Category: SA Times

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Not without some difficulty I managed to tear myself away from SA and go on a ramble.  The beautiful fall weather is too good to waste entirely on work.  Joyce had other things planned for the day so Tuesday afternoon I fired up the Pathfinder and headed up FM 207 in search of the site of Adobe Walls.  I’ve read several different things about that historic site, most recently a book about Billy Dixon, perhaps the most famous figure associated with Adobe Walls along with Quanah Parker.  The route took me through Panhandle, Borger and Stinnett, and area of the Panhandle I hadn’t been through before.  It wasn’t any different from the rest of the area for the most part but still an interesting drive from straight, flat plains, winding down through the Canadian River valley and back to the level again.  Wind mills have sprouted up in this part of the world like mushrooms and I passed through a wind farm with one less than a hundred feet on either side of the road.  I stopped to listen to them and found they make a sound like a passing car as the blades go around.  That might be objectionable if one were close enough to them but it didn’t compare with the noise from I 40 we contend with. Continue reading “Escape velocity” →

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Sunday night/Monday morning Joyce and I slept through a one-inch rain. I didn’t know it had rain until Joyce mentioned it at breakfast. She didn’t know how much since it was still too dark to check the rain gauges. Needless to say we needed the moisture, and the sleep, but we were amazed that we could sleep through that much rain and concluded it must have been a gentle one. That theory was supported by lack of evidence of runoff like we get with downpours. With the cool temperatures this moisture should last us a while. Continue reading “Sleeping soundly” →

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Last week I spent several days in or traveling to Fort Worth.  Wagner Oil, an old customer was having trouble printing their revenue checks and wanted me to come on-site to see if I could get the problems straightened out.  I spent a day there week before last when we were in the area for Vivian’s birthday.  I didn’t have a lot of confidence that I could solve their problems because they seemed unrelated to FormSprint.  I was willing to make the attempt, though, and turns out I was able to solve their problems, which were multiple.  We made some progress the first day I was there and I agreed to come back to be on hand when they ran their next batch of checks.  I spent the day before the check printing  sorting things out further and the next day when they ran checks they were very happy with the smooth operation.  I had a couple hours of free time the day before and spent them at the Forth Worth Botanical Gardens, mostly  in the Japanese gardens.  Besides the lovely gardens and impressive koi in the ponds, the place was alive with monarch butterflies, so much so that I had to duck now and then to keep from getting one right between the eyes.  There were some impressively large specimens. Continue reading “Fort Worth” →

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Joyce and I were alarmed to get a text from Kari Saturday morning saying there was a peeping Tom on SA.  There was no other information so we kept on with our rat killing.  Later Kari texted the picture at left, a Texas brown tarantula on a ramble attempting to climb over 2005.

The experience was so horrifying it aged Abigail 75  years.

Continue reading “Peeping Tom” →

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After consulting the forecast for Friday, I decided Wednesday evening to visit Wildcat Bluff Thursday morning instead of Friday.  The forecast was correct and it rained Friday morning and into the afternoon.  I needed to change oil and sharpen blades of all three mowers so I took advantage of the rain and got that taken care of.  Although we only accumulated half an inch, it was a slow soaker and, coming on top of last weekend’s rain plus the cool and overcast weather, it was a beneficial amount.  This week I hope to mow the place for the last time this season. Continue reading “Rainy day” →