And so this is where I was on 9/11. Jim and I were reconstructing an 1899 stone house in San Antonio and I took every opportunity to get away. This was a weekend retreat loaned to me for several days by friends, outside San Antonio, Pipe Creek. I was working on Enemy Women; peace and silence. I turned on the radio that morning to find some classical music station before starting work on the manuscript, and ABC radio news was on and they stayed on. The first plane had just hit the tower and they were speculating that it was an accident.

And so the morning went on. I never got a yard away from the radio. Finally packed up and returned to San Antonio. Everyone in the house was sitting in front of the TV and completely silent. They were silent all day. I found that strange. No one said a word.

A photo from Caroline Woodward and Jeff George, lighthouse keepers on Lennard, a rare sunny day and a great photo of Woody up on the catwalk of the light tower. She e-mails they have had the gloomiest and drowningest summer on record. I wish I could lift off this ironclad high that is pinning us down here in Texas and send it wholesale to Vancouver Island but alas.

Antihistamines, antibiotics, so boring to be down with sinus and creeping around, head somerwhat like the old 19th century diver’s helmet. At any rate I get in 3 hours a day writing no matter what…neighbors just got their American citizenship and I was at least able to go down and help decorate their house with flags, bunting, red-white-and-blue bouquet, for when they came home from the swearing-in ceremony in San Antonio. I insist on being well. BTW this illustration by Sergio Membrillo, from blog Nautilus.

So many trees are dying — flat-out falling over. Driving to uvalde to do my shopping I pass a small deserted ranch/farm house with three very tall pecan trees, one of which is dead and the others getting that way. Somebody owns that land, couldn’t they just water those wonderful tall trees once in a while? It’s infuriating.

But —- in the photo of my blue cattle-tank swimming pool you can see beyond it the trunk of one of my Spanish oaks that fell over. Actually it split in half. This was while the leaves were all green. I had watered it enough, or so I thought. Who knows.

Working on the sequel to Lighthouse Island and loving it. Haven’t ridden for a month almost except just here around the house, none of the girls are riding, too hot,maybe in a couple of weeks.

This is The Slot, the narrow channel between Lennard Island and its tiny apprendage island. I was going to use this more in Lighthouse Island, an early draft had somebody falling into it, but then decided that didn’t work. But it’s interesting; the tide charges through twice a day at full rip, one way and then the other way.

Working on the sequel to LI, have been looking up train-hopping videos on YouTube. There is quite a little society of train-hoppers.

Drought still very bad, today it will hit 102, the Indigo was on my back porch this morning. Chased him away. Don’t want to go out and step on a five-foot black snake with a cup of coffee in my hand.

Once a day I turn on the spray for the birds, even though we are supposed to be conserving water. The birds absolutely love it. They fly through it, stand in it and fluff their feathers, sing; sparrows, painted buntings, redbirds, the oriole, the bright blue scrub jays. I turn it on about 4, when it’s hottest.

Some roadside flowers blooming even in July and even in this drought. HC publicity people are lining me up for a few readings around Texas. My problem with readings and appearances is that I have animals — two horses, a donkey (anybody want a donkey? I’ll bring him to you, free of charge) and Rita the Whippet and two twin tabby-fellow cats. who, even as I speak are out murdering birds. Despite collars with bells on them.

And so I have to hire people to come and feed, take cats to cat-boarding-place. Friends would do it but you can impose on friends just so much. So there’s a lot of preparation and arranging and so on. Actually I love appearances, readings. It’s an ego-enhancer, a time to play dressup, excuses for new clothes, luxurious nights in places where they serve you food and clean your room. Not bad, not bad.

If they put me up in a Drury Inn I can bring Rita The Whippet.

We’re lucky to have a truly great fiddler here in this small community. Tom Bomer. He operates a cedar-clearing Bobcat and plays at contests and at church. Great voice, too.

Any distraction at all will kill the following fifteen minutes of writing. At my kitchen window, scribbling this sequel to Lighthouse Island by hand, I wonder if the cat is going to fall into the pool.

It’s a 500-gallon cattle tank, on a deck, a little bit of rainforest here in this dry July, and I wonder if he falls in, does he have enough sense to swim to that lawn chair in the water and get out? Of course. There went fifteen, twenty minutes.

Fascinating series of illustrations from about 1890’s; ‘France In The Year 2ooo’. The illustrators tried to imagine a century ahead — interesting how they could not see that social mores might change; our underwater siren has long skirts. And were apparently not able to understand the effects of underwater skirt-drifting and croquet-ball hitting.

There are a good number of these imagingings, just use Google/Bing images ‘France In The Year 2000’. Thus it is with sci-fi, imagining the future, we are always really stuck in our own time, especially in terms of social stuff.

Icon won! First in the VanIsle race. This is my godson Seamus George who was often at the wheel.