by 
Five to six inches across
September 13 Still hot; still dry. I’ve read next year has a good chance of being cooler and wetter than normal. As we all know, this year has been hotter and drier than normal but there is a good chance as we go into the second year of the El Niño cycle good old USA and Europe will experience cooler and wetter conditions. We’ll see.
The hummingbirds have apparently gone off to wherever it is they spend the winter. I haven’t seen one in a week and this the time of year they make their migration, or so I’ve read. Come to think of it, the juvenile Mississippi kite may have lit out too. It was always whistling at me when I walked by, but I haven’t heard it the last couple of days. I wonder if goes along with its parents as they make that flight? Instinct might guide it, but it might need help finding food, I think.
Kari and I made the quarterly trip to Alibates Friday. That part of Potter County is just as hot and dry as we are in the south end of the county. A cool front passed through on Thursday and Friday morning was still cool enough to enjoy a hike along gas well roads. We ducked under a gate and continued up the road on the ranch land as opposed to recreation land, scofflaws that we are but don’t tell anybody.
September 20 Kari and I enjoyed on a pleasant Friday evening. The soloist was a female from, well,I’m not sure. Good old USA, I believe. The symphony was Tchaikovsky’s 4th. Well done, to my tin ear.
There was some rowdyness in the neighborhood Friday which I slept through. The Howard’s house is rented to a couple teenagers. Kari theorizes that is so they can play baseball for Tascosa, their parent having moved to another part of town. Boys will be boys, and there was a party there which turned into a kind of flash mob thingy. The police were summoned and Bellaire was blocked off on both ends while the cops went about rounding up the party goers. There were three people that didn’t go to the party but were there trying to collect a sister and they sought refuge behind my fence. All of this I’m getting from Rebecca who was up late and investigated the situation. I was oblivious. There had been a similar affair in the last year which included a shooting. I don’t know if that caused the APD to show up in force but the cops apparently took the situation seriously.
The hummingbirds are still around. I thought they had cleared out. And maybe they did and it is migrators visiting my feeder but either way I’m enjoying watching them jostle for position around the feeder.
/September 30 Finally! Rain. I’m in Sachse where they haven’t had rain for some 65 days. That’s what K&J claimed their weather guru told them and I’m assuming it’s the same for just about the whole area. But today, October 1, the storm system making its way down the state brought much needed moisture, having already done so in the Panhandle. About a week ago, the skies over SA opened up and produced several inches of rain. After I left for Sachse, a similar amount fell again. At least on SA, the drought has been broken.
Week before last I attended the 60th Tascosa class of 1966 reunion. Most everyone looked elderly, including me. Some more than others. It was hard to recognize people but the name tags helped. Ours was a pretty big class and there were people I never knew and consequently didn’t recognize. Also, there were a lot of people no longer living. There was a a display of the year book pictures of that group and it looked like nearly half the class. Don’t think I’ll be going to the 70th if there even is one.
