Periodic review of life on Six Acres
by rakeeter 
It seems longer than a week since New Year’s Eve. Ours was celebrated with the Wylie women and Dave at their estate in Garland. If there are two bigger sticks-in-the-mud when it comes to a New Year’s Eve celebration than Joyce and me, I’d hate to be around them. It has been over a decade since we tried to greet the new year, longer since we even wanted to. The only one still up at midnight was Dave, and that’s normal for him. We enjoyed the evening anyway. Continue reading “2013 wrap”
by rakeeter 
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”
by rakeeter 
So the other evening here in Frostbite Falls Joyce was stressing over the porch kitties, Cotton in particular. She was afraid they wouldn’t stay warm enough as the temperature dipped into the single digits. A little background: Joyce had fixed up one of the doghouses in the back with a heating pad specially made for cats. It warms up when there is weight on it, a cat for instance, and doesn’t heat up when there isn’t. Cotton had been using it regularly but then one evening Joyce noticed Cotton was just wandering around and not using the doghouse. When she investigated she found a puddle of urine in the middle of the pad. However, when she got that cleaned up Elmo took over the doghouse. Elmo seems to do what he wants and Cotton settles for whatever is left. That may be because Cotton doesn’t have any front claws and Elmo does. Continue reading “Playing possum”
by rakeeter 
Joyce and I were glad to get out Saturday morning to watch the Abster play basketball. The wretched cold had kept us inside and thankful to be there since Wednesday. Crockett and the other middle schools were playing a sort of mini tournament they called a shoot out. They played two games facing a different team for each game. Crockett drew Travis in the first game and Fannin in the second. Wednesday we went to their regular game against Bonham, I think. Prior to Saturday we’d watched two games and the opponents weren’t competitive. Wednesday’s final score was 30-something to 4. I asked Abigail why that was and she said it was because “they stink”, though I don’t think that’s really an explanation. Travis made Abigail’s team work a little harder but they still beat them pretty good. Before the Fannin game Kari and I speculated on whether the Crockett coach would substitute if necessary to win. So far she’d played half the girls for two quarters and half for the other, alternating quarters, and that works out well because there are 10 girls. Since the games have been blow outs we didn’t know what the coach would do if it got tight. Crockett had Fannin pretty well in hand through three quarters but early in the fourth Fannin tightened it up. They were out rebounding Crockett so the coach subbed three girls that quickly corrected the situation and Crockett won going away. The Abster got some rebounds, put up a bucket, had a couple of steals and a very nice assist. If memory serves she’d stolen the ball on the opponent’s end of the court but was tripped up on the transition. Before she hit the floor she dished off to a teammate down the court who took it in for an easy layup. Good stuff. Fun to watch. It seemed the last couple of years of Kids, Inc. basketball some of the girls were so much bigger and more aggressive than Abigail that I had mixed emotions about here continuing to play. Now there are few girls that are significantly taller, although there are some that are definitely stouter, but the Abster holds here own so I’ve quit worrying. Continue reading “Extra nine”