Waning hours of 2020 (December 31, 2020)

2020 is not going gently into that good night but rather throwing a graupel tantrum at our house.  Oh 2020!  We will forever remember thee but never miss thee.

Einar still won't stay inside even though we've taken care of him since 2007.  He showed up at our house right before we left for Ryder and Brandy's wedding in Las Vegas.  So, we do the best we can for him.  We wrapped the cat carrier in towels and a shower curtain in hopes he'll stay snug and dry over these coming 35 degree or so nights.  Not total protection, but the rain doesn't usually blow from the east, the direction he is facing.  The house protects from the north wind.
 

Meet Joli! (New Year's Eve)

Meet Joli, our newest family member, a twin tail half moon betta fish. Taking care of Fox's betta Valentina while Amon was in Portland reminded me of how much I love having a betta.  Fox helped me pick out Joli at PetSmart.  His container didn't identify him as male or female, but we think he fits the male description.  Just in case, we named him "Joli," the masculine French word for "pretty," which is pronounced the same as "jolie," the feminine word for "pretty."  Say it just like "Julie" but with a long o instead of a u.

Famous last words: "We can put Joli on the kitchen table.  Zephyr never jumps up there."  

"Meow" is cat speak for "A lingerie bag? Really? You think that's gonna keep me away from the fishie?"

"Meow" equals "Just go about your business.  I'm only hanging out up here."

Urgent "meow" means "PLEASE let me play with the fishie!  PLEASE?"

 

Merry Christmas from Kappa! (December 25, 2020)

Kappa, unjustly renamed "Creepy Doll" by certain lovable grandchildren, wishes you a Merry Christmas.  She even borrowed Zephyr's elf hat to get in the spirit.  

Back story:  when my Mom was pregnant with me, she entered a raffle for the doll put on by one of the sororities at Louisiana Tech in Ruston, Louisiana, where my Dad was a petroleum engineering student.  She won, hence the name Kappa in honor of the sorority.  Kappa came with a wardrobe including pajamas and a red satin evening gown.  Kappa's clothes stayed with me for decades, move after move. Sadly, I no longer know where her clothes are or what happened to them. I wouldn't have thrown them away....maybe left behind in an attic somewhere???

Anyway, until I was a grown-up, like in my 40s, I thought her name was Capel (rhymes with chapel).  That's when Mom told me Kappa's origin story and I learned her real name.  Not Creepy Doll, BTW. 

Christmas Eve project: beeswax lotion bars (December 24, 2020)

Time to do something with the honeycombs from our June honey harvest, plus a few empty ones we collected later when our bees industriously built combs on the underside of the hive lid, in the way of closing it back after opening it.

I strained the melted wax, filtering out a lot of debris in the cheesecloth.

The yield was almost 6 ounces of beeswax, enough to make six lotion bars.  The recipe is so easy!  Melt the wax with almond oil, coconut oil, and vitamin E, add essential oil for fragrance, and pour into the molds to cool.

Poured and cooling.

 I was expecting a Pinterest fail, but no.  The bars are beautiful!

December harvest

Christmas Eve pickings

Almost ripe on Christmas Day.

Saving the big one for Roy.  Picked December 28th.

 Fresh basil all year long.

Spotted Santa and his backup crew down the street (December 22, 2020)

 No red-nosed reindeer to guide Santa through the night, but plenty of red-eyed skele-corns to pull his sleigh.

The Great Conjunction was the Great Disappointment (December 21, 2020)

We combined a beekeeping trip with a chance to see the Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn out at Cornerstone, where there's no light pollution.

The shed, the beehive, the Zoomer, the field.

The best time to see the Great Conjunction, NASA said, was about 45 minutes after sunset.  Almost time!

Papa walked the fence line.  He found a dead buzzard and kept the talons. Ugh! I refused to even look at them. 

Ok, here's the very grainy phone photo of the planets.  Are those Saturn's rings???

On our way home, we could still see the pinprick in the sky.  If you look just to the right of center, almost at the top of the photo, you'll see what we saw.  Could this really be it?  We were expecting something like the Star of Bethlehem as depicted on Christmas cards, a distant headlight in the sky. 
 

Big Red pays us a visit (December 21, 2020)

Our wandering neighborhood chicken, Big Red, paid us a visit on the Winter Solstice.  He (she?) lives at 1207 Alguno and has wandered as far as the next street over before returning to his coop for the night.  Our neighborhood also has a wandering pig, Kevin Bacon, that occasionally escapes its home a block over and ambles down our street.

 After taking this photo, I scooped Big Red up and gently tossed him over the fence so he could find his way home.  Or to another neighbor's house.

Remembering Texas's COVID deaths (December 16, 2020)

A neighbor plants a flag for each Texan who has died from COVID-19.  As of December 16, the toll stood at 23,821.  As I write this on the last day of December, the Texas toll is at 27,821, with 322 new cases reported yesterday.  My high school friend Trish told me, "One of those flags represents somebody I loved."
 

Dad's hibiscus (December 15, 2020)

I brought Dad's hibiscus in for our first cold snap.  We've been blessed with beautiful blooms and memories of how much he loved his garden.
 

Looking for signs of raccoons on the roof (December 14, 2020)

 After hearing scratching noises on the roof, Papa and Otis checked for raccoons.  No ring-tailed bandits were in sight, but the telltale signs of their work was there.  One or more had torn shingles into pieces to get to the underlying decking, where they'd chewed an 8-10" wide hole.  

Another clue that we'd had night visitors was the wads of insulation they'd tossed into the yard.  Papa sprayed the insulation with a Tabasco sauce/dish soap mixture, stuffed it back in the holes, and covered the holes with metal flashing.  We've not heard from the rascals since.

Sunday afternoon with Amon and Fox (December 13, 2020)

Amon and Fox took turns racing Otis's remote controlled car.

Fox picked greenhouse tomatoes. She doesn't like tomatoes.

Amon picked greenhouse tomatoes too, but popped them in his mouth as soon as he picked them.
 

Papa's new glasses (December 10, 2020)

 No more wire rims for Papa/  As he says, he's back to his mid-1960s junior high school look.

It's Otis! (December 9, 2020)

 Enjoy this potentially last photo ever of Otis. He made me pinky promise that I'd never, ever, ever take another photo of him without his permission. 

Waiting for Papa Tom (December 6, 2020)

Zephyr waits for Papa Tom to return.

He's back!  Papa Tom had gone outside to clean the black bean skillet since the cast iron would scratch our porcelain kitchen sink.
 

Remember the mysterious monoliths? (December 5, 2020)

Remember the Utah desert monolith?  Dawn's early light on December 5th revealed a monolith on the Austin Community College Highland campus near us. Was it a message from ET? Or was it a salute to monoliths by Austin Community College welding students?  

Aliens visited Austin too!
 

Three little pigs at Cornerstone (December 4, 2020)

We just had to stop and say "hello" to our neighbor's pigs at Cornerstone.

 They were so friendly!  I really hope they didn't end up as Christmas hams.  Is the one on the left a feral hog?  I can't tell.

R.I.P. Threadgill's (November 29, 2020)

Threadgill's closed forever this year.  No historical marker is in its future.  Instead, the iconic restaurant and music venue is to be torn down to make way for apartments.

Threadgill's was way more than a beer joint and music venue.  Their homestyle Southern cooking with free seconds on veggies like cheesy San Antonio squash kept the place crowded.  I'll miss the fried okra. 

Quoting from Threadgill's website:

When bootlegger and country music lover Kenneth Threadgill opened his Gulf filling station just north of Austin's city limits in 1933, he had more on his mind than just pumping gas.  After all, just months before he had stood in line all night to become the first person to be granted a beer license in Travis County. Soon after that, his joint would become a favorite for traveling musicians to grab a beer after gigs.

The quintessential beer joint continued to flourish in the '60s, and changed with the social climate of the era by inviting folkies, hippies, and beatniks to Wednesday night singing sessions with open arms. Threadgill's love for people and music smoothed out the conflicts that usually occurred when longhairs and rednecks crossed paths.  A new culture tolerance emanated from the tavern which had a profound effect on its patrons and the music that came from it. Not to mention that Threadgill's is where Janis Joplin developed the brassy style that would propel her to become rock's first female superstar.

Thanksgiving (November 26, 2020)

We Zoomed with Micah...

...and the Asheville Lewises.

Fox's grandma Lala stopped by to say "hi" to us and to drop off Fox's dog Brownie.

Brownie is a sweetie, just like her name.

After dinner nap time.

Another house gone on our street (November 22, 2020)

The house at the corner is history.  Will the new one be a large single family home?  A duplex?  Two houses?  
 

Meet Big Red, our neighborhood chicken (November 22, 2020)

Big Red wanders up and down Alguno, and yes, he does cross the road.  He showed up in our back yard the other day. (I'm writing this on December 23.) I gently tossed him over the fence into the front yard so he could find his way home.

 Fox thought she wanted to pet Big Red until he headed her way.  Amon says this is a photo of "two chickens." Another neighbor has a pig (Kevin Bacon), who occasionally escapes and wanders down Alguno.