May 9

On May 1 there was a Western Kingbird, the first of the season, sitting on our front fence. The next day we saw the first Mississippi kite. The desert willows (and the mesquite out at the Bluff) have leafed out. These are harbingers of summer though it is still spring. Another sign of the season, we have been visiting nurseries and planting the flowers we purchased. We have gotten a couple of showers of about a third of an inch each, one earlier in the week and one Friday evening. Showers were predicted Friday evening but it sure didn’t look promising in the late afternoon. We attended another symphony at six o’clock and by then dark clouds had formed. It was even just beginning to sprinkle as we walked from the parking lot to the symphony hall. The shower came while we were listening to the performance and it had stopped by the time the performance was over. Again this week we had a mix of warm and cool weather. We are glad to get the cool weather, knowing that there won’t be much more for a while.

April 4…

There were many turkey buzzards perched in the trees behind the house one morning this week. Maybe that’s an ill omen or maybe they just needed a place to roost for the night in their journey from somewhere to somewhere else. Seems they migrate from as far south as South America and as far north as Canada.

March 14…

We got some rain to go with our wind this past week. Today we just have the wind, though it is nice to see the sun. Jill and the girls made the trek here from Sachse, arriving in the wee hours Thursday morning. The weather had already turned from pleasant to not pleasant and they have pretty much been house-bound since they got here.

Our water heater finally gave up the ghost after over 17 years of service. That may be putting it too strongly since it was still keeping the water hot but had only become incontinent. We decided not to push our luck, though, and opted for a replacement. A nice and seemingly competent young man handled the job without delay and we are on to the next problem. Our internet service went kaput the week before and we managed to get that problem remedied without too much jump and jive. It was interesting that the plumber had to jump through some hoops unrelated to the water heater. He had to install anti-siphon gizmos on all the outdoor faucets, for one thing. Then he had to install a couple of carbon monoxide detectors in the hall outside the bedrooms. He even had to peek at our toilet tanks to make sure that, well, I’m not sure what he was making sure that. Checking for leaks, maybe. You may be thinking, “Well, he was just running up the tab on us.” Could be, but he seemed like a sincere young man and he explained that these things all were required by the code enforcement Nazis, my word, not his. When he had finished the job, he had to do a virtual inspection with his phone and a code inspector on the other end of the line. He had to crawl up in the attic and let the CI see that, yes, there was sufficient clearance around the vent; that the anti-siphon gizmos were installed; that the detectors, fire and carbon monoxide, were installed. He even had to test them in the virtual presence of the CI. With the way things are going in our country, I think it might be prudent to closely examine the detectors to make sure there are no cameras and/or listening devices. Just because you are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.

Sunday January 10…

Snows covers the prairie, what prairie there is here on SA, and skies are cloudy. The weather was up and down this past week, some good and some not so good. I worked out at the Bluff Wednesday despite a chilly wind but had to cut my time there short to get a flat on the pickup fixed. Abigail left for Lubbock yesterday to move into her apartment and get ready for classes which may begin tomorrow. Kari and Chris accompanied her to help move her in. She was happy with the household items Jill gave her and those she liberated from the man cave. Rebecca stayed home and I took her to her tennis lesson. She told me she and another eighth-grade girl will start practicing with the Amarillo High junior varsity tomorrow, which she’s a little nervous about. There were six girls in the lesson she went to yesterday and a couple of them drove their own cars there, which must mean they are, what, 16? The instructor had them rotating around in a doubles configuration and Rebecca was having no problem competing so she shouldn’t have any problem fitting in with the JV.