Recent Happenings

Friday night, we had some storms going through the panhandle. Normally, they split and go around Amarillo. Don't know why. It just happens - far too often to ignore. It's referred to as "the Amarillo split" among other things. Out of the all the rain crossing the panhandle, we got a whopping "trace" - just a little bit of water covering the bottom of our rain gage. It poured all around us, but not here. Typical.

Friday night, we were going to see the stage show "TEXAS!" down in Palo Duro Canyon State Park's amphitheater. We had an English (aka "British") friend of ours with us who has never seen the show. This was his chance.

I kept a close eye on the radar to see how things were going, and it looked like we might be ok. The rain was staying right next to where we'd be. I even called down to the Park to see if it had been canceled - right before we got in the car. Still not canceled.

As it turned out, when we got to the entrance to the canyon, they had to cancel the show - not because it was raining, because it wasn't. The stage was flooded! Well, we went in anyhow and stayed up on top at the main overlook. Thought we might get some lightning shots if things worked out. It did.

The lightning wasn't real prolific, but we did manage to score a few good ones.
 

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Our English friend, Dean, was telling us about hummingbirds he got photos of at the zoo here. (He works at the zoo.) After some discussion about their habits and such, I decided I'd park myself near the trumpet vines in our back yard that next morning. The trumpets were flowering really nice, and we knew that those little rascals love things like that. (Coincidentally two or three days before, Shelley saw a hummer flit past the car as we were getting ready drive off to work.) I sat there for about 10 or 15 minutes with camera in hand and at the ready before I caught sight of one. It was only there a minute or so, partaking of the nectar of maybe two flowers before slipping away. Not much time to make adjustments and shoot in the dim light, but I did get him.

(Female Black-Chinned Hummingbird)

Since that morning, the flowers were going through a cycle where the full ones were dropping off and the newly emerging ones were not yet open. I haven't seen any more hummers yet, but come the weekend I'll be sitting back out there early in the morning. Since the first sighting, I got a new hummingbird feeder and hung it on a shepherd's hook in a shady spot in the back yard - with homemade nectar in it. Hopefully I picked a good spot. We shall see.

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Our hot water side of the tub has been leaking through for a little while - the hot side. After work, I shut the water off and tore it apart to see what was going on. The valve stem (core? spool?) was split down the side and its seals were about shot. A quick trip to the faucet parts guy and $6.49 later, I had the new stem (core? spool?) assembly in hand. A few minutes after getting home, it was in and the water back on. I'm not a plumber and don't really like plumbing, but that's something I can do - so I did.