Disappointing beginning

How to Wash a Cat
by Rebecca M Hale

Not as funny as I'd hoped--past the beginning--but it had a pretty good mystery and I always like secret t---

Oops. I think that would be a spoiler. I don't know how one writes about a mystery novel without giving away all the plot.  But in this case, I'd be hard-pressed to give away the ending because I didn't really understand the ending.  I'm not sure it's just me, either. Possibly she intended a second book in the series to explain what happened to Uncle Oscar?

Long but worth it

Becoming

Amazing life story of an amazing woman. I can't think of enough superlatives to apply. Long--but never boring. Detailed--but never too much information. Sad, happy, thoughtful, sometimes even silly. It's rendered me speechless.

Gardening in my Roots, nearly end of May

The sugar snap peas are dwindling, but the little dab of green beans I managed to grow are working overtime! 









I didn't count them but I'd estimate there are about 25 little plants, and the bigger of them are producing two beans a day. Hurray!


If I'd been working a little harder on my garden this year I would be getting beans out the badoozle. But this is good--I'm happy.

I was fascinated...but of course I've read it. Lots.

Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy:
The Story of Little Women and Why It Still Matters

by Anne Boyd Rioux

This is a nonfiction book that reads like a novel. I starts with the writing of the book, continues with its amazing reception, and ends in modern times, when it's seldom read by young people but still heavily influential in kid's literature, written mostly by people who did read the book. Here's a fascinating piece of history:

In 1905 the phenomenon made its way into literature with Marion Ames Taggart's The Little Women Club, a novel about four girls who not only adopt the March sisters' names and personalities but also try to reeanact the story of Alcott's novel. By then, Little Women clubs were common across the United States.

Even after reading a literary biography of Alcott, I had no idea that the popularity of her books revived peoples' interest in her father's (Bronson Alcott's) lectures. Only when his daughter made a success of herself did he finally start making money. I knew he was a bit of a kook and more interested in wild theories of eating and teaching than in providing for his family. That was left up to Alcott's mother, herself and her sister. His Concord School of Philosophy, established after Louisa made herself famous, was the only school he started that succeeded.

Equally interesting reading was the descriptions of the various stage productions and movie adaptions of the novel. Some (or shall I say all) went so far as to impose modern morality issues on it--in one case having Mr. Bhaer reprove her for the violent themes in her stores and her react with anger, not shame as in the novel. She sang, "How dare he make me doubt the way I feel / Doubt that each thrilling page is who I am?  That particular musical proceeds to make itself an especial flop by by having Jo give up her literary dreams and fall into a dull romance with Mr. Bhaer.

As the novel's 150th anniversary approaches there are two more film adaptations coming out. One is a remake of the 1994 film--why bother?  But the other one sounds fascinating: a new version from the BBC, coproduced with PBS's Masterpiece and set to air in 2018. With all kinds of stars including Angela Landsbury and Emily Watson. That's worth a look!

Sad good-bye to Purtis Creek

Piglets crossing the road.




Ed off fishing early; I got up shortly after sunup to walk the dogs. I walked them over to the pier, then went back to make him a cup of coffee and get my own fishing gear. I used worms and didn't get any bites, so I gave up. Ed used minnows and caught a nice catfish and an lovely little crappy, bigger than mine!  In fact, one of the bigger crappies I've ever seen in my life but of course by no means trophy weight.

Then I had a little breakfast and fed the doggies, but of course Izzy didn't eat and Zack gobbled everything he could reach. Then I unrigged my two fish poles--ah, the sorrows  of unrigging!  On the one hand, it's sad to say goodbye to a weekend's fishing. On the other hand, shoving your rod-and-reel with hooks and line and weight still attached into the vehicle is just setting yourself up for an hour of misery when you next go out and are anxious to hit the water.  Any two rods and reels left with gear attached are sure to join together and tangle up hopelessly--no matter how far apart you think you put them. And, in our case, there were seven of them.

Yuck! After two days of carefully skirting around the pile of dog poop on the road, on that last day I stepped in it. Not my dogs' poop, but still I wished I'd picked it up. I guess that's the price I paid for not being a good Samaritan.




Sunburned top of foot? Seriously?




I took off my fourth tick that morning. One of them had overnighted and was holding onto a bit of my skin when I yanked him out. I'll probably die.

My notes say we left the site at 12:53 and it took us about ten minutes to get to the park gate. We arrived home after a pleasant drive thought fields of bluebonnets, Indian paintbrush, crimson clover, and that yellow stuff (wild dill?) that grows all over. We were home by about 2:48.

Important notes:
1. Wash the windshield before the next trip! Springtime = bugs.
2. I need to bring easy-to-eat fruit like oranges, bananas or cherries. No mangoes or pears--they're messy.
3. Instead of buying expensive frozen rice, I should just fix a tub and bring it along.
4. When calculating trip times, I must not count parking time because that would include taking off the tow dolly and that would skew the mileage calculation.  So I'll just call it "home" when we park in the driveway.

Sunny Day at Purtis Creek

                     Today I have grown taller from walking with the trees.
                                                                                    --Karle Wilson
                                                                  (Mrs. Thomas Ellis Baker)


Starting to sun up and dry out when I got up at an embarrassing nine-o'clock. Could it really have been that late, or was that when we got back from the morning dog walk?

Ed was up earlier--he got a picture of the wild hogs that were tearing up big swathes of ground all over the park. Also, he noticed all of the minnows in the minnow bucket had vanished.

Not died, vanished. And the bucket looked undisturbed. Sure, he'd left the lid ajar so the aerator hose could slip in. But there was no way the minnows could have jumped out that little slit of a space. Some clever creature of the night had patiently extracted every single minnow.

We popped over to a bait shop and bought some more. The agenda for the day was fishing at the pier, so fishing we did. Before long the sun came out and we proceeded to bake in the 80-degree heat. The tops of my feet--in sandals for the first time this year--were scorched.

No dogs were allowed on the fishing pier, so I set up a chair and minimal box of tackle at the water's edge. After putting a line out of catfish, I put a lure on my lightweight rod and walked along the edge, casting for crappie. I caught the tiniest of tiny bluegill while spending an inordinate amount of time trying to untangle my lure from the weeds at the edge of the water. At one point I climbed down the few rocks at the edge to get it loose, which resulted in an embarrassing slip on the rocks and fall on my well-padded thighs. Luckily there weren't many people around to notice.

The bird count was small since I couldn't include the annoying singing birds in the tops of the trees that I couldn't even glimpse. There were indigo buntings, phoebees, cormorants, a mockingbird, blue jays, cardinals all over the place. And it was vulture heaven! Most of the birds roosted over on a few dead trees across an inlet of the lake, but when I was walking back to the campsite I looked up through the trees and saw a lone black vulture up close. Its neck looked just like the picture in the bird book--wish I'd gotten a picture.

I took a lunch break with the dogs and finally got to make use of our picnic table--the dirt underneath was powdery mud but the top and seats had dried out. Ed stuck with the pursuit of wild game, along with a man and woman (married?) who occupied either end of the pier and seemed to be there to stay--they were established when we arrived and didn't leave until who knows when?  Then I went back and fished some more, which was a little stupid on such a hot, sunny day. I'd have been better off taking a nap.

When the sun finally started to set, the fish started to bite.  And people started to arrive on the pier, including a rather large, noisy extended family with children. They were nice folks, but the racket!  no matter--I caught a crappie.

Embarrassingly, I didn't know what it was until the people told me. I haven't caught a crappy since childhood and I'd forgotten their mouths were so big.  But you can tell by the body shape--rounded like a bluegill.  Ed measured it and put it in the live well.

After that things began to wind down for me. The sun set and I grew chilly. I was still getting bites--including mosquito bites--but the final joykiller was the ticks. Word got around in the world of tick that a human body was sitting in a lawn chair on the lake shore, with bare ankles!

At about eight o'clock I left to get a jacket and flashlight, then went back for my gear. I tried to leave the dogs in the RV--no way. Zack barked so loud I imagined people could hear him down at the pier.  And the poor neighbors!  I gave up, went back and got the dogs, and trudged back at the pace of a crippled Shih-tzu. At least somebody got a lot of exercise that day.

Second day in the rain

I hadn't expected to sleep well but was pleasantly surprised. The parking pad was so unlevel, both front to back and left to right, that the leveling stands couldn't get us right. The back ones were fully extended and we were still tilted to the right at a noticeable angle; the front ones didn't come out at all. I suppose they realized they didn't have a job to do.





So I expected to be uncomfortable in bed (the angle was possibly about five degrees) but I wasn't.  And Zack--out of the cage and curled up on the floor at the foot of the bed--let me sleep!

We woke to calm winds, clear water, and misty clouds.  It had rained in the night a little, so the ground was wetter than before but not sodden mud, even in the heavily-traveled areas.  Dogs got a nice little walk and Ed and I both got hooks in the water for a couple of hours. Then my brother called to announce "storms were on the way." We ignored him, of course, but made plans to meet him for lunch at one-ish.

I got breakfast; Ed skipped in favor of a big lunch; and we managed to go on fishing until time to check on possibly moving to the spot we'd reserved for the next two nights . When I'd set this trip up, I originally thought I could only get a spot for Sunday through Tuesday. But I later had a thought--if we could get a one-night spot for Saturday, even if it was a "bad" spot, wouldn't that be better than making the drive for only two nights?

Yes, of course. So I grabbed one and set up a second reservation.

Then the weather forecast--and weather reality--changed. When we set out on Saturday a line of heavy thunderstorms had just moved through McKinney and were rapidly moving south and east. They'd left our house but not cleared out of Dallas or Kaufman county by the time we departed.

We arrived to find three very bored park employees sitting in the entrance station. There had been a lot of cancellations--smart people, not?  And there were several great camping spots available, right on the lake.

So yesterday I described the site we lucked into; today I will describe the one we moved to. Not far from the fishing pier--just a five minute walk--very private, very lush and wooded and beautiful. But no view at all. Looking at the online map I picked this site as being right next to a "day use area", which it was, just like the site at Inks Lake. But I failed to take into account East Texas. In East Texas, trees happen.

Plus vines and undergrowth and these cool things:



It's still a nice spot and we'd be fishing right now, but it hasn't stopped raining all afternoon. At first intermittent sprinkles, off again on again, while Ed hooked up the tow dolly, moved Mammoth to the new spot and hooked up the utilities again. Then we drove to Athens to dine at Jalapeno Tree and pick up some minnows. That proved to be challenging--of the two bait shops that were open in East Texas on Sundays, both closed at 3pm. We arrived at the Athens Marina at 3:05 or so and the nice girls cleaning up went ahead and sold them to us.

The drive back involved windshield wipers on intermittent fast speed and the dogs got a quick walk in the drip, but I'd had enough "life in the slow rain" for a while. My feet were cold, too. Me and the dogs dried off and climbed into Mammoth's warm belly.

Mind you, it's not cold at all. We haven't had the heat on yet and don't expect to need to. But you know how it is when you're damp.

Mammoth Rain-Eater

                         I need the seasons to live to the rhythm of rain and sun.
                                                                                      -Sophie Marceau

Thursday, 6 April 2019 --  Home to Purtis Creek State Park

We took 75 down to 190 east. When it met up with I-30, we took I-30 west back to the I-635 loop. Then US-175 south to Eustace, then FM-316 north to the park. Google told us to take a little "county road" over to the park, but that would be silly. Take our precious RV down little one-and-one-half lane road with no center stripe? And overhanging tree limbs. No!
1. Planned distance: 104 miles
2. Map time estimate: 1:41
3. Adjusted estimate: not done
4. Actual distance: 103.5 miles
5. Actual time:  1:58
6. One quick bathroom break on the (very broad) shoulder.
7. Average mph trip: 53
Bonus random statistic: time from arriving at gate until setup complete: 1:43. Nearly two hours!  Of course part of that was chatting with the park personnel.

Was the 190 East/I-30 West detour worth the extra miles? In my mind, yes. 190 is a new road, wide and clean; I-30 going west didn't have traffic, potholes or road construction; and we missed the glut of traffic through Garland. But we did have to pass through Mesquite--yuck.

Google showed a "little" road construction on US-175 just as it started, but I would by no account have called it little. It went on for miles, with narrow lanes and intermittent concrete walls on the right. With regular drizzle and occasional showers pelting the windshield. But it was bearable because there were no big trucks.

[Going to switch to present tense now since most of this was written at the time. If that annoys you, gentle reader, so be it.]

So here we are, camping in the rain. With thunder. With lightning. And likely to rain more tomorrow, although the chance diminishes through Monday and it should be clear on Tuesday. When, of course, we will return.



We have electricity, water, food in the fridge and plenty of shows recorded on DVR.  Loud, obnoxious shows but Ed is having a great time. And I'm doing what I do, fiddle fart around on the computer.

The only thing we don't have in abundance is Internet connectivity. I hope I live to be able to afford a data plan that lets me use my phone as a mobile hotspot. Even if I only get enough internet time to check the weather radar, it would be worth it. But an hour a day to read blogs and do research would be really nice.

The only worry I have is that it may not stop raining long enough to take the dogs for a walk with dry feet.  They've--and we've--already tracked enough wet feet in here.

Here are a couple of vultures drying off before their nightly roost.





So far I've seen two cardinals, a fairly large (30?) flock of unidentified birds flying north, and that vireo that i can never quite see--the one with a song that begins and ends with a chip!  Chip!  Vlurry-vlurry-vlur-chip!

Okay, I actually did see it--I went out in the off-and-on rain to be sure. There were two or three of the White-Eyed Vireos out foraging and singing at each other.  I got to watch one for a while--could see the white wing-bars, the yellow underneath, the heavy-ish vireo bill, and while the eye wasn't dark, I wasn't really close enough to see the color of the eye, plus it could have been a second-year bird.  And I made recordings of the song that clinch the ID.  It's a white-eyed. (And one of the most common birds around here.)

Nothing much to say about the rest of the day. We had instant noodles--doctored with added shrimp and vegetables, fish sauce and soy sauce--for supper, watched some comedy shows, and went to bed. This will be hereafter known as the "trip of the Impractical Jokers episodes." I don't know how much is real and how much is acting, but it's absurdly amusing. The sort of thing you don't want to laugh at, but you do.

Gardening in the Roots, Ending April

First harvest.  Gorgeous!

I'm disappointed in the spinach, of which there is none. I didn't plant it too early and I did keep it watered, but it must have been those two intensely cold days we had.  Is a cold frame is going to be required to ever grow spinach again?

Some of the tomatoes look horrible...but tomatoes often do at first. I should make a notes and then come back a month later and see which ones perked up.