Adios, Pepe

We were pleasantly surprised by an unexpected rain last Saturday night. About 9:00 PM, a shower roared through, dropping about half an inch of rain. The ground was so parched that it slurped up every drop. Now, 5 days later, I can't tell that the rain had any positive effect, though I'm sure it did. That's just how dry it is out here now.

And our temps have been just a shade cooler. We have only broken the 100 degree mark a couple of times recently. The mornings have been very nice, with lows hovering about 70 and with a refreshing breeze. It's been pretty good walking weather in the mornings. I'm looking forward to the start of autumn in about one month.

Good color in a neighbor's yard.

Our local schools started this week. I don't know all the details, but the local district is offering both in-person and remote access. I hope things go well, but we've seen some disturbing things around the country the past couple of weeks -- at both the K-12 level and the collegiate level -- so I just don't know.

Our COVID numbers have been improving recently; I hope that they don't shoot up again with schools reopening. I guess we'll know in 2 to 4 weeks.

A Facebook friend posted something recently that I really like: "I don't like being in a pandemic with y'all. It's like being on silent lunch, but we keep getting days added on because y'all won't shut up." I feel pretty much the same way. Donna and I are behaving ourselves and doing our part to get over this pandemic, but all the covidiots out there keep going to Sturgis or street parties or beach parties or rallies and keep spreading this thing around.

I've mentioned our skunk problem before. The crews out here have been setting out traps and have been catching some of the critters recently. On my walk a few days ago, I came across this little Pepe Le Pew towards the front of our subdivision. I guess he has a new home by now.

Trapped skunk

Donna went out to Lake Nasworthy yesterday morning to scare the fish. She says she caught 4 or 5 good sized crappie, but you know how those fish stories go. She'll probably go once or twice more this month, as her license expires at the end of this month. I stayed home and had a relaxed and peaceful  morning off.

We continue to put puzzles together. Here is our latest masterpiece.

"On Golden Shores"

I caught another pretty good sunrise the other morning. Here it is rising between two oak trees.

Sunrise

And that is pretty much all the excitement that has happened around here.

Be safe and smart.

Recycle Day

One of our recycling bins was full, so it was time to take a load to our local recycling center.

Now, we really no longer have a true recycling center in San Angelo. For years, the San Angelo Friends of the Environment (S.A.F.E.) operated a full-scale recycling center where we were able to take almost everything that was recyclable. However, when the city began curbside pickup, the recycling center no longer received enough items to maintain itself, so it closed in 2018. In our little community, the maintenance department collects our garbage, so we do not have curbside service provided by the city. As a result, if we want to recycle, we have to find a way on our own.

Since S.A.F.E. closed 2 years ago, we have taken our items to Butts Recycling at 615 West 11th Street. Now, they don't recycle as many items as S.A.F.E. did, but they recycle quite a bit. This morning, I took tin cans, aluminum cans (mostly Donna's beer cans), No. 1 plastic, No. 2 plastic, and cardboard. Most of our items are plastic and cardboard. We do not know of a local place to recycle glass, so we try to avoid anything sold in that type of container.

Mission accomplished, so we're good for another month or so.

These are 4 of our recycling bins. From left to right, they are tin, aluminum, no. 1 plastic, and no. 2 plastic. We keep these bins at the front of the garage so they are convenient to the kitchen door, barely visible at left.

I have to put the back seat down in the RAV4 to get everything in. The blue tub contains cardboard.

Some of the clearly labeled bins at Butts recycling. For those of you in the area, these are located conveniently inside the gate on our left.

More bins. That is the entrance at left.

By the way, the temp hit 109 degrees on this day. It is hot out there.

The Broken Record Keeps on Spinning

You can probably gather from the title that life is the same for us. The temperatures are hot -- exceeding 100 degrees essentially every day -- and we continue to spend most of our time at home.

I snapped this picture the same morning as the sunrise photos in my previous post. You can see some color in the sky in the background. Can you see the little hummer coming in for some food?

Here's a zoomed in version of the little hummer as he approaches his breakfast.

We did get out a bit last week. One morning, we ventured the half mile from our front gate to pick up curbside groceries at our H.E.B. After we brought our groceries home, we then needed to run out to pick up some prescriptions at our pharmacy. It was then that I noticed the warning light on our car  indicating that at least one of our tires was low. I parked at the pharmacy and checked all the tires and discovered that our right-rear tire was a few pounds low. I slowly inched forward while Donna watched the tire to see if she could detect anything in it. Sure enough, old eagle-eyes spotted a nail or screw.

I really didn't want to go to a regular tire shop to fix the tire because I just wasn't confident that any of them would be observing the necessary COVID precautions. So, I decided to just go to our Toyota dealer, and I'm glad I did. I buy Toyota because the cars are well made and the service departments are very reliable. I've not been disappointed yet with the service I've received at any Toyota dealer.

I pulled up to the service department and a masked service rep came out and processed me. An employee immediately came out, put a cover over the driver's seat and disposable mat in the floorboard, and took the car in to work on it. Donna and I did not want to wait in the customer area, so we strolled the lot looking at cars and deciding which one we'd buy next. We were even entertained for a while watching a truck unload some new cars. I had always wondered exactly how that process worked -- moving ramps from top level to lower level -- and we were able to see the procedure in full. Pretty interesting.

When the tire was fixed, the car was brought to us, the seat cover and floor mat removed, and we were ready to go. I asked how much I owed and was told there was no charge. I do love being a Toyota customer.

And that was the highlight of our week. Oh, we did complete another puzzle. One piece was missing, but that's alright. It was fun. We've started another one, and I guess we'll keep on putting them together until this pandemic thing is over. 

Our latest puzzle. Note the missing piece near upper-left corner.

Good Morning!

I usually walk 2 days, then take the next day off. Today (Saturday) was a day off. So, I awoke, made a cup of coffee, and headed out to the back patio to enjoy the cool morning, if you can call 80 degrees cool. But there was a slight breeze, and that made it pleasant.

I was watching the sun rise just a bit north of east from my location. Although armed only with my phone camera, I decided to snap a series of pictures over a span of less than 3 minutes. People who don't rise early and/or don't venture outside probably have no idea just how quickly the sun rises above the horizon in the morning -- or sets in the evening, for that matter.

Below are a few pictures I snapped. The time stamp only shows minutes, not seconds, so I don't know precisely when each picture was snapped. However, the first was taken at 7:06 while the last was snapped at 7:09. I would estimate that less than 2½ minutes total time elapsed from the first picture to the last. I have not included every picture I took.

Sun not visible here -- just light from it.

Sun begins to poke above the treeline.

Sun is more than halfway above treeline. Probably only 30 seconds have elapses since previous picture.

Sun is fully above treeline. 

Something Tasty This Way Comes

When I got home from my walk this morning, Donna was out harvesting some basil and mint. Yum. I know I'll be having something good to eat pretty soon.

Basil and mint all mixed together.

We're still looking for rain. We just can't seem to get any. In looking at the forecast this morning, it looks like another week of triple digit temps for us. Well, it's supposed to be hot in August. One more full month of this, and then in September the temps will start easing a bit. We usually get some rain in September as well, so we'll just hang on until then.

There was a pretty nice sunrise this morning, much prettier than what my picture below shows. I probably waited too long to snap the picture, but I was trying to get to a place where there was a clear view. 

I was at the entrance when I snapped this photo. That is a podiatrist's office in the photo.

Near the end of my walk, I came across this little stinker. He seemed to be minding his own business; still, I prefer not to encounter these little rascals in our community.

We continue to stay close to home keeping busy. We put puzzles together, read books, and do lots of crosswords. Late last week, Donna asked me to make some meatballs to go with her spaghetti. Well, I made a batch and enjoyed them. I don't think Donna cared for them; she ate just enough to be polite and not hurt my feelings. That's why Donna does most of the real cooking around here . . . and that's a very good thing!

The latest puzzle we have done. Our clubhouse has quite a collection, so we are keeping busy with them.

You folks be careful out there. There are lots of morons wandering the streets these days.

Awaiting a Vaccine

My posts these days are not regular. Whenever we do something, I usually post right away. When we travel, I post as soon as we return home, and I may have several items to post over the following days. But right now, we are doing absolutely nothing. The only time we get out is to pick up curbside groceries, usually at H.E.B. Gosh, I love that store! I miss going there.

So please bear with me as my posts may get even more infrequent. I look forward to the day we can travel again, or even go out to eat or shop. But for now, we will stay home when we can and try to do our part to slow the spread of this vicious disease.

I was hoping to get some rain from Hanna, but she just grazed the lower Gulf coast of Texas and then headed straight across to Mexico. Guess all we'll get from her is some humidity to go with our heat. I hope the folks in South Texas fare well. The Valley is already hard hit, so they really didn't need this sucker punch on top of the pandemic.

I was watering the plants in the front beds this morning to help Donna out a bit. Boy, her basil surely is doing well. Looks like it's time for another picking. And when basil gets picked in our household, that means Donna makes her delicious pesto. It's one of my favorite pasta dishes.

Donna's basil, surrounded by marigolds on the left and a touch of rosemary on the right.

Close-up of the basil.

We use a little basil on sandwiches from time to time. I love to get some good rye bread, spread a little mayo and horse radish on there, then layer on Swiss cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil. What a tasty meatless meal. 

I also noticed that our mint was going to seed. Next time I get out with the weed eater, I'll just lop off the top of those plants and that mint will take off. It's pretty hard to kill mint; in fact, I think it is one plant that enjoys some abuse. Each winter, I cut it low to the ground and then it thickens up the following spring, better than ever.

Mint growing thick.

I hope all of you are doing well. We are putting puzzles together, reading books, puttering a bit in the yard, walking, and getting on each other's nerves. But we are doing well and looking forward to a better day.

Take care of yourselves!

This pretty young lady was visiting our neighbors across the street one morning.

Hot Week Behind Us

Wow! I'm happy for the past week to be behind us. For a week or 10 days, we hit some pretty high temps, including consecutive 110 degree days. That's just a bit too hot for me. For the next week or so, the temps will hover just below 100. Yeah, that's still hot, but it will be about 10 degrees cooler than it has been.

We've still had no rain, and the countryside is very dry. Several grass fires have been popping up all over the Concho Valley. 

One of the Schwartz Boys produce carts we visit regularly.

Another view of the cart above.

We continue to isolate ourselves from others as much as possible. We have had confirmed cases of COVID-19 within the Rio Concho communities, including at least 1 case in our specific community of Rio Concho West. I'm not sure people really understand how this virus spreads. Donna and I watch our neighbors, and we see people come and go in their houses. Anytime someone enters your house, you have the potential to spread the virus. Neighbors all around us continue to socialize to some degree. 

There is some good news, though. The county may have peaked in our positive cases. We had one or two days when over 100 new cases were reported. In the past few days, that number has tapered off. Now, I understand that it can shoot up again, but I'm thankful for at least a few days of lower numbers. In the first 3 months of this virus, we had a total of fewer than 100 cases; now we have had that many cases on several individual days. 

I had an interesting animal encounter recently. I left the house for my normal morning walk about 6:00. It was just starting to get light in the east, so there was still quite a bit of darkness. I had not walked 100 yards from my house when I heard a vicious growling behind me. I spun around and saw 2 critters. We were near a street light, so I had a pretty good look at them. One was approaching me rather aggressively while the other hung back. I stopped and pointed my flashlight at the one in front and it stopped. 

For the next minute or so, we had a standoff. I hollered at him and even approached him menacingly, but he didn't retreat. At one point, he even took another step or two towards me. I held my ground and hollered some more, waved my arms wildly in an attempt to make myself look bigger, and tried to bluff him. Eventually, I slowly backed away towards the yard behind me. I picked up a couple of rocks and threw at him. 

Eventually, I continued backing down the street. From time to time, he'd take another step or two towards me, but eventually he turned around. I believe it was a pair of ring-tailed cats. Now, from what I know about these critters, they are normally shy around humans, so I'm having a difficult time understanding why at least one of them was so aggressive. The growl alone as quite unnerving. But if he had not growled, I would not have turned. 

It could be that the critter that held back was a youngster, and the one in front was the mother. If so, perhaps she felt that I was a threat to her young. But it could also be that the one in front had rabies. A case of rabies was reported in the county last week, so I know that there are rabies around. And we have a ton of skunks in the area, and they are notorious for spreading rabies; I see them almost every walk. In fact, on Saturday, I saw 4 skunks.

I've cautioned Donna about walking using her ear buds to listen to music. When I walk, I like to tune in to my surroundings. Had I not heard the growl, the animal would have been on me before I knew of its presence.

Well, I've decided to wait until full light now to take my walk. If I'm going to be killed and eaten by an animal, I want to at least be able to get a good look at it.

These turkeys passed through our yard one evening. I snapped the photo from inside the house. They think they own the place!

Here's an unusual combo I saw on a recent walk. On the left is a turkey, and you can see the skunk under the three on the right.