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May 10 It’s a gloomy day with a little drizzle to cheer us up. And a bit on the chilly side; just right for a restful Sunday. Jill stopped over and spent the night on her way to collect Kaylee. Kaylee successfully completed her freshman year of college, as did Rebecca, who told me of her busy social calendar to start off the summer. Seems she’ll be drinking a lot of coffee with friends.
Kari, Rebecca and I attended the memorial service for Rebecca’s friend Seren who died in a plane crash along with the rest of her pickleball team. I only met Seren on a few occasions but Rebecca spoke of her frequently and I felt like I knew her. It was a nice service and well attended but sad, very sad.
I asked Jill to tell me how Vivian is getting on with her cheerleading. She was on the freshman team this year and made the JV team for next year. I hadn’t thought about the cheerleading in high school and Jill told me it involves a lot of tumbling. When Covid hit Jill took all three girls out of their tumbling classes and never put them back in. Consequently, Vivian doesn’t have the tumbling background that is required for the high school varsity level. However, she excels at jumping. Jill showed me some videos where Vivian is jumping high and level, that is to say her legs are at a 90-degree angle from her torso. She out jumps the other girls and has much more stamina. That is, she can keep jumping and tumbling much longer than other girls. She’s working hard on the tumbling aspect and will be a force when she improves in that area.
May 17 We were to congregate in Palo Duro Canyon Saturday morning for training on how to use the iNaturalist ap and our monthly Texas Master Naturalist meeting. I stopped by the Bagel Place for my usual Saturday morning bagel and a sandwich to go for lunch. One of the people there asked what I had planned for the day and I mentioned I was off to PDC for a meeting. He informed me the Canyon had been evacuated the evening before because of wildfires. I checked my phone and sure enough there was a message the meeting had been canceled. Without the warning I would have headed off to PDC, oblivious as usual, which would have been a waste of time.
Not spending the morning in PDC gave me time to finish planting vincas in the pots in the front yard. All seem to be flourishing. Time will tell whether removing some tree limbs shading one of the pots will allow enough sunlight to keep that pot’s vincas happy. It takes a while for them to give up the ghost if they aren’t, so time will tell.
We have not seen anything of the ducks in the pond since the day after they made the hike from the lily pond area to the enclosure. I guess we have to assume something got the duckling and the hen escaped and moved on. It is heartbreaking to write that but I don’t know what else we could do. I suppose I could have put on my waders and captured the little one. We could have taken it to the wildlife rehab center and maybe they could have raised it to adulthood but then what? Seems like it wouldn’t work to then release it since it would be accustomed to people and not know how to fend for itself. I’m sure few wild ducklings survive their first year under any natural circumstances. So cute and so vulnerable.
Speaking of wood ducks, I wonder if a nest box could be mounted in the trees in the island area. I read that wood ducks prefer to nest in tree hollows close to water. That’s a scarce commodity in this part of the world. There might be a greater survival rate from such an arrangement, though, since it seems they are going to keep trying to field a brood here. The odds are stacked against one duckling surviving. I don’t know how large the typical wood duck brood is. That would mean we would be witness to more duckling depredation, but would it be any different in any other situation, say, close to a playa?
May 25 It wasn’t easy to find flowers to take to the cemetery this morning. Last year we had lots to choose from. Fortunately, enough snapdragons survived the winter, not to mention the drought, and I was able to pick the needed three bouquets. I added a few chocolate flowers, too. After visiting the cemeteries, we had breakfast at Cracker Barrel. We got there before the crowd, which is always nice. Later in the afternoon we had some hotdogs and ice cream.
We got rain Saturday evening. The evening before our berries and cream was interrupted by a weather alert telling us about a storm with possibly tennis ball sized hail was headed our way. We had to scramble to get all of our vehicles under cover, but we managed to do so and the hail and rain didn’t materialize. It may have clobbered others along its path, though. Saturday’s rain was without histrionics but gave us a decent amount, near half an inch.
May 31 What a difference a little rain makes. After the aforementioned shower we got last Saturday, Mammy Nature doubled down with more on Monday, for a total of nearly an inch. It took the grass a few days to get going but late in the week there was a green sheen where just days before there had only been brown. If we could get more within a week to ten days things would really be looking up.
We’re down to it. Tomorrow our Abigail will tie the knot with Kennedy Lambert. She’s been working hard all week trying to tie up the loose ends. Most of the dinner conversation the last week or two concerned the impending nuptials.
Hans and Chris made it to Amarillo from Switzerland. They had a direct flight from Zurich to Dallas to make the trip a little easier, something about the soccer world cup games being played in North America. Hans seems to have managed the flight pretty well. Jill, Kaylee and Sophia arrived yesterday afternoon. Vivian is involved in a cheer camp, one that was mandatory, so she and Dave didn’t make the trip.