Outdoors!

     Spent the afternoon sweeping off the concrete-block patio (the huge hackberry tree in the back yard drops green seeds everywhere) and assembling a new "fire bowl," the kind of screen-covered above-ground fireplace the city doesn't object to  The old one had rusted out after a dozen years and a rip in the cover that I had missed.

     The little fireplace gives me a way to use up the fallen twigs and branches, and it can be kind of nice to sit by as the evenings grow cooler (and the mosquitoes die off).  I'd ordered the thing before my unexpected medical bill showed up and I might as well get some good from it.