The project bug bit again yesterday. I think it was the cool weather that did the trick. I resurfaced the bottom of the old water trough in preparation for getting it back into water feature service. And I took down the delipidated wooden gates that flanked the opening into the back lots, in preparation for redoing the old wooden fence and installing a new gate. Hurrah for cool weather. Although, truth be told, it was still warm in the afternoon when most of this work took place. Still, there was work to do and work was done.

The wooden gates in question are now standing against the side of the pool deck. Why? Because when my middle child moved back in with us, he painted them a sky blue with a cactus in the corner of each one. So, they’re folk art and I want to save them, and I think they’ll look nice in their new home, attached to the side of the deck. They’ll give it a little color and a little color is always a good thing. And speaking of a little color, I sanded and repainted the metal buzzard my late uncle George made out of scrap metal and put it back in the side garden. More folk art.

I finished up the day with a little grocery shopping. Probably a less than ideal time to do that. Lot’s of picked over shelves. I did have a nice conversation with a set of twins sitting in the grocery cart ahead of me in the checkout line. They each had a box of muffin mix, one girl, one boy. And the little boy was proud of his mix and told me about it and then allowed that he liked Gatorade, too, which was in my cart. We talked about how they liked baking and then the entire family waved goodbye when they left. Like I said, it was a nice conversation.

John W. Wilson is the author of The Long Goodbye: A Caregiver's Tale