Hey Gang,
There were, count 'em, 586 messages in my queue when I got home! Normally I would say something like, "Well, next time I go on the road I am going to see to it that the Laif-Man is on vacation first!" but, this time I will say nothing since about 100 of those were either mine or in response to my posts.
Next runners-up were, of course, the provence-less MKII -- God, I bitched about a couple of leaks until I saw a guy who gave 30K for a MKII that wasn't -- and the multi-vis oil posts. It seems like base calumny but I am changing to single-vis in everything I own, from the garden tractor on up. At this time only the Morgan is running single-vis.
Lots of good technical posts that I am still sorting through, pretending that I will be able to find the stuff if and when I need it on some black day in the future. As if I won't have three or four hard disk melt downs before that imaginary day comes...
So, anyway, here we are, back at Rancho Cobbo for more than 52 hours and things are startin' to shake out pretty good.
Napoleon Bonabark, the Crown Prince of Dalmatia and my full-time bodyguard/shadow and Ol' Miz Smoot-Shyra Darr, the 15 year old ball of puppy fluff, are both in real good shape but tickled to death to have me and Janet back where we belong, passing out the dog biscuits and head pats.
While we were gone, me Mum harvested the last of the peaches and the first of the big golden-yellow tomatoes. The half-dozen tomato plants themselves, planted in my special tomato growing place with the western exposure and in my special tomato growing mixture -- hah!-- have grown like crazy, several plants now reaching over 8 feet tall. Even though me Mum assured me that she had kept them picked off and, God knows, there was a ton of them in the fridge, I spent a few minutes rooting around at the base of the plants and came up with another big bowlful of gorgeous golden fruit that we will carry to neighbors this evening.
Also while we were gone, the roses decided to do what they are good at, too. This morning a quick count revealed 26 bushes, all varieties, all colors, all scents, all in full bloom.
And the water lilies in the two fish tanks are going crazy again. Dozens of blooms of four differnt colors in 6 different varieties are being pushed out of the tanks by a profusion of maroon-tinged green pads. The goldfish are so happy to see us that I wonder for the briefest of moments if, perhaps, me Mum has forgotten to feed the little jewels for the past couple of weeks...
This morning's dawn found Janet and me watering in the roses with both dogs puttering around our feet, Napoleon trying for the hundredth time to figure some way of catching one of those damned goldfish, and Miz Smoot stumbling around trying not to bump into things while hummingbirds zipped around our heads.
All of the over 65 potted flowers in the courtyard, even the ones Janet had thought were dead, are alive and well and in bloom and thirsty. Even my three growth-challenged grape vines look wonderful. It is a two-person job getting all this watered in the morning -- don't know how me Mum got it done every day while we were gone -- and, since we live in one of the most expensive water-use areas in the state, it is also a two-person job to lift the check at the first of the month when I pay the bill.
It is also useful, in trying to avoid the envy of the Gods, to remind myself of the 4 billion-with-a-b goat head sticker plants waiting for my attention in the driveway and gardens and everywhere else. With their dark green foliage and cute little yellow flowers waiting to become vicious stickers, these little babes beg for some quality time with my hoe.
This afternoon we pulled the hardtop off of Janet's 'Beamish and put the two 'Beams nose-to-nose, then side-by-side for a few minutes. I was really surprised by how different they looked from one another! 'Beamish is so much... taller. And the lack of a chrome strip down the side makes him look so... businesslike. Compared to Tigger, 'Beamish -- possibly because of the lack of the S U N B E A M letters across the bonnet front -- sort of smiles, rather than sneers...
I was also pleasantly surprised to find that the 'Beamish steel hardtop weighs less than the fiberglass aftermarket cap that protects Tigger in the cold months.
As we jockeyed the cars around to get them back into the garage and carport, Janet and 'Beamish disappeared up the driveway. Since I was sitting behind Tigger's wheel at the time I thought, "Why let them have all the fun?" And off we went to play the topless variation of Shiny Black Sunbeam Tag up and down the road for a few minutes.
Me and Tigger won, but did Janet enjoy it? Well, what with all the giggling and laughing and carrying on it is kind of hard to say. Probably.
I have promised to give them a rematch this evening when we make the tomato run to the neighbor's place. It is about 200 yards as the tomato flys but I think we can keep that down to a couple of miles...
One thing I want to do right away is get the bumpers rechromed on 'Beamish and there is really not a decent chrome shop anywhere around here. Have any listers had a particularly good -- or bad -- experience with a mail-order chrome shop?
--Colin Cobb, Pluckin' Tomatoes Outside Las Cruces, NM, USA