Category Archives: Rancho Roly Poly

Freeze and then some

Rats. Mr. B. and I were just at Lowe’s to pick up a replacement flapper for the one that’s leaking in the toilet in the guest bathroom, causing it to run and run. Now I discover we’re to have a freeze tonight and a deeper one tomorrow night. Don’t think I have enough covers for the outdoor faucets. Could have bought more at Lowe’s. Come to think of it, they had several big boxes of them arrayed up and down the center aisle near the registers. I wondered about it. Now I know why. Will have to use a towel for one or two faucets, I guess. Curiously enough, there’s also a possible brush fire warning from all the wind today. But, having little brush around the rancho, I believe we can just let that one go.

UPDATE: The freezes went okay, but I couldn’t get the toilet’s inflow shut off to fix the flapper. Something tells me something worse is going on. I called a plumber and await his ministrations.

MORE: He came, he tinkered, he resolved the problem with a new fill valve, wall shutoff and water hose. Said the flapper was okay all along. Problems that start out small have a way of becoming larger at the rancho. Sigh. 

Yay Us Day

OC504-68.jpg

Next year I’ll get something new, but for the second year in a row, I think this will do for Veterans Day–the seal/decal of my old OCS class and the various places we served in Vietnam. Also this, which takes me back to the American Revolution, on my mother’s side, to Thomas Farrar, a lieutenant colonel in the South Carolina "line" of the Continental Army, and Claudius Pegues, Jr., a captain in the South Carolina militia. I suspect our military service goes back much farther, but I don’t know anything about it. And, while we’re at it, let’s not forget the wannabees, who are sure to be strutting around today in their phony uniforms. No sweat. Let them play, if it makes them feel any better.

Winter’s coming on

Strong cold front out of northwestern Canada is due through here tonight, after a week of cool mornings getting us ready to change seasons. Bit early for a freeze, but the LCRA’s Bob Rose and other meteorologists say there’ll be a light one tonight in hills west of the Rancho–while today’s forecast high of 87 degrees will plunge 25 degrees to just 63 by tomorrow afternoon.

Plumbago

Plumbago.JPG

One ornamental plant that’s doing very well at the rancho this fall, where leaf-raking continues.

Mr. Frog

MrFrog.JPG

On a really overcast Tuesday, Mr. Frog’s colors stand out brighter than usual under the flash. I was trying to get a Turk’s Cap cherry as nice as the one Pam Penick has, but it’s just too dark, I guess. So I gave up and shot Mr. Frog, instead. Anyway, enjoy her garden. Ours is not doing as well this fall, though she surely took her pictures on a sunnier day. 

Giant spider web diminished

Thanks to winds and rain, the giant web that stretched two hundred yards at Lake Tawakoni in northeast Texas back in August is only six percent of its previous size, but scientists are still interested in studying the apparent social effort of thousands of spiders–principally long-jawed orb weavers–which are normally canabalistic rather than cooperative. We can only hope they’re not evolving in some unpleasant new way. But, just in case, I plan to start being nicer to the ones I see around the rancho.

Heart scan

I got a CT heart scan this morning at Austin’s Heart Hospital, a simple, non-invasive test whose results should be back sometime next week. My g.p. had recommended it when my cholesterol jumped back up recently and I’m still a smoker. Nevertheless, there’s no known history of heart disease in my family, so I’ll be curious to see how it comes out. In doing some searching on the value of CT scans, I found this interesting interview with one of the champions of the test.

UPDATE: It turned out to be a 1, i.e. low risk. Meaning minimal plaque in the arteries around the heart. But the g.p. said I still might have it in my neck or elsewhere, and he is advising me to start taking Zocor, a cholesterol-reducing drug, because of my age and the smoking. I’m thinking about it.