Day 643

We got a much needed rainstorm late last night. I could tell from the way the rain was beating on the roof that it was just a matter of time before it started leaking inside. Sure enough, just before I got ready to go to bed, I heard water dripping on the living room floor. I got out the buckets and placed them under the leak and listened to the drip, drip, drip of the water as I went to sleep.

This morning, the blue bucket was about half full, but the water had stopped dripping. After taking the dogs on their morning walk, I climbed up on the roof to survey the damage. Going up on the roof was the last thing I wanted to do with my ongoing neck problems, but when you've got standing water on a leaking flat roof, it simply can't be ignored. I swept away the standing water, but I'm still not sure where the water is coming from. The entire roof was covered with half eaten pecans. Our pecan tree must have had a bumper crop this year. I've tried to harvest these pecans on good years like this, but it's hard to get ahead of the squirrels. They are relentless. Judging from the debris on the roof, our local squirrel population must be eating these things 24x7. They never eat the entire pecan. They just nibble enough so that you'd never want to use the nut to make a pecan pie or anything.

I'm getting behind on paying bills again. To stay current, I spent a good part of the afternoon paying a large stack of bills that had accumulated on my desk. I used to pay these things the same day they arrived, but I've grown disgusted with them. Anyone who tries to tell you that inflation isn't a problem must not have many utility bills. The water bill seems four times higher than it was five years ago. Ditto for the gas and electric bills. The real problem though is all the phone bills. Do I really need a fax line anymore? Do I need to keep a 4-G hotspot when I only use it several times a year? I probably don't need half the telephone services I currently have, but it's hard to decide which ones to drop, since I use all of them from time to time.

It's amazing how resilient nature is. As I was walking the dogs this evening, I noticed that last night's rains had already spawned a brand new crop of flowers. The flowers weren't there yesterday, but they were in full bloom today. All it took was one good rain. Things like this are encouraging to me. Life is full of sudden reversals and often bad news can turn back into good news again a lot quicker than you think.

Rhett is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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