Category: SA Times

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When li’l r came in out of the blowing cold Friday evening, she allowed how she was “covered in coldness all over.”  The fire and some hot soup soon set her right.  The forecast Thursday morning indicated the weather might be unsuitable for outside work after lunch so I was scurrying around trying to get the rakings I’d accumulated during the week loaded in the pickup and hauled off to the chipper site.  It was a very nice temperature and the air was calm early so I made good progress.   I wanted to rake up twigs underneath the junipers in the southwest corner of the 2005 immediate yard and was in the process of doing that when the cold front hit.  First there were a few puffs of much cooler air, then a cloud bank loomed and then wham, the front barreled its way through blotting out the sun.  It got cold quickly and by the time I got the load to the chipper site it was definitely unpleasant.  Fortunately it didn’t take long for me to drop my load and that was the last of the outdoor activity until maybe sometime this coming week. Continue reading “Coldness” →

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Our neighbors had a weenie roast Friday evening.  It had been breezy during the day but fairly warm.  Still, the fire felt good as the sun went down and the moon rose.  Barbara and the Lopez gang joined us but not Janice, who was busy trying to get her house ready to sell, or Joyce, who had a cold.  Them chillun seemed to have a lively time whoopin’ and hollerin’ and the evening turned out to be just about right for a weenie roast.  Saturday it blew all to be damned and would not have been suitable for a weenie roast.  I was pooped anyway Saturday evening after spending all day chasing water.   My life consists of 30 minute intervals as I run from one end of the place to the other to move sprinklers.  This week I concentrated on the south end and watered the line of junipers on the east.  That was the first time they’ve ever been watered since maybe Dad irrigated last, which could easily have been 30 years ago.  I should have started watering all of the junipers on the perimeter much sooner than I did during this drought.  They’ve gotten in pretty bad shape but in my defense it is very time consuming to do that and I couldn’t do it and work at the same time.  Hopefully I can keep up the watering over the winter and maybe we’ll even get some moisture and will see the benefit next spring.  Winter moisture is much more effective since it doesn’t get blasted away by heat and wind. Continue reading “Hillbilly dental plan” →

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On Halloween Joyce and I dressed up as a couple of old fogies and waited to see if we got any trick-or-treaters.  There was only a pair of salty-looking pirates prowling around the neighborhood but that’s more than we usually get. Continue reading “Trick-or-treat” →

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We had some really nice fall days this week and Joyce and I took advantage of one to tear down the garden.  In past years we’ve shredded the tomato vines, okra stalks and so on but this year Joyce wanted to try loading it all up in the pickup and taking it to the dump, the theory being insect pests and such would be removed from the garden rather than allowed to possibly survive in the compost.  Time will tell whether that works out but it’s worth a try.  We filled the pickup to capacity with the garden detritus and also the pond grass and cattails I pulled a couple of weeks ago plus the sunflowers we grew here and there.  We trucked it off to the dump only to find that there was a line of trucks and trailers half way to Canyon waiting to to weigh in.  The dump has one set of scales and vehicles weigh when they come in and again when they come out so they get a net weight of the load to calculate the charge.  Our stuff would not have been charged for since it is the kind of thing the garbage trucks would pick up along the street but it appeared we would have to wait in line anyway both coming and going.  We decided to take it to one of the brush sites instead.  Though the load was pretty brushy, we figured it would be construed as yard waste, which is supposed to go to the dump.  That’s why we took it there in the first place, but, under the circumstances, we felt justified in bending the rules a little.  The first site we visited was closed because they were in the process of shredding the accumulation but the second site was available and we were able to handle our business without interference. Continue reading “Goodbye garden” →

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Wednesday I rode with Kari to Abigail’s volleyball game against Lorenzo de Zavala Middle School.  Abigail started and played the entire first game so we got to see her play more than in all other games this season combined.  As the season has gone along the coach has been teaching them new tricks and there is a lot more strategy employed than at the start of the season.  I recall that the level of play the first game wasn’t any different than the previous year’s Kids, Inc games.  That is to say, many serves didn’t make it over the net and those that did were only returned about half the time.  Somewhere along the way the games got much more competitive and entertaining.  The teams don’t miss many serves and most serves are returned.  Abigail is a setter, which means her job is to get the ball up in the air close to the net so a teammate can bang it into the opponent’s court making it too hot for the opponent to handle.  At least, that’s the theory.  The players at this level still aren’t able to jump high enough and hit the ball hard enough to have the desired effect very often.  Abigail did a good job and though her team let themselves get way down in the first game, they fought back, even taking it to game point, before falling short. Continue reading “Winter prep” →