my index finger and maybe three feet tall. We planted them on the west side between our yard and the enclosure where two elms had once been. We had the stumps ground down last summer. Here's hoping they do well. They weren't cheap. We also transplanted two golden rain trees we got from the Arbor Day Society. We got about 10 little bare-root trees for joining and Genna and I put them in a make-shift nursery under the junipers back of the house. Only three survived, the two rain trees and another. I'm not sure what is. That one will stay put since it can probably grow where it is. I don't want to move these seedlings if I don't have to. In the case of the rain trees I had to so I put one on the west end of the backyard and one on the east. I hope they do well also. They were really prospering this past summer.

Today has been cloudy and cool. We spent a good deal of the morning reading by the fire. We did manage to get the Christmas decoration put up and I put up a new florescent light fixture above the worktable in the garage. Now it's time to stir up the fire and settle down to watch the Cowboy game.

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