preparation

Took the last grandkiddo home yesterday after the reprise visits and now school starts for them in two weeks and I leave in a week for my residency/retreat. This week I am going to start packing and work on my presentation.

Image via http://www.extrapackofpeanuts.com/what-to-pack-22-essentials/hearos-earplugs-never-leave-home-without-them/

The very first thing I'm going to pack is earplugs since we won't have private rooms at the center. I may have as many as three sleeping companions. I plan to bring extras for those of the attendees who haven't thought this through to it's logical conclusion.

We are dead in the middle of the dog days of summer here. Except for a brief, albeit heavy, rainstorm yesterday, it's been a month since we had any rain at all. For three days last week we had a 15 – 20 mph hot dry wind out of the south desiccating everything. I spent the next two days after it died down letting the hose run under the altheas, azaleas, roses, and other assorted shruberies.

The small maple that we had cut down because it was dying, dropping branches, and the core was rotten and full of ants is not convinced it is dead. It had put up half a dozen new starts of growth with pretty green leaves.

This is what it looked like after three days of that hot dry wind.

So I really won't mind escaping to cooler climes for a week. It's been low 70s – mid to high 90s here. It's been low 50s – mid 70s there. That's blue jeans weather to me.

This morning a juvenile mississippi kite was sitting in the tree tops calling kikeeeee.

In spite of the hot weather, life still goes on. The water lily pond has a resident frog and the pond and the natural water filter are both full of tadpoles.

Big Mama thinks she is starving, starving I tell you! Feed me, feed me. And woe be to any of the goldfish that tries to snatch a morsel intended for her. She will chase that little fucker all over her pond until I can distract her with another bite.

The baby anoles are hatching left and right. They love the long daylily bed where the occasional scape is still getting sent up.

Other things are blooming too. The plumerias have been blooming all summer. The altheas, after their major show in early summer, are still putting on scattered flowers and the star of india continues putting on it's small gardenia-like blooms. The morning glory bush is starting to flower and the zinnias are undeterred. The yellow bells too though I don't see them so much as they are in the front yard.

I've been working on my presentation today at the same time I have been working on this blog post. They are sort of intertwined. So alright, I thought, I've got a whole page. Hmmmm, how many words is a 10 – 12 minute talk...consult the All Knowing Oracle...a 5 minute talk is about 600 words...do a word count...584. Damn. I need twice as much. 

 Maybe I can just taaalk reeeeaaalll ssslllloooowwww.