A PERSONAL TOUCH

While it is a verifiable fact that Christmas at the Schmidt household was nothing short of spectacular this year, I must point out that two gifts stood out as more special than all the others.
Michelle's cookbook was a labor of love, creative as well as entertaining, and everyone got one. It is a mystery where she drudged up those old picutres, but she managed to make us all look young and beautiful. Hurray!
And then there is the calendar we have all come to depend upon, with fantastic artwork by none other than our talented Adam. If you haven't taken the time to get a good look at it, I recommend you do so. Wow! Many thanks to Bob and Julia for taking the time to put this attractive calendar together.
And now, we say farewell to 2008. It is time to hang up our 2009 calendars, wiggle into our aprons and get down to some serious cooking. I plan to whip up a delicious Cheese Spoon Bread. Thanks to Michelle, I don't have to call and inconvenience anyone for the recipe.

MORE ON THE OLD PECAN TREE

This is a picture of the top of the pecan tree we had to take down. If you click to enlarge it, you will clearly see the now misplaced woodpecker at work. I am not an advocate of removing sound trees, but this one had become unsightly, and worse yet, dangerous. Just the day before it came down, on a dry and windless day, a large branch came crashing down- broke two of the fence pickets.

You may revisit an old post in my blog dated December 2007 and titled A GUST OF WIND for an example of the kind of surprises the old pecan tree was prone to spring on us.

OLD PECAN TREE

It was sad to see the old pecan tree come down. It was quite an ordeal, what with a cherry picker and three brave Mexicans sawing away half a mile up in the air and easing the chunks to the ground with a pulley. It took them two hours to complete the job that probably took the tree a hundred years to produce. We don't know what to do with the empty space it has left in our yard. Frances has ideas, and it will be our project for next year to get some decent landscaping done. Meanwhile, there is a very misplaced woodpecker. Doesn't know where to peck now that his tree is gone. I hear him pecking here and there, trying out new trees, but so far he has not found the likes of the old pecan tree he so diligently pecked at day after day.

FAT CAT

What a difference a few months can make in a cat's life. Ragu has fattened up, so much so that she is now in line for a visit to the vet. We hope Ragu is not prego, if you know what I mean. She sure has an appetite, though, and it's not quite clear to us if she is or isn't. No doubt we will find out soon enough, whether she goes to the vet or not. At this point, I'd rather find out we've been feeding a tape worm, disgusting as the thought may be.

FROM RAGS TO RICHES

She wandered into our back yard in July, weak, sick, and apparently homeless. I made ten copies of this picture and posted them in strategic places all over the neighborhood.

I called her Esperanza, a reflection of my high hopes that she would soon be reunited with her owners.

Several weeks went by, and it became apparent that no one was going to claim the waif. I scratched the name Esperanza and named her Ragu instead. I sometimes call her Rags.

The haunted look in Ragu's eyes is gone. No more bony ribs or rickety legs to tell the story of her journey before she found a sucker, namely me. Now she is fat and round, and full of vim and vigor. Not even the dogs will have much to do with her.

IT'S ABOUT TIME

Last post: July 10, 2008.
Heavens, where does time go? Has it been that long? Have I nothing to say in my defense? I have answers to all the above querries.
Time flies. Though it may seem like only a few weeks, it has actually been almost two months since my last entry. I've been busy elsewhere, doing a little of this and a little of that, none of it making me a penny richer, but keeping me well occupied.
I've heard that time is worth its weight in gold. It weighs heavily on me, time does, so I hope it's as valuable as they claim it to be. Time is an investment in the future, and as an aspiring writer, I must believe this or I am doomed. I have to believe that the time I spend writing is time that will eventually pay off. Whether it will or not is beside the point. Thing is, I have to believe it will, otherwise I'm wasting my time.

ABOUT NOSES

Who knows? This flower nose. Please enlarge the picture by clicking on the image and see for yourself what I'm talking about. I mean, did you ever see a flower with a nose like this? Ever see a flower with a nose at all? I took this picture while Carlos and I were in Brownsville, navigating through cousin Rupert's amazing garden.