You see, our sprinkler system is at least 20 years old at this point. Most people I know with sprinkler systems now have the cool digital display that looks a lot like most thermostats. Not me! My sprinkler system brain is mounted to the wall in a 1-foot square box with a huge dial that allows you to set the amount of time each station will water. Unfortunately, although it does fine while it's actually on a station, it won't cycle from station to station without a little manual encouragement. So every 30 minutes, I truck out to the garage to advance the little wheel another station.
This means I have had 30 minute blocks all evening to accomplish things. Sort of like your TV shows.
Tonight, it is a necessary task. I mowed and fertilized the yard for the first time yesterday and this evening. I know, that probably puts me behind the rest of the world, but it's just about right for us. So I have to do the sprinkler chaperoning to make sure the fertilizer is soaked into hard West Texas ground.
Tomorrow night we get to apply the pesticides (flea, tick, and other pests). This means we get to let the girls (puppies) in while I apply it. And, by the way, our youngest dachshund is with pups. We're not very excited. I lost an extended battle trying to keep our new neighbors' chihuahua out of our back yard.
I hear that chiweenies are pretty popular. Hope so. Yo quiero Wienerschnitzel.
Many of you haven't had an opportunity to see much of our grandson. The Fifth just had his second birthday in March. We really enjoy the opportunities we have to spend with him. He can be so much like his father, yet so uniquely himself. It's fascinating to see how much he changes from week to week.
This is his newest trick. He's howling like the dogs when they hear a siren. He figured this out pretty much on his own, and it is his newest "go-to" move when he's afraid he might be in trouble. He actually prefers to have everyone do this with him.
This year for my birthday, my beautiful wife gave me/us a set of recliners for the living room. You would have thought the boxes were specially shipped for the
Fifth's entertainment. He spent the entire evening closing himself up in the boxes, then patiently waiting for someone to "discover" he was in there, then laughing as if it was the first time,
every time. I think there is a lesson to share with the world there. Eventually, it wasn't enough for him to be in the box alone, he wanted someone to go in with him. Everyone took a turn being excited to spend time in the recliner boxes. We managed to sneak a pretty good picture of his family while they were spending some quality time together in the box. This was fortunate,
since his dad shies away from cameras on most occasions.
Hopefully, you will all get to meet him before much longer. He's just too much joy to keep to ourselves forever!
So, here's a few more of the unlimited supply of pictures we have of this funny little guy.
(My wife wants me to make sure and explain that he thinks every birthday is HIS birthday. We've had seven different parties at our house this spring, so he knows the drill pretty well by now. She feels like this is important for you to know because she would hate for anyone to look at the following pictures and think we had a "Princess" cake for his birthday! This was KK's 19th, but of course, he had to blow out the candles. They were actually sparklers, which messed with him a little, but he thought it was great!)
Interestingly enough, I don't suffer these issues when it comes to how I dress. Yesterday was day four of the great spring yard renewal program at our house. Day four was exciting to me, because we were moving past maintenance and upkeep into beautification.
