basketball base

Well, we know they have brought in dumpsters on Jeff Loop, and one of these days they'll be working on our street also, cleaning up all the lots.
When they get to our lot, we're sure they are going to bring down the basketball hoop and get rid of the concrete base at least to the ground.  I'm sure they'll curse Guillermo, though, when they try to take that basketball hoop down, because when he put it in, he anchored it with TONS of cement so that Fernando would have the strongest and most stable piece of playing equipment on which to shoot and jump and hang, if necessary.  ;-)

So, thinking it's only a matter of time till this won't be there anymore, I decided to take a picture of what Guillermo and Fernando did at the base on the day the concrete was poured for that basketball hoop.  The base was covered with plants and dirt so we moved aside the plants and scraped away as much dirt as possible, then washed it off a little before we were able to get this picture.

It's not that easy to see, but it has the initials F.C. and underneath that it says July 4, 1993.

And while we were on the property today, I took some Crape Myrtle blooms and brought them home to put with the sunflowers!

such a shame.....

So, here's how the mowers left some of the stuff in the field:

That is what's left of the nice Desert Willow we had.  It was at least 7 ft. tall.

A shell of what used to be a nice Fig tree.

We think they tried to run their mower between these two trees.  On the right is a Palo Verde and on the left is an old Pear tree.  BIG gashes in each tree.

This used to be a nice Mountain Laurel, which was about 5 ft. tall.  Just plain mowed the whole thing down.

Now, all of the above casualties are in the part of our field that is not going to be affected by the new drainage project.  So, those trees COULD have lived on.  But we do realize that they want the easiest route possible, and this was probably just the start of trying to make this area easier for them to mow in the future.

With all the rain we've had lately, the Crape Myrtles in the field are starting to look beautiful again.  We found big gashes UP HIGH in some of those trees, too.  Yesterday, we took a trash bag to the property and picked up junk and trash that was lying around in the yard.  If we're going to be walking around there, we don't want to be looking at that kind of stuff, so some of it's gone now.  We filled a whole bag yesterday, and will pick up more today.

Four O Clocks

Some pictures of the Four o' Clocks that we brought back from our yard.  Well, our old yard.  Wow, do they smell good here in the trailer!!

Glad but sad

We went by our old property this evening, as we usually do, and were very pleasantly surprised to see that Bexar County had finally finally mowed our property.  We had kind of stopped walking out in the field because the grass had gotten so high.  But all this week, we had seen the mowers slowly making their way down the street and today they got to our old place.

But along with being glad that the place looked nicer than it had been looking, we also were dismayed to see what little regard they had for our trees and plants.  Ok, we DO know they aren't our trees and plants anymore, and no one really cares about those things like we did, AND most of that is going to be bulldozed down anyway, but it still bothered us.  They mowed down a Lantana that was just starting to bloom again after being trampled during the house moving, as well as the Esperanza and a Four-o-Clock.  They knocked a huge branch off the Redbud and hit several perfectly good trees pretty roughly.  I can picture them just wanting to get the job done, and anything that wasn't grass was just in the way.

September flowers

Since we don't have our September flowers blooming around us here at the park, we cut some from our yard and took them back to the trailer.

Couldn't get the flash to go off, no matter what!!  So, this is the best picture I could get.  Actually, they make pretty good cut flowers.  These were cut like 5 days ago, and still look fine.  They sure perk up the kitchen!

Eva's day!

Happy Birthday to Eva!!!

You're either in Japan, or on your way back to Frankfurt, but either way, hope you're having a great day. We are thinking of you!

Wow did we get tested with putting away the awning of the trailer today!!! We were just relaxing in the trailer (SHOULD have checked the weather channel - knowing there were storms out  there in the vicinity) and the next thing we knew the trees were going WILD outside. Bad. The dust was just blowing in sheets across the road and it looked like a storm was about to hit. So we had to, just had to get outside and put the awning away. The guy who lives next to us was outside also, looking at the weather, and he asked if we'd like some help but we told him we got it. He said it's the second time he's stood back up his potted plants. We had to take down the big light and also the chili pepper lights before we could do anything. The scariest part about putting the awning away in that wind was when Guillermo took off the ropes that provide extra stability, then what was left holding up the awning was pretty weak. Fortunately, another guy who works at the park came around and helped us at that point. It really did take 3 people in that weather not only to help hold the poles while undoing other things, but also to get that awning put away a lot faster!!!! Once the awning was locked up, our plants grouped together to help shield them from the wind and everything else secured, we got back inside the trailer and waited for the dark skies to get here. They never did. A few drops of rain on the window, a little more wind, and then it was all over. Sheesh....

The pepper lights

So, here's what the trailer looks like with the pepper lights that John put up. 

We like how "festive" it looks out there with the lights.  

First cookout

We had our first cook-out here at the trailer yesterday!!

John and Angie came over in the afternoon, and John brought his grill and some corn on the cob!  Guillermo and I had gone earlier in the day to pick up some steaks, some wine, stuff for a salad, watermelon, mango and a GOOD coconut cake.

It was a great evening.  John set up their little red pepper lights on the awning, the evening was balmy and we had a great time just sitting outside at the picnic table eating all the delicious food and enjoying the good wine.

It is just too bad we didn't get one single picture.........

It continues anyway

We aren't living on El Verde Road anymore, but just can't forget how it gets there when it rains.

We went to bed last night around 11:30pm and almost immediately after that we noticed it was lightning. Then it was nonstop thunder, lightning and heavy rain until 4am!!!!  At around 1:30am, I couldn't take it anymore and got up and texted a friend of ours who still lives on our old street.  She was up, and concerned about all the rain and at around 2:00am, she told me the sirens were going off and that she was going to leave the house.  I knew EXACTLY what she was going through and I felt so bad for her.  She sat with her kids in the Walgreens parking lot and we continued texting - passing her messages of how the radar looked, etc. Finally, at around 4:20, it looked like maybe we could all relax a little.  So, hopefully they can go back to a dry house, and we can get some sleep!!!!!!

Tropical Storm going through

From about 12:45pm to about 1:15pm, the wind was really whipping around here and the rain was coming down in sheets sideways.  It was WILD out there.  Fortunately, this tropical storm Hermine is taking a track a little more to the east of San Antonio, so that puts the bulk of the rain further to the east.  That is really a good thing.
Here's what it looked like out the window to the RV.  You can't tell in the picture, but the trees were really blowing in every direction.

Also, yesterday I realized that since we will no longer have our Earthlink account in a few days, that we would also be losing the website that I created a long time ago when we first got Earthlink.  We sure didn't want to lose all those pages, so we found a way to save them.

our life right now

We don't drive to El Verde Rd. every single day anymore.  The last time we were there was on Saturday evening, (I'm writing this on Monday) and we walked to the back of the field again with Evan, the boy from down the street.  He likes to walk with us, and every time he sees us drive by, he gets on his bike and zooms down to our place.  We like having him join us on our walks and we can tell he really enjoys having us around again for a little while.  We keep expecting to see something new at the property, like someone taking the metal from the little shed in the back or something, but no, nothing changes.  We DID get rain the other day, and Guillermo was happy to see that it perked up the pepper plants in his garden.  

Here in the RV park, people have been coming and going.  And it's amazing how we get used to certain people being around.  We had some neighbors behind us for about a month, and we enjoyed everyday seeing that they were there and talking to them occasionally.  Then all of a sudden, one day, they had all their stuff packed up and were leaving.  It was weird to see them leave, and it's strange to not see them in their slot anymore.  And on the other hand, when we see RVs pull into certain spots around us, we aren't sure how to feel.  But we do know we always like it better when there is no one right around us.  So, there are some people we are sad to see leave, and others that we're ok with them leaving.  The park has been a little fuller the last few days due to the labor day weekend, so probably today it will start thinning out again around here.

We're getting used to this side of town - we found a decent Thai restaurant nearby (not great, but good enough), there's plenty of other good places to eat, and all the "good" stores are real close.  I enjoyed breakfast yesterday with Mom and Linda  at Cracker Barrel (Guillermo went to work with Sergio on their book) and actually, Guillermo and I went to have breakfast again there today!!  What did the area around El Verde have that we don't have right around here?  Well, the teacher's credit union and the library, and there were two good parks real close to where we used to live.  We think there were more ethnic restaurants in our old area and Barnes and Noble was easier to get to.  So, all in all we aren't missing too much here.

This week, we are going to make some calls to Houston, and maybe rethink how we are going to spend the next year or so, depending on what Houston says.

Mitchell Lake today

We went to Mitchell Lake today, as we thought it'd be a little cooler than it HAS been.   And it started out cool enough, but the clouds burned off quickly and it got hot fast!  Even so, we walked out to the basins and saw some neat birds.  We saw Black Neck Stilts, Roseate Spoonbills, Loggerhead Shrike, Great Egrets, Snowy Egrets, White Faced Ibis, Avocets, Little Blue Herons, Red Winged Blackbirds, and Black Bellied Tree Ducks, Killdeer and a variety of shorebirds that we couldn't ID. We want to go back when it's cooler.

The only picture we got from our visit to Mitchell Lake isn't one of the basins, but something they call a polder.