Cats and dogs but no rain

You may recall several weeks ago I mentioned raking leaves and running them through the shredder except I couldn’t get the shredder started so I wasn’t able to determine if that was a viable strategy or not. Since then I’ve learned the trick of starting the shredder, at least some of the time.Little R and the Abster So today I hitched up the trailer to the tractor and filled the trailer with rakings along the inside of the west fence. Once the trailer was full I came back to the shop where the shredder was, cranked it up and ran the load through it. I dumped the shredded material on the caliche mounds. The alternative to this is bagging the leaves one bag at a time. I think the shredder method was a little faster for handling a lot of material. Only trouble was, after shredding the first load and collecting another load I couldn’t get the shredder started when I got back to it. It starts OK cold and hot but in between I don’t have the right combination of throttle, choke or no choke so I wound up bagging the second load.

Abigail had a couple of games Saturday, I went to the morning game and it was pretty competitive. For some reason, Abigail’s coach had her guarding a girl who was taller and much heavier than Abigail. There is a girl on Abigail’s team who was a lot closer to the same dimensions but for some reason he didn’t put her on the opposing team’s center. Abigail did her best but the big girl could move her like she was nothing. The refs were also problematic. They hardly called anything. Even jump balls were hardly called with the result that people were getting banged around pretty good. A couple sitting close to me and man in front of me got on the refs so much the refs called a technical on Abigail’s coach even though I think these people were parents of girls on both teams. Anyway, no one got hurt but Abigail was bummed after I think because her team lost, as she should be.

There’s a dog on the radar again. I think Abigail and Chris are conspiring to get one but Kari is reluctant. Abigail was telling me about the dog and it sounds like it is a male. If we must have cats and dogs, and apparently we must, I would prefer females since they don’t go around whizzing on everything. Speaking of marking things, there is a male cat trespassing on the place and doing a bit of that. I need to trap him and send him to perdition. I bought a live trap several years ago but have never used it. I guess I could borrow Chris’s bow but I’d rather trap it and turn it over to the tender mercies of the pound.

Friday evening Joyce and I were left to our own devices because Rebecca was sick (she was fine the next day). So we made a fire and settled down in front of it after dinner with our iPads. Not a bad way to spend the evening.