The hot summer mornings are upon us. Luckily, they didn’t come until August. Of course, they might now stay through October, but that’s a chance I’m willing to take as if I had anything to do with it. I suppose it’s worth noting that I’m back in the Hill Country where the humidity is a tad bit higher than it was on top of the Marathon uplift. Being nearly a mile high helps to keep things cool at night.

On my recent trip to Marathon we stopped at Seminole Canyon State Park and Historic Site. The Canyon and its caves show evidence that people lived there are far back as 12,000 years ago, with rock art dating back 7,000 years. That’s a long time for a picture to hang around on the wall of a cave, but I’m glad it did, because I had the pleasure of knowing an artist, Bill Worrell, who was mightily influenced by those drawings. I have some of his work in my home as do many of my friends.

On our way to Marathon last week, we went via Del Rio. It wasn’t a straight-line trip, but there were sights to see, and we wanted to see them. First up was the Devil’s Sinkhole in Rocksprings followed by lunch in Del Rio. We didn’t actually see the sinkhole. But we picked up brochures at the visitor’s center. In Del Rio we ate lunch and checked out Lake Amistad. It’s big and low and needs a good flood to fill back up. Maybe the super El Niño will bring one. I’m sure the locals would be happy.

Just spent four days in Marathon Texas listening to music, making music, and watching stars (the celestial sort). It was possible to walk everywhere I needed to go. Although we rode on occasion for speed and convenience. The weather cooperated. Hot days were followed by cool nights. Desert weather, the sort I’ve come to love over the years from my youth in the desert around 29 Palms California to the Big Bend that I discovered late in life.

If you don’t have a songwriter, you should get one. Preferable one whose music speaks to you in magical ways that only you can divine. One whose songs you want to sing when they’re sung to you. We saw a show last night in Marathon with a songwriter whose songs spoke to his audience. He sang; they sang. It was fun. And it made for a lovely evening.

I took the road less traveled yesterday. On my way to Marathon, we drove down highway 90 from Del Rio. I should have some ancestral memory of this road. My father’s travels as a member of the US Navy took us back and forth between California and Virginia at least four times. I have one hazy memory of stopping in Langtry to visit Judge Roy Bean’s offices, but that’s it.

Summer days. Mostly I stay inside avoiding the heat. There were times when it would have been baseball all day. But that’s long gone. And there were times when I could have built a fence or deck. But those days are long gone, too. I don’t miss them much. They were just things I did when I was young and younger.

Crossword puzzles are humbling. I think I am skilled in problem solving until I run across a set of puzzle clues that make me feel as though I’m wandering in a desert. It happened this morning. The clues simply sat there on the screen and no matter how many times I read them aloud, they meant nothing. My brain was blank. Finally, and I have no idea how, a single answer popped up. From there I was able to unwind the puzzle as various letters appeared. It was a relief, but it was a hard morning.

I’ve heard it said before that so and so lives in their own world. It’s a way of identifying the outlier, the odd man. But I’m beginning to think we all live in our own worlds. We pop into existence, try to learn how things work, then pop back out. It brings to mind the fable of the blind men describing an elephant by touch. That’s us when we’re alive, trying to make sense of the world. Someone sings a song. One person loves it. The other person hates it. In your own universe, it’s to each his own.

Well, I surrendered. I hired someone to clean my gutters. It felt the prudent thing to do. Granted, I can still hoist and climb my ladder, but the younger man did it with considerably more ease than I’ve managed lately, and certainly with less trepidation. I fought back the temptation to stand outside and watch him. Instead, I sat inside and listened to the banging. When it was all done, he sent me pictures of my nice clean gutters.

A group of old friends gathered at the house yesterday. We knew each other young, now we know each other old. Where once we would have danced all night this time we drank in measured quantities and floated in a pool. Sedate with quite music in the background. Conversation filled the air and clocks were watched to ensure everyone got home before dark. Periodically a swallow would drop by for a drink. That’s how quietly we sat.

It’s time to talk about the tiny garden on the north fence. It was created to give the Chinquapin oak more fertile ground in which to thrive. All seems to be going well. The upright rosemary is having a hard time, but most everyone else is doing fine. I have noticed something odd, however, and it has to do with the plant I like to call a Yellow Bells.

It’s time to mow the tall grass on the back lots. In fact, I should have mowed it sooner, before it went to seed. Now it’s tall and brown, perfect fodder for fire. I need to knock it down, so that rain when it comes can help it begin to decompose and make its way back into the earth. And I want to expose the Bluebonnet seeds for next season. But mowing the tall grass is hot dusty work on a zero-turn mower. A tractor with a seat high above the fray would be better.

I have a nice flashlight that I can quickly shift from wide to narrow beam. I try to keep it handy for my nighttime forays into the yard at 3 a.m. looking for deer and varmints and anything else that might poke its head up. But I couldn’t find it last night, and I didn’t know why. It was a puzzle because there aren’t that many places where I leave it after my nighttime adventures. I went back to bed, a little sad.

The ritual cleaning for company came to me courtesy of my late wife. The notice of coming guests triggered, depending upon the season, a spate of yard work to prepare the lawns and gardens, followed by the cleaning and organizing of the interior. Nothing could be left to chance. We dusted, we vacuumed, we wiped things down. Primarily, I was the keeper of the exterior, but military service and being the oldest son of a mother of four boys who thought her sons needed to do chores, uniquely qualified me for interior cleaning as well.

Well, my gray day yesterday lasted about as long as it took me to write about it, eat breakfast, and start my yard work. I mowed and edged and looked at my flowers. All four of my sage are in bloom, and it’s a heavy bloom, which is a real treat because they’re all at least six to seven feet tall and nearly that big around. For a subtle touch, the Ironweed my son planted is also blooming. But you have to look for it. It’s in the shade.

Durn. An unexpected grayness has settled over me. I’m not sure what to make of it. As I said, it’s unexpected. I had what passes for a good night’s sleep. Most likely, it is a valley between the excitement of doing one thing and the coming of anticipation for the next. The existence of those twin peaks tends to make what comes between seem empty. Although, when I’m in a gray day it colors everything. So, it’s hard to tell. Sometimes it’s merely a day that sneaks up on me.

It’s an odd thing to have a video with a million views, which I now do. It’s a platinum video. It was posted on a page I run called Gatewood Press, on Facebook. It was about flooding just down river from the town where I live. It showed a site before the flood and during the flood and there wasn’t a lot of time between the two. There was nothing then there was something, and a lot of it. Water

Fulfillment. My mower is back up and running. I replaced the flat idler pulley and installed a new belt. We’re not done yet. I still need to replace the bearings in one of the spindle assemblies. There’s a wobble and the blade cuts unevenly. I needed professional advice, however, before undertaking the task. I got it. And I think I can do it. I just need to take my time and use the air driven impact wrench.

When I built my workroom, I asked that all the locks be keyed to the same key. Then I forgot that request. Which explains why, ten or so years down the road, I stumbled upon a cup full of keys with only the vaguest idea as to what they might unlock. Then I remembered the workroom. So, yesterday I spent a good portion of the day testing all those keys and reworking seldom-used locks. I’m trying to get back into the habit of locking things up when I leave the house. Not something I like to do, but it’s the prudent thing to do.