November 3, 2009
While I was on one of my walks with Peaches last week I met one of my neighbors, Joe Yager, who is a tractor expert (he owns several). We set up a tractor date: that's when I go buy the gas, hose off the family John Deere, clean out the rat crap, drag an extension cord out to the Tractor shed, air up the tires and cool down two Miller Lites in the fridge.

I always know when Joe is coming because I can hear the thump thump of his 1948 Series D John Deere coming down the road. After we primed the pet cocks, and took turns turning the big ol' fly wheel, Carl Marvin Bell's 1940 Series B John Deere came alive and I did my semi-annual paseo de tractor thru the neighborhood.

After solving several world problems (What's up with the wrinkled shirts they are selling today as new?), we posed for a victory photo. His wife Charlene took the photo:

Two beers followed.

The weekend before Kathy got on a kick to redesign our living room. It had gotten rather cluttered with all of our art and semi-art stacked in over the years. A neighbor, Cal, has a new business called "Arrange for a Change." She has you clean out your living room and put all the couches, chairs, coffee tables and stuff out on the patio. Then she shows up with an assistant and they slowly rebuild your living room using superior design theories (she has a degree). Here they are with Thomas Charles, rehanging our Spanish Rodeo Posters:

Here's Cal, and Deena (in chair) in front of the piece de resistance, a cluster of my paintings built over a tattered, old Arizona flag:

Kind of cool and very impressive. Not sure what to do with the remaining two tons of art and assorted sombreros piled up in the breezeway.

"Nothing runs like a deer."
—John Deere's brilliant slogan