It’s been a pretty good week on our little corner of this spinning top we call Earth. First, it was a short work week because of the Labor Day holiday. Then Wednesday evening we got an inch of rain. It started before I left the office and rained off and on through the early evening, which means not only did it come slow enough to soak in,it started early enough so that I didn’t have to go out and work after dinner. Also, the Cowoboys went up to New York and spoiled the Giants little aren’t-we-the-greatest celebration on national TV.
With the rain a couple of weeks ago and then this week’s shower, you are probably wondering about the weeds. Well, never fear, you can almost hear them growing. I loaded up with Weed-B-Gone and assaulted them Saturday. I also put down another another bag of pre-emergent. I foresee spraying quite a bit over the next few weeks. I’ve learned that fall spraying to kill the weeds before it gets to cold for WBG to be effective goes a long way to controlling the weeds the following spring.
We lost a couple of guineas this week. One was staying out at night because it was sitting on a clutch of eggs. One morning this week we found it sans head. Whatever killed it consumed some of it but the corpse was otherwise intact. Some of the eggs in the nest were broken and I’m told guinea eggs are very hard. Then one of the four new guineas Chris was keeping at night in the chicken tractor refused to go in with the others one evening. It was missing the next morning but the feathers strewn about told the tale. I suspected foxes but Joyce’s chicken book says owls and skunks decapitate chickens and guineas and I remember one morning catching a whiff of what smelled suspiciously like skunk.
Working my way around the east lane spraying weeds I stumbled upon my son-in-law in the act of butchering a guinea. Later, Rebecca told me all three of the little (they were indistinguishable from the big guineas) had, um, died. No offense but I think Chris is a little crazy for wanting to kill and eat them. Yes, I eat meat: beef, chicken (lots of chicken) and fish, but I don’t kill them myself. I prefer the meat to be quite dead and cooked to perfection before it reaches my plate. As far as eating guinea Chris has butchered and cooked, I don’t trust Chris to be objective about what it tastes like. If Kari, whom I do trust, says, “Hey Dad, would you like to come over for peanut butter and guinea sandwiches,” I might consider it.
Abigail wanted to go to the Tascosa-Amarillo High football game Friday night and I went along with the four of them. They have really improved Dick Bivins Stadium in the near half century since I was last in it. Unfortunately, the Rebels weren’t the same Rebels as when I was in high school. AHS was up 27-zip at half time and I hadn’t seen anything from them that would indicate a second-half comeback. It was chilly, windy and spitting a little rain so we left after the half-time show.
We added three marbled mollies and a plant to the aquarium Saturday afternoon. We used some of the shells that have been around the place since way back when for ornamentation. For the time being, the aquarium is fully operational. We may add more fish and plants as time goes by if we think it needs it.
You’ll recall in a previous post my complaining about being put in the top category for the new drainage utility the city has dreamed up. I sent the paperwork in to protest my designation along with a copy of an areal photo of SA. The city responded promptly basically telling me to go pound sand.