Monday stuff

Maria called my attention to a painting hanging in the newspaper’s hallway art gallery the other day. It’s a mountain scene with sheep, but the style reminds me of Norwegian painter Edvard Munch (“The Scream”) only this image is whimsical rather than disturbing.

Maria loves the sheep faces. So do I. The one in the back looks a bit like Ruthie the Wonder Dog.

It’s a chilly gray mid-November Monday that started out with rain and falling temperatures. I’m still in the process of getting acquainted with Windows 7 and so far, I still like it.

I took a break after lunch and came in to town for a big cup of Rio Azul coffee at Hastings.

Realizing that rain was on the way, I spent a few hours yesterday afternoon with the leaf blower in the fenced area of our back yard. Maria grabbed a rake and helped me herd the huge pile of oak leaves over to the fire pit where we torched them. Yeah, people still burn leaves here in Arkansas.

The rest of our 1.23 acres is covered with a carpet of leaves that I may or may not mulch with the mower when things dry out again. The point of clearing the fenced area is to minimize the volume of leaves the dogs track into the house. I made the mistake of mulching that area last fall and we paid for it all winter in tracked-in leaf fragments.

Austin completed his flying round trip to Indiana about 4 a.m. today. Maria heard him come in. I slept through it. Fortunately, he didn’t have to be at work until noon, so he had time for some sleep after his seven-hour bullet run from Thorntown.