Well, I'm about to head out, to relieve someone who wants "family time" tonight.
I do all sorts of odd jobs; the income tax work pays all annual expenses, but once in a while there's unanticipated expenses, and so I have to hustle.
It was a mellow day in the Sandhills of Nebraska. The temperatures were in the 70s, maybe the low 80s, most of the day. The sun was blazing down hotly, but there was a thin veil of clouds to ameliorate it.
The ancient elderly gentleman who used to mow the lawn here came out to visit, along with his wife, who did the driving. The ancient elderly gentleman is in fine shape, but at 81 years of age, that microscopic cerebral stroke he suffered some months ago is taking time to heal. He does okay; he's just a little slow, but it pleases God that every time I see him, he's noticeably better.
They brought along a watermelon and a box of fresh peaches.
However, he's not going to be mowing the grass here any more, having done it since Harry Truman was president, just before the barn burned down (June 1950), and the family switched from raising pigs to raising cattle.
The town inebriate was hired some weeks ago to mow the grass, which grows tall quickly, and after his first stint here, where he started in the middle of the afternoon, he switched to mowing after 9:00 p.m. central time, 8:00 p.m. mountain time, and as it's quite a bit of ground, he doesn't get done until about 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning.
How he manages to mow while drunk, and in the darkness of night, I have no idea. But he does a good job; in fact, he does better even than the ancient elderly gentleman used to. It pisses off the cats, though, because they like to prowl around at night, and this noisy machine interferes with that.
Then about noon, the old guy who lives across the river came by, along with his daughter and grandsons. He's starting to look pretty crisp and chipper now; I sort of suspect he's already decided to sell out and move away, out to California, as the memory of his wife, who died a few years ago, obviously still hurts.
They brought along some chicken delicacies.
And in late afternoon, the neighbor dropped by; the neighbor who some months ago played midwife to a cow, and some weeks later than that, got his pick-up truck destroyed by the Buckeye pothead. The Buckeye pothead is back in Nebraska, sitting in jail waiting for his court appearance in a few days. One supposes he could stay in a motel or something, but the morning before he wrecked us, he had skipped out of Chadron, Nebraska, circa 300 miles west of here, without paying that motel bill, and so probably no motel in the state of Nebraska will have him.
The neighbor brought along a bushel basket of sweet corn.
All in all, it was a pretty good day, myself staying out of the sun.
The prairie archaeologist spent the day in the big city, but is coming here early tomorrow with stakes and stuff, to designate significant "landmarks" in the dirt. The soil chemist is coming by on Monday, to drop off some drilling equipment, although she's not going to do anything until July 15.
Abbie, Snow, Junior, Apricot, Floyd, Gordon, Harold, George, Ellie, Leo, and William all dined on pure white turkey meat today, as did Gustav.
But Gustav is worrisome. Gustav is about 12 years old, and was the cat who broke one of his front legs several weeks ago. He was decked with a splint-and-cast until one week ago tomorrow (Friday; I am referring to last Friday), and now that's all off. I was warned he would be stiff in that leg, especially considering his great age, but I had expected that.
What I didn't expect was that despite that the leg's all healed, Gustav still trots around on three legs. The formerly busted leg isn't sore or in pain or anything (I checked), and I really wish he would start using it, at least 25% of the time. But no, when he takes off somewhere, he tucks it under himself and runs on three legs.
I hope there's not something else going on with that.
