nothing quite so glamorous as a formal wedding or wine fair

The weather had cooled off finally after that hot August and September. We had a few weeks of days in the 80s but this week it has been hot again. Back up in the 90s during the day though it has been dropping down to 60 during the night giving us a 30+ degree temperature range. I used the opportunity of the cooler days to empty out the store room over at the shop in anticipation of pulling down a three section piece of the sheet metal that the shop is built out of that was up on the ceiling of the built-in part of the shop, the three small rooms which are going to be torn out and rebuilt. All the wood, including the support beams are soft and friable from termite damage.

 The (mostly) empty storeroom. The wall on the left is the back wall of the built-in part.

 Some of the stuff that was in there.

The demolition I started last year.

Even though the days have been hot, it does cool off to acceptable levels in the evening. I've been sitting out with the puppy running around in the yard. It's pleasant really as the humidity has dropped, that's how we tell if a front has moved in. There is just a slight hint of coolness in the air coming up from the ground, almost too subtle to feel unless the breeze moves a little. The pecan trees are dropping their brown and crisp leaves steadily and the Big Backyard is about half covered. They crinkle nicely when you walk through them.

I know all my readers are wondering why I haven't been writing about pecans yet because, of course, my life is intensely interesting and you remember everything, but no nuts though this year. When I got back from Canada I picked up 8 or 9 gallons of immature nuts from just the front third of the Big Backyard that had been falling since the beginning of July. After three years in a row of bumper crops I guess our trees are having a rest. To tell you the truth, while I will miss the home grown fresh pecans and the extra cash from selling the excess, I will not miss the chore of picking them up and shelling them.

I do have some left over from last year that I never got around to shelling.

Marc hauled the old truck bench seat, our first outdoor furniture we put under one of the pecan trees where we sat and watched the sunsets in the winter when we first bought this place, to the transfer station today. It was falling apart and had been colonized by fire ants on more than one occasion. I'm working towards getting a real outdoor bench seat but I won't put it back in the same place, I'm going to plant the azaleas that are currently in pots there. Besides, it's not really the best sunset viewing spot.

It looked like this when we first dragged it out there.

Here's the space now sans bench seat.

And I have finally started on some new waxes. Not my next body of work of course. Why the hell would I start on that next? These are just warm-ups since it's been so long since I did any model making, a set of three magnolia leaves that will have various stages of the flower to seed added to them.