We saw the most beautiful sunset this evening. Started out in a brilliant yellow and lingered for quiet a while in a vivid red sky before fading to pink. One of those times I wished we lived on a hill with an unobstructed view to the west. The hummingbirds are swarming our four feeders - getting ready for that long flight south which should be soon.

Finally cut the last Rita relic - the big oak in the back yard. Still have a large mass of roots sticking into the air but they are really artistic. I trimmed the roots a little. We are going to leave the roots and plant flowers and vines with the roots as a backdrop. I used the Ford 8N to pick up and move the logs. We now have a large burn pile out back. Might make for an evening around the fire in November.

One of our remaining three pines has died. We had four majestic long leaf pines but Rita got one and damaged two others. This poor thing had a rough childhood (the top had apparently been seriously damaged while it was young), lost several limbs when Rita blew another pine into it, and now the Pine Beetles have gotten into it and killed it. We will need to cut it down now. It survived major trouble and a little bug got it.

We went to Lufkin yesterday and repaired Aunt Doris' fence. Took several hours with a few rain interruptions. I had forgotten how hard the clay is in Lufkin. Makes me really appreciate the sand we have here.