Severe thunderstorms, hail, and we are under a tornado watch

Decided to do a post earlier than usual as we are expecting severe thunderstorms, hail, and are under a tornado watch. At least that was the plan but the bad weather hit us earlier than forecasted.  

When I checked with AccuWeather they only gave me a one-minute warning of large hail.

This part of town was extremely lucky to have only had pea size hail. Unfortunately, Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila (border city with Del Rio) was pelted with golf and softball size hail and there was a lot of damage.

Yesterday I emptied the last of my water catchment in preparation for what was going to be tonight's storms. They almost filled up after the first storm and when the second one came around they overflowed.

Though you can barely make it out the hail is hitting the water catchment.

Right now (10:30 p.m.) San Antonio is being hit by large hail and is also under a severe thunderstorm warning and tornado alert. Earlier this evening Hondo and D'Hanis small towns close to San Antonio had a tornado touch down that left a lot of damage.

KENS-5 just lost power but their generator kicked in. I can hear the thunder outside. Right now they are concentrating on San Antonio weather as they should be, so I will post this before I lose power and try to see what the weather holds for us this evening.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid Saying of the Day

Blogger problems / Bargain Block / Discovery Plus

Both yesterday and today we were in the low 90's but it did not feel like it due to the winds. This morning they started out of the north which brought a nice cool breeze and this afternoon out of the west which worked well for drying the clothes in the solar clothes dryer.

I am once again getting a box where you type your blog but it does not look anything like what I am used to. I have a feeling it is going to once again combine all this into one paragraph. Penelope said she has heard other bloggers complain about this new feature (honestly did we need this?) but I have not heard it mentioned in any of the blogs I follow.

I will keep it short as it would drive me crazy to have to read this especially in those blogs where they cover a lot of subjects. Today I watched a new series on HGTV even wrote down the name but I can not find my notepad...CRS sucks! Anyway, I think it's called Bargain Block where a couple buys houses in the Cleveland area from the city for a thousand dollars and remodels them themselves. 

The selling price includes the furniture something the other shows do not. I have been noticing a lot of ads to sign-up for Discovery Plus for only $4.99 a month. Does anyone reading me subscribe to it and if so would you recommend it? 

Good night. May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid Saying of the Day
 

Header Pictures

Our first power outage since the deep Texas February freeze

These past two days we have been having wonderful temperatures in the '60s, gray skies, and today even light showers. This afternoon I was in the middle of a telephone call when the lights went out at 1:25 p.m. for no apparent reason.

I fully expected the grid to go down sooner rather than later after our Texas February deep freeze. I actually thought that would have happened two weeks ago when for two consecutive days we broke area records...one day it was 102 and the next 103...many air conditioners were put to work on those days. Today it was 64 degrees not exactly air conditioner weather. The power came back on at 2:47 p.m.

This evening I am having yet another problem with Blogger as I type this a new format or box has sprung up on me so I have no idea how this is going to turn out. 

As I hit Preview Button before I post it, it has crammed everything together though I typed this in five separate paragraphs. I just do not have the time to figure this out...maybe it is also happening to others? Tomorrow summer begins in West Texas we will be in the '90s into the foreseeable future.

Good night. May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid Saying of the Day

Where does the time go? / Wonderful rain / Cooler temperatures

No matter what time I go to bed I am usually awake by 5:00 a.m. though I am not up but many times I give up and start my day earlier than planned. Though to be honest I do not make plans either unless we have to go to an out-of-town appointment or for that matter in town...I usually wind up not sleeping at all for fear of oversleeping though on those occasions I set two alarms for added measure. Yet even when I get up early I do not have time to accomplish all the things I need to.  By the time I know it, it's evening and the day is gone. Where does the time go?

The first part of last week we were under a severe thunderstorm warning with large size hail possible. We are no strangers to hail as last April 2020 we were pounded by golf and baseball size hail and people are still getting their roofs repaired from that storm.  

Dad's 1982 Ford Fairmont Futura suffered a few scrapes, chipped tail lights, broken side mirrors, and dents. After that storm, I covered it with cardboard, old pillows, and an old bedspread but it was too little too late. I kept it covered during the entire rainy season since it is the only one of the cars that is not in the carport/garage because it can only accommodate three vehicles.

I even bought some strong magnets to hold everything in place for this year's stormy season. With an impending storm, where did I put my magnets? Who knows...it is hell to suffer from CRS 😕

I did manage to find four of them and some magnets that I had in the refrigerator door that turned out to be useless.

Paquito who is not scared of loud noises jumped on top of the car and napped while it was thundering. 

                                        

It rained a lot on Thursday, April 15th and I was able to fill my rain catchment containers.

I am once again having problems uploading pictures this time I think it is with Google Photos for some reason it wants to send them to a different location on my computer and I do not know how to prevent that from happening.

We have been enjoying some cooler temperatures last night it was downright chilly. I am enjoying them as I am well aware of what awaits us in the near future.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid Saying of the Day

A Very Productive Day - Updated

I decided to get my labs done today and get that out of the way. While I really like my new doctor I am not impressed by his staff...the first being his male nurse who told me that I just needed to come fasting as he had already sent the labs my paperwork (this was Monday). I show up today and he never sent them anything. I had to wait an additional 20 minutes because my doctor was with a patient and could not sign the order.

I was inputting my appointments to my medical calendar when I noticed that my follow-up was set up for 3 months and not the 4 months the doctor had written on his order. I got that taken care of over the phone Tuesday. The clinic is now part of Val Verde Regional Medical Center (the only hospital within 60 miles) they now have a full-time employee at this clinic whose sole job is to schedule appointments for the patients at the hospital. She set up an appointment for me for next week when it needed to be in May.

From there I went to the northside post office and then headed to the bank to deposit my stimulus check. The teller told me something odd...she said a lot of her customers had complained that they were sent checks instead of direct deposits to their bank account on this last stimulus payment. I bet the former administration had something to do with screwing that up for future stimulus payments after having lost the election fair and square.

I failed to mention that since I left the house the dashboard was lit. Now that I had the three most important things out of the way I decided to go for a drive to Comstock, Texas a small town 30 miles west of Del Rio. The only time I come by here is when I am on my way to Terlingua.

There were doing road work in Comstock so I kept on going since the speed limit is 75 mph and I wanted to exorcise the demons out of Midnight at times reaching 80 mph. Due to my CRS, I had forgotten how close the Pecos River bridge was so I headed there. 

Much like Lake Amistad, it is sad to see how low the water level has fallen.

The Pecos River in Literature and Folklore marker...

The Medal of Honor Fight 1875...

The Pecos River High Bridge marker...

This is a popular rest area but has no restrooms. Just for your information, there are no public restrooms between Del Rio and Terlingua, Texas...so you will have to visit a Stripes or similar store.

Dash lights were still on as I drove back to Del Rio.

It was a nice drive back.

For some reason, there was a lot of litter between Comstock and Del Rio.

I made several stops on the way the last being at the south side post office when the lights finally turned off...at least for now...

It was a very hot day we reached a high of 102 degrees making Del Rio the hotspot for the area covered by KSAT-12.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid Saying of the Day

Doctor's Appointment / Midnight is misbehaving / Stimulus check

I did not go anywhere this weekend because besides it being a holiday I did not want to tempt fate and break down when everything was closed.  It is amazing all the things you all of a sudden feel the need to do when you can not do them.

I did turn on the car several times during the weekend and there were no flashing lights on the dashboard. Though I know the problem does not surface until I am waiting for a light or at a stop sign, the car starts to idle and the lights come on.

I decided to arrive at my appointment an hour and a half earlier just in case.  I was across the street from the clinic when Midnight (that is my car's name) decided to act up at the stop sign.  I was relieved to make it into the parking lot.

This weekend I watched a lot of YouTube videos on negotiating the purchase of a vehicle and frankly it made me sick.  It seems that any way you look at it you are going to get ripped off especially when you go into the Finance Department which per the videos is where the big money is made. 

I did find some very useful advice from Kevin Hunter who used to be a car salesman but now helps people with his very helpful videos.  I am sure most car salesmen are not amused. I highly recommend this video even if you are not in the market for a vehicle:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0S9cQOPxzfg&t=1s

My doctor was very happy that my blood pressure reading was finally normal. I was surprised as well as I related what happened with the car. He gave me some brotherly advice (he is younger than I am) and even recommended a car repair shop he uses.

The northside post office is only three blocks away and I briefly considered walking to it but decided to drive and if I blew the motor so be it!  There is a road behind the clinic that is not used much though it is wide and you can go to many establishments like Rudy's Bar-B-Q, Walmart, a large Border Patrol facility, and soccer fields without navigating through the bottleneck that is Bedell Avenue.

I took Highway 277/377 to Sonora and traveled for about 40 miles going the speed limit of 70 mph. When I drove back into town I went directly to Auto Zone which is the first auto parts store when you come into Del Rio. While they could not help with the VSC is OFF light they said they could with the Check Engine Light.  However, there was a hitch...they could not do it for me I would have to do it myself since they were not permitted to enter a customer's vehicle due to Covid-19 restrictions. Me, connect the code reader?  I did not even try!  I thanked them and returned their unused reader to them.

When I took off...surprise...the lights had quit flashing! I headed to the post office on the south side of town to pick up the mail. I had a lot of mail as I sifted through it I was dumbfounded when I saw my stimulus check. Why would they mail it to me when they never have before?  All my tax refunds or anything to do with the IRS goes directly to my bank account.

I had my small ice chest and was going to stop at HEB to buy a diet ice cream when Midnight decided to act up again....grrrrrrrrrrrr!!!  I was so mad I just went home and pouted 😡

Today we had a high of  92 degrees but with the strong winds out of the SE, it did not feel so warm.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid Saying of the Day

Enjoying the cool temperatures

I am enjoying the last week of the cool temperatures we have been experiencing. It would have been excellent weather had it not been for the strong winds that have battered the area. I put those winds to work as I washed many of my thicker winter clothing then placed them to dry on the solar dryer (clothesline). I then packed them in my plastic containers to be opened when Chili Cook-off time rolls around.

Next week our "summer temperatures" will officially begin...oh boy! 😞

This week has been a rather difficult one especially if you happen to be a news junkie like I am.  Following the George Floyd trial has been emotionally draining...I can not even imagine how difficult this has been for his family and loved ones.

Then red states drafting and in some cases passing even stricter voting laws in Georgia and in my own state of Texas. Today I decided to take a break from cable news and instead watch a Houston channel on my Roku TV only to be made aware of another attack on the US Capitol that killed a police officer and injured another one...it was a bit too much.

Last night the winds were so strong it knocked the internet out.  I have been enjoying watching videos before going to bed to make me sleepy. Without WiFi that was not going to happen as we live far away from cell towers to even try it on my phone.

Good night.  May you all have Terlingua Dreams.

Aunty Acid Saying of the Day