blast from the past, burn ban, rain but not on us

This little tidbit from the NYT newsletter this morning amused me: “Crowds of people are lining up outside a suitcase shop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to get their turn with an exciting piece of technology: an analog photo booth from the 1970s. The booth, called Old Friend, snaps four photos, which take about three minutes to develop. The throwback has resonated particularly with members of a younger generation. “It’s cool to think that this is how our parents took their photos,” one visitor told The Times.” I still have the strip of photos Marc and I took when we first started going out, falling in love.

It’s been pretty uneventful around here this week. I got two more debris piles in the truck 

and plan to dump them on the burn pile today but no burning as they did call for a burn ban but not until yesterday. Still have two more piles to go in the truck and that will be everything I’ve cut so far so next I’ll cut the rest of the canopy off the second tree. After that I’ll get the big chainsaw and start work on the bigger branches that aren’t supporting the weight of the hanging limbs.

Wednesday I had a follow-up appointment with the EP, all is well, made sure I had the follow-up TEE scheduled for next month after which he will take me off the eliquis and put me on plavix instead for 6 months so a slow weaning off the blood thinners, told me to come back in 6 months. Drove through some very hard rain coming back, going 45 in the far right lane on the highway and still could barely see the lane markers ahead of me while people in bigger vehicles sped past me on the left. Fortunately I drove out from under the downpour fairly soon. This is what the sky looked like when I got home.

Another cool front came through yesterday, even dipped below 60 last night and nice and cool this morning though it’s already warming up. It looks like a nice low humidity blue sky day out there today. Doors and windows currently open listening to birdsong.

I haven’t worked on the drawing this week so maybe I’ll make some progress this weekend. I sat down Tuesday morning to work on it but realized after the first five minutes or so my mind was not focused on it and put it aside for later. I’m trying to finish the book I’m reading since someone is on the waitlist for it and the sequel to the last Preston and Child Pendergast novel has arrived at the library and is being held for me.

Time to get out there and take advantage of the day.  

no kiln (yet), no rain (still), no pecans (again)

Another look see at the newer kiln and turns out there wasn't a wire loose after all. The controller on the newer kiln will function but the kiln doesn't start up. There are two knobs/switches that regulate...something...that aren't coming on and unless they come on the kiln doesn't come on. So today he took the knobs/switches that lit up on the old kiln and replaced the ones in the newer kiln aaaaaand, they didn't come on. And then a little wire did come loose but he got it put back in place and those switches still didn't come on. So now he's working on taking the relays out of the old kiln to replace the ones in the newer kiln.

I've had to start watering my two gingko trees. They started dropping leaves a couple of weeks ago and the squirrels are peeling the bark off some of the limbs and I think they've killed at least one or two limbs as they have no leaves on them and long stretches of no bark. I don't know why they are doing that, stripping the bark from the branches but the ground is littered with pieces of bark about two inches by a half inch. Further investigation says squirrels do it to thin barked trees to get to the sweet sap layer or to line their nests and happens most frequently in winter or spring but I've only ever had it happen in the middle of summer. Perhaps they're desperate for food though I put out cracked corn for them and they have access to water. They've done it before but this is the worst. They've attacked quite a few branches on both trees.

And because of the heat and the drought there are no pecans on my trees for the third year in a row and the few on my neighbor's tree are being got by the squirrels. My trees bloomed and set nuts but they only got about a half inch long before they started drying up and falling off.

We got the truck emptied and the burn pile piled higher and here's what the shop yard looks like. 

And the frustrating thing is that twice this week I looked across the cotton field and I could see it raining in the distance so I get the nervous freaky dog from the rumbling of thunder but no rain to at least make up for that. There's some kind of dome over this town that causes storms to bypass us, sometimes splitting in two with one half passing us in the north and the other half passing us in the south. Well, at least someone is getting rain. We all need it.

My turn to make dinner tonight...cheese enchiladas with meat sauce.