The first round of blackberries are ready for picking, so get your buckets and come help us get rid of them. No matter how vicious I am with the blackberry clippers, they grow back. So, we have a zillion of them. If you don’t like them for eating, it’s always fun to give them to little kids so they can smear them all over each other. That’s always fun.

These things are all over the place and they are very clingy when attacked. Long sleeves, long pants, hats, and leather gloves are a must unless you have are OK with pain and bleeding. The upside is, of course, they taste really good and make the challenge of picking them worth it.

My unsupervised forays into the wilderness surrounding our home have been limited due to the high temperatures we’ve been having. High for us, that is. It’s really only in the high 80’s and low 90’s, but gets into the 60’s at night so sleeping is wonderful. Since I generally don’t venture outside unless I have something important to do, like remove weeds, rake rocks, haul trees to the burn pile, stuff like that, I always wind up expelling huge amounts of moisture that must be replaced. I know this because my lovely bride makes it her mission to ensure I don’t run dry. She brings me large glasses of water on a regular basis, and I’ve learned that I can go get it all by myself, when I want, leaving her free to do more important things like cook dinner for me, or clean the house. You know, woman-type work. That sounds a bit sexist, I guess, but we have a relationship where I take care of things outside the house, and Diane takes care of things on the inside. She told me that once. It’s good to be king.

Having said that, I must share that Jeran would disagree – I’m not the king. Instead, Diane is the queen. He has no illusions about who’s in charge at my location. Neither do I, really. I just have lapses in common sense once in a while and think I’m the ruler. Diane will agree.

Diane just left to play bunco at a friend’s house, so I’m alone with the TV remote. It’s a rare event for me to have the remotes in our living room. The Man Room is where I’m free to change channels to my heart’s desire. Fortunately, Diane’s remote and my remote are just exactly alike so I know how to use it.

That’s what I’m going to do, right now. Just sit here and randomly change channels.

What fun.

Don’t forget those blackberries.