LOOSE VARMINTS

     The neighbor's animal apparently wanders around the street.  At least it isn't a dog with bowel issues.

CAUSE OF DEATH: "PRIDE OF HOME OWNERSHIP"

     I mowed the lawn today.  The office was closed again, so I had the time to trim the grass down to a managable level.  And it darn near killed me. 

(before)

(after)

But the lawn looks good.  For a while. 

     Maybe the middle of the day in late June was not the best time to mow (88 degrees, and not a dry heat, either).  I did end up drinking over a gallon of water to stay hydrated (lest the title be proven real), but .86 acres is a lot of space to either push or be pulled by a 90 pound lawnmower.  The thing takes a bunch of gas (needed to refill twice to finish the lawn). 

     Trimming the hedges and pruning the azaleas will wait for another day.

THE ONLY ROOM TO BE PAINTED (so far)

     The Boy Scout patch room has been painted.  The previously promised before and after pictures.

     I've been able to get some things done in the last two days, only because the office where I work has been closed.  Tropical Storm Debby left the town of Live Oak under water, leaving my office an unaccessable island.  Jim Cantore was doing a live report from in front of my favorite Chinese restaurant in town, and water was five feet deep nearby.  Twenty mile drive to the office, but the last half mile required a boat.

LIVING IN THE CONE OF UNCERTAINTY

     The garage in the old abode is almost empty, right up until the rains came on Sunday (June 22).  What had once filled the garage to the point of looking like a generic "before" picture from "Hoarders", is now a neatly piled stack o'stuff in the shed, with most of it away from the walls (all the easier to tear out the panelling later). 
     With the arrival of Tropical Storm Debby, however, moving the stuff into the shed stopped.  Plan B for these rainy days is to paint one of the bedrooms, the room that will be my office, what my friends call "the patch room" (if you know me, you know I collect old Boy Scout memorabilia.  If you don't know me, well, you have learned something about me).  The paint color is called by the Olympic Paint folks "caribbean splash" (greenish-blue, or blueish-green).  The Wife calls it "too dark".  The before and after pictures will be posted once the room is declared finished, and the electrical plates are put back up.
     Not much to do, otherwise.  We now have had 36 hours of rain from TS Debby, which is not expected to hit land for another three days.  Tropical storms are kind of like the practice test of hurricanes.  They have names, computer models, tracking maps, "the Cone of Uncertainty" (aka "we don't know where the hell it is going"), lots of rain and wind, and the Weather Channel breaking out their crack meteorological team in matching golf shirts, hats, rain coats, and hair spray, spread out in remote locations near the storm.  But the rain isn't nearly as bad, and the sustained winds of a tropical storm are a popcorn fart when compared to hurricanes.  SAFETY TIP: If a hurricane is coming, and Jim Cantore is broadcasting from your street, it is time to go, and don't look back.

"The Blob of Moist Annoyance".  Four more days of rain, none of it is horizontal.