New York

I had a great time in New York last week. Got to visit with Jenny and Nina and some of the in laws and with Spencer, Lila and Miriam. So far I have seen Miriam at yearly intervals. Nina wanted to do everything with Grandpa for the first 3 days or so and then the novelty wore off. She is learning about family relationships and enjoyed telling me that I should tell my daughter things. One of her little friends from the neighborhood stopped by when we were outside and the topic of who I was came up. She said O he's just an old grandpa.

We had fun going to the zoo in Rochester and Stony Brook State Park for a picnic and playing on the playground. It was a welcome break from the heat wave here in San Antonio. For most of the time I was there it was cool and rainy and every thing is very green as opposed to hot dry and brown here. One would think we had moved to Arizona or that Arizona moved here except the humidity is higher. This is our 5th day in a row over 100 for highs and the 11th day over 100 for the month. It's usually not this hot even in July and August. Average high for this time of year is about 10 degrees cooler.

Still Alive

I haven't posted in a while so I thought I would let everyone know I am still alive. My summer has been busy so far. It's surprising how much time and attention one tree falling in the front yard can occupy. I spent the first week of summer break attending continuing education seminars and hauling off tree limbs. We called the city to estimate how much they would charge to haul away the debris and they wanted about $200. Since I have a broken down old pickup and a little time off, I decided to do it myself. Turns out when I started digging through the pile that the guys we hired to cut it up also left another tree on the curb along with ours. This is the wimpiest of the 8 loads I hauled away to the brush recycling center



and this is the pile of chunks that are bigger than the recycling center will accept (nothing over 6" in diameter). They will remain in our driveway unil it is our turn for brush and large item pick up again (sometime in Sept - Nov). The fine is something like $2000 a day if you leave stuff on the curb when it is not your turn.




The big chunks from the live oak tree that they left along with ours were hauled away by Carolyn's (Suzanne's boss) husband for firewood.

No one wants our tree for firewood because chineese pistache is a relative of poison ivy, poison oak and poison sumac and the smoke and fumes from burning it are irritating to those sensitive to the poisonous plants.