Sand

I mentioned that we were getting a covered back porch and a pergola this summer.  Currently, construction is scheduled to begin on July 5th, so we are getting everything ready - moving stepping stones, etc.

The area where the pergola will go is a low spot in the yard, so we ordered 10 yards of dirt - river sand - to fill in.  I got most of it spread yesterday, and should finish up today. 

Could Have Been

No, I'm not really a member of the Grammar Police, but I do enjoy the occasional faux pas.
This is from a story on KHOU 11's Facebook page this morning.  I can only assume that they were using some sort of voice-to-text application.  Nobody who speaks, much less writes, English could have made this mistake.
The story was about a two-year-old girl who was found safe after hours of being lost in the woods.  
Here's the direct quote:
"Results could have been traffic."

Sometimes Miracles Do Happen

We had a very pleasant day yesterday.  

We picked up Alesha Graff at the RV park and went to lunch at Jason's Deli in Kingwood.  Then we stopped at the UPS Store in Valley Ranch so she could drop off some stuff she was returning to DirecTV, and topped it off with frozen yoghurt.

Once we had dropped Alesha off at her RV, we headed to Trinity Armory in Cleveland for a little shooting.

 When we got home, Honey called from the bedroom and asked me to come help look for her earring. She thought she had pulled it off when she took off her shirt, but it was nowhere to be found.

The earrings are pearl studs, and Honey's earrings of choice, the ones she almost always wears if she wears any at all.

After checking the house and the truck, and digging around in the ear protectors she had been wearing at the range, I called Trinity and asked them to look around.  In less than two minutes, they called back.  The earring had been found and is waiting for us at the cash register.

M-V-P

Last night was one of mixed results for Houston sports fans.  Justin Verlander, who has the best ERA in baseball, but can't seem to buy a win, lost to the Toronto Blue Hays 6-3 at Minute Maid Park, but out on the west coast, James Hardin was named MVP of the NBA.

The voting wasn't even close.  Hardin got 86 of the 101 first-place votes (Cleveland's LeBron James had 15) and totaling 965 points in all (James had 738, while New Orleans' Anthony Davis had 445). 

Hibiscus and Such

I mentioned that we worked very hard in our back yard this weekend.  Actually finished up (for now) just a few minutes ago.
We moved the flagstones that used to form the path from the garage to the house.  We placed them in a sort of a comma shape in the back yard and pressure washed them.   Then we transplanted liriope around the edge to highlight the design.
We also moved the old concrete birdbath from the front yard to the back.
Then we added eleven hibiscus on the rocks.  
I think it came out looking pretty good, and once the new plants get a chance to settle in, I think it will look even better.

Diggin' It

Haven't posted for a couple of days - been too damn busy.
Toward the end of the summer we will be getting a covered back porch and a pergola with wooden walkways to the pergola and the garage.  The wood will cover some stuff we thought we ought to save, so that's what we have been doing.
The walkway to the garage was flagstones, and they are now in a sort of freestyle comma in the middle of the yard.  As a temporary measure until the contractors arrive, I laid a walkway to the garage using round stepping stones that used to lead out to the pool.
There's more to do, but we're seeing progress.

Stros

There were lots of reasons for excitement at Minute Maid Park last night.  
First, everyone who bought a ticket got a replica of the Astros World Series Ring.  
Second, for me anyway, was that Nathan Eovaldi was pitching for the Rays.  
Evo is the first pitcher from my old high school in Alvin to pitch in the majors since Nolan Ryan.  He did pretty well until the sixth inning, then George Springer, Alex Bregman and Jose Altuve hit back-to-back-to-back home runs - the first time that's happened since 2008. It was Altuve's second homer of the game to go with a double.
The final score - Houston 5, Tampa Bay 1 - made the Astros the first team in the majors to earn 50 wins in 2018.

Purple

When I went to the store the other day, I was looking for something different - something to add a little variety to our diet.  They had a bin of really nice looking purple cabbage, so I bought one.  

We cooked it tonight  and I'll have to admit I was disappointed.

It dyed the serving bowls blue, and it was almost tasteless.

I may check recipes, but I probably won't be buying it again.

Three

Night time ought to be for sleeping, but sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night with the damndest thoughts on my mind.  Last night was one of those nights.
For some weird reason, I woke up thinking about the different words that all mean a group of three.

You and you and me – a simple group of three

We might be a threesome or a trinity

The choice of terms may vex,

Since one implies kinky sex,

While the other hints at divinity.

But wait – I forgot to add

We might belong to a triad

The connotations stretch to infinity

Call It Dirt

If you saw my last couple of posts, you know I had a busy and somewhat strenuous weekend, so it came as no surprise that I woke up stiff and a little achy this morning.

At least some of that is a symptom of laziness.  When you fall into a sedentary lifestyle, any unusual exercise will remind you, and you are often surprised that activities that used to be easy have become difficult.

I'm afraid, though, that at least some of my twinges are the result of age. I know that they say age is a state of mind, but it is also a chronological condition that only grows more acute as years go by.

So, just how old am I?  

About a dozen years ago, I had a student tell another technician in my class at the time, "He's the guy who told God to name it dirt."

Pantry Door

Today's Honey-do project.
The pantry door in our utility room has been floppy for longer than I care to admit.  The top two hinges were broken, and the rest were out of adjustment.  I have been unable to find exact replacements for the hinges, but I finally located some that should work, and they are steel rather than cast aluminum.
Got the door down, the old hinges off and the new hinges installed on the door.  All that's left is holding it in place while I mount it to the pantry.
Decided to post this while I'm taking a break.

Ties

No post yesterday.  I was kind of busy.

Honey announced yesterday that she would like to have a shooting  berm here at the Boggy Thicket.

I checked Craigslist and found an almost-local place to get old railroad ties at a good price.  The guy was getting ready to go camping for Father's Day weekend, but said that if I could get there by 2:00 o'clock, he would load me up.  

I got there by 12:30, just in time for a gully washer.  It was raining so hard I almost didn't find the place, but he loaded a bundle of 12 ties on the trailer and I was back home before 2:00.

I had unloading all figured out.  I would tie the load to a tree and just drive out from under them.  Of course, that would have been too easy.  The binding broke and the load shifted to one side, so I was forced to unload them one at a time.

Railroad ties are heavy! A check on line says they weigh from 145 to 200 lbs. apiece.  Old ones probably weigh less, but not much.

It didn't take long - I had unloaded two - for me to decide I was getting too hot and was through for the day.  

Honey was afraid that I was going to hurt myself, or make myself sick, so she called Ernest Graff and he came by and helped me unload the rest this morning.  Actually, he did almost all of the work, acting as protective of me as an old mother hen.

We sure are going to miss that man.

Dry

Supposed to be a lot of rain here at the old Boggy Thicket this weekend, but in the meantime it's just hot and dry.
So dry that at dawn this morning we had an owl in the birdbath.

Disconnected

When I turned my computer on this morning, we had no internet.  A check with CenturyLink, our service provider, showed an area-wide problem that they hoped to have fixed by noon.
No problem, I thought, I'll just use the wi-fi hotspot feature on my phone like we did on our last long trip.  
Then I couldn't for the life of me find the option to turn it on.  
I finally compared my phone to Honey's phone, and discovered that I had inadvertently changed one screen from Tab to List, so the screen I needed wasn't visible.
They call them Smart Phones for a reason - some times you just have to be a little smarter.

Tube Faster

Today is one of those days with nothing much to report , so I was looking back a previous years for something to write about.

The first thing I noticed was that - give or take a week - I was posting trip reports every year at this time for the past several years in a row.  That is not going to happen this year - unfortunate, but that's just the way it is.

In one of those reports, I came across this picture that I think is worth sharing again:

                  

Empty

Our dear friends and long-time next door neighbors, the Graffs, moved out of their house yesterday , taking their first step toward a new life in Ohio .  All the furniture is still there - the movers are scheduled to come today - but when we looked at their house yesterday evening, it felt empty!

Bon voyage, you two.  You have no idea how much you'll be missed.

Bobby Allen

There was never a statement more true - especially when it came to my dad's mother.  

She was sweet and kind, calm and never ruffled.  She called me Bobby, but if she ever said Bobby Allen, I knew I had really messed up.

It's In The Mail

I told you back in November when Honey and I got ourselves new Glocks.  I thought I had mentioned then, but can't find it if I did, that Honey got her Texas Concealed Carry License in early December.

We both went through the same course and applied the same day.  She had her license within a week.  

I had an issue with mine.  They asked for more information so I sent it. 

According to their website, that gave them another 120 days to process my application.  They took every day of it, although I expect they just stuck the application in a come-out file and pulled it out when time was running short.

This past week the place you go to check progress on line finally read Approved, and today it says the license has been mailed.

This doesn't necessarily mean that either one of us is packing heat, but it does mean that you'll never know.

Missed Post

I failed to post anything yesterday, and almost didn't today.  I'm waiting for some things to happen, and some other things my have already occurred but I can't confirm it.  It's confusing, and more than a little annoying.

6/6/18

Shanna's Birthday

When you lose a child, the loss stays with you forever.  Some days are harder than others.  Today, Shanna's birthday, is one of those.

Party Animals II

Well, we did it - actually attended two parties in one weekend.
That may not sound all that impressive to you, but if we had ever done that before, I can't remember when.
Had a good time at both, and came through it no worse for wear.

Party Animals

Hard to believe, but we went to a party yesterday and are going to another today.  The first was a farewell party for our next-door neighbors, Ernest and Alesha Graff, who are about to move to Ohio.  The one today is for a cousin of Honey's who just graduated high school.
The star of yesterday's event had to be the latest member of the Graff clan, one month old Beretta.  She didn't seem to be all that impressed, but everybody was impressed with her.

Coyote

On their last trip out for the evening, just before they go to bed, our dogs often find something to bark at.  Over the years it has been a stray cat, an opossum, a raccoon or something they could see but we could not.

Normally, we can assure them that they have chased the intruder away, and they will calm down and head for bed knowing they have made our castle safe for the night.  

Last night was a different story.  

They were up against the fence in the far corner of the yard sounding as big and vicious as a pair of 10 pound dachshunds could possibly sound, and they would not quit. 

I finally got my high powered flashlight and went to see what had them so excited.  When I turned it on, I saw a pair of brilliant lime green eyes shining back from the underbrush at the edge of our woods.  I walked out to the fence and could clearly see a full-grown coyote.  

We watched each other for a minute while the dogs continued to bark, then it turned and disappeared into our woods.

It took another minute or so the get the dogs to calm down and come inside.