Snippet of 4/29/18

Well, now, Kith and Kin everywhere or someone who might happen upon this Sunday evening, April 29, 2018, blog:

Today turned out to be a balmy 89° here in Arizona's Mohave Desert, although yours truly didn't venture any farther outside than the back patio today.  And that was to feed Babe and Hardee, our two resident roadrunners. who are sitting on a nest somewhere across the wash behind our house.  They both come to beg for the high fat hamburger balls they seem to love.

They both have their own character, too, Babe prefers to take meatballs from my fingers while Hardee likes to eat from a platter at my feet while coo-ing repeatedly his appreciation for the handout.  Babe is the silent one.

Natural food; insects and reptiles have become pretty scarce with our continued drought.  If memory serves me right, there have been only two rainstorms during the past 8 months.  We had some rain in August of '17 and a light rain in January of '18 and little else.  Maybe that's why it's called a desert.  We are wondering if the summer monsoon rains will resume after they went AWOL last year?

Of course, of even more importance is that snowfall in the high mountains that feed the Colorado River has been in a more than decade-long drought.  Our paper today speculated on the consequences should the drought continue.  Tucson, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego depend on the Colorado, too.

M5 and I have been "trapped in irons," as the old days of sail called it -- ain't been doin' much.  Oh, yes, getting caught up on much reading with the mornings taken up with cooking.  I made a Brussel's sprout and chicken dish today following an actual recipe.  Wow!  Complicated that I could reproduce much more quickly.  The lady who wrote the recipe earned a "D" from me in her writing, but an "A" in taste.

We are scheduled to get a new heat pump on May 8.  Our A/C units here have an average life span of 15 years.  Ours of 20 years and showing instrumentation of being on the downhill side.  Rather than having it crap out in July with a backlog of installers, we decided to replace it while it's still functioning.  We hit 126° last June, to give you the idea.

Another big expense will be reroofing our rental next door.  The 1979-built house had a new asphalt-shingle roof put on about 15 years ago as we remember.  This time we are looking into a permanent lightweight tile of some kind that doesn't involve reinforcing the roof.  A roofer scheduled an inspection, but never showed up for the appointment.  Eh, manana time!

M5 and I will be going to the range this coming week to exercise her 9mm Ruger and I need to break-in my .380 Sig.  We keep putting it off for no really good reason!  I'm supposed to run a couple of hundred rounds through the Sig to ensure flawlessness.  And, we both need more gym time to built up stamina.  I can always drum up a reason not to go and must stop that.  My 93rd birthday is less than 2 months away!!!!  We have an annual membership, too, that's wasting away!  "No excuse, Sir!"

Make a comment of what's happening at your castle.

Neanderthal Jack