It was another time

One of the things lying around here from mom and dad is a collection of old post cards from or to family members. One I just read was written by Granny to her husband Charles Walmsley Flanders. The card is dated January 27, 1939 and it was mailed from Winnsboro. It was sent to 3221 Wendelkin St. in Dallas, which was Aunt Maude's address - so evidently Granddad was in Dallas for a few days and was staying with Aunt Maude (his half-sister). The message was:

"Dear, I forgot to remind you to bring flour, no bacon, ??, or meal. If you want to get a few baby chicks I will try them under the hen that is setting. I must hurry and mail this so, Good bye till Sat. Yours, Verlie"

That says a lot about the way they lived! (The postage was one cent.)

A New Roof for the Deck Gazebo

The old and rotten canvas covering of the deck gazebo is gone now and Justin and Daniel are putting a new, permanent tin roof on it. They've got just a bit more then a forth of it done as I post this and it's looking good! (Maybe I'll do an all complete photo later today when it's done.)

Here it is - all done! Thanks Justin and Daniel!

Austin mini-vacation

Waterfall at the Prehistoric Garden at the Zilker Botanical Gardens

We just spent a few days in Austin! Julie provided accomodations for us as well as a list of suggested Austin attractions to visit. Her list included the few things we knew we wanted to see so we pretty well took care of the list and had a great time doing it. The Austin food was great! We had some enjoyable time with Julie and with my cousin Peggy. I think Julie needs to get acquainted with Peggy who is flying up to Pennylvania to work on the Hillary campaign there. (This is because I think Hillary will be less of an opponent.)

There's a new "Lefty" at Wildernest

Over the years there have been several stray cats show up here. Some have stayed for extended peiods of time - some didn't. (It probably gets boring when we're gone for a couple weeks at at time.) I've named all of them Lefty - because of Willie Nelson's song "Pancho and Lefty" which has a fetching lyric and melody. . . so our cats are Pancho and Lefty. I think this one will be here for a while. He was sort of a Reyes cat before we got here.

I said it's Willie's song but it was actually written by Townes Van Zandt - an old Texas music writer and performer. The link here is a video of the song with Willie and Merle Haggard. Townes has several cameos in it including the guy playing the guitar in the diner towards the end of the song.

If you like the song you should listen to this Emmylou Harris version too. The 1993 version by Townes Van Zandt has some great guitar as well as the song being sung by the man that wrote it.

This week -

We celebrated the closing of the sale of the condo with a sorta formal brunch on the deck, complete with mimosas - a favorite from our favorite brunch place, Terilli's on lower Greenville.


And we also cashed in a couple gift cards for boxwoods for the walk to the Gazebo!

Glynda's new rose

It's called a Bengal Tiger Rose. (Purchases of this rose helps the Save the Tiger Fund, established to support conservation of Asia's wild tiger population.) We're planning on buying only Earth Kind Roses now because of the low maintenance, earth friendly characteristics but Glynda really loved the color of this one. We did also buy a Belinda's Dream that is an Earth Kind Rose.

Retirement Report #2

Practice, practice, practice!!