February 9 This month started off pleasant, then it wasn’t, then it was again. Monday afternoon was warm, officially 88 degrees, with light wind. I took advantage to spray weeds, mostly in the perimeter tree line. Don’t remember if I’ve ever sprayed this early in the year, but I’m hoping to get an early jump on the weeds and thus avoid some of the problems when warmer weather really kicks off the weed growth. Then Tuesday cold returned. The thermometer said it was 22 degrees when I got up. That was low enough to keep me inside, so I finished treating the wood floors. Abigail kept on with her tile grout project and is getting close to finishing up. Wednesday it was back to warm weather again, so I continued spraying the perimeter and Abigail kept working on the tile grout. Next day she left for Kerrville to attend a ball with Nathan.

After a semi-productive weekend, I’m relaxing in the sunroom waiting for the Super Bowl to start. Whichever team loses I won’t be too disappointed. They can’t both lose though I wish they could. May all the players avoid injury and could there please be a minimum of silliness in the end zones.

January 12 So far this year…There was a dusting of snow Monday morning of this week after some really cold wind the day before. We went to church but going back and forth to the car was unpleasant, to say the least. Fortunately, the weather was decent for the drive home on the 2nd and held so that I was able to get the Christmas decorations squared away in the attic. Then there was another dusting of snow Wednesday morning. It was too cold for outside work, so Abigail and I took the week off. Snow was predicted for Thursday, and I considered grocery shopping Wednesday afternoon but didn’t. Should have. The forecast proved correct, and it snowed from about 7:00 am till sometime after I went to bed. I ventured out early and bought groceries. The snow wasn’t deep then but by the time I went to a 10 o’clock appointment it was beginning to mount up. We may have gotten as much as a foot of snow. It was more than we’ve seen in some years. The weatherman said eight inches of snow equals an inch of rain so we got from an inch to an inch and a half of much needed moisture which should extend our reprieve from watering for a month or two even if we don’t get moisture during that time.

December 8 Yesterday out at the ranch I spent some time looking for the southwest corner marker Kari and I looked for when we there in August but couldn’t find. I started from the northeast marker and walked what I thought was a diagonal path hoping to stumble across the southwest corner marker but to no avail. I found it a few decades ago, I think. I guess I’ll have to excavate the directions out of my files and have them handy for the next time I go out there. I have never been able to find the northwest corner pipe, maybe because there isn’t one, but I would like to try again.

November 3. October was a dry month, but starting with Friday November 3, about midnight, it rained till nearly midnight Saturday; a gentle, soaking rain that gave us about 2.3 inches and spectacular claps of thunder. Saturday morning during a lull in the rain, I was walking to the shop when a flash of lightning obscured everything and the crash of thunder that followed a second or two later shook the ground and me with it. I was glad when I was safely down in the office.

The sun finally broke through the clouds Sunday afternoon, but the weather pattern wasn’t through with us yet and Monday morning it rained another 1.3 inches. The average moisture for November over the last 15 years is .33 inches. We got no moisture in October but so far this month we have accumulated as much moisture as the typical fourth quarter of the year and maybe as much as the average for the first quarter of the next quarter to boot. Our trees should be sufficiently hydrated for a while. I have been pulling hoses around the place so much this year I don’t know what to do with myself. Maybe we will get to other things more interesting this winter.

October 12 My week in Sachse was informative and fun, but it was busy. The first evening we attended Vivian’s volleyball game. We were a little late getting there because J&D wanted to minimize the time spent watching other teams play but things moved along faster than usual so Vivy was serving in their first set when we got there. I was told she made fourteen straight on that serve. The Hudson Hawks, Vivy’s team/school won that game and the next one. They seemed to be significantly better than that evening’s opponent. The following Saturday we watched her Hawks in a tournament where the competition was about level with the Hawks. These were eighth-grade girls and I was impressed by with their level of play. Vivy plays all around and never leaves the floor.