by 
August 31
I mentioned previously that our A/C decided to fail one Friday afternoon. I paid a premium to have a repairman check out the problem on Saturday. As I suspected, the compressor was no longer compressing. The repairman suggested I consider replacing the whole heat &A/C rather than just the compressor given its age. It was new when we remodeled the house but that was 18 years ago. So I had one of their salespeople come and give me a quote for a new unit. It was expensive but I figured it would be better to replace it all and so I did. The new system is much quieter and more efficient so I feel my decision was a good one in spite of the gapping hole in my bank account.
August 22
A small hurricane passed over the area yesterday. In the morning when Joyce told me there was a chance of rain in the afternoon I found it hard to believe any significant moisture could materialize from what was then a cloudless sky. I spent the morning watering, doing some touchup painting and meeting with the serviceman who came to see why our A/C wasn’t working. Sometime in the early afternoon big puffy clouds started forming and we got a little shower but nothing to write home about. Before long, though, the wind began to blow and sheets of rain began to fall. The eves and especially the roof valleys became waterfalls and the yard front and back was a river. Abigail and I spent time during the summer cleaning up twigs and used them to augment those dams we’ve been putting in the north and south lanes the last couple of years. They got a test last night. Hopefully they held and made the runoff pool up behind them so the water would soak in and really benefit the elms. Five or six have died in the last year and I see lots of other dead elms around town. Yes, the elm leaf beetles are hard on them and most of them are old. Not being a long-lived species, they weaken with age like the rest of us and lack of moisture can cause them to finally give up the fight. In spite of the fact that they constantly dribble twigs and don’t look so good this time of year because of what the beetles do to their leaves, I would prefer not to lose any remaining ones, due in no small part to the fact it costs about $500 to remove one. I emptied 1.9 inches out of the gauge this morning.
Rebecca started school at Amarillo High this week. She seemed to navigate a couple of sanfus without much trouble. Because of her interest in veterinary medicine, she has a class at the Amtech campus, a new facility built from what was once the Sears next to Sunset Center back in the day. She rides a bus from the Amarillo High campus to Amtech. Kaylee also began high school but two or three weeks before Rebecca because the Garland school district has gone to a year around format. Jill says she is getting along just fine.
August 15
Early in the week it was hot and dry, but that changed for the better later in the week. Because of increasing cases of the CCP flu, most of the things planned, the lunch at the church and service at the funeral home, were scrapped and Janice was laid to rest with a simple grave-side ceremony. Fortunately for those of us not under the canopy, there were some clouds and the shade of a nearby tree to keep us from roasting. That night we got a nice half-inch rain and Saturday and Sunday morning have been, well, not exactly bracing, but very cool and pleasant for this time of year.
Jill and Joyce have been picking apples and plums. They have dried these and I’m told they are tasty but haven’t tried them myself yet. We had a good crop of both. After J&J got what they wanted, Chris and Rebecca picked the plum tree clean. I think J&J may have cleaned off the apple trees as well. The dried apples and prunes should keep us healthy and regular through the winter.
There has also been a bumper crop of frogs stemming from some of the wet weather we had in late June and early July. As is Nature’s way, the little rascals scatter across the area. I may have mentioned the tiny one that made its way down to the lily pool where it seems to have found a home. As a result of their peregrinations, some will wind up in the window well of the mancave. When I’m sitting at my desk next to the window, my attention is drawn to them as they try to jump out to freedom, performing athletic leaps of maybe 12 inches but coming nowhere close to getting out. The grate over the well is porous enough that they fall through but would prevent them jumping out anyway. It is a pain to open the window and take off the screen so I can crawl out into the well and capture the little buggers. Plus they slip under the rocks that cover the bottom of the well and elude capture so I have been putting off the task. Oh, I sprinkled a little water in the well now and then to keep them from desiccating. But then I put a jar lid with water in it within arms reach in the well when standing on the floor. They liked that and their proximity allowed me to capture three of them Friday morning and return them to the pond. I know there is at least one more which was out of reach and hid amid the rocks. No worries, though. I’ll get it and any others in due course. The recent rain may have brought forth more of them seeking to satisfy their wanderlust but with this new technique, I’ll restore them to the pond eventually. No doubt the attrition among these wanderers is very high but at least I won’t have to watch them come to a bad end.
August 8
There is a squirrel in the backyard behaving, well, squirrelly; bouncing up and down, running up one tree and down again, then up another and down. Such energy.
Jill arrived Thursday evening to lend support and comfort to her mother and cousins. She and Joyce spend most of their time with Janice who is in hospice. She also did some laundry which had been stacking up and prepared, or fetched, some meals. I had dinner with Kari and Rebecca a couple of evenings this week. Chris was in San Francisco.
Abigail was back in Lubbock this week and I was on my own performing my groundskeeper duties. It turned off hot and the rain we got last weekend didn’t keep things watered for long. I noticed one of the redbuds is looking dry so I better start watering trees this week. The .04 inch shower we got yesterday evening from a sunny sky wasn’t much help. Whereas yesterday there was breezy south wind, this morning is calm.. The dog days of summer are here.
I’m reading Beneath the Shadow by James Bertram, a native of New Zealand who helped in the defense of Hong Kong and spent several years in Japanese prison camps for his trouble. The book, which I found among in the family library, details some of his experiences. I have found more than a few gems among all the books parents, grandparents and siblings left behind, most of them published half a century or more ago, some even from the 19th century. I’m also reading Laurence Sterne’s (1713-1768) Tristram Shandy, one of Mom’s Great Books library. Not a page turner, of course, but not as stupefying as some of the others.