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In the grand scheme of things pertaining to my to-do list it is getting down to crunch time concerning all I want to get done before our trip to Texas. As previously mentioned, the “outback” building has been completed and I spent the better part of a day trying to fit the various pieces of equipment into said building. The difficulty involved was to be sure the seldom used ones were in the back and the oft used ones in front.

When this building was in the planning stage, I asked my bro what size structure I should erect and he said that it didn’t matter, whatever size would be filled up – and there was much wisdom in the answer. It has rained since the landscaping was completed and this has shown me a couple of flaws in relation to the drip line. One spot in front needs the dirt rearranged to redirect water away from the foundation – and some gravel added.

When I complete these finishing touches, all remaining to be done will be the caulking of a few cracks – the material for this has been procured, just remains for it to be done. Another large item on the list is the building of a soil retention wall in the garden. This is done with concrete blocks in a loose lay manner (no mortar) and after a couple of days labor, layer one of two is in place – mostly level and somewhat straight.

In the midst of this very productive labor – at least my achy back thinks it was productive – appointments and the other duties of family life interrupted my time. Saturday was a very productive day in the areas of gruntmonkey entertainment – this concerning the three local lads that call me Pop-pop. FYI – gruntmonkeys are what I call my “grand’ ones – with the designations of GM1 through GM6 – the eldest being GM1.

An object at rest tends to remain at rest unless acted upon by an outside force – in this scenario I was the object at rest and GM3, GM4 and GM6 were the outside forces. One can only listen to “Can we go outside now?” so many times without putting on one’s shoes and jacket and venturing forth with them. First stop was the swing set/trampoline area and a short while later it was on to the pond to cast many small stones therein.

During this latter, efforts were made at teaching the art of skipping stones across the water but they are still a bit young to get the knack. Next stop was the sluice that feeds water from the neighbor’s pond down to the one in which we have a small share. The adventure of the day was to push pinecones down the sluice into the catch basin and then let the force of the water push them through the pipe and plop into the lower pond.

Then we were off in the direction of the hill overlooking the highway to watch the traffic, making a brief stop to try to climb a eucalyptus tree – this was discouraged by their elder because: 1) there were no suitable limbs on which to climb and 2) I didn’t want any abrasions, contusions or fractures to happen on my watch. Further along we “knocked” on several anthills to see if anyone was home, many entities answered the raps.

Reaching the traffic-watching pinnacle, we all marveled – to one degree or another – at all the passing vehicles. When we returned to the inside, they were happy for the adventure and sad because it was not long enough – it never is. I pondered later how much easier and more predictable it is to redirect rainwater from a shed roof than it is to influence young lives in proper and Godly directions – but so much worth the efforts. God is good! ec