Thanksgiving
by rakeeter
Category: 2012
by rakeeter
Close call
by rakeeter Them neighbor girls helped me clean the lily pool Saturday. Last weekend I offered to dig a flower bed adjacent to the lily pool and get some flowers for them to plant in it for their mom in honor of Mother’s Day. Kari had mentioned to me how she likes looking out Rebecca’s bedroom window and seeing the two goldfish swimming around. Dad built the lily pool for Mom for Mother’s Day when I was about Li’l r’s size. I’ve been working on cleaning it up since the weather warmed and it was beginning to look better. Since A&R were amendable to my scheme, I worked on making a small bed in a low area where there used to be a Russian olive tree back in the day. There was still a little of the rotted stump I had to get rid of. Somewhere along the line my mother put some rocks in that area and I left those. It was a modest bed, less than 3’X4′, but I worked it up pretty good so that by the time Saturday rolled around it was ready for the three plants I bought: a chocolate flower, a butterfly flower and a salvia. All three are low-water types. We each planted one. I went first to show them how it should be done, then they each took their turn. We added a nice piece of flint about the size and shape of a volleyball we filched from a bed next to the house where it couldn’t be seen. Continue reading “Close call”
Fickle weather
by rakeeter 
Monday it was even nicer than two Mondays ago when we played golf. Not sure how that could be but it was. Again, we took advantage to play 27 holes, just about our theoretical limit. As you can see from the picture of the pond on the course, there was practically no wind. The same was true for Tuesday. It is very unusual to have no wind here on the Texas high plains and even more unusual to have two calm days in a row. By the end of the week, though, it was back to winter time. Sunday morning we had a covering of snow; very picturesque but also very cold. Continue reading “Fickle weather”
White Christmas on SA
by rakeeter We were thwarted in our plans to travel to Garland on Christmas by the weather. For the second year in a row, it snowed on Christmas. Unlike last year’s gentle snowfall, this year the snow fell horizontally because of high winds. It started about 5 a.m. and continued most of the day. The flakes were small and it was hard to tell how much snow we got because the wind blew so hard it redistributed the snow unevenly. Maybe 2-4 inches. The wind made the 20 degree temperature hard to take, especially if one tried to walk into the wind. However, once we got to the neighbor’s house, we didn’t have to get out again until time to go home. We had breakfast, exchanged presents and played games in comfort. Pity those poor folks who had to contend with tornadoes on Christmas in some parts of the country. We will make our trip to Garland this weekend. Continue reading “White Christmas on SA”
Cruising to Christmas
by rakeeter Joyce and I finished wrapping our Christmas presents Saturday morning after breakfast. Joyce had already done a few but there were some large, odd-shaped items that were better handled by four hands rather than two. Later we took Barbara Howard one of the yummy strawberry bread loaves Joyce had baked and visited with her a while. The day started out chilly but there was little wind and there was some nice sunshine so we took advantage of the nice weather to work on cleaning up the garden. I had tried last weekend to get the shredder started without success but Bryant the Wizard said to take the air filter off and put in a couple of teaspoons of gas right into the carburetor. Sure enough, it started up. I had to do that several times before it would keep running. I guess it had been a couple of years since it was started. Anyway we shredded some of the garden growth, which is quite dead and brittle now. We didn’t finish but we made a pretty good start. Continue reading “Cruising to Christmas”