Monday Meanderings - 11.1.10

On breezy days, such as those we're having now, when you enjoy your coffee on the patio you have to keep your hand over your cup else you end up with leaf tea instead of coffee. And watch out for the falling pecans!

If you look up "stoner" in the dictionary you will find a picture of San Francisco Giants ace pitcher, Tim Lincecum. Just saying...

We are replacing some 20-year old carpet, and the guy from the store came to measure the other day. We showed him the area and he pulled out his little laser measure and pointed the red dot here and there, tapped in the measurements on his tablet computer and drew the floor plan on that device in seconds. The next morning he e-mailed us the floor plan diagram, the cutting pattern and the quote. Gotta love technology!

Thought about Julie and her pumpkin patch field trip the other morning. We were on our way somewhere and saw a herd of little people (and some big people) at the corner of Lamar and Braker. They had walked from McBee Elementary and were waiting for the nice policeman to stop traffic so they could get the long line of kids across Lamar safely; they were on their way to the pumpkin patch at St Marks Methodist on Braker. On our way home, we saw the same activity in reverse - Mr. Policeman helping them on the homeward trek. Count carefully, teachers - don't want anyone left hiding amongst the pumpkins.

Sign on a septic tank pumper truck: "We're #1 in the #2 business."

He said: "I'm going to Breed Hardware."
She said" "Can you find your way to Breed Hardware?"
He said: "It's on Twenty-something off the Drag."
She said: "Wait. I need to go with you."

 And the reason I wanted to go to Breeds? To get a pecan picker-upper. Like this: And I'm happy to say that it works wonderfully. No more bending and squatting to pick up pecans! Just walk around and snap them up.

We've got a pretty good pecan crop here on the homestead this year. Not so much in quantity, but in quality. This year's pecans are fully-formed and firm. Good eating. And no more aching back.

Now I just need something to relieve the aching hands and chafed fingers from shelling the pecans I didn't have to stoop over to pick up.


 On our trips to Walmart we regularly encounter a person we have dubbed "the Walmart Guy." He wanders around the store in Longhorn regalia announcing loudly to no one in particular how the team is going to fare in Saturday's game. For some reason no one seems interested in stopping and discussing the game - or any thing else - with him. I guess the current losing streak has put him off UT game proclamations. This week he was loudly describing how scary he was going to look for Halloween. He's got a pretty good head start, if you ask me.

And here's a parting salute to Halloween: