Sid is giving a concert at Lonehollow, his last one was very successful. This time Tom will be playing as well, and they are both musical geniuses and their performances are not to be missed. I’ve had the honor and pleasure of playing alongside both of them; (have to brag).

November 2nd we had six inches of rain within a few hours, so our group was rained out of playing at the fall fair and all the booths and activities were absolutely drowned. Shelly Summers and her husband Lee had their booth awning collapse on them. Shelly and Lee are singing in cantata and I heard about it at cantata practice. But the rain was miraculous — we were in the last stages of drought just before we took on the appearance of the Gobi Desert. There are so many beautiful old trees down — just dried up, gave up and fell over. Trying again for Fall Fair on the 23rd — we already had our practice for the 2nd at Diane’s house, decided on songs, we have our scores, so it’ll be easy.

Christmas and my mailbox is overflowing with Christmas catalogues. Such a waste of paper! Mostly they go in the trash.

A writer friend in Canada asked me my opinion on the lack of working/rural people in contemporary literature — storytelling — and contributed his own — so I spent some time on the internet and lots of people are asking that question. And have been for years.

So the POV is almost always from the urban observer. “They” appear as dreadfully disadvantaged, poor, ignorant, abused hungrydesperateinferiorfaultydefectivestupid. Here’s the blurb for Tillie Olson’s Yonnondio ‘ “A life devoid of joy for a young girl, father drinks, mother always pregnant, all happiness destroyed.”

I never read it; who would? Yikes. It’s like bondage porn or something. Many eons ago when I was teaching a creative writing course at Philips Andover I pinned up a picture of one of my cousins and said, “Okay write something about this person and her life.” I happened to catch Macy sitting on the long front porch of her and Bill’s trailer, in a big floppy skirt, red hair flying out like a coronal eclipse — and every one of them wrote how she was longing to get to the big city, her husband beat her, she had ten kids, their truck was repossessed, she sobbed all night, they ate grits and fried alligator, her dad was a drunk, etc., you can imagine. Every. Last. One.

A fun place to go to research the LITERARY aspect — and I emphasize LITERARY (novels, stories, films, poems… LITERATURE) is TV Tropes, and you’ll have fun fun fun until your daddy takes your T-bird away. Look up ‘working-class hero’ — and there you will find said all that needs to be said and to heck with all the knowing clever and boring Guardian etc. articles.

Moths are not just the gray things flying around your lamp; I have found many in brilliant colors, or muted, delicate shades, and in the bright sunshine flying circles around one another dressed in sunshine yellow.

When it rains it seems, no matter what time of year, things bloom. My lantana under the big Spanish oak in back burst into flower after the Noah-level rain we got and is being sweetly assaulted, kissed, blessed and extravagantly loved by butterflies. Yellow ones; very yellow with the sunlight directly on them and then oddly greenish when backlit.

And one drab unglamorous fellow ignoring the gorgeous ones, nom nom nom on the floral banquet.

And so let us quietly contemplate the arrival of Christmas without panic. Yoga kitty!

…was set upon the date of the armistice signed to end world war 1 on the 11th day of the 11th month at 11 o’clock European time. Thank you veterans.

I don’t know who put this up in the town square but it’s clever and lovely. They used carrizo cane and grandpa-beard vine fluff, Fall fair is in November, our group will play in the afternoon at the cupola. Also playing for dear Skip Doerr this coming Saturday, his memorial service, and then in late October for the competitive trail ride gathering on the Four Sisters ranch.

I had a good trip to the U of Mississippi Literary Festival, spoke on a panel with Elizabeth Crook, she’s a delight, and managed to walk several miles all told. I’m getting better!

It’s been between 102 and 107 F. for days now. But that’s August in south Texas.

I got to spend time in a police station in Hondo! A thrilling experience.

I was driving home from San Antonio where I had just had a wonderful lunch and talk and gossip with Jimjr and Nadine and grandson Jimmy (J-III) at a restaurant in The Quarry, coming through Hondo, about a mile beyond on Highway 90, when my temperature gauge suddenly shot up into the red. So I pulled over and the computer, which now afflicts all vehicles, shut the engine down so I had no air conditioning and it was about 108 on the highway.

Luckily a nice young lady stopped and called the Hondo police and a very engaging young policeman named Mario Martinez came out and solved all my problems mainly by calling a tow truck for me. This mean rousting out an unfortunate driver who was having dinner with his kids (it was Sunday evening) and he said it would be two hours before he could come, he had his kids, they had to go back to their mom — obviously divorced and this was his time with his children — so Officer Martinez drove me into the Hondo police station to wait in the air conditioning for the tow truck where I was offered a bottle of cold water and shown where the ladies room was etc., everybody very nice.

But my troubles were not over. Officer Martinez returned to his duties and I waited and waited for the tow truck. The police station was a manufactured home, as they say, and cool, and empty. After a long wait I went outside to look for the tow truck and the door shut behind me and I had just locked myself out in the terrific heat and there was nobody in the station.

I walked all around the station and called and knocked and sobbed and came near to fainting until finally another officer drove up and opened the door for me with his clicker thing.

Hondo is a lovely town and they have a famous sign. There’s a story behind it. Sometime in the fifties the town council decided to put up a sign that said, ‘This is God’s Country. Don’t drive through it like Hell.’ Huge uproar over the use of the word ‘hell’. Finally it was proposed that the sign say, ‘PLEASE don’t drive through it like Hell.’ And for some reason this was acceptable to the opposition. The word ‘please’ some how seemed to undemonize the word regarding the Hot Place.

Hondo is in the flat country, lots of agriculture and big ranches, there was a WW2 airfield for training there and one of the old Supreme Court justices was sent there during the war for flight training. He said the place was hot as hell. I shop there a lot, get my vehicle inspected at Moreno’s (a Texas Ranger referred them to me), it’s not too far from Castroville.

My long-time friend Woody of Lighthouse Island (Lennard light station, Vancouver Island BC) finally got another one of her delightful children’s books published, and the artwork is first-rate, and there in the background is the lighthouse on Lennard Island. Congrats Woody!!

I got a big package of mail from Harper-Collins, fan letters etc., from 2020 and 2021. How this happened I don’t know but apologies to everybody who wrote and I will try to answer all these soon. I guess it was because of Covid and also the strike at HC simply confused things. I get very thoughtful letters from people about my books and they deserve an answer and so I’ll type up a form saying that this was lost mail, only recently delivered and sorry and all that and then address the writer specifically. They’re from the UK, and just about every state in the union. News of the World touched a lot of people, and I am glad to hear from them, so I have some catching up to do.

My dear Buck is coming to the end of his life and I am going to lose him as well as Girl Dog. Am writing on the new far-future novel, have it printed out and in a binder so I can work on it laying in bed instead of sitting up at the computer. Spinal injections delayed until this coming Tuesday. I have my hopes up. Would love to ride again if only just around and around the house.

That was in 2016. He was 11. I had my checkbook in my hand and was ready to write out about any amount, and if the guy had seen the look on my face when I saw him the price would have gone up a thousand dollars.

Once we were riding in the Bandera State park and came to a difficult, almost straight up-and-down cliff, and the rest went up mounted but I was reluctant to try it on horseback, they had struggled up and the trail was a mess, so I got off him, took off his bridle, and said “Buck, go on up.” He went up straight and easy and when he got to the top turned and looked down at me, and waited for me, without a thing on his head. No bridle, nothing. I came up on foot and we went on. Lots of memories.

The beasts knocked over a can of pant and went dancing all over my NEW RUG and the newly finished floor on which that Rick Miller did such a beautiful job!!

But it was because Girl Dog wasn’t here. Even if she could barely walk or see she would still start after them — her nose told her where they were.

So Girl Dog has gone over the rainbow bridge as they say, she was nearly blind, almost wholly deaf and could barely walk. Also had lost control of bodily functions. I miss her very much. Every time I hear thunder I think, ‘she’ll be scared, have to get her inside’ or some particularly nice bit of leftovers, ‘she’ll love this’…

She was a great companion. Very quiet, not demonstrative, but simply and quietly at my heels every day. She was a rescue so I don’t know how old she was. My friend Evelyn O’Hara asked me to take her and I did and we have had many adventures over the years. . So I buried her with a penny to pay the ferryman. I had thought I was completely out of change, having given it all to the kid’s collection at church but just on a chance I looked into the change container and there in the middle of the bottom all by itself was a bright new penny. So she was meant to have it.

All we got out of it was half an inch of rain, just now. And much cooler temperatures. Friend Evelyn O’Hara was with her dad in Texas City and texted us (us other three who ride together, named The Saddle Sisters by June)high winds and no electricity but it was only for about 24 hours — I think. I’ll hear ore shortly on the text thread.

I don’t have any social media and they are all on Facebook so they sometimes forget I haven’t heard the latest but they always catch me up later.

Letter from Elvia, Coatepec, Jalapa State, Mexico

That’s Elvia in the middle, at a birthday party for the friend on the left, in Coatepec; (Veracruz State, Mexico)

Hi Linda…we hope the (cortisone injections for hip) is enough and you are able to be without pain. No doubt that old age is really aggressive, we have to bear with white hair, griefs, pains, deafness, foolishness, stubbornness and wrinkles, jajaja. But we are a little more wise at least.

Well I am still enjoying my colorful trip (to Uzbekistan). I learned a lot and I am still reading, thousands of details from such cities. …I knew Khiva was a commercial place where you could buy horses, camels, slaves then caravans during the XIV and XV centuries…it was very exciting to walk the old paths…Samarcanda was the place I liked the most…

We (Elvia and niece Mariana) walked everywhere and could “talk” to people thanks to the translator application at the telephone, sometimes in English and Oh!! Surprise!! we met students that wanted to practice their Spanish because they are taking Spanish classes at the university. Everyone was very nice, very kind…There are a lot of tourists, French, Russians, Germans and Italians…I didn’t met any American and no one Mexican, only Mariana and Elvia jaja. You see Spanish people with their cell phone in hand every corner…

Around here we had a long drought too for almost two months. We had fires close to Cosautlan at the forest between Veracruz andPuebla states. The inhabitants asked for help and the government sent helicopters, firefighters, etc. Coatepec, Xalapa and Xico population organize a food and water collection to help people who live over there. Besides serums for workers. Fortunately we had a big rain last Saturday…we are happy again with water coming from heaven. It’s a long letter sorry about it, but many things to say…

Elvia is from the large and quite marvelous Contreras family and taught for thirty years in the Mexican government school system in Coatepec, attends a tertulia concerning Latin Ameican Literature and is a great traveler. Take note; she asked me if I knew anyone who needed a nanny/tutor for a year as she wants to improve her English. My friends know how to get hold of me. Her English is far better, at this point, than my Spanish. Am ordering a facing page translation edition of the collected poems of Antonio Machado, my much-beloved favorite, so am forging on.

Random thoughts

I don’t know why — or when — the massive migrant populations in the western countries don’t simply dump the ‘left’ and form their own political parties and take over themselves. Why mediate your political presence through an almost completely European urban upper-class ‘left’? There are enough legal and illegal migrants to form political organizations themselves. They could simply vote themselves into power and award themselves whatever perks they like. They could form a majority in the parliamentary systems and rule the country. This would depend on nationalities, I suppose, but there must be illegal immigrants who are expert organizers and are probably organizing toward this end already. I mean, it only makes sense. I know I am not the first person to think of this.

I think this is going to happen sooner or later.

We were expecting rain from Hurricane Beryl but nothing.

I got a marvelous and funny letter from Elvia, I asked her if she mineded if I quoted her so will put that together for tomorrow.

One of Jeff’s calendar pictures, most amazing. A seascape with rope.

(It was June 15th) — A birthday party for June and Evelyn. We had a table reserved for us at the Laurel Tree but when we got there Laurel gave us the treehouse!! Somebody had cancelled and so she said it was a gift for Evelyn and June for their birthday. It is truly beautiful and usually booked months ahead of time. Thank you Laurel!

Me, Evelyn, June, Jan and I don’t have a picture of Rebecca but one of these days I will..

This is Jan, and it was good to see horsewomen and the cantata singers together. Jan is a soprano.

Evelyn and June. A great gathering!