Category: 2012

A,R&I watched a double-feature in the cave Friday night. The first one, Beethoven, had a dog as the protagonist and the second had a lizard, an animated chameleon I think. Not long ago we watched another dog show, this one about a Chihuahua. It was OK but I really got a kick out of the iguana and packrat duo for comic relief. The show wasn’t animated but the iguana and packrat obviously were. I say obviously, they were quite realistically drawn and their movements were reptile and rodent compliant. Only their heavy Mexican accent and their slapstick comedy gave them away. Computer-generated animation is getting very life-like.

Chris got his bees last week. He was in Austin when they arrived and they sat in their garage making an ominous buzzing. Saturday he “hived” them while Kari and the girls watched them from the island. He built the hive a year or so ago and put it on a former candy shop marble slab in the enclosure. He was hoping a passing band of gypsy bees would take up residence but when that didn’t happen he decided to shell out for queen and court. I’m told nobody got stung and Chris says he’s supposed to leave them alone for five days. What he’s supposed to do after the five days he didn’t say. I’d be inclined to leave them alone more or less indefinitely. It will be interesting to see how they get on.

Our grapevines are doing well. The bunches of grape buds started blooming yesterday. Even the young table grapes we put down east of the orchard are progressing. They are probably a couple years away from producing. We want their engergy channeled into developing the vines so we remove any fruit they try to produce. There are a couple of wine vines I planted two or three year’s ago to replace ones that had died and we’re doing the same with them. The older vines are producing new growth nicely and I spend time daily training the canes. There appears to be a least as much fruit as last year and I’m trying to do a better job of controlling the position and number of bunches for maximum grape development. I learned a lot last year and I hope that knowledge results in a better harvest, not to mention more competent wine making. I won’t be able to tend the vines for the next three weeks and I hope the growth doesn’t get too crazy in that time. Likely it will, though, but maybe I’ll be able to get it sorted out OK.

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.

Recently while rummaging through the books in the man-cave for something to read I came across A Texan In England by J. Frank Dobie.  He spent a year during WWII teaching at Cambridge and the book contained his observations of the county and the people he encountered (many were American servicemen) during that time.  They were interesting even if one did have to overlook a little lefty nonsense here and there.  I was intrigued by the marginalia.  Someone quite erudite had made them.  Also, they were very small but in a very neat handwriting.  I had to study them with a magnifying glass to work out what they said.  Sometimes whoever wrote them would correct Dobie’s use of a word or they might add some additional information or even a bit of verse.  I wonder who wrote them and how the book came into our possession. Continue reading “A Texan In England” →

We’re having a windy weekend.  It was breezy yesterday morning but the wind picked up in the afternoon to objectionable levels.  I spent the day mowing and it felt like I had sandpaper on the inside of my eyelids by the end of the day.  The mowing wasn’t very satisfying.  The first cut of the year usually isn’t because it’s mostly just hewing down the weeds.  Afterwards it looks better than it did but it doesn’t really look good.  Also, there are lots of twigs that need to be cleaned up before mowing.  That’s a pain and increases the time it takes to mow any given section.  I got the south end done yesterday and will try to get the north end done soon.

Most of this week was spent in the Big Thicket at a customer site.  I flew to Houston Tuesday afternoon and drove to Jasper where I had a room at the Holiday Inn Express.  The job was actually in Kirbyville about 25 miles away but there weren’t any suitable hotels there so I stayed in Jasper and commuted.  It was a nice commute.  The countryside was so green and pretty.  I say countryside, mostly all one sees is forest but the farms and estates is what I’m referring to.  The Big Thicket suffered from the drought last year like every place else in Texas but I was told it has been raining since February and that’s why it looks so green.

While there, I ate several meals at a place called Elijah’s.  The one in Kirbyville looked like it might be the original and the one in Jasper, which was larger and nicer, looked like it was the expansion property.  The food at both places was really good.  It was just normal food, not unlike a Blackeyed Pea, and the prices were reasonable but I think the food was exceptional.  What really impressed me, though, was the wait staff.  They were all young people like they are in most restaurants and they were a mixture of race and gender, but they were all courteous and attentive.  At every meal I had at Elijah’s, a manager made the rounds while I was there and visited each table to make sure the diners were satisfied.  I think it just goes to show what can be done when an establishment and its employees are held to high standards.

Yesterday I stumbled on another goonie nest while trimming.  This one was over by the large flint boulders and it wasn’t hidden at all.  I called Joyce’s attention to it and she marked the eggs.  I think she plans to replace them with golf balls so she can steal the eggs.

Yesterday I stumbled on another goonie nest while trimming.  This one was over by the large flint boulders and it wasn’t hidden at all.  I called Joyce’s attention to it and she marked the eggs.  I think she plans to replace them with golf balls so she can steal the eggs.

One day last week as we were eating lunch Joyce asked me if I had seen any mallards up at the pond yet.  I said I hadn’t and just then, as if on que, a pair swooped in and landed in the pond.  Yesterday morning I think there were two pairs.  I saw a drake and two hens but a little later I saw a hen and a drake fly off but shortly after that I saw a drake and hen still in the pond.  There is a lot more moss and other growth now than there was last year which should give them more to eat.  I would think the ducks like the cattails since they give them a little more cover.  Anyway, it’s nice to have them back.  Unlike the other fowl on the place, they are nice to look at and completely self-sufficient.

The goonie that had been sitting on a nest abandon it so Joyce and Chris had to dispose of the eggs.  They counted 96.  No wonder the hen abandoned the nest.  It was a shame to throw all those eggs away but who knows what stage of development they had reached.  I thought about calling Art Brokenbek to see if he wanted to join me in chunking them at cars like we did as boys with some duck eggs after the hen abandoned the nest but Joyce wouldn’t let me.

Yesterday I started the process of mowing the ground cover.  I started on the strip along the street outside the fence.  It first had to be raked to clean up twigs, pile of leaves blown against the fence and trash.  As vile as the weeds are, without them there wouldn’t be much to hold the soil.  Last year’s drought didn’t leave much grass.

The Wylies arrived shortly after midnight Friday night for Easter weekend.  They left after Dave got off work and will return Monday.  It’s cool and overcast today but no doubt the little ones will still get to hunt Easter eggs at some point.

A thunderstorm came right down I-40 from the west and gave us a good shower, maybe half an inch.  It came down pretty hard for a little bit.  If we can get a few of those from time to time maybe we can recover from last year.