Celebrating the 4th with a 5th


Slide
Blow up water slide

Despite a rain day with precious little rain, I managed to get all four quarters of SA mowed this week.  Friday I mowed 2005 so the place would look its best on Saturday when we congregated for our annual July 4th celebration.  There was a good turn out and the weather was decent, though it had warmed up from the seventies mid-week to a more normal July 4th temperature.  Janice scored a blow-up water slide (pictured) at a garage sale or maybe dumpster diving, not sure, and it took the place of the slip-and-slide that served us well for a number of years.  Last year it was determined the S&S needed to be replaced and the water slide worked admirably.  It got quite a workout, too.

Thursday we grilled some hamburgers for one of Jill’s colleague’s who was passing through with his family on the way from Atlanta to Albuquerque.   Though Jill and Burke, for that was her colleague’s name, have worked together some nine years communicating almost daily, they had never met in person.  I got off the mower long enough to grill the burgers and we enjoyed a pleasant picnic.  The wind was still cool Thursday.  There were several youngsters in the caravan and they seemed to have a high old time gamboling about the pasture and playground equipment.  Earlier in the day the granddaughters had extracted a promise of a trailer ride so after lunch I hitched up the tractor and trailer and took all comers on a scenic drive around SA.

Jill and and her crew have been here since Tuesday.  Dave didn’t come with them but drove in Thursday night.  Friday evening Chris grilled some steaks and we sat out under the bois d’arc trees to have dinner.  Sunday afternoon we again had our meal there, this one in honor of Abigail’s 13th birthday on Monday, and had cake and presents.  It’s been a busy week.

What would a post be without a discussion of rain.  Mid-week there was a high probability of rain and in fact there was a lot of rain in the Panhandle.  Alas, the huge storm separated when it got to Amarillo, with part of it going north of us and the other part going south.  I had mixed emotions about that.  While I don’t feel we can ever pass up rain, some areas got three or four inches and, if we had gotten that, the weeds would surely have dealt with us much as the Sioux did to Custer and his men at the Little Big Horn.  We are getting dry, though; very dry.