Good morning from the dark side of dawn. I’ve missed two days.

It happened again. Dire warnings. Flashes in the sky. No rain. Not even thunder. There’s drizzle this morning. That’s good. But no drenching downpour. That’s good, too, actually.

I think we’re in the year of the near miss storm. My phone was alive with alerts yesterday. The sky was alive with lightning and thunder. We heard the booms; we heard the bangs.

It appears I may have finally dissuaded a pair of swallows from breeding in my garage. Of course, the garage has all manner of bird control devices in it and it’s scented with peppermint spray, but it’s a fair trade from being covered in swallow poop.

The grass in the pasture is a light spring green, and the trees are fully leafed. The recent rains did well by us, and all the plants seem happy.

Had a good day yesterday. And I know, it seems as though I’m having a lot of good days recently, because I am. So, maybe I should stop referring to all the good days as good days and just get on with it.

I play Wordle. I love it. My opening word is alone. It has three vowels and four of the top ten letters. It works pretty well most days. But I got to wondering this morning why I picked it. Alone.

A front blew through, the air chilled, and all my trees have leafed out. It’s canopy time for my yard. That’s nice. My little trees are juveniles.

Sun damage. A lifetime of it. Had a chunk of my hand dug out on Friday. That was followed by freezer burns to about six or seven spots on my face. I actually lost count as the doctor spritzed.

Woke up to a wet driveway. That’s a good sign and it looks as though there’s a good chance of rain everyday this week. That, too, is a good sign.

As I mentioned, there was a hint of rain yesterday. It fell as a fine mist. A light kiss on the cheek from Mother Nature who apparently had other business to attend and left us without appreciable moisture.

The cleaning continues. Pharaby’s rose at the east end of the house was getting choked by the Orchid Tree and the Yaupon Holly. I pushed them both back and trimmed up the rose. It should get a bit more sun, but we’ll see how it goes.

The spiderworts must have heard all the blooming noise the bluebonnets made. They’ve decided to start coming up. They’re a nice springtime delicacy. Purple flower and yellow stamens.

Woke up to lightning and thunder, way off in the distance. Checked the weather radar and sure enough a storm may touch us. May. You know how weather goes.

Had a metaphysical experience in Big Bend last week. On our first day in the park, we were driving around looking at the sights. There were four of us in the truck. I saw a display sign, the sort they have all throughout the park, and asked to stop. The driver obliged.

Let’s call it the mystery of the green rocks. We spotted them all over Big Bend last week as we drove in and out of the park and walked it’s hills.

There were doubts. There were fears. There was the mind grappling with the incomprehensible. Could I walk a long and winding path of approximately 13 miles that rose into the sky 3,000 feet. I was unable to imagine what it would be like. Then I did it.

The cemetery in the ghost town of Terlingua is a haunted place.

Went on a walk yesterday in the hills of Big Bend. The landscape where we walked was all ancient ash and lava flows, sculpted over 40 million years by the wind and rain.

It’s cold this morning by Texas standards. The temperature is in the 40s. The sky is clear and there’s hardly a breeze.