by 
Spring break ensemble
March 16 Spring break is winding down. The Wylie women are preparing to depart for home with their customary calm and aplomb. Highlight of the week was trip to Palo Duro Canyon on Tuesday. The weather was good and we hiked to the Lighthouse. It has been a long time since I’ve hiked there and I don’t remember it being as long as it seemed this time. We stopped by the Bagel Place to load up on fodder on the way and got to the Lighthouse trail about 11:00. Not realizing how long the hike would take or that some members of the party had not eaten breakfast, I suggested we make the Lighthouse trek before lunch. When we got back around 3:00, people were ready for something to eat and drink. As we made the trip to PDC, I wondered where we would hike after the Lighthouse. No one was interested in hiking after lunch so we headed home.
After recuperating on Wednesday, we visited the Panhandle Plains History Museum on Thursday. The weather had turned cooler and that was a good indoor activity. PPHM has changed a lot since I was there last. Certainly it has changed a lot since my first visit, which must have been around 65 years ago. I think the young people enjoyed it; Jill and I also.
We wanted to go to McBride Canyon but couldn’t. The Cas Johnson road is closed we were told when we called the Lake Meredith National Recreation Area HQ. Fences along it were burned up in the wildfires, it seems. Clay Schnell told me about 60% of Palo Duro Ranch burned. He said they were lucky, though. They didn’t lose any buildings and only three cows. Most of the cattle and the bulls were able to get onto the part of the ranch that didn’t burn. Riverland wasn’t burned.
It’s quiet around here now that the Wylies are gone. While it’s nice to have the place back to myself, I miss them. It’s sort of a bitter sweet thing.
March 24 Our past week was pretty nice for this time of year. Abigail and I got in four days of work, which hasn’t happened in a while. We worked on leaves and weeds Monday, trimmed trees Tuesday, worked on the Wildcat Bluff butterfly garden on Wednesday and hauled off trimmings to the brush site Friday afternoon. We weren’t able to load all the trimmings and will have to make another brush site run, probably Friday.
Things are beginning to green up. We got a couple bits of moisture this week but not enough to impede our work and not as much as the place needs. The weed puller has gotten a workout but I’m going to have to start spraying as well. Sometimes the weeds are too thick and small for the puller to be effective and the other weeder, while effective in loose dirt, isn’t in grass.
I’m beginning to have a weed crop in my yard but haven’t gotten a decent Saturday to work on them. In the meantime the weeds just keep growing.
March 31 Kari and I enjoyed the Herb Alpert/Lani Hall concert Thursday evening at the Globe News Center, where we usually attend symphony concerts. In addition to the music, they showed numerous pictures, most of which were from back in the day. Herb is 89 and Lani is 10 years younger and Herb’s hit, The Lonely Bull, goes back to 1962, or thereabouts. The piano player, base guitar player and drummer were considerably younger and each performed a piece individually. Herb said they were improvising so he had never heard what they played before. They were very good.
They brought in a packed house many of whom heard his hits of the 60’s. Lani is a singer and she and Herb met playing a concert somewhere or other. We enjoyed the concert and didn’t fall asleep or nothing.