On track


Thursday Abigail won her heat in the 400 meter at the Amarillo Relay.  However, she wasn’t disappointed that her time didn’t qualify her for the finals on Saturday.  I went with Kari to the meet, which was only eighth-grade girls and thus blessedly short.  The weather was good, too.  Abigail didn’t fare as well in the 100-meter hurdles but her effort in the 400, a race she despises, was fun to watch.  Coming out of the last turn she had some ground to make up on several runners and picked the last one off at the finish line.  Then we got to go home and later enjoy a pleasant weekend.

There were five deer waiting for me when I arrived at the Bluff Wednesday morning.  There is a grassy knoll east of the visitor center and across Loop 335 that hides the sunrise enough so that it was still a little dim when I got there.  It was fun to see the deer one by one pop over the barbed-wire fence.  My work there that morning was satisfying and little by little the overgrown prairie is receding.

We had a cool front come through late Friday and another Sunday so there was some wind the last few days.  Not anything major, though, and I wouldn’t mind repeating the weather of March in April, only maybe with a little more rain.  I remember a spring a few years ago that was pleasant as far as springs here on the High Plains go but I don’t remember any of the other 65 Marches I’ve experienced being anywhere near as nice as this one has been.

Joyce and I got the water set up for the tomato patch this week.  She was little late ordering her seedlings so she won’t get most of them planted until mid-April or so.  She did buy some locally, though, and will plant those this week, I think.  The cherry tree she ordered will probably show up soon so we’ll need to get that planted.  We have some nice tulips planted last fall showing off some color and a verbena planted last spring has a few blossoms.

Saturday Joyce and Janice drove to Plainview to lend a hand to Max and Juanita.  Max seems to be doing okay but Jaunita not so much.  She’s still losing weight.  Meanwhile I attended the first meeting of the Texas Master Naturalist, Panhandle Chapter program I signed up for.  The morning was spent on introduction and orientation and the afternoon on entomology.  The lady presenting the afternoon program had an impressive collection of bugs.  The day went pretty well, in my view, and it seems the monthly training sessions will be fairly interesting so that acquiring my certification won’t be too onerous.  Fortunately my volunteering at WCB can be counted toward the annual minimum 40 hours of volunteer work required, along with the training sessions, to achieve and maintain certification, which, along with a few Washingtons, will get me a latte.