2015 So Far

Well, this new year seems to be starting off different.

Three police cars showed up out on our main road about 1:45 a.m., parked in a line about a hundred feet apart with lights flashing and stayed there for an hour or so encouraging a party down that way to break up. It was a pretty good party, too, from the sound and sight of it, with music, fireworks and a large bonfire. (I'm pretty sure it was just a bonfire despite looking as if the host house was burning down with flames rising above the roof and thick smoke billowing out since the fire department never showed up.) It took a while for the dozen or so cars to leave.

Fortunately, the police didn't come any sooner since one of the neighbors down our street had been shooting off commercial-grade fireworks from the pavement in front of his house. They were very impressive (Literally. You could feel the force of the shockwave when they exploded.) and quite beautiful and very loud. The cats hid. They started well before midnight so after an hour and a half someone came out and yelled at them to knock it off. They yelled back, "Happy New Year!" The complainers yelled back, "Happy New Year, to you!" and went inside. A couple of shots later the fireworks ended. That's how civilization is supposed to work.

January is a Blue Month for my platelet donations this year: my every-four-weeks schedule means I will donate twice this month. The first one was scheduled for the first of the year which wasn't going to work for anybody so we moved it to Friday, the 2nd. The regular RN was still out on vacation and the hospital was low on platelets so the sub asked if I'd be willing to do a double, which I was. All went reasonably well with only minor beeping of the machine. When we were done, however, the bandage was not applied tightly enough (can't place blame since I participate in that process). I mentioned that I was feeling a little light-headed when I stood up and another donor said, "Maybe it's because you're leaking all over the place."

Sure enough, the bandage was soaked through, blood was running down my arm, and drops were spurting out all over the floor. I hadn't felt a thing. I sat back down and we got it stopped quickly enough. They spent several minutes scrubbing and decontaminating the floor. I went home, threw my shirt in the wash and took a nap. We all promised to be more observant next time.

My brother decided to put the cats on a diet. It's only the mom, Jasmine, that's fat but they all eat at the same time from shared plates so they're all being cut back in both volume and frequency. One of the enterprising little buggers quickly figured out how to self-serve by nibbling/tearing a small hole in the kibble bag. It was perfectly done and only released food when they stuck their faces in the hole. The only reason I noticed was because they acted totally disinterested when I put out the scheduled meal, instead of the hunger-fueled frenzy that had quickly become the norm. So now the bag is in a sealed bucket and they're unhappy again.

Over 200 Served, Not Counting the Cops

Last night began with my brother cursing (one of his favorite pastimes) and vowing never to honor this holiday again (totally not to be taken seriously) because the wind kept threatening to blow over the balloons and even the zombies, and the blower motors inflating the balloons were worn out and there were no viable batteries to power the zombies' eyes and moans, pretty much all of which was true but irrelevant since the real problem was that, as usual, he left everything to the last minute, didn't do any pre-installation checking (re: batteries and motors) and, even on the morning of the day, wasted an hour or two (I wasn't home at the time) chopping down a bougainvillea that was encroaching on the lanai--and had been for several years so why it had to come down right then who knows.

There's no point engaging him when he gets like this so I just let him run his course and assumed the wind would die down once the sun set (it did) and the motors would be more effective when the air cooled (they were). The battery problem was solved when he ran off to the store as the first kids were arriving and bought a jumbo pack of AAs. 

Meanwhile the pillaging hordes started to trickle in about 4:30. Our first visitor, a teenage female pirate, was followed by a five-year-old female doctor. I was kind of disappointed that a lot of kids really didn't seem to put much effort into their "costumes" although the first pirate was very good and there were a number of passable ghouls, super heroes (both male and female) and even a couple of classic Ghostbusters. A couple of kids had corrugated cartons on their heads and I assumed they were Box Trolls but, when I said that to one she sounded very disappointed and sighed, "No, I'm a robot," and turned on the flashing rotating lights in her eye and mouth spaces. I think I might have gotten that correct if they'd been on to start with. The most original was a five- or six-year-old orange Crayola crayon. Second place went to a perfect little Beetlejuice being wheeled around in his stroller.

There were three distinct waves of foragers, the first starting just after sunset, the last coming through just as the police arrive around 9:10.

Did I mention that the police shut us down?

One patrol car went by very slowly on the main street early on in the evening but didn't stop. A second one came onto our street and parked just up from the main activity about 8:30 or so but that's way too early to enforce any sort of noise ordinance and we weren't that loud anyway so he left.

We can't be sure a complaint was filed since people were parking in the main road's median strip as well as on the shoulders in order to get into our street and the police may have been responding to the congestion. Comparing the ethnic diversity of our visitors with the homogeneity Neighbor Dan (who, it must be admitted had partaken of a number of shots) was not taking any chances and attempted preemptive revenge on the mean old man down the street who always complains about everything to the point of calling the police and filing reports about car horns, lawn mowing and unregistered vehicles, by taking a visiting German shepherd named Diesel for a walk and encouraging him to poop on said neighbor's lawn. Diesel was uncooperative.

Finally, three patrol cars came back around 9:20 and stayed until everything completely wound down about forty minutes later which it totally would have done anyway since we were running out of candy and the third wave was thinning out. They didn't say anything to anyone as far as I could tell but their presence was a big hint. Plus, the night was crystal clear and the temperature had dropped into the mid-60s which is a little cool for short-sleeves around here. We put the zombies safely away in the garage, my brother deflated the balloons and I went in to make a cup of hot tea.

My brother's mood had been steadily improving throughout the evening (as I knew it would) and now, operating on the theory that any party shut down by the police is by definition a success, he was delighted. By my calculations we served just north of 220 trick-or-treaters. I managed to salvage three 100 Grand bars for myself and my brother gave me two Almond Joys he acquired somewhere.

This morning is bright and sunny but the wind is howling again.

Balloons Are Up. Dead To Follow

Our Hallowe'en decorations are finally up.

Almost.

The balloons are emplaced and, except for the ones over on the far side of the driveway (which include the headless horseman and the hearse), inflated. We have a couple of new ones including a large orange and black spider with glowing swirly lights in its abdomen. Neighbor Dan has a similar one but its abdomen is white and the swirly lights are multi-colored. I like ours better.

Neighbor Dan has had his decorations up since the first week of October. My brother intended to put ours up shortly after he saw Neighbor Dan's yard but his truck broke (again) that weekend so he couldn't retrieve anything from storage and then his truck was stolen so he mowed the lawn instead which was necessary but insufficient as this is the time of year when the grass shoots up about a foot over night and sets its seeds. Its all getting a bit raggedy already. He finally got around to placing balloons a few days ago.

Our yard still looks sparse compared to Neighbor Dan's but that's mostly because a lot of our decorations are not inflatables: the zombie wedding party, tombstones, dancing skeletons, etc. that really shouldn't be put out too far in advance although there's hardly any chance of rain anymore. Even the TV weather people have officially announced the end of Rainy Season. The days have been glorious, warm and sunny; the nights clear, cool and dry.

We have a couple new zombies, too. Actually, three, I think, plus the dog skeleton. They're the top-half-of-the-body-bursting-through-the-ground type zombies and will go well with the tombstones. One of them arrived broken and when my brother called the company they said they'd received a number of complaints about that one and they would refund his money and he could just go ahead and keep it anyway. That's the way to ensure customer loyalty. The skeleton dog is poseable and is currently leashed to the picket fence along the walkway to our front door. I don't understand how a skeleton can have ears and a nose, but otherwise he's kinda cute.

People have been driving by to check out the neighborhood prior to the pillaging spree this Friday. They seem to be impressed, if they are new to the area, or, if not, satisfied the tradition continues.

Oh, and I voted for the fourth time this year, not that it'll do any good in this district. Maybe in the statewide races.

Steal From My Brother Once, Shame On You. Steal From My Brother Twice . . .

My brother has the learning curve of a lizard.

The police rang our doorbell at 4:00 this morning to let him know they had found his truck. (He was already up having been called by them a few minutes earlier to announce their imminent arrival. I woke up at the sound of the bell.) When they saw who was at the door, the cats all took off like the Angel of the Lord was come to take them to their just reward. We didn't see Paribanour or Mittens again for about six hours.

At first, this particular service--waking people in the middle of the night to notify them of the location of their property--seemed a bit, I don't know, superfluous, since the truck was in the driveway when I went to bed. (Apparently, I don't process too well upon first waking unexpectedly.)

The truck was not in the driveway.

It had been stolen.

It had been stolen and used as a getaway vehicle on a crime spree lasting several hours before being left in a ditch behind the town high school a couple of miles away. Several vehicles in our neighborhood (including, it turned out, Neighbor Dan's truck but not my car) had been entered and pilfered but it was my brother's truck they stole.

Because he left the keys in it.

He left the keys in it! After having his wallet stolen out of the truck only a couple of months ago, he left the keys in it!

So we stood in the driveway, under the eaves of the garage, in the dark and intermittent pouring rain with lightning crashing nearby and the tip of one of Neighbor Dan's palm trees rubbing against an electrical wire in the wind, arcing and sending sparks flying, filling the air with the scent of ozone and burning wood while my brother filled out a criminal complaint form and answered the same questions to each of the three officers who eventually showed up one by one.

They warned him that, although they would try to get the truck back to him as soon as possible, it might take a while if the forensics crew decided they wanted to look for DNA or fingerprints. Also, at the moment they were using the truck as bait, having staked out the area in hopes the perp(s) came back.

As it was, they called at seven to let us know we could come and retrieve it. It was stuck in the ditch, bogged down because of the rain. Neighbor Dan ended up coming by and pulling it out.

The truck works fine and, at first, my brother thought he hadn't lost anything, himself, but on further inspection a diamond ring that belonged to our uncle, of mostly sentimental value, and a check he had out to pay the utility bill, necessitating a visit to the bank to change account numbers, were missing. He added those items to the complaint form. Neighbor Dan may have lost a (full) cash deposit bag from his business. The problem with living in an area as safe as ours is that people get careless.

Let's hope, for my brother's sake, that third time's the charm.

Detailing: If It's Worth Doing, It's Worth Doing Eventually

As I was getting ready to leave the house for my platelet donation this morning a couple of city trucks pulled up on our main street (the one with the recent sidewalk installation). A couple of workers got out with chain saws and I thought, "Uh oh, here we go again," but, fortunately, I went out to take a look at what they were up to before waking my brother.

They did trim a little underbrush from around the power pole at the north corner of our property but just so they could get in and uproot the duplicate pole leftover from whenever they had replaced them all last. Quite a few poles along that street have these residual "stumps." They've been cut down to remove the crossbars and be lower than the wires attached to the active poles but they're still a good 12 - 15 feet tall.

I have no idea when the switchover was done. It was well before I moved down here so, at the very least, it's been years that the old poles have stood adjacent to the new ones. I guess someone finally noticed.

One of the trucks had a large log grabber on an extendible articulated arm. Once the space was cleared it gently reached over, grabbed the redundant pole and yanked it out. Neighbor Dan also had doubles on his property and apparently his was dug in pretty deep because the grabber had to twist it back and forth to loosen it up enough for the pull. It was kind of like watching an old-time dentist pull teeth.

At least now someone at city works can finally close the book on that little project.

And my donation, managed by a new tech, went super well.

One of the Inmates May Be Making A Break For It

Neighbor Mike may be serious about moving.

First he had someone come in and officially delineate the property line between him and us. Shortly after that a family with a young daughter was wandering through his back yard. Last week a fat old beagle, answering to the name "Jersey," came snuffling around our lanai and two gentlemen I have never seen before came from behind Mike's house, apologized, and guided him back to their side. I suspect the parties in both instances may have been potential marks casing the joint.

This weekend there were a number of vehicles parked in Mike's driveway and along the side of the road in front of his place. Either they were friends/relatives there for an impromptu (and very quiet) daytime party, or he was holding some sort of garage sale to unload stuff he has no intention of packing when he goes.

He's being very discreet. There is no Sale sign in front of his place. So, no gawkers. Interested parties only, and through an agent.

I have noticed a number of new For Sale signs popping up around town in front of houses that are obviously occupied and well-tended so, apparently, the market is finally coming back up pretty near the lip of the crater that was the aftermath of the 2008 crash.

Who wants to be our neighbor? Can we get you to mow our side of the line, like Mike did? (Bonus: He tended to use our mower which he often borrowed without asking. We took his ladders. We're all kind of a commune that way.)

Progress Passes By

And we have a sidewalk.

On Friday, the workers came by and poured a slab about half the distance along our property. Unlike the old days where they would pour each small (maybe four foot long) section individually, they made one big long pour. Maybe they still do it the old way up north where there is danger of expansion and contraction while the concrete is curing but down here that doesn't seem to be an issue. Yesterday morning they came back and poured the rest in an equally long section.

While they were laying down the second pour, a guy with a stone cutter saw worked on the first, now mostly dry, section and carved little fake section lines crosswise at regular intervals so it looks like a traditional sidewalk. When they were done pouring, one guy came back with a squeegee broom and carefully brushed the concrete level texturing it (also crosswise) while two other went down to the end at the intersection between the sidewalk road and our little street and laid down a bright yellow, knobbly textured plastic mat to mark the end of the walk for the vision-impaired and tamped it down to road level eliminate and curb effect. They stood on it for a moment and then placed custom designed weights on it and left them while the concrete set.

Today, they were back one last time. The stonecutter sliced his lines into the second pour, which was already dry enough to walk on, They pulled the metal guide rails out of the entire strip and a guy with a leaf blower went up and down the bike lane blowing all the dust and debris back off the road. Now they're all across our street, working away along Neighbor Dan's place. They're almost to the end of the road and might have the west-side sidewalk completely in before St. Patrick's Day.

Then we get to watch the rest of the summer while they move back north working on the east side of the road.

Fer Mowin' or Fer Ownin'?

Which is the punchline to an Old New England Farmer joke: A guy moves up from the big city and buys a smallish farm next door to a native New Englander. While inspecting his purchase he notices that there are no boundary markers and the fields just sort of merge into each other. He approaches the old farmer and asks, "Say, neighbor, can you tell me where my property ends and yours begins?" The farmer thinks on it for a moment and responds, asking, "Depends. . . . (see headline, above).

It's one of the reasons Robert Frost thought good walls made good neighbors. There is no wall between our place and Neighbor Mike's.

Which is not any kind of issue, except that Neighbor Mike has apparently thought recently of selling and, as part of the plan, called in someone to examine his place and his title to it and that person discovered that Mike has been mowing a strip of our property almost from the very beginning. As a matter of fact, at least one of Mike's irrigation sprinkler heads is buried a couple of feet over on our side of the line.

My brother discovered this a few days ago when he went looking for a place to plant the pecan tree (potentially awesome present) he received for Christmas. (Actually,what he got for Christmas was a picture of a pecan tree, but the actual stick finally showed up courtesy of UPS.) He noticed a string running parallel to what he thought was our property line and followed it to little flags staked out to the front and back of the territory. Mike confirmed that the survey says everything to the east of the string is actually ours.

It's not much. A few hundred square feet at most. Despite nobody knowing where the real line was, and despite Mike mowing it, he has not, by his actions, claimed it and we have not alienated it.  And now we all know, so it stays ours.

Although we have to admit: Mike did a good job caring for it.

Messing With the Hydrological Constant

We just lost the moat on the east side.

Instead of trenching the area scraped earlier this week, a guy with a combination front loader/back grader dumped large piles of dirt over the grassless swath and proceeded to push at around for two hours this morning effectively filling in and leveling our swale.

Of course, since that side of the road had been a 10-15 degree slope before, it was obvious it would have to be either leveled up or down before any sidewalk could go in, but I wonder what this infill is going to do to our run-off during the rainy season. The house is on a slight rise and we have no basement/cellar so I can't imagine anything disastrous, but I can foresee large areas of long-term squishyness below the live oak making it difficult to mow during the half year when mowing is necessary. Either that or everything will flow into the southside moat which already backs up by the driveway because the town stopped its swale clearing and enhancement program at the edge of our property last year. (Neighbor Mike's ditch was cleared and deepened as was everyone else's down that way toward the canal. We don't know why they stopped short of us.)

Now that the planned path has been brought up to street level and graded, there's still a slight bit of trenching to do. The directional guide forms are in place right up to the north edge of our property although the cross forms are not, yet, and they appear to be lower than the new ground level built today.

The loader driver is still the first, and only, worker I've seen so far. I went outside to see the results of his labors and we waved to each other. Nothing (except the sawhorses) has yet crossed the street onto Neighbor Dan's place.

The Great Leap Forward

Boy, howdy, was I sure wrong about that!

Our sidewalk construction took a quantum leap forward this week. The warning sawhorses suddenly appeared all the way down the road past us just before the weekend, although I still couldn't see any other signs of actual work on the horizon. Someone did stack a load of paving tiles by a driveway made of paving tiles (again, also past our street) in preparation for altering that home's access approach. But that was it.

Today, I woke up to find the verge along our property already scraped. The scraping does not yet cross the street onto Neighbor Dan's property and should not be confused with either the leveling necessary or the trench that will hold the concrete forms. This is just a ripping of the sod in anticipation of leveling and trenching and is necessary because the crab grass and Mexican clover, among other things, form long, tough tendrils that snake across the ground. That's a strip we'll never have to mow again, although we'll have to see how much green they leave on the street side of the sidewalk. And it looks as if they're going to be able to work around the pineapple palm at the corner of our property. (For some strange reason, there is a pineapple palm almost exactly at each of the corners of our territory and, yet, no one has ever admitted to planting any of them.)

At least some of the machinery has moved in, as well. I'm not sure what they used for a scraper since it was all done before 8 a.m. and I neither saw nor heard them while they were at it. There's a backhoe just up the road, now, but that may be the trencher and, in any event, has not been used since I've been watching. There are also a couple of pieces of heavy equipment parked in the open field across the road. I can see personal trucks used by the workers to get to and from the job site parked in the median way back up the road but no people are in evidence anywhere.

It's amazing how much can get done with nobody around.

Miscellanea, Garden Variety

My brother brought home a huge semi-ripe papaya yesterday. It was a gift. It's sitting on the kitchen counter on the theory and expectation that it, like mangoes, will continue to ripen on its own. When he deems it ready, he intends to plant the seeds. I have no idea what his criteria are, but if he manages it, we'll have fresh papaya.

Meanwhile, our inconsistent lawn mowing has paid off in the sprouting of three new mango trees. Unfortunately, they are either directly under the current mango or off in the property line and need to be transplanted. Neighbor Mike, who ran out and bought his own mango based on how good ours taste only to discover he had gotten a different, and not nearly as sweet, species, has already claimed one sapling. My brother intends to give one of the others away. The third will be transplanted to an appropriate spot.

Meanwhile, the coconut palm has had a good year. A full dozen and a half have dropped so far with at least that many more still tucked up under the fronds. Of those that have fallen maybe seven are basically dead. Most of the rest slosh when shaken, meaning they are full of milk, and will be harvested for both milk and meat as soon as I can find where my brother hid the machete. The remaining two have sprouted. One will be planted as soon as we can find an open space far enough away from power lines so the electric crews wont feel threatened and trim it to death. The other will be given away.

The orange tree has grown at least a foot since planting and its top has opened up. My brother continues to feed and water it.

The last of the cherry tomatoes and sweet peppers are long gone. The banana tree is still in its tub and needs to be planted.

If we ever decide to go full Fruitarian, we could be pretty well self-sufficient. (Ain't gonna happen. My brother's a full-bore carnivore and I'll never survive without bacon.)

The Night In Question

(The Wedding Party)

So, it turns out twenty (20!) bags of candy weren't enough, after all, and we needed to borrow one from Neighbor Dan who only bought 9 bags but his were three times the size of ours so it balanced out pretty evenly in the end.

Despite the last-minute nature of our decorating due to my brother's bout of the plague followed by his trip to the Bahamas and delayed return from spending an extra day with his girlfriend, we looked pretty good. A little sparse compared to previous years, but the trick-or-treaters didn't seem to notice.

(A Wedding Crasher)

The wedding party went over nicely. Several people even crashed it to have their pictures taken with the bride. Later in the evening, my brother joined them and sat very quietly until unsuspecting visitors came up close enough to collect their treats.

(Spot the Living Guest)

Reactions ranged from glorious screams to comments of, "Really?" (but only following a sideways jump of at least three feet), to one woman who got into a snit and just stomped off. Generally, though the responses were great, especially from the kids and foreigners. The kids, in particular, showed no fear. They posed with zombies and in front of the hearse and danced with the skeletons.

(Spiderman Does a Turn With the Singing Skeleton)

One German gentleman came up and, explaining that it was his first time here, asked me when the holiday normally occurred and how long it lasted. I told him it was always the evening before All Saints' Day and, although the decorations went up a few days earlier, the kids came by only on this one night. He seemed intrigued, yet bemused, by the whole concept. He especially didn't seem to understand the gorilla chasing the six-foot banana down the street.

Another German family came by later in the evening. They were relative veterans, it seems, as they were all dressed as pumpkins. I informed them they made a very sincere pumpkin patch but I don't think they got the reference. And the only beagle that showed up was dressed as a lobster. 

The giant banana came back later in the evening all out of breath. He took a couple of candy bars and said, "Thanks. That monkey's been after me all night long."

(Giant Lawn Cat Is Watching You Trick-or-Treat)

Final tally: 200+ kids of various ages and sizes plus almost as many parents/guardians (many themselves in costume), three dogs (one disguised as a crustacean) and the equivalent of 23 bags of candy. And lots of appreciative compliments. Guess we'll do it again.

(Y'all come Back Next Year, Y'hear?)

Show Time

My brother took an extra day getting home from his trip. Actually, he stopped by his girlfriend's house and spent the day with her before coming home.

As a result, he is now (yesterday and today) scrambling around the front yard staking and inflating his scary Hallowe'en decorations. Despite not being able to find all of the extension cords, they seem to be coming together much better than Neighbor Dan's balloons a good half of which he replaced with all new items because they would not inflate properly. That was a big hit to his budget this year.

Ours still have a few problems. The headless horseman is slumped over by the mailbox although the hearse behind him is doing fine. And there's a ghost out by the main road that keeps falling over. Either a guy line or a spike keeps coming loose in the wind. And the giant black cat looks a little wobbly in the knees. Nevertheless, my brother seems confident all will be up and running come sunset.

On the non-inflatable side, over by where the trick-or-treaters will be coming up the drive, the zombies have established a wedding party by the recently established graveyard and are merely waiting for the groom to finish extricating himself from the ground. The bride looks positively ethereal.

And on the more mundane, but no less important, sugar front: We have twenty (20!) bags of assorted candy bars sitting on the dining room table being inspected by the cats. Our contribution to the continuing childhood diabetes epidemic is well established.

Let the pint-sized hordes descend. Let the pillaging and plundering commence.

The Frightful Day Approacheth

The local newspaper has officially announced that Rainy Season ended last Wednesday. They may be right. We haven't had a drop of rain since then and hardly a cloud in the sky.

Let the games begin.

Neighbor Dan took an early lead by laying out several of his inflatable Hallowe'en displays over the weekend but he has yet to inflate them. I suppose he's just positioning to get a feel for balance and composition but he has also not mowed his lawn in over a week and his grass is already shoe-top high and raggedy. If he leaves the displays staked as is he won't be able to cut and will be close to knee deep by the time the big evening rolls around.

My brother, on the other hand, mowed yesterday afternoon. At least, he mowed the front lawn which, after all, is where the decorations go and the only part visitors will see. Actually, in best Redneck fashion, he mowed most of the front lawn, ignoring under the live oak and bougainvillea and around the coconut palm on the logical assumption that neither decorations nor visitors will go there and it will be dark anyway, after all, so who's going to notice.

I've only seen one other house with any decorations and they've been up since late September but the house is nowhere near us and their display consists entirely of smallish inflatable Disney characters leaning heavily on the theme of Mickey as Sorcerer's Apprentice. Not even also rans.

And Hallowe'en Is Still Over Two Weeks Away

I went out this morning to the library and as I drove down our main neighborhood street (the one that had the  lane removed and turned into a bike way and is soon to get sidewalks) I passed a house with the most extraordinary--and scary--lawn display.

The entire frontage facing the street, from property line to property line, was piled literally five feet high (more in some spots) with furniture, clothing and large, bulging, black plastic trash bags. They made a wall, a berm, a blockade across the entire access to the house. There were a trio of pick-up trucks parked on the street and median (the driveway was blocked). From the size of the house and the sheer volume of the mountain range of trash out front, I can only surmise the occupants must be/have been classic hoarders. I can not imagine how it would be possible to stuff that volume of stuff into the available space.

I have no idea if this is the result of an intervention or merely the cleansing after an estate sale.

The funny thing is, the outside property itself has always been well cared for. Lawn mowed. Shrubberies trimmed. No litter. There was never any indication that anything might be amiss inside.

I feel the urge to recycle some old paperwork and magazines, now. And catalogs. They're coming in fast, now, too.

Mangomania

Our mango tree is doing something I have never seen before. The east-facing quarter of the tree (only) is producing a second crop of fruit.

The entire first go-'round ripened and fell and was gathered by us, or was eaten by the squirrel, birds and insects. But now, this one section of the tree is producing again. And the mangoes are glorious. They're huge, plump and heavy. A couple of them have fallen, mostly due to wind and rain, but my brother has taken to actually harvesting them so we're getting them store-quality with no blemishes.

Somewhere, he found a long-handled sickle (12 feet (4 meters) long and which I have never seen before in our collection of tools) and has taken to going out almost daily to gently swipe at the ripest looking fruit. Sometimes he has to climb a ladder first. If they're ready, they fall. If not, he'll try again in a day or so.

Three mangoes, peeled and cubed, filled two quart containers yesterday. (I quit after three because I managed to stab myself in the palm.) There are close to a dozen more on the counter awaiting attention (and the availability of more containers) and still there are a couple dozen more on the tree.

Meanwhile, Neighbor Mike's tree is now overflowing with ripe fruit, too, although his are golden yellow all over where ours turn orange/red retaining green undertones. None of his have fallen yet, but neither have we seen him picking any.

Miscellania

The kittens (a term not to be used much longer considering their sizes) insist on pushing their toys under doors then doing various gymnastic moves in vain attempts to retrieve them. Considering the typical Florida open plan layout of this house, I am surprised how many closed doors there actually are around here (my room, my bathroom, the front closet, the laundry room,  . . .). No matter how many times I rescue the catnip mouse or stuffed fish and place them in the middle of the living room, the cats inevitably end up playing right next to a door, with predictable results. The next round of toys will have to be bigger than the gap between floor and door.

Paribanour has darkened up some and her chipmunk stripe has blended in to the point of near invisibility. It's now noticeable primarily as a glossy line down her back as opposed to the matte gray of the rest of her fur. She has, however, developed a raccoon ring tail in the meantime.

There's some sort of bug I have yet to see that bites (or stings) without warning leaving a swollen spot similar to a mosquito bite that turns into a red patch the size of a thumbnail and lasts the better part of a week itching like hell the entire time. It's gotten me four times now, three of them either through or under clothing.

Our sweet red peppers and cherry tomatoes are coming along nicely although my brother tends to pick the tomatoes before they're fully ripe in an effort to keep local varmints from getting at them. It works but we're missing out on some juicy ripeness as a result.

Speaking of cherries (the real kind), the cats love them. They're perfect for batting around and playing kitten football. Even in season and on sale, they're expensive enough down here for me to take them away and rewash them. At least the tooth and claw marks are merely indentations and not punctures. The show no interest in the grapes or tomatoes even though they all share space on the counter.

Our mango tree is generating a second crop for us. The new mangoes are limited to the eastern quadrant of the tree but there are maybe a couple dozen decent size ripening up there. Neighbor Mike's mango tree is full. He likes ours better. When we first gave him some of ours a few years ago, he enjoyed them so much he ran right out and bought his own tree, but it's a different species he doesn't think is as sweet.

More of the Sweetest Cat I Have Ever Known

We found a few more pics of Bartleby. These show off her green eyes and don't-bother-me attitude.

She was with us for about a year and a half. She just showed up in the back yard one day all skin and bones and bedraggled matted fur. My brother took her in based on the philosophy that "No cat is going to starve to death on my property!" She recovered nicely.

                                                          

Her hips were weak, possibly dysplasiac, although they never caused her any apparent pain or lack of mobility except an unwillingness to jump very far. We never did figure out how old she was. Neighbor Dan thinks she was older than she looked and may have "just stopped" yesterday. We have no evidence to the contrary.

For all her pretend aloofness, she really did like to cuddle and be petted and groomed and treated like the princess she knew she was.

Paribanour displays a similar sweet disposition but she'll never be another Bartleby.

Once again, goodbye lovely cat.

Redneck Studies: A Close Call, Parts & Labor Included

Neighbor Dan came over Saturday evening shortly after my brother had left for work. I thought he might be coming to visit the kittens as he and his youngest daughter had done the day before but he was stopping to let me know he had my brother on his phone. My phone was charging at the time. It's a problem with not having a land line anymore.

It seems my brother had been driving on our town's main commercial drag, a six lane (not counting turn-offs) "boulevard" of chain restaurants, strip malls and big box stores when the front end of his truck just fell off about four blocks from work. He needed cash for the tow truck. I grabbed $100 from my brother's stash and headed out.

When I found him, he had managed to pull over into a turn-out lane and was out of the main flow of traffic although that did not stop several inattentive idiots, despite his hazard lights flashing, from pulling in behind his truck as they attempted to enter the mall.

He hadn't been kidding about his truck. It looked as if the left front axle had broken or at least separated from the differential. The end of the axle and the ball joint were just lying there on the road. The wheel was turned in and down at a 45 degree angle and the entire front of the truck sagged. It was a good thing he was in town where the speed limit is 45 mph and traffic volume often prevents even that. If he'd been on the highway when that happened the truck would have gone head over heels and he'd be dead now.

And here's where we get to the Redneck Studies. The thing is, that's exactly the part of the truck he'd had repaired only about 1000 miles ago.

Your typical redneck will opt for the independent contractor, good ol' boy almost every time. The main exception is retail where Wally World wins out over mom-'n'-pop. It all comes down to price, quality be damned. My brother had taken his truck to two guys who used to work for an established (but still local and otherwise good ol' boy himself) mechanic. (They claimed they left voluntarily because they objected to certain of his business practices which is just the unverifiably generic excuse I would expect from a couple of guys who were probably let go for being slackers, but I'm cynical that way.) Be that as it may, they quoted my brother a really good price for the work and he let them at it.

You get what you pay for is a maxim that does not register with rednecks.

I offered to stay with my brother but he declined as there was nothing, really, for me to do there and I'd left my dinner on the stove so I went home before the cats could get to it. My brother had the truck towed to the guys who messed it up, left it parked blocking their garage bay and walked home. I gave him my car to go back to work. So now we're down to one car until the truck is fixed or he can convince his insurance to pay for a rental and since he drives for a living that may not be automatic.

Before She Teaches the Kids to Kill

Came home yesterday to find Neighbor Dan and the younger Neighbor Dan Daughter out in the lanai playing with the kittens. I like that it's that kind of neighborhood.

Neighbor Dan has examined the kittens a number of times and concluded we have three girls and a boy. Or maybe four girls. Or maybe not. I say take 'em all to the vet as soon as possible so it won't make any difference.

And take Little Gray Mama, too. She killed a bird a couple of days ago (and has probably killed more but that's the only one I caught her with). I heard several avian complaints from the mango tree and recognized them as anti-cat comments from back when I lived in Connecticut and the neighbor cat would come into my back field whereupon several species of birds including crows, robins, cardinals and a Baltimore oriole would all cooperate, forming a circle around the intruder, just out of reach, moving across the field from bush to branch, always with the cat in the center until she got too frustrated and went home. It wasn't an accident; they did it several times.

Anyway, I went to investigate and found LGM under the mango with a small crow she had just killed and was now trying to eat despite being fed between two and four times a day at our house and who-knows-how-many times again over at Neighbor Dan's where she disappears for hours on end. I took it away from her and gave it a quick burial and she let me know she was not pleased that I would waste a perfectly good bird like that.

Neighbor Dan's Daughters also discovered the partial remains of a couple of lizards in the lanai the day before so the sooner we can get the kids weaned the sooner we can get her fixed as well and maybe then her reign of terror will end.

Meanwhile, Bartleby watches a palmetto bug walk between her paws with total disinterest.