Terry left this morning on a long-planned, several-day road trip with her friend Lisa-from-Indiana.  Steve and I should have no trouble taking care of Neil (and Cheryl, the part-time aide, arrives tomorrow to help) but it does mean even less time to "sneak" up to the pools.  So no soaking today.

This morning I got a pot of beef stew going for tonight's dinner.  It could turn out to taste a little bit different than my usual batches since there's no crockpot here - but Steve's pretty easy-going, and I certainly won't hear any complaints from Neil. <g>

Terry had refilled the feeder outside the kitchen window at 10:00 last night (after all the hummers were tucked into bed) so they could start feeding at first light this morning without having to wait for her to get up.  That liter had been guzzled by early this afternoon, lasting much less than 24 hours - when I refilled it without making the hungry little critters wait while I hand fed the brave few.

We actually got a few droplets of "rain" this afternoon... but when you can easily count the individual drops on the patio after it's stopped I'm not sure it even counts as a sprinkle.

Steve did some things to my laptop this afternoon, one of which 

was installing a defrag program that is currently doing its thing.  

In theory that will help speed things up.  There's NO reason why waiting for my list of e-mail contacts should take "forever" (and 30 seconds feels that way) to load!

Now that Neil has been changed (again) and fed (again) he shouldn't need much for a while, so I had planned to sit out back (with the baby monitor) and listen to my audio book.   I need to get it "read" before Book Club on the 23rd - but it started "raining" again.

But by the time I had finished typing but it started "raining" again and added the picture, the sprinkles stopped.  Maybe if I get my 'book' and chair and go sit outside that will work like washing a car, and I can get it to actually rain?  We desperately need it!

Forgot to mention that yesterday Steve went to a memorial for Tina, a 55-year-old Valley View regular who recently died from brain cancer.  It was held at the brewery in Crestone, and attended by many other 'regulars', so no surprise that his shirt was well-received:

Tina and her husband ran the recycling program here.  Unfortunately you can't read the sign in my photo, but one of the numbered items requests that whenever possible people take their recycling home with them; it's a 100-mile round trip from the hot springs to town.