Doing Nearly Nothing

Ah, the slow and lazy days of summer are upon us. We don't do much during the summer except try to stay cool, especially when the daily temps approach 100, and sometimes exceed that. We don't even like to travel much during summer unless it is to cooler climes, like the mountains.

We've just about completed all of our medical appointments. Everything looks pretty good considering our ages. Donna has a final appointment Monday, then she has a couple of other appointments approaching, just routine updates.

Tonight, we go to a Lorrie Morgan concert at the San Angelo Performing Arts Campus. It should be a fun night. This past Thursday, we attended a dinner at the clubhouse in our subdivision and enjoyed music by the Divas, a local group of ladies who have attained a solid following in the community. They describe themselves as "a collaboration of solo artists whose sum is greater than its parts!" It was fun to visit with our neighbors, eat some good food, and enjoy the music of these lovely ladies.

Aside from that, we've not been doing much. We both continue to walk quite a bit. Donna has increased her mileage and is now doing 6 or more miles almost daily. I still do a paltry 5 to 6 miles, but I walk more frequently than the old woman. However, I can't keep pace with her. Those short legs are a blur. Around the community, she is known as "Flash". The other day, she passed an old man and her draft knocked him down. Luckily, I was there to help him up.

We seem to be having more animals coming into the subdivision. I suppose it is a result of the drought conditions. We are bordered by an FM highway to our east and a US highway to our south. The other sides of our subdivision border ranch land. I guess animals creep in to Rio Concho West for water, the soft green grass, and other reasons. We are accustomed to sharing our space with turkeys and deer, but the ring tail cats and other critters are a bit new for us. I am alarmed by the number of skunks we have roaming about. I see at least one skunk on almost every walk. I shared my picture of a possum in a recent post. On a recent walk, I came across a snake. It was still fairly dark, but I saw a shape in a driveway. I put my flashlight on it and saw a snake of perhaps 2 feet. It was too dark for me to ID it, and I'm not good with snakes anyway. I've killed 2 rattlers in our subdivision before -- one in my yard and another for an older man on his front porch. So, this is not that unusual. Still, it's a might unsettling.

I'll leave you with my poor pictures of my recent snake encounter.

This is more or less what I saw in the dark as I approached the snake. You can see my shadow at left in the dim glow of a nearby street light.

I held my flashlight in my mouth to get this partial shot of the snake.

So, if you don't hear from me again, you'll know the savage animals here at RCW have cornered me and put me to rest.