autumn approacheth

In one of my old Scoops columns, I wrote about how and why I like to call fall, uh, autumn. I like the sound of the word "autumn." And I love it when the weather cools.

Those who know me know that hot weather is not my friend. I like the cold...and the cool...but if it were up to me, we could skip July and August. That would be just fine and dandy as far as I'm concerned.

Looks like we're headed for another round of rainy weather from Hurricane Ike. The recent hurricane sent lots of rain to our house and the Saline River was higher than I've ever seen it...even made the opening of squirrel hunting season Sept. 5 a washout. The river went over the pavement on 46 south and nearly went over the Highway 167 between Sheridan and Fordyce. It was fierce, too, the water resembling the rushing whitewater streams of Colorado. Really something to see.

I haven't "blogged" in a while and I apologize to my thousands of readers. Just got out of the habit, lost my groove I spect. We vacationed in Florida and had a really great time. We love the beach and our condo is so peaceful, right on the sugar-white beach. It's so nice to sit out on the balcony in late afternoon and watch the sunset, just me and Peanut, all alone, nary a worry in the whole world.

Played in recent Red Apple golf tourney and held lead going into Sunday's final round, but blew it. Just couldn't get to the greens in the horribly wet conditions. Half round on Saturday canceled due to heavy rains and it was the first time in Red Apple tourney history the rain forced play to be cart path only. Golfers understand this lingo--just means it was sloppy wet. But had fun with some of my old buds from political days.

Our puppies are doing good. Ole Newt, the big dumb black lab, is still growin and he's providing lots of laughs. He's learned to jump, finally, and twice jumped up on the bed. Zoey, the smart dog, just watches him in amazement.

We had Nita, my sister, over for supper on her 79th birthday. I cooked some of the fine fish I caught a few months ago. She loves fish. She's doing good. And we have a new neighbor--my great nephew Chris and his new bride Lauren, bought sister Joy's house next door. Whew! We were worried about who our neighbors might be, but the Good Lord sent us a blessing and we're mighty happy. I mowed Chris' grass today, being the good neighbor that I am. It was cool and cloudy and I just felt like mowing and doing a good deed. I have tons of mowing to do, all the way from the old house up to the pond, but it is good therapy. Speaking of therapy, I started some physical theapy today for a bad heel...got about six weeks to do. I have a brand new, good, million dollar titanium knee and now my heel goes bad. Oh, well.

We watched a lot of the political conventions. Obama will win, that's my take on it. McCain's VP pick is causing a stir, but history teaches us the voters never consider this race on VP candidates--just the big guys. Obama by 2 percentage points.

I'm not going to mention the Bill Gwatney tragedy if that's okay. It's just taken too much out of us to talk anymore about. We love him and miss him and I will leave it at that.

That's all for this time, til next time, thanks for your time.