Glen Brammell

The weather in some parts of Texas has been especially hot this year. That coupled with a lack of rain has equaled out a drought. This has affected the growing and selling of Christmas trees. The farmers are not having a good year.

Many trees are dying from the intense heat. Trees are being imported from other areas of the country in order to meet demand. The effect on the local Texas economy is expected to last for several years as many saplings have died as well. I hope they get a break soon.

The weather here in our part of the world is beautiful today. I just came inside after working in the garden for a few hours and I am happily dirty. I did some weeding and watered the plants. I also fixed the fence where it came down in the storm last week.

Anyway, I was happy to be out in the sun and even got a little bit of tan already. I think I’ll make a nice lunch and relax for a few minutes. I guess I’ll be going back out after awhile and see what else I can get done.

The University of California has been working on a long standing problem. That is, how to keep people from being bitten by mosquitoes. What they have discovered is that there are at least three odors that mosquitoes don’t like. The odors essentially block the ability of mosquitoes from knowing that a human is near. This in turn keeps them from sucking the blood they crave.

Scientists are working on the problem of turning this knowledge into a practical compound that can be used by humans to keep the mosquitoes off. I hope they get it working soon!!

We’ve hit 80 degrees a couple of times already, so I’m starting to think SUMMER. As much as I like the beach, sometimes you don’t want to deal with the parking issues, the long hike, and the sand in your shoes just to get some swimming. There are plenty of days when I would really like to get home from work, throw on my swim trunks and jump in a swimming pool.

Our neighborhood does not have a community pool – one of the drawbacks of living in a house instead of an apartment. So, we’ve been looking at above ground swimming pools to fit in a corner of our backyard. Both of our neighbors have installed high privacy fences, so all we would have to do is put up a fence cross the back – for safety.

I know the neighbors would want to get to be better friends if they thought we would invite them over for a swim in our backyard pool. And we could have some righteous pool parties on Friday nights, with the barbecue grill smoking and some ice cold beverages. Maybe even some string lights around the edges and a couple of outdoor speakers for good music. It’s starting to sound like a really good plan to me.

When you have a large family like I do, it seems here are a lot of memories of kids getting sick or being hurt. I know my folks had more than their share of doctor visits for us kids. We all got the measles at the same time, and we all got the chicken pox, although that was spread out over many years. My sister got pneumonia once, and we had to use a Vaporizer in her bedroom to help her breathe.

I guess we always thought that Vaporizers were just for babies, but it tuns out that all ages can benefit from them. I know my sister had to use one for almost to months – she was so sick that she didn’t come out of her room for a long time, and she almost failed school because she missed so much class time.

Now, that same sister has kids and she swears by the Volcano Vaporizer that she got when her son was sick with bronchitis. She also uses it to help when she has spring time allergy attacks. It seems that after all these years and all the news things the doctors can do today, that sometimes the old fashioned remedies still work the best.