Well it certainly is summer time here on the Hunker Down.  Triple digits on a daily basis for the past week or so.  HOT,HOT,HOT.  Get a little work done each day, but this old goat doesn’t handle the heat as well as he did 20-30 years ago working rock.  Speaking of work, I’m in the process of putting the finishing touches on what is meant to be a combo garden tool shed and chicken coop, and fencing in a bit of a chicken pen.  Today, I mounted a solar powered, light activated door so the hens won’t have to wait on my lazy butt getting up in the morning before they can get out to work.  This is a “pullet shut” door manufactured by a little outfit down in Lockhart Texas, and it seems to be a well thought out piece of work.

Maybe, I’ll have everything ready for some birds by next week—chickens and a couple of guiney hens if I can stand all the noise.  Supposedly, they are grasshopper eating machines, and though it is a little too late to save this springs garden, they might be a big help come this fall.  That is if we ever get some rain around here.  Last year we had 27 inches of rain between the first of the year and the end of August—I thought that the drought we had been in had finally broken.  The tank was full, wild flowers everywhere, and everything nice and green.  Then the rain stopped, and since then I doubt we have had 5 inches total.  Last week, the last of the water in the tank disappeared, and we are supposedly in stage 4 watering restrictions. (I get the wet stuff from a SUD—metered water). Notice the tree and rock surrounded by water in the first picture, high and dry in the second.  So, I’m trying to keep a few things alive—young fruit trees and some tomatoes, peppers and squash, but it is all fading fast.  Odd thing though, we seem to be in the hole of a doughnut—there have been some pretty good rains all around us—3 or 4 inch rain when we get a tenth or so— but the squall lines separate just as they hit the Brown/ Colman county line just northwest of the Hunker Down, and slip on by to the northeast, or move due south and then east.   Could have something to do with living in a dry precinct, I suppose.

Oh well, sometimes you’re the windshield and sometimes you’re the bug, and these days we are definitely the bug.  Damn grasshopper hit me in the chest while walking across the yard the other day and knocked the wind right out of me.  Afraid to see if it left a bruise—that’s all for now

JVC