Already?

Hard to believe it's June already. This past weekend was Good Ol' Days and the forecast was rain all weekend. In fact we were under areal flood warnings and river flood warnings until Monday (June 3rd). It usually always storms on the Sunday of Good Ol' Days, which is why last year and this year they aren't holding it on Sunday. That and most of the good vendors are gone by Saturday evening anyway. So Friday night was the kick-off parade up Main St and looping around down National. Horses, pickups, the Shriner guys in their fezzes and driving their mini cars, and antique tractors make up the bulk of the parade. Since Bobby is back on the P.D. he would have been working Good Ol' Days if it hadn't been his scheduled weekend to work. Everybody (PD officers) works it - no days off. You're either working your normal shift or you're working downtown. Bobby was glad because he hates working the event - it's always hot or raining and it means you're working without any days off.

Good Ol' Days is one of those things that you either love or hate. It really brings out the stupid in people, so a lot of folks avoid it. It's also inconvenient. Downtown is blocked off and parking is a nightmare. If you live anywhere near the downtown area, you have people parking in front of your house and walking through your yard (SO glad we live at the south end of town!) Because of where the funeral home is located and our huge garage, the committee for the event always uses our garage to park their golf carts. And because we have a large parking area, we have to rope it off so stupid yahoos don't park there - it doesn't matter that we're a funeral home, they don't care. People block our driveway into our garage, they come in asking to use the restroom, and even ask if they can go through and out the back because it's air conditioned in here and it will be shorter (true story!). One year, someone actually moved the ropes and parked - I had to go out and tell them that they couldn't park there, which is why it was roped off with signs saying "NO PARKING"...duh!

Now, having said all that, people DO want to come out to see the big events such as Dock Dogs, which was here again this year. Oh and eat Bar-B-Que - there are some really good smokers that come, and everyone has their favorites. There's also the kettle corn guy, the roasted almonds people, the funnel cake stand...hmmm - maybe we should have went...

We had a few hot days here and there, but the last three weeks has been pretty wet. Usually by now we start seeing the first lightning bugs and then maybe a few early locusts (Cicadas), but I haven't seen or heard anything yet. I'm hoping it means that this summer won't be so dry that we have craters in the yard like last year. It was so hot and so dry that people only came out at night to water their most precious of plants. It was like living in a post-apocalyptic world where everyone became nocturnal and anybody moving around in the daylight was suspicious. I would go out at 10 or 11 at night and see several of my neighbors out watering. As the summer went on, you watered at night because you didn't want to get caught at it due to the watering ban the city put out. Ninja watering - quiet, stealthy watering using the darkness as cover, hee hee!

Currently the weather outside is stormy again. We'd had a little reprieve from the rain but it's back. This is a problem because they put our roof on yesterday, but didn't get the carport finished and were supposed to come back today. Looks like it will be a while because this is socked in for a while. 

We think we have figured out what our neighbor is digging up in his yard: toadstools. We've noticed some popping up in our yard due to all the moisture. Apparently he thinks he can dig up their roots and prevent them from coming back - an impossibly futile endeavor.

I wanted to leave you with a close-up of the pretty pink peonies on the south side of my house that I took with my Canon and new macro filter  :)  They smell so wonderful!