Retirement Time

Stopped on the way home from work today and applied for a job much closer to home, a good old fashioned paper application filled out in person in the store. Will try and request an interview in about a week.
Then when I got home, I weeded front and back and pruned the roses in front.
Saw a neigbor boy taking their cat for a walk sans leash. It just followed him along, good thing Oliver was inside the house. Was going to take a video of it but thought it might possibly make him mad. :lol:
Reminded me of a cat I had as a kid, which used to follow us at night when we were out toilet papering houses and the elementary school. He liked to play with the streamers dangling from the trees.
Then about an hour later, the dad comes along, same cat following him up and down the street for good measure. :lol:
Water during the rain was deeper out back than I thought, apparently covered the floor of the storage shed so I left the doors open while I was working our front. Nothing got damaged from the looks of things. :shock:
Enjoying the sunshine and 70 degree F weather, for the first time since early December. :D
 
Today another Roadrunner ran under my van while I walked towards it after work. It was a pretty big one. I never expected to see one that close in the busy parking lot in town. Then it ran away. :lol:
It was really windy and dusty on the way home, especially near the huge sod farm south of Winchester. Still too green for wildfire season, wildflowers continue to reign. 8)
 
Mowed front and back. Trees coming out front and side. Hundred dollar electric mower from Sears does a beautiful job, except for the old guy pushing it who had to sit and rest halfway through. :oops: Still hacking from the lingering effects of two bouts with the flu this year despite the shot.
Seeing the doctor later today, daughter is going too. She fared worst of all from the green creeping crud. Couldn’t convince my wife to go. She blames me for bringing the flu home from there when I picked up some medicine a few weeks ago. :x
 
Got the boards, screws, and some other stuff for the yard. Probably not going to get a lot done because of the weather.
Saw on the news that it’s snowing in Colorado. El Niño is making strange weather already, get ready for the roller coaster ride. :twisted:
 
Hope el nino continues another year. Good snow in the San Juan mountains this year means the Rio Grande will actually have water this year. Won't fill the Elephant Butte lake, but its better than last year. Last year there was no flow by this month, and the lake drained to 3%. Right now the flow is at flood stage upstream. I would love to see it at 50% again in my lifetime, but not much chance of that. Back in the 80's during that string of strong el nino winters, it went over the spillway 100% full for the first time since 1920.


FWIW, being fully retired, no retirement job of any kind, is better than my wildest dreams. Health care costs could erase all that any time, but for now we are quite comfortable, with no car or house payments to drag down the checkbook. I just spent two weeks up in the mountains off grid and out of cell signal range, half of it watching a big 5 day bike race, chasing them around the mountains on my gas scooter. Way better than being chained to the internet, doing customer service all day every day.
 
Got some weeding done, three times as many weeds as last year due to so much rain. Many more blooms on the rose bushes also. The soil moisture is holding so I'm able to turn the irrigation timer off this week. :mrgreen:
 
Been up at the lake on the Rio Grande this week kayaking, and the el nino runoff is spectacular this year. The lake went from 3% to 20% full in about three weeks. Its rising at a foot a day on the beach I'm at. In my dreams the lake would get to 50% this year, but it looks actually possible. In the last 20 years, Its never been fuller than 30%.

Yeah, weeds. had a ton of them this spring, in recent years no spring weeding to do at all. This year there was a lot. But on the flip side, my native desert wildflower front yard has been spectacular. Huge year for the poppies, but also everything else bloomed. In the last ten years nearly all the cactus looked about to die, this year its fat, happy, and blooming like mad.
 
The recent rain forced a huge black widow spider to hide right above the patio sliding glass door in the daytime, coming out at night right at face level.
Spooked the wife and daughter so today when I got home I smoked the “murderous biting robber” out of her nest by spraying the crack where the patio cover meets the house.
She came out, I soaked her with Raid until she just hung there. I then got a twig and snagged her by the silk and stepped on her on the patio rubbing the shoe sole until there was nothing left. :twisted:
 
Have to turn the irrigation timer back on. The recent rain really has helped, the front lawn looks good and the roses are really blooming. Weeds are still a problem on the rocks and out back, but should dry out once the heat hits. Right now in the 70’s F but 80’s next week.
New neighbors fixed the fence their dogs busted up, have to check it thoroughly and replace the back fence where the big bull mastiffs heads look through. :shock:
 
https://ktla.com/2019/06/08/small-plane-down-in-apparent-crash-at-hemet-ryan-airport-police-at-the-scene/
The guy in the noisy red homebuilt that used to buzz the house. Thought I heard him again this morning. :cry:
 
Have to get the lawn done this week in 102 F degree sun. Front is super thick and green, back not as much but with all the rain this year the roses have doubled in size from last year.
The new neighbors to the north seem to have somewhat fixed their dogs damage to the fence and at least they have been doing some yard work. They’re Fix Or Repair Daily fans and have a ‘68 Mustang project car in their garage. :lol:
Now grandma is saying she wants to come back and live with us again. My wife just finished boxing the rest of the Mother in Law junk, but nobody would come and pick it up, so now after storing it for months grandma says “keep it”. What a cuckoo! :roll:
 
Mowed the grass front and back. Filled up a big green wasre can with clippings and front roses. Was "only" 95° F today so not as hot as it's been. Had to get some line for the string trimmer, zing! Neighbor's fence fixing skills lacking, I'll tackle that on my next day off. :wink:
 
Had to take Oliver to the vet, pulling 9 teeth out. A simple teeth cleaning turned into an ordeal. Turns out he’s a few years older than we thought. He’s recovering nicely though he hates taking his medication. :(
 
Saw a coyote and about a half dozen red tailed hawks hunting on the way to work. Abundant numbers of ground squirrels all over the place. One lady at work took video of a rattlesnake in her backyard. :shock:
 
Very noisy here, is still going on (almost midnight), though not as bad as some years, there's been huge loud mortar types being shot off, that terrify Yogi (even Kirin was scared this time, but Peanut Butter and Jelly don't even seem to realize anything unusual is going on).

ATM it's just small stuff that the dogs apparently cant' hear over the three loud fans I have going in the bedroom, and the computer playing videos, to mask out all that stuff. So they've all gone to sleep a little while ago, except for Kirin, who keeps waking up to check on everybody (she thinks shes' the den mother), including me.

The pheremone diffusers do help, but Yogi was still pretty scared, and hid under my legs most of the night so far (though he's asleep on the floor right next to the bed where I am ATM).
 
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