Steve and Judy's Travels!

It grows this big.

I give it a good whack back each year so it can have a fresh start each spring.  I thought I’d give it a break this year and only cut it back to waist high.

It didn’t appreciate the consideration.  It only wants to grow back right from the ground.

I had to get out the loppers and remove more dead stuff.  Now it won’t take long for the rest of the old stalks to disappear inside the new growth.

The Esperanza is looking happy with these warm days and cool nights.

Even Mighty Mouse is going for it.

But he still needs a tomato tower around him to make sure no lawn mowers accidentally mistake him for a weed.

A law school student in Florida wrote a paper espousing an unpopular belief; that our original constitution, when it said “We the people…”, only meant white people.  From there, the paper went on to describe how everything should be now, based on that interpretation.  Apparently, the paper won an award, not because it was right, but because it was well written.  There is outrage that a paper with that premise could win an award, even if it got a good grade.  An interesting debate: Should a person be recognized for writing something disagreeable if they do a good job writing it?  So many threads to pull on there.

All these years, and it still won’t break so we can replace it.  Well, after 13 years we finally gave up and traded it in for a newer used car.

We found what we wanted on Carvana, and they offered us a fair trade on the Mazda, so we took it.

A 2023 Model 3.

It looks good in our driveway.

Same size and shape as an American robin.

Only different in the color.  And the range.  American Robins are ubiquitous in the U.S. and Canada, only occasionally visiting here in the Valley in the winter.  Here though, and in Mexico and Central America, the Clay-colored Thrush is a year-round resident.

He’s a mimic, like a mockingbird.  We get serenaded with elaborate treetop songs.