Rainbows

  • Freshly trimmed junipers

Joyce and I had a nice chat with LTC (retired) Allen West this past week.  He lives in the Lake Highlands area of Dallas now and was in town to talk about the Booker T. Washington Initiative to a group of us blue-bloods at Amarillo Country Club.  He was as pleasant and personable in person as he seemed when we’ve seen him on TV.  Under West’s leadership, the BTWI will attempt to employ Washington’s (not the nation’s capital) belief in entrepreneurship and free enterprise as the only true path to prosperity and well-being to revitalize the spirit of the American Dream by emphasizing that all Americans can be entrepreneurs.  The Texas Public Policy Foundation has an enviable track record of success with these kinds of programs and I have no doubt they will make a difference with this one.

Rebecca and I had a good round of golf Friday.  We were pressed for time because Kari had scheduled tennis practice for Li’l r at 11 o’clock and we had to hustle to get in 18 holes.  This was the first time we played since we played the one time last summer.  To keep a good pace, we started out playing best ball but by the time we got to the back nine Rebecca was playing her ball all the way.  She could consistently hit her drive 50 or 60 yards straight down the fairway, which on the par-3 course gave her a good chance of getting on the green in one or two more shots.  Playing with an 11-year-old novice golfer on a par-3 course is just about my speed and we enjoyed ourselves.

We finally got a decent shower of rain Tuesday night.  It was only .58 of an inch but it got us out of watering for a few days.  I hardly knew what to do with myself not having to run from one end of the place to the other to move water.  Then, just as memory of that shower had begun to fade, we hit the jackpot.  I emptied 1.39 inches out of the gauge this morning.  What’s more, there is rain in the forecast every day through next weekend, not to mention milder temperatures that will allow the moisture we’ve gotten and hopefully will get to give maximum benefit.  For now we will have to find something besides drought to complain about.  Happy father’s day to me.

Abigail and I spent last Tuesday morning trimming the three junipers in the little bed southeast of the house on the south end.  Those trees had needed trimming for a long time and Abigail did such a good job of cleaning up the flower bed underneath them that it inspired me to tackle the job.  Even with her help it took all morning to raise the canopy and remove the dead wood.  There was a large chunk of flint buried under the growth and some years ago I asked Genna if she would mind if I moved it to my xeriscaped front yard.  Later I stumbled on some writing Mom had done about how that rock marked the spot where she and Dad buried Gigit.  Since then I’ve wanted to put the rock back and after the trimming I did so.  Looks nice.

Rebecca has been practicing playing doubles with another little girl and Saturday afternoon they played together in a tournament.  There weren’t enough girls in their age bracket so they had to play “up.”  Their opponents were high school freshmen and, though the opponents won, they didn’t do so easily.  Rebecca and Beth played them pretty close.

Despite the drought, the garden is doing pretty well, as are the grapes.  I’ve begun to put bird-blocker netting over the grapes to protect them from fowl depredations.  The rain will help all the growing things.  It was the first of an inch or more since October 6 of last year.  Since then I’ve recorded 1.71 inches of moisture before these latest showers.  As if the rain yesterday wasn’t enough, we were treated to a beautiful double rainbow as the sun set.  I glanced over June posts going back several years and rain or lack of it seems to be the main news item.  June is, on average, our wettest month.   This past week would easily qualify as our wettest month this year so far.