12 Oakdale

Time for our annual get together: 6 high school girlfriends for a long weekend at Kathy’s house in Swanee, Georgia. I bought my airline ticket months ago. The week before kickoff, Mickie let the rest of know that she had thought about cancelling the reunion since she’d likely broken her foot while visiting Japan (Sue already knew of the accident since she was along on that trip.) She was using a knee scooter (again) and would soldier on. Then Thursday morning, right before she was to drive from Elijah, GA, Mary Bird texted that she had decided not to come so she could have “me” time. What? Is she okay? No one knows. On the home front, Monday Grant gouged a quarter-sized hole in his shin on a stick from a freeze-killed coffee plant that I had asked my yard person CC to cut to the ground. She had interpreted that to mean, “Please leave dead 12”-18” spikes sticking out off the ground when you cut back a plant.” Little swords just waiting for action. I had warned Grant to be careful when h...

The rain finally came: almost an inch last evening. Plus lots of wind. We lost a big screen panel, so time to call Terry from Integrity Screens. He’d just been out to replace 3 lowers panels that were getting rather loose, and I worried Gracie would figure out how to escape. Little by little, I’m having him replace all the screens. I probably should just have him do it all at once, but the piece by piece approach seems less painful. I know, crazy thinking. (We were lucky. On the east side of town, a tornado knocked over a tree onto a car, killing a 14-year-old.) Before this rain, the yard was dry and crispy, no matter how much I watered. When the wild coffee and hamalia, both natives, start wilting, it’s dry. I’m having Cooper run a line down the south side, using city water, so we will have total coverage when needed, which I hope won’t be until next dry season. Crossing my fingers that the rainy season has finally started. He’s already extended the canal intake out another foot, and ...

About all I can say for my jog this morning is that I did it, and it was 10 second pace faster than the 7th-week jog last time. Certainly, noting to get excited about, but I was out there, after taking 4 days off. The two red shouldered hawks huddled together on the power line didn’t look like they had much energy either. 51° makes birds fluffy.  Yesterday, crows and hawks were mobbing the great horned owl that was sitting in Nancy’s pine tree. I’ve been hearing a pair call for the past week. I still can’t figure where their nest could be. This week, I’ve had trouble getting motivated to do much of anything. I started by getting out a box of photographs to look for pictures of Sean. These were ones I paid to have scanned onto a cd years ago and never even unsealed the box when they were returned. Even though the pictures were grouped with labels, I became overwhelmed. Every time I’d start to look at them, I just couldn’t decide what to do. Then I got the insurance policy renewal fo...