by 
We finished the month on a high note. Today is February 29th and the temperature is predicted to hit 70°. Even though it is Saturday I’ll do a little herbicide spraying later. One must spray weeds when the sun shines, or when the temperature gets above 60°. Chris left earlier in the week for Switzerland. He and a friend have been making the journey the last few years to take part in Basler Fasnacht, the biggest carnival in Europe, but his friend had to drop out due to health problems, then Fasnacht was cancelled because of the coronavirus. That happened after Chris left so I guess he’ll have a good long visit with his parents.
Our long-time congressman is not running again and there are no less than 15 Republican candidates. There are Democrat candidates, I’m sure, but I think the race boils down to which Republican, what with all the right-wing nut jobs like Joyce and me in the 13th congressional district. It’s an important decision before the voters because there are Republicans, and then there are Republicans. I tried to be a responsible voter and learn about the candidates without devoting my life to the process. Joyce and I voted early (Feb. 28).
Another volunteer at the Bluff created a new hiking trail. He took advantage of a cow trail but there was still plenty of work such as trimming back the mesquite and removing yucca. There was probably some cow pie removal necessary, also. I took advantage of a cloudy but not cold Saturday afternoon to hike the trail. Joyce wasn’t feeling too perky so she didn’t join me. The new trail, called the Gnarly Mesquite Trail, makes its way down to the windmill. There is an existing Windmill Trail and the two form a nice 2-mile loop.
Weather turned bad early in the month, you know, kinda like February. I was able to get out to the Bluff every Wednesday in January but that string screeched to a halt the first Wednesday of February. It snowed enough to cover the ground and stayed cold and windy so I didn’t get much work done around the place. It was decent enough before the snow on Tuesday to allow me to haul off a load for accumulated trimmings to the brush site on Monday. We had temperatures down in the teens for several nights and, to add insult to injury, our heater decided that would be a good time to crap out. The gizmo in the heater that ignites the gas (called an igniter, clever, huh?) stopped geehawing and it was Thursday evening before we figured out what out problem was and who to call. We hunkered down with space heaters in our bedrooms so we didn’t have to pay the afterhours charges. The problem was fixed by noon on Friday.
It was the same the following week, only more. More cold, more snow (.32 inch moisture) and more wind. Even when it wasn’t quite so cold the wind picked up to make it if anything more disagreeable. Brass monkeys all over town were suffering but not so the SA tom cats which had already been relieved of their burdens. Again I was unable to work out at the Bluff on Wednesday but Monday, though cold, was calm and I managed to trim the grapevines and haul of the cuttings along with others on the place I hadn’t been able to get to the previous Monday. I wanted to get the vines trimmed by Valentines, which I did, because I cut them back radically, even using my chainsaw. Over time, they tend to get overgrown and I wanted get them back to a modest start to save work in the spring when they put on new growth. By that Sunday it had warmed up and I was able to spray weeds a little bit.