
Greetings from the Emerald Isle. As parched and colorless as SA was a week ago, it as green as Ireland now. Abigail commented she had never seen it look more beautiful. Rebecca or her cousins no doubt literally can’t remember anything but the khaki color. Where we were watering, such as around trees or our lawns, it requires mowing. In fact, I’ve already mowed my backyard and all around 2005. Ma Nature saved the wet-spell finale for Memorial Day. The rain of the previous days had been gentle but Monday afternoon a brief thunderstorm rolled though and dumped a half inch more in 15 minutes or so, just to make sure all the dust of the previous months was washed away. It is pleasant to get a break from constant watering, but I’ve already started spraying weeds.Li’l r (aka Crash) finally got the hang of riding her bicycle and seems to spend at least half of her waking hours riding it up and down the driveway, cross country and in our driveway. Her poor little bird legs have taken a terrible beating. Kari said she wanted to wear a dress to the last day of school Friday but decided her legs were too scuffed up and wore pants instead.
Joyce showed me some ripe tomatoes today (June 1). She’s eager to rub it in to her walking buddies who scoffed at her planting the first of April. There was only one freeze after she planted and she was able to cover the vines enough to avoid damage. This week she will remove the skirts and it’s my guess the tomato patch will resemble a patch of Amazon jungle.
At Wildcat Bluff Friday we shared the area around the visitor center with a good-sized rattlesnake, a diamond back I think it was. I’m told we only have two varieties in our area: western diamond back and prairie. Kevin first saw it under a mesquite and lit out for the county line. He and his colleague Kimber were doing some volunteer work and the director assigned them to me or me to them. We were trimming a mesquite not far from the creek when he stumbled on it. When he hollered snake I asked him what kind to which he allowed as how didn’t know nor care. He just wanted to be somewhere else. Being the curious type, I couldn’t leave it at that and went to investigate. I took the picture above but otherwise didn’t disturb it. It was a calm fellow and only raised its rattle a little bit at my approach, as if to say, “That’s close enough, podnuh. Don’t start nothin’ and there won’t be nothin’.” Satisfied that it wasn’t just your harmless grass snake, I went back to my tree trimming. Throughout the rest of the morning we tried to keep up with where our friend was as it worked its way down the creek in search of a meal, and were otherwise respectful.