A New Year

I'm so glad that 2011 is over, it was not a good year here at Draco. After Lyn fell and broke her arm in March, a compound fracture that required plates and screws, her back started to bother her. After months of agonizing pain and many doctors visits and finally surgery, she is almost a hundred percent again. During this time I had to step up and do all the cleaning, washing and cooking and still try to make a living. I didn't realize how much that little woman does around here. I always wondered what the two big white cubes in the shop were for. You can actually wash and dry clothes in them. Who knew?

We have been married for 31 years now and Lyn has exercised every one of those days, always wanting to lose a few pounds. Well, after several months of laying on the couch, getting no exercise and eating my cooking it appears she lost 12 pounds. If her back problems had persisted for much longer I would have starved her to death.

Just when I was able to sneak a post in during September we found out her Dad had lymphoma and would have to start chemo. A few weeks later her mother found out she had cancer in her liver, originating from her breast cancer 16 years ago. While it seems an ingrained tradition to hate your in laws, that is not my case. I have the best mother and father in law that a man could want and feel I should do every thing I can to make their problems better.It's made things a little slow here on the blog but things are starting to perk back up a bit.

The gardens took a pretty big hit this last year with the drought and me not taking very good care of them but it can be fixed. The damage  to the country side around here looks to be permanent. A drive just before Christmas shows the damage.

These are not trees with fall colors but are dead trees. The next three pictures are driving along CR 258 going toward Tejas Camp.

It seemed that the Spanish Oaks were hit the hardest with the Cedar Elms almost as bad. This is a view from Ronald Reagan just north of Hwy. 29.

The damage here at the house wasn't as bad but I will show that here in a few days.