Category Archives: Rancho Roly Poly

The immortal Miss Ellie

Posted on August 2, 2009 | Comments Off on The immortal Miss Ellie

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Mr. Boy’s spirit animal, this stuffed elephant, recently had her first bath in nine years. Followed by a tumble dry. It was Mrs. Charm’s idea. Get rid of her familiar smell, the thinking went, and Mr. B. would be less inclined to carry her about and sleep with her. Not that we mind that, especially, but he still sucks his fingers, despite our best efforts to stop it, and her comfortin presence seems to play a role in it. Anyhow, it didn’t work. The precocious pachyderm, Miss El, remains immortal. And the rising fourth grader’s finger sucking, alas, continues.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Mrs. Charm, Rancho Roly Poly

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Port Aransas fever

Posted on July 31, 2009 | Comments Off on Port Aransas fever

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This time of year, lots of inland Texans are thinking of the coast and the surf and the Gulf breezes. Course the latter come to us when there’s a good low-pressure area off to our west-northwest, sometimes bringing us the only summer rain we get. Anyhow, when we go we stay at the condo. Never have stayed at the little Tarpon Inn, at PortA, with its cavalry-barracks architecture, but lion tamer Clyde Beatty did, and cake-mix magnate Duncan Hines, etc., way back when. FDR caught a tarpon offshore, as many still do, but he slept somewhere else.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Rain on Red Bud leaves

Posted on July 30, 2009 | Comments Off on Rain on Red Bud leaves

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This works a bit better than the Turk’s Cap shot below. It’s busier but at least you can see the rain drops on the leaves. The toy tugboat in the background used to be a tub toy. Since relegated to the Back Forty.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Rain on Turk’s Cap

Posted on July 30, 2009 | Comments Off on Rain on Turk’s Cap

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A little fuzzy, this quickie snap of our surprise and very welcome morning rain shower. Figured the rain would show up best on this native Turk’s Cap "bush" which attracts hummingbirds. This older shot of the plant is somewhat better. I’m glad I don’t have to make a living as a photographer.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Power outage

Posted on July 26, 2009 | Comments Off on Power outage

It wasn’t a brownout for the rancho, just a cutout this afternoon that came back on in less than a minute. Took an hour more time for some people, maybe. Crashed the main computer, of course, in the midst of Mr. B. playing, as he said, "an important duel" in Wizard 101. So he was upset to tears.

This Austin Energy release is from July 18, so it doesn’t speak to what happened today. It doesn’t even say why the "small piece of equipment" at a nearby electrical substation caught on fire to cause 17,000 customers to lose power. But it’s not surprising, given the heat wave (now 23 days above a hundred degrees for July) and the whole town running a/c to the max, not to mention more of everything else electrical because it’s not very inviting to go outside. I suppose the brownouts will be here soon enough.

UPDATE:  Mrs Charm says it seems to have half-busted the microwave. Again. Still cooks, but the fan doesn’t come on anymore. Durn thing is only little more than a year old. Fortunately we know better than to try and get it repaired.

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Posted in Mr. Boy, Rancho Roly Poly

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Plummeting Lake Travis

Posted on July 16, 2009 | Comments Off on Plummeting Lake Travis

All our triple digit days means the big lake in the Highlands chain is dropping 1.5 to 2 feet a week now, according to the LCRA:

1) 614.18′ set in August of 1951
2) 615.02′ set in November of 1963
3) 636.58′ set in October of 1984
4) 640.08′ set on July 13, 2009 639.53 set on July 17, 2009 (and falling)
5) 640.24′ set in October of 2000

But, as you can see, there’s still a long ways to go before it’s hitting real record territory. Some slight fauna and flora relief is in sight for the weekend, but probably nothing meaningful for the lake.

Via KVUE’s Mark Murray.

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Posted in Rancho Roly Poly, Sailing, Texana, Weather/Climate

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Lake Travis still falling

Posted on July 8, 2009 | Comments Off on Lake Travis still falling

The lake she is sinking like a stone, two feet lower than at the link there which was a week ago. I mean fifty-one percent of capacity? Whoa. On the other hand, we’ve been here before, just three years ago, in fact, and it’s not yet as low as it was in 2000. The important thing to remember about Texas, folks, is that, for us, drought is normal.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Rancho Roly Poly, Sailing, Texana, Weather/Climate

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