August is Here . . .

Aside from the Texas unbearable heat, August is here.  School kids gearing up for school start, tax sale coming up soon for them to reequip themselves.

Grass is growing at a respectable rate, and watering must be done or the grass will burn up.  We are after all in a semi-desert climate here.  We get spring rains (sometimes) but summer is dry and parched.  The farmers made a huge hay crop this year with the early and frequent rains.  Lakes are full but are starting down again.  Part of that is evaporation and part is due to no rain to refill them and of course the people are using the water.  That is what most of the lakes are for, giant water reservoirs for our ever growing population.

I notice a lot of house starts this year, so part of the economy is back, Texas has done well with gas wells attracting out of state-ers to do the work.  That makes the population go up and keeps the economy going strong.  The rest of the country is not doing as well as we are here.  All of that drives up the price of houses and the local tax assessors delight in the increased value and up our property taxes.  My taxes are frozen and yet they raised them.  Not sure about all of that but you can not fight city hall.

And near the end of the month we make our annual trek to Madison, WI to see the grandkids and their parents.  Short visit.  Supposed to have a crawfish boil p there, their crawfish come in later than ours with their cooler climate.  Until recently, they did not have clue as to what to do with crawfish but enough of them spent some time in Louisiana and learned to enjoy them.   So they are gradually catching on to the freshwater delicacy.

I can see the at boil now, where a young couple from Wisconsin will take three or four of the crawfish and eat them.   And they will declare them wonderful and be done with it.  Too messy to fool with and really it is fish bait.  While the true aficionados will gobble down four or five pounds of them.  They will look on with awe and wonder.

Then September is upon  us and football season fires up for real.  It will still be hot but we will find a cool place to watch the games. 

Geaux Tigers!