From the back porch - 8/29/17

The Husband made it to California just fine, thanks for asking.  I'll be glad when he gets home.

Meanwhile, I putter.

I was right irked with myself yesterday afternoon for goofing off the way I did, but I just could not get interested in anything.  I've done better today.  When I got home from work, I made myself sit down and get to work embroidering some towels I bought for a wedding gift.  My cousin's kid is the bride.  They invited me to a shower last weekend, but I was battling the devil at the time (it was a draw) and did not go.  Plus, I'd only learned of the shower a few days in advance, and I hadn't had time to do the towels.  I did them today.  Nothing fancy, just an initial with an oval border around it.  I hope she likes them.

Here it is, nearly the first of September, and I have not started on Christmas things for my craft booth.  Hadn't even given it much thought until I found a table topper I'd not finished last year.  I spent days blanket-stitching felt snowmen on this table topper, and then melted the embossed background fabric when I pressed it.  I wanted to cry.  After a bit of sniveling, I shoved it in a bag and forgot about it. This year, it doesn't look nearly so bad to me.  I think I can patch that melty spot with a snowflake.  ;)

From the back porch - August 28, 2017

Boy, sometimes, things sure don't turn out as we expected, eh?

This week, the boss lady was supposed to be on vacation, and since I try to take my vacation at the same time she takes hers, I was supposed to be on vacation, too.

All sorts of things cropped up.  First, The Husband scheduled a work-related seminar for the same week.  I knew about this months ago and had made other plans for my week off - or, rather, I'd come up with some ideas for things I might want to do this week.  I thought about going to Alabama to do some genealogy research.  I thought about staying home and working on improving the soil in the vegetable garden, or maybe sewing, or painting, or practicing the mandolin, or whatever my little heart might desire.

Then the boss lady's grandbaby got sick, then a hurricane came.  Her grandbaby is much better, thank you, but doesn't need to be back in nursery school just yet, and a babysitter is needed.  And it'll be raining all week at the beach where she was going.  Her trip is off, and so is my vacation.

But it's okay; I hadn't decided what to do, anyway, and I've scheduled another week off in October.  I can just take some "to-go" projects to work with me this week.  Last week, I found a big skein of pretty yarn, so today I started a shawl with it, the most ambitious knitting project I've ever attempted.  When I hunted up my traveling knitting bag this morning, I found a half-completed shawl in it, already.  Ooops.

It didn't take long to open the mail and return phone calls, so while the boss caught up on her reading, I knitted and watched mandolin videos.  About 2 p.m. today, she said, "Let's go home."  I seconded the motion, and now here I sit, listening to the wind picking up, waiting on the rain, and can't think of a blasted thing I really want to do.

The Husband left today to go to his seminar.  He was supposed to have a stop in Houston, but the hurricane changed that.  The airline re-routed him through Chicago; he won't get where he's going until 10 p.m., which will be midnight our time.  He'll be pooped.

I am glad I did not go with him on this trip.  ;)

First Bean Pickin' - August 21

I had a "Maytag Repairman" day at the office yesterday - nobody called, nobody visited.  I knew it was going to be that way, and so I took some things to work with me to occupy my time. 

Snapping green beans is a thing that you can let your hands do while your mind does something else that's not too taxing, like watching movies or engaging in stimulating conversations.  Since I didn't have anybody to talk to while I snapped, I watched YouTube videos - specifically, beginner mandolin videos.  (I told you I got a mandolin, didn't I?) 

First Canning - August 22

I had a "Maytag Repairman" sort of day at work yesterday - no one called, no one stopped by.  Knowing this would be the case, I took a big pan of green beans to snap.

Snapping beans is something that you can let your hands do while your mind does other things, like watch movies, or engage in conversation.  Since I didn't have anybody to talk to, I watched YouTube videos - specifically, beginner mandolin lessons.  (I told you I got a mandolin, didn't I?) 

I ended up with 14 pints of green beans, but getting there was a chore!  I hurried home from work to wash the beans and get them in the jars.  My jars were washed and ready, but as I was preparing to scald them and the lids, I realized that all of the jars had regular-sized mouths, and all of my lids were for wide-mouth jars.  By that time, I'd already started the beans to boil.  Had to turn off the burners and run to the store for lids.  Instead of dragging the big canner out of the attic, I decided to use the appliance I bought last year - a slow-cooker/pressure canner that sits on the countertop like a crock pot, which I'd never used for canning.  Couldn't find the right rack, had to improvise.  Couldn't get the lid on.  Couldn't get the timer set right and had to process the first batch TWICE to get the right amount of time.  Thankfully, the second batch was easier. 

And while all of this was going on, I was trying to cook supper, answer the phone, answer texts, etc.  It's a miracle I didn't blow up the kitchen.

Some of the water boiled out of the jars on the first batch.  The jars sealed, but I don't like the fact that some of the beans are now above the level of the liquid, so I will be giving those away today, with instructions to eat them right away and give me back my jars.  ;)

From the back porch - August 21, 2017

Happy solar eclipse day!

I live and work in an area outside of the totality path, but our eclipse was about 90%, and it was still very cool to witness. 

I promised Nanny that I would pick the green beans this afternoon after work.  I came home, put on my lounge pants, and smoothe forgot about picking beans.  About an hour ago, it hit me.  I put on some capri jeans and some loafers and went to the garden with my picking sacks.

Nanny was already in the garden, cutting okra, and as I was walking toward the bean rows, I was praying that I'd gotten there in time, that she hadn't picked them already.  But as I neared the rows, I was relieved to see clumps of beans still hanging on the vines.  I said "hey" and got to picking. 

Thirty seconds later, I felt my feet stinging and looked down to find them covered with red ants.  I'd been standing right on the ant hill!  Thankfully, they had not yet made their way up my legs, for I would have embarrassed myself, right there in front of Nanny, if I'd had ants in my pants.

We ended up with about 4 gallons of green beans and a gallon of okra.  I brought it all home.  Tomorrow, I will be canning beans and looking for some folks who like okra.

Back porch genealogy - August 2, 2017

I don't really have anything much to report today - nothing informative and quite possibly even nothing entertaining - so you're free to just zoom right past this entry in search of something more worth your time.

Me, I'm off work for the afternoon.  I suppose there are loads of productive things I could be doing in the two hours between now and time to start supper, but I don't want to do any of them.  For example, I could be trying to figure out how to change Gloria's cranking thing - I've already bought the part - so that I could use her to till up the cucumber row (when it gets dry enough to work) so that I can plant another round of cucumbers before it's too late for them to make before frost.  But I don't want to.  Not today.

Or, I could be -

No, I'm not making that list, for fear I'll shame myself into wasting this lovely afternoon doing something useful.  I'd rather sit here and watch this hummingbird as he tries to get nectar from the still-closed four-o'-clocks beside the porch.  He's got another 13 minutes to wait, judging by the clock.  As he flies away, a big black, orange, blue, and white butterfly lands on the screen and slowly waves his wings.  I'd be missing all this, if I were doing something useful.

I thought about finishing the book I'm reading, The Prince of Frogtown, by Rick Bragg.  This is the fourth book of his that I've read.  I've thoroughly enjoyed them all and hate to finish this one, hate for it to be over.  So I'll wait until bedtime, when I'll fall asleep after about 3 minutes of reading (no reflection on the reading material intended), thereby stretching it out, making it last another day or two.

I found out about Rick Bragg as a result of my genealogy research.  No, we're not kin (or, heck, maybe we are, five generations back).  My daddy's family is from Alabama, and as part of my  research, I've been reading Kindle books on Alabama history.  Rick Bragg's books probably came up on a "Folks who bought this book also bought" list.  I downloaded one of his books and got hooked. He speaks my language.  I don't know if it is the language of the South, or the language of Alabama, but I "get it."  I see my own family in his.

Rick's paternal grand-family worked in cotton mills and lived in cottages supplied by the mills.  My paternal grand-family lived in coal mining camps in Walker and St. Clair counties.  My grandfather finally got out of the mining business and took up share-cropping, some time after 1922, when my father was born in Walker Co.  The family spent a year or two share-cropping on an island in the Mississippi River, then later on various farms in the river bottom on the Tennessee side.  My grandfather ended up on the wrong side of the law and had to high-tail it back to Alabama in the early 1940s, but my daddy stayed, and met my mother, and married her when he was 22 and she was 14.  That's when his trouble started, I reckon.  ;)

Unlike Rick's father, my daddy did not drink much.  Not that he wouldn't have, if he could've gotten away with it, if it had been regularly worth the lip he would get from my mother if he were to come home with glazed eyes or even a hint of alcohol on his breath.  Only occasionally did he defy her, probably partly because he could rarely afford a pint.

Daddy was wicked smart, and although he was illiterate, he could figure out how to do most anything.  He could weld.  He could operate heavy equipment.  He could carpenter.  He could fix motors.  But he didn't want to do any of that; he'd rather go fishing.  Consequently, he'd quit a job when the fishing got right, and find him another one whenever the fish quit biting or times got too tight or he got sick of hearing it from my mother, whichever first occurred.  So it was that in his late 40s or early 50s, after a long stint of unemployment, he was able to get on with a millwright union, and finally began to make enough money to afford hamburger meat in his spaghetti and a pint of whiskey (which my mother would always pour onto the ground if she found it) under his truck seat.

I well remember Daddy's last "toot."

One Friday night, payday, he didn't come home at the usual hour.  By the time he was 30 minutes late, my mother was fuming; he was out loafing, was probably getting drunk, would lose his whole paycheck (which he would've cashed at the liquor store on the way home), would hit a tree, etc.  Sure enough, he didn't come home until almost daybreak, and he was drunk as Cooter Brown.  She went outside - I was right behind her - and found him in his puke-splattered work truck, half passed-out behind the wheel.

Man, oh, man, was she mad.

She yanked open the truck the truck door and, as soon as she found out he wasn't dead, tried to shove him over so she could snatch his wallet out of the back pocket of his overalls.  He resisted, as best he could, and told her to go to hell.  She rang his jaws for cussing her, and probably because she was so mad, and took the wallet, anyway.  Thank God, most of the money was still there.  Next, she snatched the keys out of the ignition and slammed the truck door so hard I thought all the windows would shatter.  She marched me back in the house, and woke up my sister, and said for us to get ready, we were going to town.  She drove straight to Stepherson's furniture store and bought a new living room suite AND a new maple kitchen table and six matching chairs, probably she first brand-new furniture she'd ever owned.

He was still sitting in the truck, his head tipped against the back glass, when we left for town in our ragged old car.

So, yeah, I get where Bragg is coming from.

I tried to e-mail him one time, through his publisher, to talk to him about a phrase I'd read in one of his books.  Regrettably, the email I received in return was from his publisher, telling me to mail him a letter c/o somewhere or another.  That was too much effort for such unimportant communication, and I let it slide.

In case he googles himself and runs across this, I'll quench his curiosity and tell him that the phrase was "if the creeks don't rise," used in the concept of a hindrance.  It is a wonderful phrase, I think, doused with history.  These days, rising waters don't routinely hinder us, but in olden days, they did.  The concept matches perfectly with the phrase, when used in that sense. 

But I learned something about the phrase when I was touring the Constitution Village in Huntsville, Alabama, a couple of years ago.  The bonnet-clad young lady who was leading the tour told us, as an aside, that the phrase "if the creeks don't rise" originally referred to the Creek Tribe, not bodies of water.  You could've knocked me over with a feather.  That put a whole new twist on the concept of hindrance!