by 
June 30
We spent a pleasant week in good ol’ Red River. As usual, we didn’t do much except watch movies, swim and eat ice cream. We went on a couple of short hikes, strolls, really. Vivian fished for an hour or less, but that was it. It was bone dry and hot when we left Amarillo but raining and chilly when we got to RR. The weather got better as the week progressed, but we didn’t mind the cool and rain. It was a refreshing change from what we were experiencing back home. All good things end, of course, and we eventually made our way back to hot, arid Amarillo.
June 26
This week at the Bluff, Abigail spotted a rattler when we were putting our tools up. She is always on the lookout, and it paid off today because the snake was close to where she was headed. Also, its markings made it blend into the ground well. We alerted the authorities and went on about our business. The rattler slithered under a building.
June 19
There was a dove up against the shop door surrounded by cats. They weren’t molesting it but were very interested. It had an injured wing, maybe inflicted by a cat but also may have been caused by a power line or some other obstruction the bird ran in to. I collected it and put it in a grocery sack. Abigail and I had a load to take to the brush site, so we took the dove with us and dropped it off at the rehab center on the way back. While we were there, we saw a pronghorn fawn(?) they were raising up to return to the wild when it got big enough. They said it follows them around all day and that there is a picture on their website. It was cute.
June 11
And so, the saga of Six Acres continues, though maybe a little less dry. It has rained a couple of times this month. No great quantities, you understand, but not nothing neither. The grass tries to green up, but then it turns hot and windy, and, well, so much for that. I was standing on the front porch, oh, I guess it was Thursday evening about 9:45, watching it rain and enjoying the cool air when lightning struck the south end of SA. Well, it seemed like that’s where it struck but it must have been farther away. The thunder, which sounded like the crack of doom, came on the heels of the flash so it was too close for comfort. The rain that evening added to the rain we got Wednesday morning for a total of .86 of an inch. We avoided any unpleasantness, such a hail and high winds.
Since it was raining Wednesday morning, Abigail and I couldn’t go to the Bluff so we watched a couple of movies down in the cave, trying to make the best of a bad situation. The week before, we took advantage of another inclimate morning to shred the cardboard the neighbors collected the last few months. Kari, Chis and I did that back in the winter but I guess there was more to shred this time because it took Abigail and I an hour and a half just to cut the cardboard into strips so it could be fed into the chipper. We spent another hour and a half Monday morning feeding the strips into the chipper and still didn’t finish. I made the executive decision that it was too much work for too little gain to try to shred the cardboard so the next day we took the remaining strips to a cardboard recycling dumpster. Abigail had managed to step in cat poop before we ran that errand and, though she had attempted to clean her shoe, the air in the cabin of the pickup was rather thick and we were grateful it was a short drive to the dumpster.