Category: SA Times

Periodic review of life on Six Acres

January 2024
by rakeeter
  • Late December Dallas Arboretum

January 15 It is good ol’ January and we’ve had a little cold weather to drive that point home. Long about Monday the eighth it snowed. Not your “Oh isn’t it pretty. Let’s make snow ice cream” kind of snow. More like a short blizzard. It had been cloudy and cool for a couple of days. We even got a little rain a day or two before the mini-blizzard. So what happened was the sky was cloudy, like I said. In the afternoon while loafing around the house I heard rumbles of thunder. The next thing I knew, the wind hit and the snow pellets (not flakes and not sleet) blew horizontally across SA removing any leaves still clinging to limbs on a few trees. Standing at the kitchen window I was admiring the storm and noticed the chickens huddled together outside the chicken yard. I debated whether to try to put them in the chicken house but decided not to because they probably would just run from me and then we would all be miserable. As I said, the blizzard was short lived and at dinner that evening I learned that Rebecca, Abigail and Chris had braved the storm to collect the flock and get it into the chicken coop. I had settled down to read a book and missed the rodeo.

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December 2023
by rakeeter
  • Zfam 23

December 18 White egg mystery

For some time now there has been a mystery involving the appearance of white chicken(?) eggs randomly on the place, usually in or close to the northwest quadrant. You see, none of the resident chickens lay white eggs. Their eggs are mostly a shade of beige, but some a light shade of green. Plus, they lay them in the boxes designed for that purpose in the chicken house, not indiscriminately around the prairie.

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November 2023
by rakeeter
  • Rebecca dressed up as identity theft

Kai and I took a whack at a mesquite out at the Bluff this month. It was an unkempt one at the entrance to the parking lot. I had been telling myself I needed to trim it up for what?, nine years but could always talk myself out of it since I knew it was going to be pretty big job. I mentioned to Kai I planned to bring my chainsaw the next week and trim some mesquites. She said she would like to tag along and I said to myself, “Shoot, if she wants to “tag along”, I’ll just get her to help me and tackle that tree. So I did. She was a big help, even took a crack at using the chainsaw and held up pretty well, but of course she eventually got tired and handed it back over to me. I was weary myself and the breather she gave me was just what I needed. The traffic loop running in front of the Bluff is being widened. In the process a bunch of mesquite was cleared and piled up not far from where we were working. I asked if we could add our trimmings to the pile and was given permission. It sure made it easier to clean up after ourselves. Kai had been building the load of trimmings in the pickup as I cut them, and it was just a matter of backing up to the pile and pulling our load out.

October 31 Halloween October went out with cold weather. Of course it did. It was Halloween. But November followed with really nice weather. Dry of course but nice. As usual, Rebecca was my only trick-or-treater and she cleaned me out of Halloween candy I hadn’t already eaten. She didn’t do anymore trick-or-treating after she came to my door. The Wylie women worked it pretty good, though. Their neighborhood is more trick-or-treater friendly Jill tells me.

We celebrated Thanksgiving to everyone’s’ satisfaction, I think. Food was delicious, everyone behaved themselves (no food or fist fights). Weather was pleasant, but no moisture of course. The Wylie clan arrived Monday evening and returned home Saturday so Kaylee could get some needed volunteer hours, a National Honor Society requirement, I think. Other than another dry month, November was pretty good and left little to complain about, though that didn’t stop us. Now it’s on to Christmas.


September 2023
by rakeeter

September 2 It was time for a quarterly visit to Alibates National Monument to check on it for Texas Parks and Wildlife, just to make sure nothing had changed that would impact the Great Texas Trails map. Kari accompanied me and we found that the road to the visitor center was closed for replacing. It being a temporary condition, I don’t think it needed to affect the map. It was a nice cool morning and we hiked the Mullinaw trail that runs along the river. Flies were a nuisance but we had a nice hike nevertheless. After an early lunch in McBride Canyon next to the rock house, we headed home.

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