We went to town for lunch after church. On the way back, we had to get out of the way of several emergency vehicles, then we saw the CareFlight helicopter overhead, so we knew something major must've gone down on I-35 and we managed to exit onto the service road.

Um, yeah. Words fail me. That was a massive mess with multiple vehicles, even a semi. I saw somebody who was dead in their SUV.

This was a stretch of interstate that my family and I had just traveled forty-five minutes earlier.

I'm going to lie down for a while and hope that I can forget I just saw that.

Recognize this place?



Yep! For those of us "of a certain age," we remember this scene quite well as belonging to none other than:



On July 4, 2009, a TEA Party was held at Southfork Ranch.

I did NOT see J. R. or Miss Ellie. But J. R.'s capitalist spirit was roaming freely about the grounds.

There was a Securi-TEA tent at the entrance where they searched your bags. There were also lots of folks with VolunTEAr t-shirts on as well.

I think they're saying that a lot fewer people showed up than were expected. Well, for one thing, it was the hottest day of the year so far. I think it officially got up to 103, according to the Dallas weather-guy on TV. I would also guess that more people came later, when it cooled a bit. We arrived at about 4PM and it was blazing. As was the passion for taking back our country.

The guy on stage started singing the national anthem and the entire place came to a standstill. When a little later he broke into "God Bless the USA," the crowd stood and sang along at the top of their lungs. Yep, lots of people who love our country the way it was founded and don't want to see it "Hope and Change."

Are you DC liberals paying attention? You had better be.

In CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The Unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

* He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
* He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
* He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
* He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
* He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
* He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
* He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
* He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers.
* He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
* He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
* He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
* He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
* He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their acts of pretended Legislation:
o For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
o For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from Punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
o For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
o For imposing taxes on us without our Consent:
o For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
o For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
o For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
o For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
o For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
* He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
* He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
* He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
* He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
* He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives, of the United States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the Protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

Massachusetts: John Hancock
Georgia: Button Gwinnett, Lyman Hall, George Walton
North Carolina: William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, John Penn
South Carolina: Edward Rutledge, Thomas Heyward Jr., Thomas Lynch Jr, Arthur Middleton
Maryland: Samuel Chase, William Paca, Thomas Stone, Charles Carrol of Carrollton
Virginia: George Wythe, Richard Henry Lee, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Harrison, Thomas Nelson, Jr., Francis Lightfoot Lee, Carter Braxton
Pennsylvania: Robert Morris, Benjamin Rush, Benjamin Franklin, John Morton, George Clymer, James Smith, George Taylor, James Wilson, George Ross
Delaware: Caesar Rodney, George Read, Thomas McKean
New York: William Floyd, Philip Livingston, Francis Lewis, Lewis Morris
New Jersey: Richard Stockton, John Witherspoon, Francis Hopkinson, John Hart, Abraham Clark
New Hampshire: Josiah Bartlett, William Whipple, Matthew Thornton
Massachusetts-Bay: Samuel Adams, John Adams, Robert Treat Paine, Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island: Stephen Hopkins,William Ellery
Connecticut: Roger Sherman, Samuel Huntington, William Williams, Oliver Wolcott

Well, let's hope not, anyway.

But it's perfectly bizarre how many things have added starch to them to make them firmer. I like imitation crab, or surimi, and enjoyed some at lunch today. And I paid the price later. I couldn't figure it out at first, but then I remembered the surimi and went onto Google to try to figure out what's actually IN it. I had assumed it was just finely-minced fish, but they actually add starch and sugar and other stuff to it to give it the right texture. I'm willing to lay odds it was either corn starch or potato starch or some combination thereof.

Hence my guts being in a small state of uproar this evening.

Rice or wheat starch don't seem to have the same ill effects on me, so pasta is mostly okay.

Say NO! to starch!! And learn to READ THE LABEL ON EVERYTHING. I am so lazy; this will probably be the hardest thing to try to remember to do. I suppose you slip up one too many times and you'll be punished into remembering...

I also had a couple of slices of Kraft Singles. You know, the little square of cheesy stuff shaped into a square and wrapped in plastic that you peel apart? I bet that stuff is full up with some kind of modified food starch or other. I suppose I won't find that out for sure until sometime during the night. UPDATE: I didn't have any trouble last night. I Googled Kraft Singles when I got up this morning and there is no starch of any kind among the ingredient list. I think I'm safe with those. Yay! So they're not "real cheese"... I'm enough of a complete plebe to love them anyway. It was a huge treat when I was a little kid to get a square of Kraft Singles, open it up (how cool WAS that awesome plastic wrapper?), fold up the square into half and then half again to make a long stick, and enjoy its cheesy goodness. I had never heard of chevre or Gouda when I was a little kid. I love those kinds of cheeses now, too. But there's always a place in my heart for those little cheese-flavored squares made by Kraft. And it really has to be Kraft; I have tried the other brands, both national and local, and none of them can quite match up to the taste and texture of Kraft Singles.

Tomorrow we're planning to go to the ginormous TEA party at Southfork Ranch. If we do make it there, I will definitely be photographing and blogging the event.

Tiny house living, anyone?

There are a ton of cool pluses to this sort of lifestyle. The caveat, for me at least, would be that I would have to be SINGLE and CHILDLESS. I don't require much, but one thing I really have to have isn't so much "space" as "distance." I'm a lot like my dad in this respect, that we both would make great hermits. Not together, of course. But I don't mind being alone.

And in a house this small, I had better be alone.

House wrecked as man kills weeds with flame thrower

A German gardener's house was left a smouldering wreck on Friday after he set it on fire while trying to get rid of the weeds with the help of a flame-thrower, police said.

After accidentally setting his hedge alight, the 54-year-old's garden shed was soon also engulfed in flames and despite efforts to extinguish the fire with a garden hose, the blaze spread to the roof of the house.

Seven firemen were needed to put out the blaze in Tangstedt near Hamburg in northern Germany, which occurred on Thursday. Police said the house was now uninhabitable.

No, really?

Get some Roundup, dude. Or a hoe. They make garden implements for such things as chopping weeds. Been making those things for prolly hundreds of years or more.

Of course, it's not as sexy as a flamethrower. But there's something distinctly un-sexy about burning down your house.

Sometimes the guys over at IMAO just really knock one out of the park.

Obama Apologizes For Declaration of Independence

WASHINGTON (AP) - Just in time for the document’s 233rd anniversary, President Barack Obama has issued an executive order apologizing to Great Britain for America’s Declaration of Independence in 1776.

“It’s time to move away from the failed policies of the past,” said Obama during a Rose Garden press conference, “and the first step is apologizing for the original sin of this nation against the sensibilities of the international community.”

...

Queen Elizabeth the Second said that she would “consider” accepting the apology if Obama would “take back this stupid iPod and send me a Kindle 2.”

Lewisville, Texas -- a northern Dallas suburb by now -- and their "Fighting Farmers." The little cartoon mascot guy is wielding a pitchfork.

I am also aware of the mascot of Atlanta, Texas (a smallish city on the far northeastern edge of the state, near Texarkana) being the "Rabbits." What, are they going to wiggle their noses at us?

What are some funny ones you've seen or been made aware of?

Also known as Rose of Sharon or Althea. This big double purple one is thriving in my yard.

This little fellow is dangling temptingly from a northwest branch on one of my peach trees in my yard. He's not quite ripe yet, but he's very nice to look at, no?

My fondness for HBO's True Blood series. Some of those characters are as naughty as they can possibly be, really. If you're my mom or grandmother or auntie, please do NOT watch this show, ok? Promise me? And even if you're not related to me, but you have children under the age of twenty-one living in your house -- forbid them from watching this. I mean it. Don't allow them anywhere near it. It's shocking and it crosses a LOT of lines I'm just not accustomed to seeing be crossed on a television screen. It's unwholesome.

And more than a little addictive and funny. The acting is simply superb. It really is.

I think my favorite characters just may be Tara and Lafayette, two black characters in the Louisiana town of Bon Temps. In this exchange, they are protecting the main character, Sookie, from all the townspeople who are gathering with food after Sookie's grandmother died. Remember, this is on HBO, so the language is pretty rough:
----------------------

Lafayette Reynolds: [looking at all of the food brought by the town] What the f*** is it with white people and jello? I don't understand.
Tara Thornton: [annoyed] What the h*ll we gonna do with all this?
Lafayette Reynolds: Toss it. Sookie don't need no bad juju cooking.
Tara Thornton: Bad juju?
Lafayette Reynolds: Way to a man's heart is through his stomach. That sh*t true as gold. You put some love in your food and folk can taste it. [picks up the cornbread] Smell this. You can smell the fear and nastiness comin' off that cornbread.
Tara Thornton: [takes a bite] Tastes just fine to me.
Lafayette Reynolds: See b*tch. You gonna wish you ain't did that. Watch.

-----------------------

I think I've HAD food at church socials that fit that description... fear and nastiness (not recently, mind you)... heh... and the jello thing? I've wondered that, too, particularly after having lived in Des Moines, which is reported to be the city in the United States which can boast the highest per capita consumption of Jello.

Anyway, these two characters -- while they are riddled with flaws -- are strangely likeable and are amazingly acted (Nelsan Ellis and Rutina Wesley).

Instead of buying pre-made hummus and taking a chance, I decided it was ridiculous not to make my own. So here's what I did:

2 cans of garbanzo beans, mostly (but not completely) drained
Several generous tablespoons of tahini paste (yes, Wal-Mart grocery DID have tahini!)
The juice of several Key limes (because I didn't have any lemons and I love Key limes anyway)
Four fat cloves of garlic
Minced parsley
Kosher salt

I dumped all these into the KitchenAid blender, turned it on high, and drizzled EVOO into it until it became smooth and creamy.

Bill Compton probably would not approve of this hummus, since it's very garlicky, but I like it. I like it a LOT. I'd like to have its babies. I'm not sure Bill could keep me away from it -- although Bill's very, very nice to look at, for a dead guy and all.

Yes, this made a pretty hefty batch of hummus, but it keeps in the fridge, and at the rate I consume it, it's probably a good idea to have plenty on hand anyway.

Our barn swallow fledglings on the side porch are juuuuuuust about ready to take off and try their wings! Dude likes to torment them by lounging down on the porch floor a few feet away... perhaps hoping one of them will panic and try too early. Hey, it could happen.

The Great Geek Debates: Kirk vs. Picard

Advantage: Picard
I would have to agree with this one, but that's probably only because I have had a crush on Patrick Stewart for probably twenty years now.

A nightclub on the east side of Denton, Texas. No, I've not been inside it. I just thought the name was humorous enough to merit a blog post.

Lovely rain this morning... it's soooooo pleasant to wake up in a house that has all the windows open and that bewitching smell of rain wafting through. The sound of rumbling thunder is a nice lullaby when you know it's not packing tornadoes or hail.

Another shot of that cute little snail I saw at Mom's the other day.

For supper tonight, I had bought a loaf of ciabatta bread from Wal-Mart's bakery, and I sliced it up and everyone dipped the slices in olive oil, kosher salt, cracked black pepper and garlic. It was a huge hit, and it's a nice light thing to enjoy when it's hot. I also made some Hamburger Helper and stirred some frozen spinach into it for a little vitamin boost.

I always make two boxes of HH for this bunch, but I still only use one pound of ground beef just to save a little $$ and stretch the budget. Nobody seems to be bothered by it. And they love the spinach add-in.

The kids are earning extra $$ by helping clean out my classroom at school. It looks like the maintenance personnel at school really ARE going to rip out the vile carpet in that room, but they can't do it until I get my crap out of the way. I am praying -- fervently -- that they don't replace the carpet with MORE disgusting carpet. An art room should NOT be carpeted. Heck, rip out the carpet and leave the bare cement floor, and I'd be much happier. Put in a sink and some countertops and cabinets and I will think I died and am now in heaven. THAT won't happen.

What I'd really like would be if they'd put a double portable building behind the school where I could have the art studio self-contained. That won't happen, either.

My daylilies are just about finished. After the "common" ones bloomed, I got a flush of these weird and cool double-petalled ones:

I'm waiting patiently for my crape myrtle to start up. It must be a later-blooming variety, because pretty much everyone else's crape myrtles are up and running already.

I am going to put in a call to the ear, nose & throat doc that did Isaac's tonsils last summer. My hearing is just getting worse and worse and it's driving me nuts. Nothing sounds normal; everything is enveloped in a loud roar and put through that metallic synthesizer sound I keep coming back to. It's extremely difficult to make it through a Sunday morning service and play the piano when what I am playing and what is being sung is being distorted this badly. GRRRRR!!

Golden shrimp plant. My mom planted a few of these in one of the front flowerbeds; I've always thought they were funky and fun.

But apparently I really am prone to what's called a vasovagal episode as a response to some stressors. It's happened too many times now just to be coincidental.

This morning, they were having one of those low-cost vaccination clinics for pets at the Tractor Supply Company store in Gainesville (TX). We needed to have Bijou tested for heartworm so we could give her the heartworm preventative medication, so I toted her up there to have it done.

It was already in the 90s, of course, so we were kinda hot. They had set up tables outside on the parking lot, under a tent thingy, so we stood in line and waited. When we got to the table, they put the little rubber-band thingy on Bijou's little arm and wiped her down with some alcohol. I stood and held her; she was not pleased, but she's not very big so she's not difficult to hold down. They drew the little blood sample. And I blacked out right then and there.

Thankfully there was a chair right behind me and a table in front of me, so I didn't go far and I didn't crack my skull open on the concrete parking lot. I immediately came back to, but I was dizzy. The vet took Bijou and held her, and several others grabbed some ice out of a cooler and put it on my neck and gave me a Gatorade to sip. When I could, I went back to the van and sat in the air-conditioning for a little while.

I've done this quite a few times now. It isn't always needle-related or blood-related, but that does seem to be one of the things that sets me off -- particularly when it's my child or, in this case, my dog. I passed out in the ER once when Alice broke her finger and was having it set. I got dizzy sitting by my BFF when the nurses were starting an IV. I even keeled over once after the hand specialist gave me a steroid injection in my wrist for carpal tunnel syndrome. I've done it lots of other times, and even once lost bladder control in the process, to my great consternation and humiliation.

I feel rather silly, really. I'm not a squeamish person and I don't know why I do this. I just do.

And the weird humor in the situation is not lost on me... I texted my BFF a little later and told her I'd just fainted at Tractor Supply. Who faints at Tractor Supply? Maybe someone overcome by the beauty of the latest John Deere baling attachment, or overexcited by the abundance of creep feed, or even perhaps bowled over by round pen panels... I dunno.

Mom and Dad got a new poodle puppy. Isn't she adorable?!? She loves to harass poor Tess, who's blind and retarded and old. I don't mean those things in the pejorative sense; she really is blind and she really is brain-damaged thanks to an illness that nearly killed her several years ago. Tess is a good sport, though, and isn't mean at all.



Mom was watering the flowers and squirted her with the hose, so she's a little wet in this picture. But oh-so-cute!!!

Dad named her Zoe. He didn't ask us, of course -- why should he? it's their dog -- but we might've tried to talk him out of it since we have a close friend named Zoe. But it's okay; he didn't know, and it's unlikely the two will ever meet anyway.

Poofy clouds of white fuzz floats all over North Texas pastures... the broad-leaf milkweed has gone to seed. Flurf!!

I don't often splurge, but I was craving some good sushi.



Can I just say that it was quite nice? Particularly the pale-colored sushi next to the bright red tuna. That was yellowtail, if I remember correctly.

The sushi roll was made with salmon skin. It was divinest splendor. And the little red globules are salmon roe. It was spectacular.

Not cheap, mind you. But spectacular.

I want some more of that yellowtail. Like, NOW. I'll never go back to plain tuna again after that. Well, I probably will, but I'll always be thinking of the yellowtail, and the tuna will probably be all like jealous and stuff.

And now, to punish myself for spending nearly thirty dollars on a meal for myself, I should probably fast for like three days or something. But it was SO worth it. As the old "Frusen Gladje" ice cream commercial back in the mid 1980s went, "I ate all the Frusen Gladje. And I'd do it again."

A little Helicina orbiculata snail that was on my mom's back patio this morning. I know snails are destructive, but they're funky cute nonetheless.

Blackeyed Susans, or Rudbeckia hirta for those into the Latin. I like Latin, personally... somehow the Latin name for something makes it sound more important. That, and I grew up watching Roadrunner cartoons every Saturday morning. Carnivorous vulgaris, anyone? How about Roadrunnerus digestus? hehe

Nerium oleander, a semi-tropical shrub that a lot of folks take a chance on growing up this far north. My mom's yard has a number of them, in various shades of pink and white. They're much more common down where she and my dad have taken Isaac, along the gulf near Corpus Christi, but when they're put in a fairly protected sunny spot and given the right conditions, oleanders do okay up here.

And they really lend a lush, tropical, exotic feel to a landscape. I like 'em.

The resident Texas garden-guy, Neil Sperry, doesn't like them so much, but I think that's because too many people just willy-nilly plant them up this far north when they're really not adapted to this zone. I figure, though, if you want to take the risk and you're aware of the possible consequences of a complete freeze at some point in the future, you might as well go for it. It certainly won't happen every year, or even every other year. We just don't get that cold here, at least not for long enough to do real damage. My mom's an expert gardener, anyway, and has a real knack for green growing things.

I love Neil Sperry, by the way. He has had a radio call-in program in the DFW metroplex area since 1980 and the man just knows what he's talking about... a reasonable, mature, smart guy with a lot of gravitas and integrity who's worth listening to. When we lived in Iowa for eleven years, I lamented that there just didn't seem to be any resources available that were geared specifically for Iowa landscapes -- I had been accustomed to Neil Sperry and his devotion to Texas-specific gardening, and even though I didn't expect there to be a radio host, I did sort-of hope there was at least a BOOK or a magazine or something that I could refer to. No such critter existed, though, that I could find. And that's a shame. Every state should have its own Neil Sperry. We're really lucky in Texas to have him.

Because I've lost 90 pounds, I want to go swimming again. But because I've lost 90 pounds, my arms and legs look like deflated balloons. Or, as someone I still love very much has joked, I now sport a great set of bingo wings. [snort] LMAO!!! I wonder what they're called when they're not arms but legs? I'm not sure I want to know.

Any-who...

So I bought a wetsuit instead. And I'm going swimming this afternoon. Yes, I am.

I've always been apple-shaped, which means that when I buy all-in-one things like this, the part below fits much looser than the part above. Oh well.

I had Rick take the picture for me, and he said he hoped that my legs didn't throw off the picture's white balance. [growl] Like I can help that. And like he has any room to talk, for that matter! haha

UPDATE: I went swimming!! And I didn't feel like a freak, either. I can definitely pronounce the wetsuit idea a success.

Here's Miss Alice, on Saturday morning when we picked her up from camp, with her best friend Josie. Josie and Alice have been talking on the phone together since LAST SUMMER at camp; Josie lives in the Houston area, so it's impossible to spend time together. But we requested that they be in the same cabin again when it was time to sign up for Camp Spike 'n Wave again this year.

Last year, Josie refused to speak to anyone at camp. Except for Alice. She would speak to Alice.

Alice said that this year, Josie talked to everyone.

This is progress!

One thing we have in great abundance here is the lowly, weedy mesquite tree. You almost can't even call it a tree; it's shrubby and thin and scraggly and has lovely huge shoe-leather-piercing thorns all over. And once it takes hold in a pasture, good luck ever getting rid of it again. Mesquite can regenerate from less than a CENTIMETER of root left in the soil. It's just that pervasive.

Interestingly, though, it's a legume... which means it's actually GOOD for the soil. Legumes tend to have an effect called nitrogen-fixing. They also tolerate arid climates very well, needing little water to survive, so they don't suck up a water supply. And once a tree is established, the thorns drop off (only coming on the new growth).

Plus, I am very fond of beef that's been smoked using mesquite wood. I prefer its harsher taste to the sweetness of hickory, personally.

Whatever your opinion of the humble mesquite tree -- noxious weed or Texas treasure -- it probably is here to stay.

It's always a good day when...

...when I get to hang out with my BFF.



She's down in this neck o' the woods visiting family, and we took the opportunity to meet in the middle at a McD's for some face time. We're already plotting another girl-vacation since I absolutely HAVE to use up the rest of my airline miles by the end of the summer. We'll probably go back to see stuff we didn't get to do the first time around in the Great Sweltering Swamp-Confluence on the Potomac. I'm hoping to catch a little more local history type stuff.

It's HOT today. Even for me. The girls and I are going to head down to my mom's, since they're off on a gulf fishing trip with my son. It seems a pity to waste that lovely air-conditioned environment down there, as well as the free wi-fi. tee hee