Up 'n Down

Spring has lasted longer this year than I can ever remember, and I'm sure not going to complain about that.  What is difficult to cope with are the extreme changes in temperature nearly every day.  From jacket-all-day chill and rain, we went straight into 80-degree days (90 down in the valley).  Weather Guy now says we'll get a 20-degree drop by Thursday.  Evidently Nature has a thing for roller coasters.  Whee!

There has always been a flag pole at the corner of the deck and I like to put the flag up on appropriate holidays.  Yesterday being Memorial Day, I took the flag out in the morning.  There is no slack whatsoever in the rope and the pulley at the top is cranky so it was a bit of a struggle to get Old Glory up and flying.  I really ran into trouble at sundown.  It is disrespectful to leave a flag out after dark so I did my darndest to get the rope moving, but it was a no-go.  (And they say what goes up must come down.  Ha!)  Finally in desperation I put in a call to Beau.  Fortunately, he was down in P'ville and said he'd stop by on his way home.  It's hard to ask for help in such a dumb situation, but....

All's well that ends well.