I didn't want to trim the evergreen shrubs in front of the house tonight because the thermometer said 91º, but the forecast here is rain the next few days, so I thought I might as well bite the bullet and try to get ahead of the game.

The 91º didn't feel as bad as I expected it to. Maybe the 30 fewer pounds makes a difference.

Before I started in the front, I turned on the hose and watered the flower beds in the back. The beds are ready for a good weeding. Maybe tomorrow night.

I knew I wasn't going to be able to do a complete job tonight because my back was going to give out before I would. My plan was to get the most curb-appeal bang for my buck. I sized the shrubs backed down to pretty much where they should be and did a rough pick-up job on my clippings. The house looks 100% better now from the street. That will buy me time to go back and fine tune the pruning with hand shears and pick up the remaining stray branches as I see them.

When I had all of my tools put away and ready to go inside I felt a little bit sticky and yucky. All of a sudden I had a flash back to being eight years old again after dinner. Back then you just hopped on your bike and rode down to John P.'s house to see if he was home. If not you just rode back. Maybe did a couple loops in a neighbor's driveway. Go down one cul-de-sac. Loop back and then go down the other cul-de-sac. Just feeling the warm summer breeze in your face and not really trying to go anywhere. So tonight I hopped on my bike and just rode on the sidewalk down six or seven houses. Looped in someone's driveway and went past the house and then six or seven houses in the other direction. Not going fast, just enough to get a cool breeze in my face and dry out my t-shirt. I did that three or four times. If a neighbor was watching they might think something was wrong with me (who knows, maybe you think that too) but oh well, it was a small pleasure I enjoyed.

The first driveway I looped back in to the east I saw something I have never seen before. There was a rabbit sprawled out in the grass on its belly just being lazy. I don't think he heard or saw me coming and I startled his little nap. He jumped up into his crouch position for a couple seconds and then took off.

I remembered I had a couple of bottles of San Pellegrino in the fridge so I popped a cold one and am enjoying that while I write this.

I think it is shower time and then sprawl out on the couch time to rest my back for the rest of the night.