another few days in the life

It continues to be hot and humid and dry. So dry. The cotton in the field at the end of the street is suffering, wilted with large swaths yellowing. 

I don't remember this happening the year of the terrible drought when the whole state was in exceptional drought and Texas lost millions of trees to wildfire and also from lack of water. Feed corn must have been planted in that field that year which they don't harvest until it is completely dried out anyway.

Monday evening, though, it was raining east of here and a rainbow developed while I was walking Minnie

and then Monday night a storm blew through but was mostly just lightning and thunder. We recorded 3/8” of rain. It cooled things down a bit if only temporarily. And then this morning I woke to a decent rain, or rather it was raining decently as long as it lasted, less than ¾" worth.

My neighbor whose husband died suddenly last December had a crew come in and whip her acre that had gotten out of control (this is not to be construed as a criticism especially considering my own yard maintenance style but simply as an observation) back into shape. It took them two days. There was a lot of stuff to recover and uncover. It made me wonder if she's thinking of putting the house on the market soon.

Grandgirl Jade, who is finishing up her third year at University of Texas San Antonio I know, right! is moving into a new apartment with a friend and she claimed our old dining room table that we have been keeping for her over at the shop. You might remember I got the score of a lifetime at an estate sale, a round oak table with lion paw feet, a leaf, and 6 chairs for $80. She came and fetched the table and chairs weekend before last and last Friday I got this text from her...

I'm going to have to stay away from the news and all things Trump for a few days. Trump's deployment of his DHS and prison guard and border patrol thugs in Portland and the upcoming deployment to Chicago to instigate and engage in violence is making my afib act up. Trump is doing this as part of his 'law and order' re-election strategy, and he's only doing this to democratic run states and cities as a way to delegitimize the Democrats, as proof that Dems are soft on law and order and that if they get elected the country will descend into chaos. So he is sending in his secret police to escalate the violence to create the 'proof' he wants. And in Portland that's exactly what happened. The protests had dwindled down to about 100 diehards hanging out at a park, barbequing and making music and now with the uncalled for violence from these unnamed police, the protests have resurged. Never mind that the country has descended into chaos under Trump's hand ot that this maneuver is illegal as no one in Portland asked for the feds and federal law enforcement must be requested. As for Chicago, their mayor is a black woman. He needs no other reason to demonize Chicago and send in the feds though I did read today that the police union sent a letter to Trump asking for help because they are just as racist and misogynistic as he is.

A few more pics from around the yard...

been seeing more of these little tree frogs

and I saw the tiniest little anole yesterday that must have just hatched but it scooted away too fast for me to get a picture.

Summer stalwarts Katie ruella which is basically a dwarf tamed wild mexican petunia though they also spread easily,

and the yellow bells (also called esperanza and tecoma stans) are blooming,

and the coral ginger is starting to bloom.

a few warm busy days

When we bought this place, the Big Backyard had a beautiful lawn, thick healthy grass. Today, it looks more like a meadow. About three years ago the grass started dying and we made no effort to stop it, some bug or other brought back by the lawn mower from other yards or just an invader or fungus except the lawns on either side of us are fine.

It's been sunny and warm the last couple of days and the early spring wildflowers and weeds think it's spring.

   

10 petal anemone and henbit

  

yellow and pink oxylis

  

woodland violet (and the bee is why these early spring wildflowers are so important)

  

don't know what these are and I'm too lazy to look them up but the little blue flowers are tiny, about 1/8”

  

chickweed and dandelions

There's more, like the noxious sow thistle and stickyweed and plantain, fleabane which blooms later. The flood brought us a flood of wildflower and weed seeds as well as hay grass like bluestem.

And today a cardinal is singing his love song and temps are in the mid-70s and someone at yoga last night said she saw a peach tree blooming. Hold up there, Hoss, it's barely January! It will get cold again.

I finally got the peas planted Sunday 

and picked up a cart load of branches from the Big Backyard. There's a pile in the Little Backyard and the side yard has yet to be gone over. Marc went over and fired up the burn pile last week and already the back of the truck is full of fallen branches.

I drove into the city yesterday to spend the day with the twins who are both back at their parent's house. Now in their second year of college, they no longer consider it home. We went to the art supply store to get Autumn her holiday gift (she wanted art supplies instead of money, being a working girl and all...a kit with 24 acrylic paints, a canvas, and a small easel), went to lunch at a vegetarian restaurant where they had vegan cheese (the one they had available yesterday was made from coconut milk and resembled mozzarella, I wasn't impressed), 

Jade took two pictures of Autumn and I and both times I had food in my mouth. When I gave her a hard time after the first pic, she took this one.

tried to go to the Menil (a museum that houses the Menil's private art collection and yes, a museum full) but they were closed, took them to the Rothko Chapel because they had never been and everyone should go at least once (I'm still not impressed by Rothko), and then I hit the road at 3 to get through the gauntlet of Fort Bend County road construction before traffic got bad and because yoga last night.

I got more samples made and added the powder to the feather form I had made weeks ago 

before firing...

and they came out of the kiln yesterday. 

after firing...

These samples and the feather came out too shiny so we'll have to tweak the firing schedule. I'm happy enough with my first attempt at the feather but next time I'll make some changes in my color choices and application. I also determined how much this stuff shrinks (17%) which will be helpful when I'm working on a real piece. Next I'm going to mix up some of the transparent fine frit and see how that fires. I'm sort of working on a composition in my head, a real piece to see how I like this modeling glass, how it is to work with it and how I like the end result. It has a completely different look than what I'm used to getting with the pate de verre. 

the one and only granny camp this year

The boy is 21, working full time, and living his adult life; the twins, 20, are in college in different cities, both took classes during the summer, and are now starting their second year of college.

So, a week ago today I arrived home from the class in Austin about 8 PM and found I had a message from my youngest grandgirl asking if she could come for her visit the next day and could she bring a friend and so of course, yes, the last possible week before school starts. Robin, now 17 and starting her senior year in high school, spent the earlier part of the summer traveling with a group of Jewish teens to Poland and Israel and then had to wait til the bathroom/house was finished.

Her friend Bethany wanted to learn how to sew so off we went on Sunday to get a pattern and fabric and since the Walmart had a limited selection yes, I know, I shopped at the heinous Walmart but the alternative was an hour's driving time to go into Rosenberg and back and shop at the heinous Hobby Lobby and we were short on time she settled on shorts and spent the rest of the day laying out the pattern and cutting the fabric while Robin worked on pinning a new hem on a cut off t-shirt.

The girls wanted to make a pie and since peaches are now gone they settled on apple. I've never made an apple pie in my life. I peeled and cored the apples and Robin sliced them up while Bethany finished cutting out the fabric for the second pair of shorts and then the two girls did the rest.

Bethany is a jigsaw puzzle fan and so they spent the rest of the day engrossed in a 1,000 piece puzzle.

Tuesday, since my sewing machine has gone from balky to not working at all, we went over to my sister's house and used her machine. I walked Bethany through the first pair of shorts reading the instructions and explaining things and demonstrating and doing a few of the tricky parts while she did most the sewing on the first pair of shorts and Robin read and visited with her great aunt.

The girls finished the first puzzle sometime Tuesday night and then started a second 1,000 piece puzzle Wednesday morning. 

Then we did the shops around the square 

and after lunch Robin got her first driving lesson, driving back and forth behind the Walmart and then around the circumference of the entire parking lot over and over and then I took over til we got to the long county road where we switched again and she drove us back to the house.

I tried to teach her how to drive last year but she wasn't interested.

Thursday it was back to my sister's house to stitch up the second pair of shorts which Bethany did by herself. I sat in the room with her to answer questions but she didn't need much help. 

Robin drove us there and back both times (we came home for lunch) on real roads with real traffic (such as it is in this little town) and stop signs and stop lights, creeping along Robin, try going a little faster but she did real well.

They worked on the second puzzle until my daughter came early evening to pick them up and then it was dumped back in the box.

summer heat and summer visits

Yesterday was the last day of July and now we head into the dog days of August, although the forecast for the first week shows lower temperatures than we had this past week, which went into triple digits, the hot south wind blowing across the field behind us like the heat that comes out of an oven. We might even get some rain. Yesterday morning at 8 AM, it was still relatively cool out, operative word here being 'relatively', and while we will be hovering in the low 90s and maybe even the high 80s this week, I saw that Portland, Oregon is predicted to hit 106˚ or higher. It hasn't even been that hot down here on the Gulf Coast plains. There is something seriously wrong when the Northwest gets hotter than we do.

In another couple of weeks, the twins will head off to their first year of college. It doesn't look like they will manage a couple of days here as there is still much to do before they leave and we have spent a week with them this summer, just not here. We did get a drop in visit from our 20 year old grandboy the other night. Drove all the way out here to spend about an hour and then drove back as he had to be at work at 8 AM the next day. Used to be I would have to chase him down to give him a hug under protest when he left after visiting, then a few years ago he started giving me one of those side hugs. The other night when I went to hug him as he was leaving he gave me an honest to god bear hug. First time ever!

Summers have gotten less busy. The only summer grandchild left is Robin. They all out grew the regular spring and winter break visits, when all four would come years ago, about the time they were old enough to stay at home by themselves but they kept up their summer visits.

And so, I picked up Robin on a Friday with the plan to return her on the following Monday not a week but hey, I'll take what I can get. We stopped at Trader Joe's and Costco on the return to lay in some supplies. At Costco I bought 2 cartons of blueberries, one carton of strawberries, one carton of raspberries. I had bought a carton of Rainier cherries at a previous stop that we had already polished off and Robin ate all the raspberries on the way home. By the time she left she had eaten all that fruit plus nearly all of a watermelon, besides just regular food. That may not sound very impressive if you've never shopped at Costco.

Anyway, she wanted to get her haircut so I made the appointment for Saturday and of course there is no 'before' picture but it was longer and no bangs

after which we poked around in a couple of shops 

until we got hungry, drove out to get the honey I thought I had arranged to buy but apparently there was a breakdown in communication, and then back for lunch and then we made a lemon tart.

She couldn't decide which movie she wanted to see so I bribed her with an extra night to see both. 

Sunday we went to El Campo to see the new Spiderman and Monday we went to see Baby Driver in Rosenberg.

I was supposed to take her back on Tuesday but she decided that since it was like being at home here only she didn't have to get her own food and there was more variety, she'd stay another night.

Wednesday though, I did return her home.

all growed up

Some of you might remember these girls from their first Granny Camp back in 2009...

Jade

Autumn

Well, this is what they did last Friday night...with honors.

In August Jade will be leaving for college at University of Texas San Antonio and Autumn will be leaving for college at University of Texas in Austin.

They will be separated for the first time in their lives.