Spring Miscellania....
It seems to me to be the earliest Spring we've had in West Texas in my memory. As you can see by the photo of our patio above, the foliage is well on it's way to looking like summer. The grass is almost green all over and the shrubbery has it's new growth well underway. However the large trees have yet to catch up. The pecans are just now starting to bud, which actually is a good thing for the lawn......letting much more sunshine in early in the season. Timely and beneficial rains have helped along with a very mild winter all in all, with only one bitterly cold spell that I can recall. But, being West Texas, you never know what's going to happen. We had a very large snow on Easter weekend some 8 or 9 years ago.
My fishing trip was a grand success as usual. No fish, due to very windy weather, but no mind, fishing on the fishing trip is secondary. We always just take up where we left off the previous year in our story telling and asking how the people we asked about last year are doing. We ride in boats up and down the river, take photos, play cards and do some minor hiking up the creek that runs into the main river. Sleeping there with 4 or 5 guys out on the enclosed porch is hell for me. The beds are Army surplus steel cots really and are about 6 ft. in length.....I'm over 6'2". Then there are several guys who are terminal snorers, but who always swear that they don't do that anymore, and do. But all in all a great trip. And the big surprise when I returned home was that the "Lovely Bride" and "Wonderful Step-son" had done all the yard work, cleaned the house and painted one of the bathrooms that had been next on my to do list. Marriage is wonderful.
There was, however, a slight pause in our happy family reunion last night. A misunderstanding caused by my slight misstep of almost burning the house down. Further explanation is necessary. Julie had made a delightful chicken dish and had cut the skin off of the chicken halves. Being the frugal sort and wanting to provide our dogs with extra chicken enrichment in their diet, I had put the skin in water to boil, thus making a healthy dog chicken broth. Then, wanting some quality time with young Jack, I proceeded to the PlayStation2 in his room for some Grand Prix racing. I was 6 laps into the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang when we heard screeming from the direction of the kitchen. Something about, HELP!, SMOKE!, FIRE!. Racing continued. I was .05 seconds behind Michael Schumaker in his Ferrari with only several laps remaining, so obviously I couldn't pit. More screams. Something like COME IN HERE RIGHT NOW! Only 2 laps to go, surely a reply to the screams could wait, so I had Jack yell, "What do you want?". This, obviously, was a mistake as a very upset wife soon appeared in the door with one of those looks that said, "Buster, You'd better get off that toy, now". I did.
It seems that I had left the dogs chicken broth on a little to long and the water had all evaporated leaving burning chicken fat in the pan. I'll admit that there was a lot of smoke, greasy chicken smoke, and it had enveloped at least half of the house but, there was no actual fire. As I told Julie, "Baby, if there had been a fire, I would have quit racing and come to the kitchen. Well OK, a bad fire. But when you have a shot at winning the Malaysian Grand Prix, you can't just stop for small things". I realize now that this too was a mistake.
But things are now back to normal, wedded bliss reigns, the chicken smell is mostly gone from the house, and tonight I won the British Grand Prix at Silverstone by a sizeable margin, with no interruptions.
