Well, the garden spider on the east eave of the southern porch is done. She died sometime in the night on Sunday. I figured the cooling weather would do her in. She left four egg sacs, however, and each one of them might have between 300 to 1,000 eggs. That’s a lot of little spiderlings to carry on the family business, but we have lots of little mosquitoes so I’ll take all the help I can get. She lived a short, but productive life. About a year.

At distance the Barbados Cherry is unremarkable. A green shrub beneath green trees. Up close it’s another story. There’s a show. It’s covered in buds, less than 3/16th of an inch, and flowers that are about 5/8th of an inch. The flower has five petals, a single pedal at the top, one pedal on either side, reaching out like arms, and two pedals at the bottom that are close together and have the appearance of legs. There are yellow stamens in the center where the little cherry soon will be.

I have written before about fourth dimensional traps. They open inexplicably. Suck items into the fourth dimension and spit them out at some point down the road in inexplicable places. Last month I lost my reading glasses. Couldn’t find them. Searched every surface in the house, top to bottom. Bought replacements, as in plural, a box of five from the giant online retailer.

Freed from the shadow of the Turks Caps, the Marie Pavia rose has leafed out in all it’s glory. It still gets a dab of morning sun, but now the afternoon sun streams down the drive and across the porch to touch the rose in ways it’s not been touched in a while. And to help it take advantage, I also amended the soil at its feet with a conditioner. I can’t believe I was so inattentive to its dilemma.

Another weather report. The morning low is in the 40s. That’s it, except to note that it feels good to walk outside on a cool morning. I wonder, however, if this is how it felt when the Little Ice age started in the 14^th century. One morning everyone got up, and it was cool outside and it stayed cool for six centuries. And no one much noticed. It was just the weather.

My goodness. The weather is turning. A north wind is blowing in a cold front. Over the next several days we’ll have highs in the 60s, lows in the 40s, and memories of summer will be blown out the door. And that’s it for this archaic weather report. Because these days all one needs to do is roll over in the morning and look at a phone to see what’s up when it comes to the comings and goings of Mother Nature. Even TV is outdated.

I’m going to do something different. I’m shortening these tiny essays. In the digital world in which we live, where getting someone to watch a video for three seconds is a big deal, 300 words and three paragraphs feel like long form writing. So, I’m dropping back to two paragraphs. I liked three because it felt like a beginning, a middle, and an end. But in the beginning, it was only two, and given the current mundaneness of my life, going back seems fitting.

I bought a new vacuum cleaner yesterday. I splurged and bought a battery operated, handheld model from a maker of some repute. It cost a pretty penny, but if it lasts ten years then the cost per year will be small. From one day’s experience, I think it’s safe to say my frequency of pulling out the vacuum will increase. The new machine is easy to use. No more bulk. No more chords.

Big hand to the garden spider at the east end of the south porch. She has three egg sacks up. The third went up last night. I have no idea where the mates are coming from, but they obviously know she’s there. And she picked a pretty good spot for the sacks. They’re sheltered from the north wind, up out of the weather, and I’m not such a clean freak, that they’ll have to come down. They’ll empty in the spring. So, all in good time.

Got sloppy this morning. I need to tighten up my routine. I’ve been up ninety minutes and I’m just now sitting down to write. In my defense, I had to chase a raccoon away from the cat’s breakfast dishes. That was out of the ordinary. Usually, they come at night. Maybe the rain is changing their habits. Of course, I also piddled around with the crossword puzzles, took my meds, fixed my coffee, and wandered outside for a bit. So, it might just be a sign of my rewired brain brought on by too many short form videos.

My wounds from a visit to my dermatologist are healing nicely. Most were simply freezes. One was an actual cut. She dug for a sample. It came back benign, an age spot or seborrheic keratosis which Siri transcribed as “February caratosis (sic)”. Either way all is good and my skin is busy regrowing; I’ll go back in a year to make sure it’s till behaving itself.

The air is unsettled this morning. Pacific moisture, the remnants of Hurricane Polo, is paying a visit. There’s also a slow-moving cold front dropping temperatures and playing footsie with the tropical moisture. We’re in for a fun few days of wet cool weather. That’s fine by me. I have nowhere to go, and I want to dig, so the rain will make it easier. I could have soaked the ground with a hose, but I thought I’d wait for the rain. Lazy?

It took some effort, but I broke away from doomscrolling and picked up a book yesterday. I’d already made a start but stopped for some reason. Now I’m back and in the story. But my concentration has weakened, and the phone always beckons. I may have to start deleting apps, although that feels a tad extreme. After all, I’m an adult with a brain, so I should be able to self-direct.

This is closer to the old days. An early morning start, when the day is dark and nothing revealed. There’s a cool breeze and I can make out the garden spider hanging in its web. The little wren is safe in its nook in the porch post. Mama cat is fed, and the new tomcat ran off when a sound spooked it. Patience will win the day, of course, but that’s a story only time will tell.

I used to get up every morning, make my coffee, then sit down and write. These days, I make my coffee, then sit down and do puzzles. I like the NYT Mini and Midi crossword puzzle, Wordle, and Spelling Bee. Sometimes, I’ll even go sit and play my guitar. Then will come a point, as I’m doing now, where I sit down to write. And it will feel late, which it is. In the old days, I’d be done by now.

When I moved from the Gulf Coast to the Hill Country of Texas, I was greatly relieved to be rid of the threat of hurricanes and tropical storms. Now I find myself yearning for them because it’s one of the ways we get the big rains that fill creeks, rivers, lakes, and aquifers. I say this because it looks as though one might be heading our way coming out of Mexico of all places. Hurricane Polo.

There was a roadrunner in my driveway as I arrived home yesterday. I took it as a good sign for no other reason than I like roadrunners, and I consider having one visit my home to be a good thing. It’s right up there with the foxes who come at night. And the tiny wren who sleeps in a nook on a cedar pole on my back porch. They’re little things and I’m accommodating them.

I always enjoy true love stories containing the phrase, he or she was married at the time. It’s mostly Hollywood star stories where I see this, but I suspect it’s more common than I think. And I’m not real sure I care. It just seems funny in an odd way and proves that love is a tricky devil. Because I’m fairly certain the relationship that proceeded the current true love story started out as a true love story as well. So, I’m not sure if the first relationship went wrong or the second one just felt like a better deal.

Yesterday was bulky trash day and I had a touch of bulky trash. So, out it went. I still have a lingering brush pile, but the thing about brush piles is that they decay. So, over time my brush pile will eventually become organic matter. It’s not the tidiest way to keep a yard but I don’t really consider my little plot of ground to be a yard in the traditional sense. Although, I have decided to buy a small mulcher to help keep the brush pile from growing.

It feels as though everything these days requires a subscription. We no longer buy things. We pay for access. I think if they could figure out how to do that with clothes and groceries they would. You can get in for free to the necessities section of the grocery with in-app purchases. Pay a monthly fee for access to the larger selection store. Buy the premium service and you can get the best cuts of meat. It’s probably a model under construction somewhere. Or maybe it’s Costco and Sam’s.