Day 3509

I predicted this would happen. We had a brief heavy rain this morning and the roof is wet again. After weeks of pleading, the roofer still hasn't brought over the special silicon product I need to make repairs. It's been so dry in July that almost any day would have been a good time to patch the tears in the elastomer material. Now I need to clear the water off the roof, dry everything off and start all over again. The main problem is that commonly available patch materials available at Home Depot and Lowes won't stick to the silicon that's already on the roof and the commercial product I need is only available to the trade in very large drums. It's quite expensive too. Jeez. I don't need much of this stuff. I'm sure the roofer is waiting till he has a small amount of silicon left over from another job, but this isn't helping me any.

The rain cooled the temperature a bit, but it's still as muggy as ever outside. I thought I'd have a pleasant walk this morning, but I might as well have just walked the rain. I was still drenched in sweat by the time I returned. While I was in the park, I saw a guy pick one of the yellow berries on a Horse Nettle plant and eat it. Dude, don't you know these plants are poisonous? Apparently he thought it was a wild cherry tomato. Close but not close enough. Horse Nettle and Tomatoes are both members of the Nightshade family. Tomatoes happen to be one of a very few Nightshade varieties that are edible. I don't think Horse Nettle is nearly as dangerous as Belladonna, commonly called the Deadly Nightshade, but I'm not going to try eating any Nightshade berries. I don't even like tomatoes that much.

There are still a lot of Herons and Egrets at the lake. I finally got close enough to photograph one of the Great Egrets today. What a strange looking bird. With a long yellow bill and an even longer neck, you'd think this bird would have trouble eating. Nope. They seem to be designed to catch small fish. I see Egrets catching and eating fish all the time.

The security light in the back yard came on normally this evening. Maybe the problem was temperature related. It is cooler today. Maybe the rain washed spider webs off the light sensor. Actually, I have no idea what is going on. I suspect that just when I begin to think that the problem has fixed itself, the light will go dark again. I spend way too much time thinking about obscure problems like this and not enough time dealing with problems I can actually solve.

There were no strawberries at the store today. I asked the produce guy when a new shipment would arrive. "Maybe tomorrow, maybe Monday, or maybe Tuesday," he said. I guess that means he didn't know. I'll go check again on my way home from the gym tomorrow. I need strawberries for my smoothie.

Am I ready for another 20,000 step day tomorrow? I'm not sure. Surely there is a better way to spend my time. I keep thinking that all this activity is keeping me healthy, but maybe I'm wrong. I'm wrong about a lot of things.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day