by First of all, this has been just about the nicest May in a while. We did nearly hit 100 one day last week but it cooled back down the next day. It gave us a chance to run the A/C to make sure it hadn’t expired over the winter. We even got 3/8s of an inch of rain Thursday evening. It really came down and the creek bed in the front actually ran with water. Unfortunately it seemed by yesterday as though it hadn’t rained at all. When it isn’t raining, our humidity is very low and things dry out quickly. We decided to go ahead and get a load of granite Friday, the 19th and last for the current project, in spite of the previous evening’s rain. It was a good thing we did. Saturday morning I was able to finish covering the xeriscaped front yard and I don’t think it looks too bad. Last night we got 5/8s so things are looking up, moisture-wise. There is more forecast, along with large hail and damaging winds.
I’ve been over the entire place with the mower and weedeater. It looks pretty good, considering the drought, but the first parts I did are beginning to look shaggy again. The moisture we’re getting should fire up the grass, which really needs to happen. In places, especially high-traffic places, the grass is threadbare. It wouldn’t take much more to be looking at bare dirt. Besides finishing up the mowing yesterday, I went down the lane and collected a load of fallen limbs which I hauled off to the chipper site. I collected just big stuff and didn’t attempt to rake the small stuff. When I had finished that and cleaned up, I went down to the cave for a snooze. The ladies joined me and watched Garfield cartoons while I dozed. Friday night was ladies night in the man-cave and we watched Space Jam. It was fairly entertaining. We had had dinner on the neighbors patio and it was fairly late when we finished the movie. Rebecca stayed awake but needed a piggyback ride home.
Last weekend, Chris put up chicken wire around the garden and yesterday Joyce and Rebecca planted tomatoes. She wasn’t going to have a garden this year because we’ll be otherwise occupied for most of May, but Kari urged her to plant a few things and promised that they would look after them. The first step was to protect them from the fowl. They’ve enjoyed getting in those beds and scratching away, thus the chicken wire.
The grapes are doing marvelously. The fruit is so abundant I need to thin it out some. Yesterday Joyce pointed out the little apples on the tree we planted just last year and I’ve noticed peaches and cheeries in the orchard. The pecan trees had an abundance of tassles on them this spring. It seems as though it isn’t just the weeds that have come roaring back from last year’s drought. I wonder if these trees anticipate or even indicate a more normal rainfall this summer? Hope so.