Back At It

We woke up to thunder, lightning, and heavy rain yesterday morning, and it kept up all day long. By evening the thunder and lightning had moved offshore and out over the Atlantic, but the rain continued, although not nearly as heavy as it was. No complaints here, our yard and trees really needed it.

During an overnight freeze we had last winter, I thought we had lost all three of our citrus trees but they seem to have survived. The lemon tree took it the worst, and all of the branches on the main tree died. But a sprout came up from low down on the tree trunk that seems to be doing very well. It’s almost as tall as the original tree, with quite a few leaves on it. The key lime tree has a lot of leaves but no fruit so far. The tangelo looked pretty bad for a while, but since then, it has really filled out, and this week it started getting a bunch of little white flower blossoms on it.

Quite a few readers have asked how Terry is doing after her cataract surgery on Wednesday. She had a post-op appointment on Thursday morning, and the doctor said everything looked great. She still has a slight irritation in her eye and it’s still a bit blurry, but otherwise, she is doing fine. The second eye is scheduled for two weeks, and Terry is looking forward to getting it all over with and behind her.

Terry says needing things like that happen as we get older and keeps telling me that we are 70 now, so it’s to be expected. I keep reminding her that I’m not 70 yet and won’t be for another few weeks. I’m still a kid in my 60s until mid-October when I catch up with her. I was in my 50s when I had my cataracts done, and our daughter Tiffany just turned 40 in April, and she had to have both of her eyes done already. So much for it being just something for old people.

Speaking of old people, yesterday would have been my father’s 113^th birthday. He was an amazing man and quite a character. I wish he would have lived long enough to be able to read some of my books, since he always encouraged me to follow my dreams of being a writer. Unfortunately, we lost him back in 1984. Rest in peace, Dad.

Now that we have Terry’s first cataract surgery out of the way, along with a couple of other medical appointments behind us, I’m back at it, working on my next book, Big Lake Drunk. I have done a ton of research in the last couple of days, and yesterday I wrote just shy of 4,000 words. It’s off to a good start.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. I don’t think Bob’s is the kind of place where you can linger over a cup of coffee as you visit with friends.

Be sure to enter our latest Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an RV camping journal donated by Barbara House. Barbara makes several variations of these, and they all have pages where you can list the date, weather, where you traveled to and from that day, beginning and ending mileage, campground information including amenities at RV sites, a place for campground reviews, room to record activities, people met along the way, reminders of places to see and things to do the next time you’re in the area, and a page for notes for each day.

To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.

Thought For The Day – People who talk about you behind your back actually belong behind you.