Quite a weekend so far: grandsons over for most of yesterday while their mom was at a shoot, planted a tree, and watched a fair amount of football. The weather was beautiful, and it was a genuine pleasure to be outside pulling weeds and doing some other late-season tasks that I’ve been putting off.

The tree we planted is a Chinese pistache. We spotted a couple in a local parking lot of all places, and the colors are just spectacular - the most brilliant red and orange I’ve ever seen. We pulled over to get some pictures and an ID, and there was a whole parade of people doing the same thing when we left. I have two more to put in and will probably knock that out today. Very satisfying, planting trees. I highly recommend it. Our older grandson, who is four, came over to play in the dirt and watch/help. Whenever he comes over in the future to see it, I hope he remembers the day we planted it.

As for football, we watched the poor Blue Raiders go 1-9 against Western Kentucky and the Bulldogs go gloriously 9-1 against Texas. I haven’t watched a game that much fun in a while. Sorry Longhorns. Maybe next year. Ha, just kidding: maybe never.

Let me gloat a little while. The Alabama loss still stings.

Breakneck is good and moving quickly. I have I, Rigoberta Menchu hitting the front porch today and need to jump into it as soon as I can. I also acquired the Spanish edition of the Roman Missal so I could familiarize myself more with the liturgy generally and the deacon’s parts in particular.

I think I’m done putzing around with the blog’s templates and layout. When all’s said and done, I always return to a lightly tweaked version of Bear, so this is where I’ll stay. For now.