Supposedly solar flares have bungled up some electronics, but I haven't had any problems, but this morning I thought maybe I had. I kept calling Ramey's, a new store in Richton Mississippi, 20 miles north, and the phone rang and rang but no one answered all day. So then I called the drugstore inside Ramey's--they didn't answer either. Mmmmm.

So finally I phoned the police dept. and told them neither Ramey's, or the drugstore were answering their phones. Was it solar flares? Had the store burned down? What? So the dispatcher said no, a truck had driven through last night and torn down some wires. Okay.

On the way to Richton I had to poke my nose into something. Three two lane concrete bridges are being rebuilt over swampy areas on the way to Richton. Now I noticed some of the pilings under the concrete spans were at an odd angle. Most pilings were standing straight like the tines in a fork, but intermittently, you can see pilings that look as if someone had given then a hard kick and were tilted. So I got as close as I could down the closed road and a worker came over to see what I wanted.

I said you know some of those pilings are tilted? He said yes, they're put in that way in case of high water, so the water can go around them and not be washed out.
Well, I still don't understand it but I went on. I mean if you're curious about something, how are you gonna know if you don't ask?


(Speaking of that, one time I called what I thought was the smartest man I knew, a physicist and asked why don't trees growing on slopes lean into the embankment instead of struggling to grow erect and upright? The man said he didn't know what I wa talking about and blew me off. WELL! A couple of years later I read it's called positive geotrophism and it's an effect of gravity. I sent the smart man a note to let him know what it is.)

This time of year the red swamp maple and the redbud trees are blooming; the dogwood will soon burst into bloom; the tung trees are blooming, and the miniature pink azaleas in front of the house are in full flower. And what with all the rain, today I got bitten by my first mosquito (three of them in fact.)

Later; susil--I'm scratching!
Oh BTW; I heard Mississippi mentioned twice on NPR this morning--One, Mitt Romney is in Mississippi today, and secondly that mealy mouthed fathead ex governor of ours Haley Barbour is off the hook for pardoning over 200 prisoners and cons on his last day in office. He was actually the biggest con man of them all.