Early voting is well underway for the Nov. 8 general election. Hence, the number of email and text message fund-raising pleas filling my inboxes has increased exponentially in the past week. Clearly, I somehow landed on a mailing list that was shared with folks running all over the country — Pennsylvania, Arizona, Iowa, Wisconsin and Florida, to name a few. Nearly all of these go into the promotions inbox of my Gmail, so each morning I hit “select all” and send them all to the trash. For grins, I decided to let them accumulate, not so I can actually donate money, but to collect the subject...
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The rain at last returned on Sunday, the first appreciable moisture in about seven weeks. I have been waiting on another bout of wet stuff before planting ryegrass in Pancho the Donkey’s pasture. Since we had the pond built, that roughly two-acre plot became mainly bare soil, since the dirt guy spread the excavated soil around the pond. Pancho subsists on a bit of grass at the front and back, and the square bales of hay we supply regularly. Plus, there’s the breakfast buffet my Beautiful Mystery Companion provides a few times weekly: a bucket of shredded wheat, apples, grapes, bananas and carrots....
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I held Old Camera Show and Tell for my photography class at LeTourneau University the other day, dragging a box of old gear to campus to explain what using a camera was like in the dinosaur days. This is the fourth fall semester I have taught this class. It fills to capacity each time offered. That is not because I am a great teacher – or even a particularly good one – but because it is an attractive elective, especially for the engineering and aviation students who are looking for something a bit less onerous to add to their courseload. I enjoy interacting with the students, who are intelligent,...
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Finally, it feels like autumn in East Texas. The air is crisp in the morning, the afternoons tolerable. Our yard is graced with hummingbirds darting about, drinking from the feeders or feasting on the rosebuds. Soon they will head south, and the blackbirds will arrive, if last autumn and winter were any indication. We are hopeful waterfowl will find our pond this winter. Some rain would be helpful, as an unusually wet August has been followed by cloudless skies for several weeks. I am holding off planting ryegrass until rain arrives, though I plan to hook up the borrowed disc harrow and get the ground...
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