I spent some time rest and reflecting on things Saturday instead of doing what work I had planned to do.

Not that there wasn't work to be done, quite the contrary. But I felt like I needed some quiet time. Spending a day that way is a good investment in yourself. Quiet time is like the stream that fills the pool of the soul. The water needs to flow in or the pool will become little more than a mudhole.

In as much as I am usually pretty busy, often allowing myself to become too busy to take time for such persuits, it was a welcome diversion from the ordinary. Besides, I was beginning to feel like I was starting to sink up in the mire.

So what if the kitchen sink needs to be caulked? Not to mention that the weedkiller needs to be sprayed, the landscape timbers put away, the bees worked on, the yard raked, the brushpile burned and the gutters cleaned? Those things can wait. I guarantee they'll be there the next time I get a free moment.

I already had work to do that evening, so I opted instead to spend some time with my family. In one way, I didn't want to be so tired by the evening that I couldn't focus on my task, on the other, I felt like it was time to take a little 'down time.'

Speaking of my family, I have had a few folks tell me that they thought I should write more about them, but I don't really want to make them little more than topics of my life's misadventures. They have to suffer enough as all this stuff goes on to start with, without having to read it in print afterwards.

We went in the morning to a few local yard sales. I was somewhat reluctant, as usual. Even so, as usual, I bought more stuff. I found two nice signed prints and a set of four chairs for an old dining room table that I need to sell. It's hard to sell a table without chairs.

When I returned home, I managed to do a few things, mostly just messing around. I got out the weedkiller and hit a few spots. The little dandelions still stand defiantly by the wayward blades of grass in my mulch bed, as if to say, "You can't touch this." There day is coming, sooner than they realize.

I sprayed a few of the ants around the house as well. Their time has already arrived. Water doesn't have as much of an affect on good bug poison as it does on weed killer. Someone found out that the stuff I use works, so now I can't buy it any more. I suppose the ants at my house were victims of slow-moving regulations.

The ants were trying to take over the house last week. After I sprayed the perimeter and the few hills I could find, their numbers were greatly reduced. In fact, I have only seen one or two at a time since, and then only drunken stragglers staggering around, not the organized units that were invading my kitchen counters.

But what little I did was only a little, to be sure. After I finished with the spray and cleaned my hands, I tried out my new hammock for the first time, finding it quite satisfying. I have it strung up beneath the apple tree in the yard. As the apples start growing on the tree, the hammock gets closer and closer to the ground. I suppose I need to move it, but the spot is shady and open to the cool breeze.

I spent about a half hour enjoying that breeze, which always seems to find its way up the hill to Grandview, seeming to come in to the house from the south for the most part this time of year. Of course, my house is on a south-facing slope, so that might have something to do with it. Sometimes it seems to come from everywhere at once — that is especially true in the winter, from what little I've seen. It was also that way when the hard rain storm blew in, like a surprise from the sky.

I saw the dark clouds gathering for their assault, first only a few and then more and more. Even so, when the rain started, I was still surprised by how hard it was coming down. I had to put away my sprayer and tools in the shed, just as a crack of thunder pealed out. It seemed like it almost hit the house. First the lightning struck and then the thunder immediately afterwards. I jumped and cringed at the same time, rushing for the house like a mouse running for its hole. I'm not a person who has more than an ordinary fear of thunder, but I have enough sense to go inside when the thunder and lightning are coming almost simultaneously. Just after I shut the door, I rushed to close the windows to keep the rain from blowing in behind the house. As I went, closing out the storm, the wind was whipping the water into the windows like a rapid tapping on a snare. I could almost hear the weeds cheer as the rain washed away the spray I applied.

The violence of a thunderstorm is always a surprise to me. The relative calm, cold and quiet storms of winter did little to prepare me.

I took the opportunity to catch up on my reading. It was as if I was in the eye of the storm, my little calm spot in the universe where I can sit quietly as the storms of life rage all around me. The book told me that even those who labor and are heavy laden can get some rest. I really liked the sound of that.

Even God took a break one day a week.

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