OK, never mind that having a good week entry yesterday. My adventures in router land have brought my week down to my usual average.

I know nothing about routers and networks and things of that nature, but I now need to share my internet connection with the office across the hall. So my corporate computer gurus had me contract the work locally. And it got done yesterday, and I thought all was well. Until I tried to actually use my connection, that is.

I gave up in frustration yesterday afternoon, after waiting for freaking ever for pages to load, and watching them time out as often as not. My dinosaur of a dial-up connection at home is faster. This morning, same problem. The guy came back out and put another router in, and of course, while he was here, it worked just fine.

But it’s degenerated over the day. They tried to tell me that it has to have some time to wear in. That’s horseshit, isn’t it? A connection either works or it doesn’t. There is no break-in period, is there? I couldn’t stand it anymore today, and unplugged the damn thing, at which point my pages started loading as fast as they always have. Well that narrows the problem down pretty well, doesn’t it?

Bad router! Bad!

Also today was the last day for our main office. They’ve closed up shop and I’m the only full-time person left, barring the contractors. The office I’m outfitting is for the last two engineers/management types to work out of once in a while. I got a little teary saying goodbye to the Big Boss and the secretary. The place has been practically stripped, and looks every bit as eerie as the buildings that were abandoned in 1995.

For months, we’ve been cleaning out that building; moving some documents up to Sacramento for archiving, moving some into my office or the one across the hall, and shredding tons of paper. And now all of that preparation is over, and it feels sudden. It’s not, but it feels that way. It’s going to take me a while to adjust to the changes.

It always does.

What day is this? Wednesday? And somehow, instead of feeling sad that the week is barely half over, I’ve been strangely elated all week.

I’ve been riding on the high from that class. I’ve been getting my ducks in a row. I’ve got my test gauge ordered, and this weekend I will do some finalizing work on my logo with my sister, so I can get my forms made. I’ve got a whole list going in my head, and lists make me happy, especially when they’re completed and not late at all.

I pimped out my company to one of our friends, who happens to be the construction manager for the largest home builder in the county. He has someone lined up to do what I do in two of the towns they’re working in, but not the third. Sadly, he needs someone sooner than I will actually have my paperwork, but he promised to keep me in mind for upcoming work. That has potential!

My favorite horse is sore, so I just lightly exercised him while the boys were roping last night. I didn’t get to chase any steers, but I had fun with Jack. In the two months we’ve had him, he’s lightened up considerably in the mouth and the sides, and he’s much more fun to ride. He’s building my confidence more and more every day. He is one of Cowboy’s main roping string, but Cowboy also knows that he’s my favorite, and only rides him when he needs to rope. I do most of the rest of the riding on him.

And if I thought a horse was great therapy for a bad mood, well, he’s also good for a good mood. Even for a senseless good mood. I’m grinning at nothing in particular, and people are starting to look at me funny. Is this the opposite of PMS?

And today, some subcontractors are on my site. I like this company a lot—I worked really closely with them three years ago. I do like competence, and these guys are not only really good at what they do, but they’re a bunch of good people. Their boss is coming out later this afternoon, and I’m looking forward to going out to lunch with him.

And they have a good association with me in another way. When they were last here, I was dating the construction foreman of the company who hired them (gasp! Dating a coworker!) Even after we stopped seeing each other, we always had a nice friendship going. When I heard these guys were coming out, it reminded me of him, but I’ve lost track of him due to too many job and phone number changes.

But I walked up to the site this morning, and the current foreman said she had something for me. She gave me a ticket stub, and written on it was, “Jules, call me,” and his phone number. So I called and left a harassing voice mail message, but it’s just made my day.

Damn, what’s left to this week? It’s too early in the year to win that truck, but I feel like something else is bound to go right for me.

So I got back yesterday from a week off work. Wasn’t a fun week of vacation, but still, there’s catching up to do.

I had picked this time of year because I would finally have enough vacation accumulated to have a paid week off, and also because the work going on around here slows drastically in the fall. I’ve got a few things on my list, but fortunately, not that week.

But I walked in my office to find four giant lockers, upside down in the middle of my floor. Seems that the contractor that shares the building was rearranging, and donated these things to our shop-building project. That’s nice. But in the middle of my office? They couldn’t go outside? I couldn’t even get to all of my houseplants to water them.

Thankfully, someone helped me move them outside, and I’ll bring them home a couple at a time. That and the ceiling fan that someone else took out of their house and donated for the barn, and the old but still functional fridge for the tack room (or beer). I swear, we’re outfitting the whole shop and barn in Air Force surplus, but at least it’s been come by honestly. Most of it was bought at auction.

And that’s all I’ve got to talk about today. No news, no special events; just regular everyday living. We’re roping tonight, so there’s the potential for something interesting to happen there, but we’d all rather it just stayed routine.

Whoa, I just felt an earthquake.

It’s not common here in the land of the granite floor (the Central Valley), and I think we don’t have any faults running nearby. This one wasn’t too close—in the Central Coast area. Parkfield, where the 5.9 was according to the USGS, is a major cluster area. There was a 5.0 aftershock in Paso Robles too.

But I grew up in the east Bay Area, and a response to an earthquake is something that’s ingrained. I remember earthquake drills, where we all got under our desks or in the doorways, or whatnot. Well, actually, I also remember other drills—I don’t remember what they were called, but they were during the height of the Cold War, and our town had a major research laboratory, and therefore we were all targets. I hardly think diving under your desk and covering the back of your neck with your arms is going to do a whole hell of a lot in the event of a nuclear strike, but, by god, we were prepared to do it.

So I was sitting at the computer, and all of a sudden, I got dizzy. “Now that ain’t right,” I thought to myself. A half second later, and all of my grade school conditioning kicked in, and I was out of my chair and standing in the doorway before my conscious mind even registered, “Duh, earthquake.”

So I was standing in the doorway, wondering if I was feeling things. I still felt dizzy, and the floor was definitely rolling underneath me, so I decided that my instincts were correct, and that we were in fact having an earthquake. The blinds were all rattling, and my file cabinets were knocking together making noise.

I hollered down the hall, “Do you feel the earthquake?” but nobody answered me.

After it stopped, I walked down to see if anyone else had felt it. Nobody had, but they believed me when I pointed out the things swinging from the ceiling.

I haven’t felt one since I don’t know when. Those that I’ve been through are pretty well engraved in my memory. There was a big one in 1980 that knocked a lot of stuff down, and prompted Mom and Dad to screw the shelves above the head of my bed to the wall. Everything there had earthquake straps. I think all that I have now are the water heater (which has to), and one top-heavy bookshelf that needed the stability anyway.

But you never forget that feeling.

1. My favorite color is yellow. But not that screaming school bus yellow. This yellow here, obviously!

2. I don’t look all that good in yellow. I also do not let that stop me.

3. While I like orchids in general, I’m really a sucker for the yellow ones. Are we sensing a theme here?

4. I’ve had one friend for more than half my life. Other than her, I don’t really get along with women all that well.

5. I’m a packrat and a scrounge, but only with big stuff. I can throw away life’s little mementos with no problem, but I seem to have accumulated three refrigerators.

6. I can fix things. Well, not transmissions, but normal-people things.

7. I’ve always got a farmer’s tan, and almost always fish-belly white legs to go with it. That one year I went to a tanning booth was really fun, but I don’t like it enough to spend all that time at it.

8. I try a lot of new things, and I let a lot of new hobbies drop.

9. One of my more peaceful things to do is to go out and cut firewood.

10. I really like acrylic nails, but I hate the upkeep and getting them yanked off more, so no more of them.

11. I’m a freak for shellfish. Fish is OK, but Dungeness crab or scallops or steamer clams will send me into a foodgasm.

12. I’m the tallest woman in my family. I do not know why this feels like an accomplishment.

13. I think I’d like bangs.

14. I like to cook, but I sure do hate to have to do it day after day. Fortunately, that’s not usually the case.

15. I like Survivor and The Amazing Race, and Cowboy has dragged me into The Apprentice, but I can’t stand any other reality shows at all. The Bachelor? Gag.

16. Mmm, someone just made brownies at work, and made a special little pan that were not Brownies of Death for me (no walnuts).

17. I could live my whole life quite happily without ever eating calf intestines again.

18. John can kick my ass at the speed games on the playstation, but I still beat him on the adventure games. I expect that to change by next year.

19. I have my procrastination moments. Don’t we all?

20. All my life, I couldn’t stand eggs. No, not an allergy. But now I can tolerate them if they’re in an omelet or scrambled with a lot of disguising things in them. Perfect after-bar food.

21. But disliking walnuts did mean an allergy. I’m just as happy to have that excuse, and not have to choke down any more walnut cookies to be polite.

22. I’m a huge fan of artichokes and asparagus. Mmm!

23. In fact, artichoke hearts are one of the best pizza toppings ever, but it must be sort of a secret, because my pizza guy always knows it’s me when I order one. What? Doesn’t anyone else like to live dangerously?

24. Sometimes all you can do is just go on.

25. I can feel the screws holding my right ankle together. I’m not entirely sure that I should be able to.

26. I just realized that, as inherently egocentric as online journals are, this list is ridiculous. Nobody could possibly care what my favorite smell is, or which foods make me gag. It’s not going to be my secret induction into the Brussels Sprouts Lover’s Association. I won’t go on, but I will post it anyway. Go figure.

What a nice weekend. Even if I still hadn’t been on an acing-the-class high, it still would have been great.

Cowboy went roping on Saturday, but since I didn’t feel like getting up at the ass-crack of dawn and it was fairly local, I slept in. I got to get up in my own time, have a leisurely shower and cake for breakfast, and to fart around with the animals and on the internet before I left.

I went down to meet him, and the roping was smaller than usual, so they were almost half done already. Small ropings may not have a lot of money in them, but I think they’re more fun than the big ones sometimes. You’re not running a marathon in the hot sun; we were done with both jackpots by early afternoon, and sat around drinking beer with the guys for a while. Usually, I’m too pooped to want to do that after a roping, and besides; it’s usually way past my bedtime by the time they’re over.

Sunday, I asked Cowboy to take me up to the hills for a ride. I get tired of only being in an arena all the time, and I’d also like a little time to ourselves once in a while. So we loaded up the colts and headed up the Pacheco State Park.

It’s amazing what kind of things you can find so close to home. Cowboy used to do some work up there, and I’d been there before too, but we’d both sort of forgotten about the place. It is oak-dotted rolling hills leading to steep mountainous rugged country. It used to be a Spanish Land Grant, but the last woman to own it died without an heir, and the land reverted to the State. Cowboy remembers his uncle working for the woman before she died—she used to run longhorns on it, as well as a few horses. At one point, we were riding on the original stage road that ran from the Salinas/Hollister area over to the valley.

We picked up a little map of the trails and set out. Cowboy was riding Bubba, the two year old, and I was on Dually, the four year old. Dually is so calm and mentally stable that he seems like he’s twice his age, but I didn’t know if he’d been out in the country before or not.

When we first hit the trail, Bubba was clearly having a WTF moment. This little horse hasn’t really been exposed to hills, and didn’t really understand the ups and downs. And the first part of the ride had a lot of ups to it—we had to stop a lot and let the horses breathe. They also got to experience little bridges over dry creeks. Cowboy made Bubba go over the first one, but he’d completely freaked Dually out by then. I figured that I am not the horse trainer, and if I wanted to get off and lead my horse over instead of fighting it out with him, that was OK. Dually thought so too. At the next one, I thought I’d just bypass the bridge entirely—they’re only a foot or two over the creek bed, but they don’t have sides, and I was not thrilled with the idea of a horse stepping off the side. We did eventually just go over them, because once Bubba got tired, he figured that it was easier than fighting it. He’s lazy that way.

It was a real nice ride—about 5 or 6 miles in around four hours. We weren’t in a hurry to get anywhere; we were just poking along playing with the horses and enjoying each other’s company. It’s good for the horses’ minds as well as ours to get out of the stress of the arena and just have fun. We didn’t see another living soul, although there must have been some more horses and some mountain bikers ahead of us, based on tracks and the other trailer in the parking lot. It wasn’t any pack trip to the mountains, but it will have to do this year, as work season is upon us and rodeo season hasn’t let off yet. A free day is sort of precious.

So with any luck, my good mood will carry over through the week. I’ve got a lot of catch-up to play, but in a stroke of good luck, I did just find out that the biggest job has been postponed to next week. So I really should get out of the office and see what’s changed.

Sunday, after some stutter-stepping with the ex (will he pick them up on time? Won’t he? It’s a mystery), I finally got on the road in time to go scope out my class location before it got dark. And also in time to drive right through the freak storm of the century, the one that dropped two inches of rain in an hour. We just don’t get that around here, and freeways were flooded. But I missed the worst of it, didn’t wreck, and went on with my road trip.

I got up to my grandparent’s place and got all settled in. Gramma was lying down with a bad back, so Grampa took me out to dinner. I should have known to bring something a little dressier than my working clothes, because the place they like to go is the club house for their retirement village, which also doubles as a sort of a golf course/country club thing. I felt horribly underdressed all week.

I couldn’t sleep Sunday night, what with the back-to-school jitters. I’d already had nightmares about ending up in LA instead of Sacramento on the trip, and now I was freaking about the actual class, and the commute to it. I’m not one for commuting in traffic, and I had no idea how long it would take me.

But morning did eventually come, as it almost always does, and I got out the door and off on my adventure. I found the place, found the classroom, and was almost an hour early. So I got to know some of the other early birds in the class, and then it finally began.

Man, did I feel stupid that first day. He started with the simpler backflow preventer design, and at first it was all so complicated that I thought I would never get it. Add to that the stress of sitting in a room full of strangers, which I never like, and I was an unhappy camper until that first afternoon, when we got to go outside and practice what we?d learned in theory. I should have known that my hands are much quicker to learn than my brain, and it all fell into place by four that afternoon.

And that was the pattern for most of the class: feel really stupid in the morning, and have the light bulb go on over my head in the afternoon. I even started drinking coffee again to keep myself alert; now I’m going to have to wean off of it again.

The class demographics were largely what I expected. I had a feeling that I would be the only woman in the class; I’ve worked in male-dominated industries for so long that I just assume that. And I wasn’t wrong, but I was surprised to see a female proctor. She’s been doing what I intend to do for over twenty years, as her mother did before her, and she’s fairly local too. She’s kind of a rough, good ol’ boy type, but I liked her immensely, and she sure does know her stuff. She had lots of good business advice for me.

What I didn’t expect was to also be the only independent tester in the class. Everyone else was sent there from whatever utility or municipality they worked for. Now, some of them had very good attitudes about learning the material, doing it right, and not wasting their bosses’ money. Some of them, however, were clearly just marking time. What a waste!

I made quite a few other useful business contacts there, both from among the instructors and the students. There are some extremely intelligent people out there disguised as City workers.

The instructor had promised that it would all start to make sense by about Wednesday afternoon, and boy, did he call it. By then, I was all about repetition; making my hands learn what they should be doing. The hard part for me was obviously going to be the troubleshooting test, and I spent a significant amount of time studying but not getting it. It was easier to learn if I helped other people, and my study partners and I spent a lot of time quizzing each other.

The test was set up in three parts. The first written test was 100 questions, and that had to be passed by 70% or better. Those were the more general questions, with regulations and standards thrown in with basic testing. I knew I’d get that one done, no problem.

The second written test was 25 questions on troubleshooting the three main assemblies. Now this, I was worried about. I felt like my head was muddy every time I studied troubleshooting, and I was seriously stressed about getting a 70% on this one.

If you passed both written tests, you were given a number to go outside and perform hands-on tests on all three types of devices before a proctor. I knew I’d be fine on this part, since I did it flawlessly for three of the proctors on Thursday afternoon.

So after our last bit of review this morning, we finally got the tests. I don’t remember being this nervous since High School, although I’m sure some college stuff must have been this difficult. But I could feel the weight of the stakes—this was a course that I had paid for out of my own pocket, and riding on it was the whole future of my business, which I expect to have to live on by 2006.

But I got down to it, and started answering questions. Now, I know that I’m good at testing, and I’m usually one of the first ones done in a room. That makes me a little self-conscious sometimes, but I also know that if I stop and recheck my answers too hard, I start changing correct answers to wrong ones. I’ve learned to just trust in my first answer and turn it in, and to not try to pace myself with the rest of the class, even if it does sometimes make me look like an ass. Hey, I just read fast.

I wasn’t quite the first one up to turn in the first section, but two of the guys before me were there for recertification and had a shorter test. I was a little worried that my study partner was also up before me, because I just didn’t feel like he knew the material as well as I did, but who am I to say that he might not just read fast too?

So I got my second portion, the one I had agonized about, and it wasn’t as bad as I’d thought it would be. At least the questions didn’t look completely foreign to me.

And when I got up to hand it in and was waiting for the proctor (not the teacher—we hadn’t seen this guy before this morning) to score it so I would know if I could go out and do the practical section or not, I was standing on eggshells.

He called me over with kind of a stern look on his face.

“Who are you?” he asked.

My heart dropped. I thought for sure that I’d forgotten to put my name on the top of the page, and was going to fail for a boneheaded mistake.

“And what do you do for a living?” he went on.

I kind of stammered the first thing that came to mind at him, “Groundwater treatment.”

And he smiled, and turned my test around with the key over it. It took me half a beat, but pretty soon it sunk in that I’d scored 100% on the hard part of the test, and I looked up to see him smiling and holding out his hand. I gather that they don’t get too many perfect scores, and I was really wondering what my score on the first section had been. I know I had to make wild-ass guesses on at least three questions, but who knows? Even a WAG is right some of the time.

So I was sort of bouncy when I went out to take my practical exam. I don’t know if it was the relief or the coffee, but I had the major shakes by the time I got out there. This proctor, also a new guy, was really kind. He gave me a little time to settle down, and let me start whenever I was ready.

Now, we had to correctly perform tests on three different pieces of equipment. By this time, I knew these things so well that I was doing them in my sleep. No, really; I was dreaming about the damned things.

And I got up there and snapped out all of the procedures to the first and hardest one, confidently and precisely. I was in the middle of the second one, and the one woman proctor came over to me to ask a horse question for a crossword puzzle. I don’t know if she was distracting me on purpose, or distracting the proctor, but when I got back to what I was doing, I realized that I made a huge mistake, and had left out a step on both of the procedures that I’d already done. I caught myself, smacked my forehead, and told my guy what I’d done wrong and started to start all over again, which was allowed.

But he was cool, and said that since I’d caught it myself and obviously knew what I was doing, he?d take that as having done it. So I went on and finished the easiest one, and I was done.

I passed! And I passed well! I was kicking myself a little for not doing the mechanical portion perfectly, but I’m willing to write that off as stress-related.

I went back and thanked the instructor and the lady proctor, who wasn’t busy at the time. She gave me a huge hug, and told me she knew I would beat all of those guys, both because I’m a woman and because it was coming out of my own pocket. She said that I should stop by any time I’m in her area, and to feel free to call her if I have any questions. Big Jeff is taking a class with her next month, and I have no doubt that she’ll like him too.

This whole thing has made me feel so very optimistic about the possibilities of this business. I’ve got a very clear direction to go, I know how to do my trade, and I know how to work the administrative details to get there. I can see a little bit into the future—five years from now, this will be a thriving business, and I’ll have my plumbing contractor’s license to go with this so I can install the things. I’ll have my truck done up as a service truck, and I’ll have the flexibility to take my kids to school when they need to, or to go to the NFR without asking someone if I can take off.

I’m wildly optimistic about it now. I feel like I’ve found my niche.

And I also feel like shopping —good thing it’s deductible, because I now must go buy instruments and tools. Whoopee!

Today was opening day in my hunting zone, and the clouds rolled in and the mountains looked dark, and everything looked perfect.

Except that I wasn’t there.

I’ve got the kids this weekend, and there’s no trading, as I’ve got that class next week. I’d planned to go up to Sacramento fairly early in the afternoon tomorrow so I could find the place and not be totally lost on Monday morning, but the ex became an asshole, and instead of picking up the kids when he said he would, now it’s going to be 7 or 8 PM.

Great. Not only do I now have to find that place during rush hour traffic, I won’t get to my grandparent’s house until past their bedtimes. That’s nice.

So I’m stressing about the class. It’s for backflow preventer certification, and it’s going to be the pivotal skill in my business. Since my job is most likely ending at the end of 2005, I need to have my ducks in a row in order to keep us fed. I’ve got 40 hours to learn how to do all these certifications on all these different brands and types of preventers, and then I get to take a State test at the end of it. Lucky me. And this license is one that has to be renewed yearly, not biennially like my water distribution license. They really mean it, in other words.

And I’m stressing about driving in Sacramento. I don’t deal with traffic all that well, and the benefits of having a vehicle in which I can at least see over most of the other cars on the road are largely negated by the difficulties in parking that monstrosity. Rush hour. Goody.

And I’m really feeling the call of the mountains. I spent the day getting the trailer fit to go on a moments notice so I could hit the road as soon as I get home on Friday. But when I turned on my propane, both tanks were hissing. Oh, man. That’s not good. I fiddled around with them for a while, and I think my hoses are bad. They’re practically brand new though, so I’m not sure. But I got the propane turned back off, fresh water cycled through the tank, and the kitchen cleaned and largely stocked. Can’t go anywhere until I resolve that though, so unless Cowboy has a good idea tomorrow, when the RV shops are closed, I don’t get to hunt next weekend either.

I’m really jonesing for the mountains though. I might have to drag myself up there trailerless and just hunt for the day. I don’t care if I get anything or not; I just want to go sit on my stump and laugh at all the road-hunters driving deer my way. Nobody bothers to get out of their vehicles anymore. It rewards those of us that do, besides the sheer pleasure of sitting perfectly still on the side of a mountain.

Last year, I was sitting in my stand, reading a book to keep myself quiet (I’m not too good at being motionless), when I heard a rustling. I was bowhunting, so I didn’t even have my pistol with me, but in a few seconds, I really, really wished I did.

A very small bear came shuffling into my clearing, snuffling at shrubs about 30 yards from me. My heart sank; not so much because of the little bear, but because a little bear is very often chaperoned by a big momma bear. And there I was, sitting on a stump without even a handy tree to climb and nothing much to defend myself with.

I nocked an arrow, just in case, and sat and watched the bear. The bear had no clue that I was there and kept creeping closer and closer to me. So I couldn’t stand it anymore, and in my tiniest voice, I said, “psst.”

That bear sure did hear me, and its head popped up looking for me. Now, I had picked that stump because of a buckbrush shrub right behind it, so I wasn’t silhouetted at all. He sniffed and snuffled for a minute while I held perfectly still, expecting ol’ Momma to come charging out of the manzanita any minute.

But bear’s sense of discretion saved both of us—it decided that shrubs that go “psst” weren’t quite right, and weren’t a place where a small bear should be, and it turned around back the way it’d come. I sat there for a little while longer, but I was too amped up to get back into my book, and I figured what sane deer would be backtracking a bear anyway? Besides, the rain started up again, and this time it was freezing, so I carefully sneaked my way back out to the road and back to camp.

I’d like to do that again this year, although that was a special late-season hunt that I didn’t draw this year. But the memory is so vivid that I’ve lived on it all year long. It’s drawing me back up there; I’d like to see if my stump is still the perfect place to read a paperback. I’d like to come around a corner and be nose to nose with something, even if it is a bear. (It’s rifle season, which is much less spooky than bow season.) I’d like to go smell the smells and hear the wind in the trees and have dinner with my hunting buddies in our usual spot, and bullshit over the campfire until the wee hours.

I’m talking myself into it right now. Hell, who needs propane? It’ll give me something to look forward to after that class.

Oh, by the way, I’ll most likely not be updating next week. Gotta study and all.

A month or so ago, I talked about my Dad building a new house with some innovative technology. I took some pictures of the Styrofoam frame when I was up there dropping of the kids for a visit, but I had forgotten that they were in the camera. I was quite pleased to find them when I got my film back today.

Here’s Mom explaining something to the boys.

Dad explaining the preformed interlocking rebar supports to me.

The plastic ties in the center that keep the forms from spreading out when the concrete is poured. The forms are shipped flat, and these ties are on hinges, which are popped open on site.

Dad. He’s done a lot of this work himself, working with the contractor. He did most of the small assembly work, and the contractor did the rebar installation and concrete work.

I’m really looking forward to seeing the progress on the house. I’m sure I’ll be surprised by how far it’s come in the last month, but then, they’ve only got a few more months before the rains start, and it would be best to be roofed by then.

Last week, the neighbor was harvesting his grain corn. The contrast of the clear blue sky with that golden corn was irresistible, and I wandered down the road to take pictures. I wasn’t quite bold enough to introduce myself to the farmer and ask for a ride on his harvester, so I waited until he took his dinner break, and then took some stealth pictures. I wish I had been braver, because I drove by later and saw the harvester shooting out a stream of grain into a waiting hopper truck, and that was really something.

A month or so ago, I talked about my Dad building a new house with some innovative technology. I took some pictures of the Styrofoam frame when I was up there dropping of the kids for a visit, but I had forgotten that they were in the camera. I was quite pleased to find them when I got my film back today.

  

 

  

 

 

 

While I had the camera out, I took some pictures of the cotton. The field at our house was just defoliated the day after I took the pictures, so my timing couldn’t have been better. The plants are absolutely loaded with cotton; it looks like a field of white that will get even whiter when the leaves drop off.

 

 

A boll on the ground. See how it sections? It looks a lot like a citrus fruit if you cut one open before it’s popped. All four or five sections have a bunch of seeds in them, but otherwise feel exactly like a good cotton ball. They’re irresistible to grab and play with when you’re out walking. Unfortunately, the mosquitoes come out like crazy when the cotton is sprayed with defoliant, so walking isn’t much fun.

 

 

Here’s a plant on the edge of the field absolutely heavy with cotton. This has been a good year for it.

The cotton on our place belongs to another farmer—Cowboy leases the land to him. This is his last year with it though, because next year it’s going to be horse pasture. We’ll let the pasture grass grow up for about a year, maybe cutting some hay, before we fence it and put animals in it. That way, it gets good and established, and grows a good crop. Cowboy’s got some irrigation ditches to put in there too, in his copious amounts of spare time.

Posted in Life, Old journal archives | No Comments »

« Previous Entries