Thanksgiving


It was a cold, icy Thanksgiving on SA.  Somewhere a dog barked.

That cold and icy weather made for a lot of family time but no one suffered for it as far as I know.  There was plenty of good food and the best turkey I can remember.  Joyce had it roasted by a BBQ joint over in Pleasant Valley and we fed off the carcus from Thursday through Saturday.  The Wylies had planned to return home Saturday but wisely adjusted their schedule due to inclement conditions.  They traveled without incident on Sunday.

After the ice melted, there was an inch of moisture in the rain gauges on both ends of SA.  I was surprised there was that much but we’ll take it.  That puts us a 37 inches for the year and it was nicely distributed throughout the year with only a couple of middling dry spells.   This year’s accumulation of moisture is not far short of the accumulated moisture for the previous three years (2012-2014) combined.

The weather in the days preceding Thanksgiving was pleasant.  Jill, Dave and I went out to Riverland Wednesday afternoon to limber up our trigger fingers.  There wasn’t much wind, only enough to keep us from getting too warm in the bright sunshine.  We didn’t see any cattle on the ranch and the grass, though dry, was lush, much more so than I can remember.  Unfortunately, so were the weeds.  The tumbleweeds (kochia, Russian thistle) were thick, especially in areas where the grass wasn’t strong and there were plenty of those, a result of previous years’ drought.  The t-weeds encroached on the dirt roads but I guess there is enough traffic going to the gas wells to keep the roads open.

Kari, Abigail and I went to the playoff game between Tascosa and Denton Ryan.  It had been scheduled for Saturday but was postponed to Monday because of the foul weather.  Monday was a pretty nice day but the home side of the stadium is the west side which meant by the 3 o’clock kick off it was mostly shaded and we soon lost what little sun remained.  The air was still cold and we suffered some.  Abigail joined her friends in the student section.  Some of the students dressed for the weather conditions but a lot of them put fashion over comfort and dressed for a summer afternoon.  I dressed like an old man sitting out of the sun on a cold winter afternoon.   It was a pretty good game and wasn’t decided until the waning minutes but the Rebels came up a touchdown short.  I’ve heard this was the farthest the team had advanced since the stone age (1966).  Maybe next year.

64 year old bird to lay egg