The sun was out this morning and Carol washed a mountain of spinach while I planted chili plants and put up a trellis for the peas. The Senate started a good half hour late as has often been the habit this past month of waiting, redoing bills and battling back and forth between the the Governor and House and Senate Republicans. But here in the building, faces are not as somber, tense exchanges are forgotten. Grey haired men are back to telling stories. Reporters roam the halls and stairs expectantly.
We passed two transportation funding bills this morning, neither of which was substantial, one of which was pie in the sky, amusing. It would entice trucking companies to register here in Idaho. I stood and presented my final two appropriations bills. I see them flying through the brown granite halls to the House as a sort of trial test balloon. We are hopeful but there is a slightly tentative flavor to the hope. There have been close deals or trials with a whole array of transportation funding and education gutting legislation, almost all of which was killed in one body or another.
We are close to going home. We think.
The rain leaves fields safe from drought. We all know that soon it will dry and there will be pipe to move, fields to irrigate. We are close now. Really. We think.