But this is mild (only 30 degrees) compared to the one that walloped Tulia, Texas this morning back in 1899. Forty thousand cattle dying overnight? Yipes.

Nothing like the prospect of hanging to concentrate the mind.

Harmless, the dealer concluded after a brief check, but, oh, by the way…

They replaced the clutch for $1,500. If I didn’t know that I had a bad habit of resting my left foot on the clutch pedal (“riding the clutch,” it is called, though it was never this bad), I’d suspect the recall alert was a dodge all along.

The National Weather Service, whose Internet radar images always seem to go down on these occasions when they’re needed, lost them again right on schedule. Our tax dollars at work. At least they recorded a healthy five three inches of rain at their official downtown gauge (more than five inches out at the airport east of town). Got almost three here at the rancho, northwest of downtown.

Actually, I’ve got them spooked. When I see them dangling from the bird feeders, trying to avoid the work of cracking their own nuts, all I have to do is unlock the sliding glass door to the patio. They drop and run. Heh.

And they better, or I might get me a pellet pistol and start potting these “limb rats” for an occasional meal, like the daily’s columnist Mike Leggett.

But temporary relief may be forthcoming, if the forecasted rain tonight through tomorrow night falls in sufficient quantity. It will wash the juniper pollen out of the air, at least for a day or so.

Finally up to 30 minutes before my wrists start cramping, and scales, even though short and simple four-note ones on all four strings, one at a time or crossing over to two or more.  Prompting another revelation: not only are my fingers too short, they are too fat to stay on one string at a time.

And paying attention to my fingers makes my bow stroke go all to hell, also hitting two strings at once. Sigh.

Ah, but insipiration definitely helps. Even if she has been playing since she was eight.

It’s the Lumberjack campout starting tomorrow evening, where the boy scouts spend the weekend cutting down trees and building shelters on some nice person’s ranch out east of here. So, after two weeks of “togetherness,” things are about to return to normal at Rancho Roly Poly.

The bad part is that this will mean resumption of the homework wars.

First of several American war in Vietnam photos I’ll be running here. This is my old headquarters unit from RF-PF advisory days in 1969.

Guy on left is my RTO holding my M-79 while I take the pix. Next to him is Mr. B.’s future godfather in his younger days. I hope the rest of them also survived but, since I didn’t keep their names, I have no way of knowing.

Now Mr. B. has something extra to look forward to on his Boy Scout troop’s Hill Country camping trip this weekend: a camp fire for the first time this year. The rains most likely have been sufficient to lift the burn bans imposed in most parts of Texas this year.