Kaden wrapped up his weekend with us on Sunday, and we drove him back to Little Rock after church.  Because of our timing, no Sunday School for us. We have a great class, but I’ve missed all but one session on the study of Romans—looks like it will be an independent study of Barclay to catch up.  Anyway, while in central Arkansas to return Kaden, I did some shopping!  I have crossed over to the dark side—buying an I Phone 4S a few days ago, and then, on Sunday afternoon, bought a new I Pad, giving the Kindle Fire to Kay.  The learning curve keeps getting steeper and steeper.
UNCLE JACK.  Monday, we were honored by a visit of new old RVing friend, Jack.  We met Jack at RedRock RV Park in Island Park, ID, this past summer where we were neighbors, and visited again in January in Rockport, TX this past January.  Jack, a full-timer, is making his way north, then east for the summer, and is spending a few days in Shirley, AR.  He is best known for his acerbic sense of humor, and weaving baskets from pine needles.
He is quite good at basket weaving, and no two look the same—and you thought basket weaving was a PE course for athletes.  His are a piece of art, and are to be collected!  The process—from picking out the needles, boiling them in glycerin, drying, and the actual weaving—is quite laborious and time consuming.  We had a great visit, enjoyed some of Kay’s chicken enchiladas, and swapped stories; we hope to see him again next winter somewhere in Texas.  Jack forgot to bring a special pine-needle basket he made for Kay, and made the trip back up to our house from Shirley on Tuesday; it’s shown here with one of Kay’s bracelets.  What a great guy; at least we got to enjoy another cup of coffee with him before next year.

WEATHER, FLORA, AND FAUNA.  Our weather, as in much of the country, has been unseasonably warm, with highs in the high 80s.  We have butterflies already, as seen from last week’s blog entry, but the birds are apparently busy building nests, etc., and are pretty scarce, though we still have a few around, mostly cardinals and titmice, with a family of pileated woodpeckers coming by for suet several times a day.  The dogwood trees are still blooming, though most are losing their flowers, many of the other species of trees are all almost leafed out, and the azaleas are about to burst into full bloom.  We have lots to do before summer,and will begin taking advantage of the cool mornings to weed, move plants, put out mulch, and plant annuals.
After John and I paddled the Buffalo River on Friday (separate blog entry), I slept sporadically Friday night, waking up with soreness from so much physical activity.  Up at daylight, I cleaned out the Explorer, Kay’s call Friday night—the hint to buy cypress mulch at Home Depot for $1.27 per bag—did not go unnoticed.  Her phone call was a slight nudge for me to hightail it to town and buy mulch. Guess we know what’s in store for next week.