Finally, I reveal what I have been up to lately - comments welcome

It has been a very busy month for me, and I have neglected my AR blog while making the proverbial hay. Now I'm going to play catch-up and just offer a stream of consciousness post for my loyal readers. You'll be rewarded with a photo at the end.

I am not going to be Twittering. I don't even make time to blog as often as I should, much less tell people what I'm doing every few minutes. If Congress people do it and TIME has an article about it, I think it's on the way out. Plus, I need a new phone with a better keyboard and better access to webmail. It's not like I have huge thumbs like Uma Thurman, but I'm much better typing than thumbing.

I need a new phone, even though my Sprint plan won't give me a discount until December. I'm thinking about a Blackberry, but when I stopped by RadioShack to play with them, there were a couple of others I thought were easier to use: the HTC, Rumor, and Rave. Also, the Palm Treo was intriguiging. I'm a long-time Palm Pilot user, but from what I've read on discussion boards, the Windows software is more robust for PDAs than Palm's. I was all excited about the Palm Pre until I saw several comments about how fragile it seemed to be, especially the QWERTY keyboard. I am hard on phones, so that won't work for me.

All the QWERTY keyboards were too small to actually be useful for major typing extravaganzas anyway. I may research add-on keyboards and see if I can find a portable one that attaches or Bluetooths to a phone.

I could get a wireless card and take my laptop with me, but then I'd have to find someplace to park in the shade or go to Starbucks and fire up the laptop and wait for it to load, etc. Starbucks are too noisy. It has been over 100 degrees the past few days in San Antonio, so sitting in a car for longer than 3 minutes is not viable.

It has been really really hot and dry recently. Two days last week were record breakers. We're anticipating moving to the next stage of watering restrictions any day now. Our grass is turning crispy, and I typed up a list of the plants we are going to try to save and those we'll have to let go. We'll try to save the trees, of course, and the expensive shrubs and hard-to-find flowers if we can. The grass and blue-flowering sage will have to fend for itself. We don't have to worry about the plumbago plants--they just keep on blooming and haven't wilted yet. We don't have to worry about the purple heart, either.

What I am worried about are the bees. We have hardly seen any bees this year, and last year our garden was full of them. We have the same flowering plants they loved so much last year, but I've only seen a few on the purple heart and the sage. They should be all over the lemon thyme. When I have some time, whenever that is, I will have to see if there is a local beekeeper who would like to locate a hive in our back yard.

In fact, it has been pretty quiet in our back yard, especially at night. We haven't seen or heard any marauding raccoons this year, for which I'm grateful. We have more birds than usual, though. It's probably because of the compost heap. The cardinals and mockingbirds wait for us to dump kitchen scraps on the compost heap and then pick through it. My husband told me that watermelon rinds completely disappear the day after they're deposited there. We also have lots of cute house finches and wren-type birds this year. They bounce around on the deck sometimes, and one of them has the loudest voice for such a small bird that I've ever heard. I thought he was a cardinal at first until I spotted him on the corner of the deck blasting out his triumphant call.

And the hummingbirds are mobbing the feeders. We now have at least five regular visitors, possibly six. I am having to refill the feeders every other day. The house finches get on them, too, and I have to shoo them away and point them toward the bowl of water I put out for their use. I went out this morning at 6:30 to refill one feeder, and stood on the deck for a few minutes among the hummingbirds in their feeding frenzy. It is so fun to watch a hummingbird hovering in front of you just a few feet away, checking you out.

A mantis meditates on the lemon mint

Well, I have finished my coffee and need to get to work. I have a busy day ahead of me, removing signs and lockboxes from two just-sold listings (hurrah!), inspecting a home I need to lease, and meeting up with a first-time home buyer to go look at houses. I am making hay while the sun shines.