Life – Page 88 – Sheila365

Taking the day off.

My sister leaves tomorrow, so I took the afternoon off to play hooky with her. We started off buying beads at a bead shop to get supplies for making jewelry thingies. No pics of that – a project for another day. Then we headed to Zilker Park for a hike on the Barton Creek Greenbelt Trail. It was really lovely out. High 70’s and sunny. Perfect for a hike. The creek is mostly dry. We did see lots of flowers, butterflies and dragonflies.

The orange butterfly in the shot below stopped to let me take several shots.

1008125 — Gulf Fritillary (Agraulis vanillae).

Later on down the trail this swallowtail stopped to let me do the same thing.

1008126 — Eastern tiger swallowtail (papilio glaucus?).

I found a pretty good butterfly guide website to try to identify them. You might want to bookmark for future reference.

After the hike we stopped by Barton Springs Pool. Such a pretty place. The pool was beautifully clear.

Then we ran over to Sno-Beach for a must-have best-snocone-ever experience. You’d better hurry, they close at the end of October for the winter. Go out and get one!

Then. Back to Zilker to rent a kayak and tootle around Town Lake (ok, sorry “Lady Bird Lake.” old habits die hard). We paddled all the way to the South 1st Street bridge. On our paddle back we passed 3 UT Women’s Crew boats training.

The Austin City Limits Music Festival takes place this weekend. It’s a 3 day music extravaganza hosted in Zilker Park. Everything is setup and just about ready for the throngs of festival-goers. I took the opportunity to take a quick shot of the festival entrance, so I wouldn’t have to come down here with 75,000 of my closest friends to get the shot this weekend.

What a great Austin afternoon!

Joie de vivre.

Even though the chill of Fall is in the air, we, of course, headed to the lake. We raced in the beer can today. We had a great turnout: Wally & Joe on Zen, Kurt & Kevin on Dancer, Lori & Doray on Camelot, Dave and Wiz on MisGuided, and the 4 of us on Nirvana. We got off the start line a minute and a half late (need to work on that). Monte and I, the racing novices that we are, debated re: tactics as we sailed the course (need to work on that, too). 🙂 We didn’t win, place or show, but had fun.

Afterwards we anchored up in Arky South in our usual spot for the night.

My sister is visiting for a week. She took her turn on the winches and at the wheel. Another natural mariner 🙂 Julie joined us, too.

I enjoy it very much when family comes to visit, and when we hit the road to visit family as well. We both come from big families but don’t live close to them. My thoughts are especially on the importance of spending time with family, as I learned that my cousin died unexpectedly and tragically from a pulmonary embolism this week – a complication from relatively routine back surgery a few days before. So sad. So sobering. He had just turned 48 a few weeks back, in the prime of his life, raised a wonderful family, and was an active and accomplished Air Force colonel, getting ready to chart the next phase of his life’s course. I had a chance to visit with him in Seattle last summer. So glad I did.

Tuesday at the chez…

It’s Tuesday already. Almost halfway to the weekend! The picture above is of Monte’s latest project… a homemade sundial. I think this is a prototype. But it seems to work pretty well. He’s aligned the center of the dial with magnetic North using a compass. Some adjustments will be necessary. Stayed tuned.

The zinnia patch has flower stalks that are over 4′ tall. We’re still harvesting them. This is today’s selection.

And, last one, this is a shot of 2/3’s of the flock as we settle in for the evening.

G’nite!

Sunday postscript.

One more quick post before the clock strikes midnight. We’ve had a lovely anniversary weekend. We capped it off with a concert at One World Theatre tonight, with friends Marty & Sue. We bought tickets months ago for tonight’s show with Jerry Jeff Walker, and we had a great time.

The evening wouldn’t have been complete without hearing Sangria Wine, and we were not sent home disappointed 🙂 It was an extra treat to have Austin musician Chris Gage join Jerry Jeff on lead guitar, mandolin, accordion and backup vocals. Nicely done, Chris!

Have a great week everybody.

Fall florae.

We worked in the yard today. The rain yesterday is long gone and strong winds dried the grass enough to mow. The temps were lovely all day, in the 70’s. A rare treat for yardwork.

Soon enough all the color will disappear for the winter months. For now, though, Mother Nature still has a little left.

The rains have brought out bunches of these little purple flowers. They seem to be flowers that are part of the clover, but I’m not sure what they are.

The lantana bushes will be going to seed in the next month or so, when the weather turns colder. For now the bushes are going strong and still putting out lots of color.

In the wooded area in the back the yaupon holly boughs are covered in red berries. A feast for the birds.

The big 1-0.

Happy Anniversary, to us. 🙂

(our song)

One of those days.

Let’s see… up at the crack of dawn to prepare for the day’s meetings. Back-to-back meetings from about 6AM to 10PM. Dropped the gallon of milk on the floor, which exploded all over the kitchen, while on a conference call. Heated meeting discussions. New technical problems with several projects underway. HR issues.

I need to find my happy place.

On a positive note 🙂 the mainsail is ready to be picked up. So, Monte headed there this afternoon to pick it up and rig it back on the boat. I would love to go help, but it’s not going to happen today, so I think Kurt is meeting him there to lend a hand. The picture above is one of the mainsail on Nirvana the first time we took her out, on the seatrial. The repairs were to replace the luff tape (the black tape that runs up the mast side of the sail). It should raise and lower much more easily now, as the last one was frayed and broken in places.

Here’s to a better day, tomorrow.

Hanging around.

I cast my fishing pole several times. But this is the closest i got to a bite today.

To the lake.

To celebrate the first day of Fall, we spent the night on the lake 🙂 Well, we’d do that any night, but it does happen to be the first day of Fall. There were no winds to speak of. Plus, our main is at Bartlett’s Sail Shop getting a new luff tape.

We set anchor in Arky south, where there are, apparently, several billion gnats that have just hatched. Most of which were trying to find a place to spend the night on our boat. It’s usually not buggy out on the lake. Must be because of the recent rains.

Summer’s gone.

This is the last day of Summer 2012. I had a good Summer, I hope you did, too. My advice to you:

Brace yourselves for the coming Winter.
Savor your memories from this past Summer.
Listen to this Doors track: Summer’s Almost Gone youtube link.

Summer’s Almost Gone
Summer’s almost gone (x 2)
Almost gone
Yeah, it’s almost gone
Where will we be
When the summer’s gone?

Morning found us calmly unaware
Noon burned gold into our hair
At night, we swam the Laughing sea
When summer’s gone
Where will we be (x 3)

Morning found us calmly unaware
Noon burned gold into our hair
At night, we swam the Laughing sea
When summer’s gone
Where will we be

Summer’s almost gone (x 2)
We had some good times
But they’re gone
The winter’s comin’ on
Summer’s almost gone

Ohhhhh, nuts!

There are a hundred or so green pecans strewn about our backyard that the squirrels have raided, leaving the chaff. They sure are persistent little buggers.

A mAARRRRRRgarita (and the blue-hair special).

Today is Talk-like-a-pirate Day! So in honor of the occasion, we went to dinner tonight at… Chuy’s! 🙂

We actually went at (ahem) 4PM, because we were both kind of hungry, my previous call had just ended and I had a break before my evening conference calls with colleagues in AP started at 6PM tonight. So, this was the only time we could dash out. Back in the day, when we lived in Florida, we used to make jokes about all the old folks grabbing an early dinner (you know…getting the “blue-hair special”). Well. Now we are them.

Anyway, I did order a mango mAARRRg to celebrate in pirate fashion. And a yummy #8 plate to go with it.

I also snapped a photo of their new lighting. I like the colored glass.

Our lone rain lily bloomed!

091812 — Mother Earth’s “thank-you” for a several days of rain.

Better late than never, i always say. We only had one rain lily pop up in our yard, and it bloomed a day after all the others in the neighborhood. Another fringe benefit, though dainty and fleeting, of the recent rains.

I played around a bit with black and white to show off the bloom, but I left a spash of color in the middle.

…AND, Happy Birthday Mom!!! This pic is for you

Where have all the rain lilies gone?

After the rain the last few days, the lake is up over a foot, and rain lilies have popped throughout the neighborhood. I was a bit bummed that our yard has zero lilies, but my neighbors on all sides have a yard-full. Maybe mine are waiting another day or two…

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