This morning as we finished breakfast I was still sitting at the table when a loud and strong boom shooked the house. I could feel it in my feet, my hands on the table and it felt like the air was compressed. My first thought was earthquake. I had experienced one of those in California. My second thought was that the gas well behind the house had exploded or the gas storage tanks. I went outside and could see no smoke near. I finally decided it was a sonic boom, because I sensed the second wave at the end of the boom and heard a high flying jet noise. I used to feel sonic booms in 1960 when the B-58 was making runs from FW to the Gulf of Mexico and flew over my office at TAMU. I had to think about the shock I felt after that has the strong boom and aftershock that is weak. I got on Facebook, contacted WBAP asking about reports on booms with no response, posted on my wall asking if anyone had felt the boom in Granbury and again got no response. It is obvious that no one reads my Facebook page.

I got my upper arm exercise this morning by helping Nancy trim the limbs that bothered her mowing. I loaded them in the trailer and unloaded them on the burn pile. Just about the limit of my strength, but I have had no strained parts. I really feel better from the exercise.

INTERESTING WEEK

Nancy and I started the week meeting Monday with the Granbury writer's group where we each submitted papers for critique. Nancy had a great devotional with good comments. I had quickly drafted a page and half of a new topic I am working on: ASSUME. I got some good comments and have revised it a couple of times. It is the introduction what I hope will be a book on how assumptions shape our lives.

Later in the week we followed up on our invitation for the Texas Folklore Society to meet in Granbury. We met with two Granbury officials who handle such things and found out that both came from Abilene in similar jobs where they worked with the TFS in 2010. So we are planning on having it here in 2014.

This week we were disappointed that the cardinals didn't build a nest outside our dining room window after two attempts. Then two days ago we found a nest in the back yard with 4 open mouth fledglings. Yesterday the nest was empty. We don't know whether they flew or what. We will check to see if new eggs appear. I put some bird feed out where we can see it from the dining table and the squirrels and birds found it today. I just put out a little hoping that there will be none for the raccoons at night. They destroyed every bird feeder that I put up last year. I am trying to encourage the cardinals to nest in front.

My Kindle collapsed with an internal failure that prevented it from downloading anything starting last Wednesday. I sent an email to tech support and they sent a long email about how to try to revive it. They instructed me to connect to my PC and delete all documents from the Kindle. That was a big mistake. I did it and when it still didn't work called tech support. The third expert was located in the Phillipines and she spent about 2 hours walking me through all kinds of checks and tried to recover my documents but the Kindle wouldn't connect. So now I can't read the books that were stored in the Kindle and have to wait for a replacement Kindle they offered me. I really miss it. I was reading Leonardo's notes about how light affects the eye and affects perspective in painting. I do have the option to download them to my PC but I want to read them when I am not on the PC. I miss reading the Abilene Reporter-News every day.

SPRING VACATION

We enjoyed our vacation this week. We started Tuesday by driving to Fredericksburg where we visited Pat's Hall, the dance hall being refurbished by Kathy Shearer where she will host weddings as well as reopen the dance hall that has both an inside and outside dance areas. Last Friday (a week ago) she hosted a wedding party outside where it was a little windy but worked out. Her daughter Maggie is doing the painting and is almost finished. She plans to have the first dance in July when the rest rooms are finished. Former bands were Willie Nelson, George Strait, and others back in the 50's when they were just starting. Kathy is keeping her book publishing company Shearer Publishing and specializes in cook books. The dance hall used to be her office and warehouse, but she is keeping warehouse space but renewing the dance hall and concession area.

We shopped downtown Fredericksburg, which is what you do there. We started at the Chocolate shop and then Nancy had to make every aisle in Dooley's 5 and 10. I got a new hummingbird feeder for me and a rain guage for Nancy. At another store I found a WWII cap that I had seen others wear and Nancy gave it to me as an anniversary gift. Tuesday was our first anniversary.

My new cap. 

We spent the night with my daughter and heard the report of Ness the nurse about her planned medical mission trip to Kenya this summer. One day will be a safari. She is looking forward to the trip. A couple of years ago she made a mission trip to Mumbai, India.

The next day took us to our planned vacation in Port Aransas. There are a few new large buildings, but as we drove around I began to remember when I was there 50 years ago when our kids were small. The coast line is not much different. We walked along the surf and found a few keepable shells. We ate seafood at the Trout restaurant the first day and had a grilled platter Thursday at The Fin. Both were excellent. Thursday we visited the Visitor's Center to learn that this weekend is hosting an International Sand Castle contest with contestants from all over the world and expecting 100,000 visitors. We went back down to the beach for breakfast overlooking the Gulf and then drove by the sand castle building area. They were building advertisement sand piles that were complex.

Nancy in front of the advertising sand pile.

This was an old-timer with a couple of small sculptures.

We left Friday morning under dark clouds and wondered if the rain later that day would destroy the sand castle. We stopped for lunch at a chinese restaurant about 50 miles north of SA. It sprinkled on us and Nancy drove to Hamilton with the wipers on for part of the way. Needed to rinse off the salt. 

HUMMINGBIRDS ARE BACK

I continue to miss the return of swallows, but last night we were eating on the front porch and I spotted a hummingbird high in a tree. So today I put up a feeder in the back yard. Haven't seen any birds using it, but I am ready.

Today earthquakes got a lot more active. I follow them each day on the web site: latest earthquakes in the world past 7 days. I contend that some type of disaster will permit the president to declare an emergency and establish martial law and suspend laws and maybe even elections. Hope that I am wrong.

WHERE ARE THE MUSHROOMS?

When I first moved here I discovered morel mushrooms in the back yard and later down along the creek. Every year, especially when we have wet winters and spring, I find an enormous spectrum of mushrooms everywhere. Small ones and some larger than softballs. But this year with all of the wet weather for the past four months I have not seen one large or small mushroom. I didn't think that the drought would totally destroy spores.

Now that the trees are leafing out, I can assess my drought losses. One grove of red oaks close to the house are almost completely gone. I can see one branch that has some green leaves but of the five trunks only that one shows anything. I have a few other dead trees but not near as many as I expected. One cottonwood has only two small branches and is gone. The other has leafed out but has a central top large branch dead.

The bluebonnet field is the best that it has ever been. I am still waiting on the gallardia to bloom. The roses are in full bloom and a pink carnation in a pot is gorgeous. A large mum is putting on buds. My easter lilies in the back yard came up but haven't grown any and I didn't collect the ones from the church this year. I did transplant my Texas sage from a pot to the flower bed where I hope it will grow tall. My two new crape myrtles have leafed out and are looking good.

FOLKLORE SOCIETY AND EASTER SUNDAY

We enjoyed the meeting of the Texas Folklore Society in Odessa Thursday, Friday and Saturday. We left Abilene Thursday afternoon about 2 p.m. after eating and having the car washed and due to the 75 mph speed limits got  to Odessa by 4:15. We enjoyed the free drinks and listened to an hour of the Hootenanny Thursday night. As always every paper Friday and Saturday were very interesting. I have never heard a bad paper at the TFS. Paul Carlson had an excellent paper on the myths and true history of the Pease River battle that "rescued" Cynthia Ann Parker from the Comanches. She was captured at age 9 and lived as one of the four wives of a Comanche warrior, Nocona, who was not a chief. Sul Ross, who was later president of Texas A&M, was in the raid and used his version to help his political career. The truth was that the raid was on a Comanche hunting camp that was leaving that day and only had a few men with mostly women and children. The raid killed a few women and boys. Nocona and his son Quanah were not present. Paul is an excellent historian. His book on the prairie Indian tribes amazed me with the huge number of different tribes and languages that were not taught in Oklahoma history when I took it in school.

Jim and Mary Harris from Hobbs, NM continued their tradition of bringing wine to share with TFS. 

Karen and Lee Haile have raised their girls in TFS. Lee is currently sawing the logs burned in the huge fire near Smithville.

This was Nancy's third TFS meeting and she was welcomed everywhere. We  both enjoyed all of the papers. We got to visit with many long-time friends. Too many to list here. We enjoyed the entertainment at the dinner. Jody Nix and the Texas Cowboys from Big Spring were an outstanding Texas music band with two fiddles, one played left-handed by Nix, and a steel guitar, bass fiddle and trap drums but no guitars. We almost got up and danced but decided we need more practice in private.

We left at 11:45 Saturday morning and after a stop at Walmart in Abilene got home in time for a 4 o'clock nap. We got to bed early because we got up at 6 this morning to attend Sunrise service in Cross Plains. As we went to bed the rain storm came through and we had 1" of rain last night. It was foggy and cloudy so that we didn't get to see the sun rise but had a great service under a canopy behind Bubba's BBQ in CP. After the service we went to the church for coffee and sweet breads. Because I was worship leader, we came home to change clothes. Nancy dropped me off at the Methodist church and went to the opening services at the Baptist church where Russ Miller was being baptized. She then made it back just as I finished announcements at our church. Our sanctuary had twice the normal attendance due to family members visiting. We had a large choir and a great sermon to follow the sunrise sermon. We then enjoyed a day of rest.