“Mules had nothing on him when it came to being stubborn.”

I was up at 6:30 a.m., but didn’t crawl out of bed until 7:15 a.m.
I went out to see if Lamont the stray survived the night and to feed him.
He was hatefully waiting on me. 
I was glad of that.

We’ve lost Chickie and Coop.
With adult male feral cats you try not to get attached because they’re not pets, but you’re feeding them and talking to them.
It still hurts to lose them.

I also got our kitty pets out of their night crates. 
They’d been cooped up since 3 p.m. yesterday afternoon. 
Badger let them out just long enough to eat and get some water after the fireworks last night, but they’d had a very long, cramped day yesterday. 
With everyone going in and out, they couldn’t be out of their crates. 
We don’t risk one getting out of the house, not with everyone in the neighborhood shooting off fireworks.

I released the cats and cleaned up the kitchen from last night.
Hey, I was lazy yesterday. Sometimes leaving dishes in the sink is perfectly all right.

Then I sat down to play on the computer for a while.

Cowboy and Badger were up at 10 a.m. this morning.
Cowboy took our trash to the little dump. 
He said it was lined way back into the road. 
All that holiday trash no one wants to leave around.

Then we made a very quick trip to the Dollar Store to replace the headphones Badger gave Zwei. Badger and I told Cowboy that it’d make a lot more sense and be less aggravating to just take us to town with him.
There’s a Dollar Store across the road from Finis’s house. Instead of making three unnecessary trips, make two trips. Drop us off at the Dollar Store, we’d shop while he was helping Finis, and then he could pick us up when he was done. Oh no, he couldn’t do that, too much trouble. Big snort here. So, after taking us to the store and back home, he went to town to help Finis out.

He wasn’t gone very long, and he was angry when he did get back. He was supposed to give Finis’s dog his shots.
Cowboy goes up, and Finis doesn’t have the vaccines. A waste of time, and you have to remember, it takes 40 minutes for us to go to town and back.
Cowboy works today.

He came in, fed the chickens, gathered the eggs, and we had dinner ready early today.
He ate dinner and got a brief before work nap in.

After Cowboy went to work, Badger and I put our yard pretties back out in the yard and cleaned the pool out. 
I’d never seen scum in it like today. 
All I can think of is maybe powder from the fireworks, or the boys were wearing sunscreen, so maybe that came off in the water. 
Badger and I had to actually clean the pool instead of just draining it. 
It takes a good bit of time to drain all the water out, so we left it and came in to watch TV for a while. 
It’s so miserably hot outside, you just can’t be out very long.

Heron came home from work and picked up his keys and his dog.
His old boss closed down a restaurant but still had some inventory.
He gave Heron a box of glasses, and Heron split the box with me.

I brought the glasses back up to the house, and Badger put them in the dishwasher and started it.
I started a load of clothes, and then we headed out to the she‑shed.
As we opened the back door, this big loud boom of thunder hit.
We decided to just go on out to the she‑shed.
It’s not unusual to hear thunder but never get a storm.
We got to the she‑shed, sat down, and a giant flash of lightning cracked across the sky.
That’s a huge nope.
We grabbed our books, picked up our phones, and headed back inside.
Just as we opened the she‑shed door, the sky opened up and the rain poured down in buckets
Badger ran and turned the garden hose off, and then we headed inside.

The storm didn’t last very long, so I went and fed the strays and turned the water back on to the pool.
 I told Badger that the sky was just weird looking. 
Heron saw us looking and came out of his RV. 
He agreed it looked strange outside, but maybe not tornado strange. 
As we were standing gawking, a huge streak of lightning went across the sky diagonally. 
I don’t think I’ve ever seen diagonal lightning before. 
Needless to say, we scurried back into the house. 
It didn’t storm, it was just lightning flashing several times. 
Heron sent Lady up with us. 
I guess if a tornado had hit, he planned on going down with his RV and the cat but made sure his dog was safe. 
Oddly enough, on one side of the house I had blue skies and a rainbow, and on the other side I had stormy skies.

We just gave up and watched TV the rest of the evening.

I did send Cowboy a video of my dryer.
He insists that I don’t need a new one.

So if I can get him out of bed in time tomorrow, he’ll have to take it apart again.
I think there comes a point where you can’t keep taking a dryer apart just to prove your point that it’s something caught in the drum and a new one isn’t a necessity.
The last two times, there was nothing caught in the drum.

Heron picked up Lady just after 11 p.m.
I’ve got a movie I want to finish, and then I’ll head to bed.