Mouse!

 

I swear . . . if the rodents, insects, and reptiles don't stop coming into my house, I'm moving.

A week ago, when The Husband said he thought he saw a mouse run under the refrigerator, and I said maybe it was a lizard, and then we caught a lizard on a sticky trap, I was feeling pretty smug about having been right.  For the whole week, we've had two mouse traps set - one on each side of the refrigerator.  Saturday night, I said, "We should get rid of these mouse traps before one of us loses a toe."  The Husband agreed, but said he'd move them in the morning.

Yesterday morning, there was a dead mouse in one of the traps.  Even worse, The Husband said he'd seen a LIVE one in the living room.  He moved the traps - including the sticky trap with the dead lizard still stuck to it - to the living room.  This morning, there was a mouse stuck in the sticky trap, and it was still alive.  The Husband finished it off with a bb gun.

I can't have this.

Today, I'm stopping at the dollar store for mouse poison.  I'm going to get one for every closet and maybe 10 for the attic!

We just had the laziest weekend we've had in months, thanks to the mud situation in the garden.  

A Maiden's Prayer - August 31, 2020

 

There's something about bluegrass music that gets me straight in the gut.   I don't care who's playing it, or what the song is, when I hear that hard-driving beat.  Sometimes, I think it might be because of a recessive gene, or something.

I got my first taste of live bluegrass when we camped in Mt. View, Arkansas, probably 30 years ago.  We've been back numerous times, and about every other trip, one of us - either I or The Husband - comes home with a new (but cheap) instrument.  We built a dulcimer from a kit we bought there.  I bought a "starter" fiddle and a teach-yourself books and an extra book of songs, but never learned to play any of them; my arms would go numb after only a few minutes of practice.

The song book had the scores to songs like "Cripple Creek," "Soldier's Joy," and "Arkansas Traveler."  It also had "A Maiden's Prayer."  The first time I heard it, I was transported.

Sixty-ish years ago, or more, country artists recorded the song, but the melody was written in the 1870s, if I remember correctly, by a Polish composer.  It is a beautiful tune.

And look at the words - I don't know who wrote them (I should look it up, eh?):

* * * * * 

Twilight falls,

Evening shadows find,

There 'neath the stars a maiden so fair divine.

The moon on high seemed to see her there,

In her eyes was a light shining ever so bright,

As she whisper'd a silent pray'r.

Ev'ry word revealed an empty, broken heart;

Broken by fate that holds them so far apart.

Lonely there she kneels, and tells the stars above,

In her arms he belongs, then her pray'r is a song,

Her unending song of love.

* * * * * * * 

The singers who recorded it added words to those verses to make them fit the music.

I'm trying to learn it.

Here's the tune, courtesy of a mandolin jam I found on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMkKdKHhVf0

High-tech senior citizens - August 29, 2020

The Husband and I have been busy today doing high-tech stuff.  Well, high-tech for us old people, at least.

The coronavirus has thrown wrenches in some seminars/meetings that The Husband was to attend this fall.  Instead of cancelling the seminars altogether, they're going to try to do them "virtually."  The Husband is part of a team that is putting together one of the seminars.  He is scheduled to be working from home on the week that his seminar is to take place, and he's been trying to test-drive his plan today.  

About 10 this morning, he asked me if I had a large piece of green fabric.  I had several, though none in quite the correct shade for a "green screen" to put behind him so that he could project the seminar logo behind him, like the weatherman does, while he is hosting seminar participants in a "Zoom room."  It didn't quite work, so he will either have to go back to the drawing board, or I will have to go to the fabric store for the correct green fabric.  

I would SO hate to be sent to the fabric store.  (*snicker*)

I was doing something completely different on the back porch.  A number of my Etsy customers have told me that they own digitizing software but don't know how to use it, so I have been producing digitizing tutorials to upload to YouTube.  I bought some software that records what is happening on the computer screen, and it also records my voice so that I can explain what I'm doing.  It may seem counter-productive to teach my customers how to do what I do - they might make their own designs instead of buying them from me.  But I'm all about learning, and in addition to learning the software and processes for making these tutorials, I've taught myself a few things about digitizing.  Win - win!

Over the past few days, we've had quite a bit of rain from the fringes of hurricane Laura.  Nevertheless, I sloshed around the yard a little bit today to see what's going on in the yard.  It was a surprise to discover that the Sweet Autumn Clematis is in full bloom.  There's some growing up a crape myrtle tree near the back porch.  The crape myrtle is blooming now, too, and it gives the effect of a bi-color bush.  What really surprised me, though, was walking around to the end of the house, where the phlox beds grow, and seeing how the autumn clematis has climbed over the garden arch.

The rain beat the phlox down something fierce, but just look at the clematis on the arch.

Back in March, when my cousin's daughter's wedding venue cancelled the wedding because of the virus shut-down, I loaned her this arch as an emergency wedding decoration.  It was still entangled with last year's clematis, which was nowhere near the top of the arch.  I hacked that stuff down to the ground, and we peeled the twisted vines off the arch, and the thing nearly came apart in the process.  Her husband took it home and welded it back together, and they brought it back better than it was.  We plunked it down in the same spot.  A couple of times this summer, as I've walked under the arch, I've dragged some straggling vines out of the phlox and twined them through the arch, and moved on.  And today I walked around there and found this.  It was a gift.

After more high-teching in the afternoon, we walked down to the garden to stretch our legs.  Ugh.  What a mess.  Nearly every tomato cage had fallen over, plants and all.  Since the tomato row is right at the edge of the garden, near the grass, we were able to stand the cages up, plants and all, at least for now, without marring up in mud.  The butterbean rows are as flat as pancakes.  I may have to pry the runners off the ground when the soil dries up.  

The squash?  Well, they look just pitiful.  Since I was in the garden a few days ago, more of the vines  look stressed, and I didn't find a whole lot of squash that needed picking (not that I was willing to wade out there to get it today if there had been).  But I still saw lots of blooms.  If it survives the drowning and the inevitable fungus that comes with hot, wet weather, it may make a while longer.

The 2nd crop purple hull peas will probably be ready to pick by the time the soil dries up enough to pick them.  Before I step off in that pea patch again, I need to hunt down the source of the fire ants that tried to eat my foot off last week, and dispatch them all to hell.  Nasty, mean little assholes.  I only had four bites on my foot, but they stung like fire, and itched all night and the next day, and festered up, and swole my foot up enough that it puffed up around my shoe!  

 

From the back porch - August 28, 2020

 

This back porch was made for days like today - warm, slight breeze, gentle rain.  I'm just sorry that so many folks down south of us got the hurricane that spawned this rain.

Gardening activities are officially on hold for the next few days.

I'm sitting here looking at the tub of potato plants in my back yard.  Since I last noticed them, some of them have grown above the top of the tub.  Those tall ones need more dirt piled around them, but there are just as many short ones that will be buried if I add dirt for the tall ones.  What to do?  I think that when it stops raining, I'll just fill the tub to the rim with dirt and be done with it.

Meanwhile, I need something to do this weekend.  

I should digitize some new embroidery designs.  

Or shovel out the sewing room.

But, for now, I should go to work.  ;)

Rain's a-comin' - August 27, 2020

 

The four brussels sprouts plants and the six broccoli plants have been sitting on my front porch steps for several days now, waiting for the garden soil to dry up enough to plant them.  Since we are expected to receive rain from hurricane Laura, I zoomed straight home after work, put on my boots, and went to the garden.

It is wetter down there today than it was yesterday.  Evidently, we had a little shower while I was at work.

I planted the broccoli and brussels sprouts, anyway, for it's going to get even wetter, and I doubt I can keep those little plants alive for much longer.

I threatened to pull up some of the squash vines today, but didn't.  Some of them are turning yellow but, bless their hearts, they're still blooming and some are even putting out new growth, and I hate to kill them with them trying so hard.  

(If I were a superstitious person, I might wonder if this year's bumper-crop garden is a sign of an early, bad winter on the way.  I wouldn't be surprised by a blizzard in Florida before 2020 ends, would you?)

The garden's getting a little grassy, especially in the rows where I planted seeds, where I haven't hoed and treaded.  

The poor tomatoes.  They, too, are trying hard - just loaded with fruit - but blight is rampant.  I've been trimming off blighted leaves and spraying with neem oil, but every few days it rains enough to wash off the oil.  

The butterbean rows are fast turning into a butterbean patch.  These were labeled as bush beans, but I'm beginning to wonder if that's true.  Haven't seen any blooms, yet.

Yesterday at work, one of my co-workers asked if I had any okra to give away, and said she'd trade me a dozen eggs (she has 5 chickens) for some okra.  I didn't make her any promises about the okra.  We had cut it the previous evening.  Just as we were finishing, Nanny came out and said she wanted to make some pickled okra before the okra runs out.  We went back down the rows and cut the smaller ones we'd left to grow, and handed the pickin' sack over to Nanny.  I was doubtful that there'd be enough okra for a meal.  As it turned out, there was enough.  We'd also picked the squash pretty closely, expecting rain, figuring that anything we didn't pick that night would be too big by the time the garden dries up enough to pick again.  We sent the squash with the okra.

And, still, if I had a hankering for squash for supper, I could pick enough for a meal today.

Evening Walk - August 25, 2020

 

After supper, I said, "I think I'll walk down to the garden and see if my fence is still standing." 

The Husband put on his shoes and walked with me.

Picked squash.  Cut okra.

Fence is still standing.

The purple hull peas have little pea pods on them!  And loads of blooms.

I stepped between the pea rows to pull up a clump of grass, and about 10 seconds later, my right foot felt like it was on fire.  Ants!  Only one or two got me, thank goodness.

A couple of brussels sprouts have poked their heads out of the ground.

Still no sign of the carrots.

Butternut squash have several sets of leaves.

We played "kick the pine cone all the way up the driveway."

Casper the frog was waiting to greet us when we got home.

Cabbages In, Fertilized Sweet Peas - August 24, 2020

 

I stopped at the garden center after work to see what kind of fall vegetables they had.  Came home with a 6-pack of cabbages, a 6-pack of broccoli, and a 6-pack of brussels sprouts.  

I planted the cabbages at the vacant ends of the butterbean rows.  This was probably a mistake, as the butterbeans may wrap them up, but my planting space is quickly filling up.

The broccoli and brussels sprouts did not get planted.  Well, two broccoli did.  But the ground was really too wet, so I've saved the rest of the plants for a dryer day.

I did manage to put up a half-assed support system for the sweet peas.  Just pencil-thin bamboo canes with jute twine stretched between them.  The jute will probably sag and stretch when it gets wet (seems like I've been down that path, already), but maybe it will at least keep the plants off the ground until I can come up with better supplies.

I side-dressed the sweet peas and a few of the tomatoes with pelletized fertilizer.

P.M. - August 29, 2020

 

I spent most of this day sitting on my butt, either at the computer or at the sewing machine.  At lunch time, I did get up and make a pizza with left-over barbeque, green onions, and bottled sauce.  A couple of hours later, I made two loaves of zucchini bread with the only two zucchini we've harvested from our one zucchini plant.

About 4:30, I said to The Husband, "We ought to walk down to the garden in a bit."  Because of all the rain, we hadn't worked in the garden since the middle of last week.  The squash would need picking and the okra would need cutting.  The Husband had been sitting all day, too, playing away on his ukulele.  He agreed that we could use a walk, but wanted to wait until it was cooler.  An hour later, we wrapped up a couple of slices of zucchini bread for Nanny and hit the road.

Much of the squash was too big, and I threw it over the hill and still ended up with a basket full of squash.  The Husband cut the okra, and we gathered a few tomatoes and peppers.  We took enough okra for our supper and left the rest with Nanny to freeze.

Only one or two of the broccoli and brussels sprouts are up, and they don't look so great.  I'll make a run to the garden center to see if they have some.  The sweet peas don't look so great, either.

I saw raccoon tracks all over the place.

Invasion! - August 23, 2020

 

If it ain't one thing, it's another.

The Husband, who worked from home this week, called me Friday to ask if we had "any more of that stinky cheese."  He was talking about feta cheese, which we've discovered is like crack to mice.  He said he thought he'd seen something move in the kitchen and wanted to set a trap.  

In the 35 years that we've lived in this house, we've seen TWO mice inside the house, both sightings in the last 3 years or so.  But we've caught several mice on the back porch, and it was conceivable that one might have come in from the porch if the kitchen door had been left open for a while.  I had come home from work one day last week and found the kitchen door open, with just the screen door closed.  The screen door doesn't fit perfectly, and though we've added metal strips and threshold barriers, there's still a little space where critters could get in if they were determined.  A mouse could've come in.  Or a lizard.

The Husband set two traps, one on each side of the refrigerator, where he thought he'd seen the mouse.  He baited them with Extra Sharp Vermont Cheddar.  Over the weekend, he moved the remaining sticky trap from the porch settee into the kitchen, and put a little chunk of cheddar in the center of the trap.

Yesterday, as I was moving back and forth between the sewing room and the porch, I saw a lizard stuck to the sticky trap.  The two mouse traps by the refrigerator remain un-sprung.

I worked on embroidery designs all day yesterday, from just after dawn until bedtime.  About 9:30 last night, I decided to give it up and go to bed to read for a while.  As I was puttering around, plugging in my laptop and my phone, I thought I saw something fly past me.  I froze for a minute, watching and listening, but didn't see/hear anything - maybe it was a "floater" - so I went on to the bedroom.  While turning down the bed, I heard an insect - a BIG one, from the sound of it - zoom by my ear.  I went to the kitchen for the fly-swatter and handed it to The Husband on the way back through the living room.  "There's a horsefly in the bedroom."  

Offing horseflies and wasps is his job.  

He followed me to the bedroom, fly-swatter ready.  

There was what appeared to be a teenage horsefly on the ceiling above the television cabinet.  He approached it, and swatted it, and we heard it hit the wall behind the TV cabinet.  Relieved that the problem was solved, I went into the bathroom to get ready for bed. The Husband and I were congratulating ourselves on having dispatched the fly so quickly, and we joked about how awful it would have been if we'd gone to bed and slept with our mouths open and the fly had crawled around inside our mouths, and while I was standing at the mirror, about to brush my teeth, something else zoomed by my head.  I said, "Oh, my god!  It's not dead!"  

And The Husband, who was then peering behind the TV cabinet, said, "Yes, it is.  I'm looking at it."

I said, 'IT JUST FLEW BY MY HEAD!"

As he came into the bathroom, it zoomed past HIS head.  He did a little jujitsu move with the fly-swatter and missed.  I rushed past him to close the door so that we could trap it.  It landed on the wall, and he smacked it.  It wasn't a horsefly - just a big old hairy fly.  

Two seconds after he killed it, another one zoomed by.

To make a long story short (too late?), we killed at least 10 flies in and around the bedroom.  No clue where they came from.

I hated to go to bed after that.  The fly-in-your-mouth joke wasn't so funny anymore.

I closed the bedroom door, opened the bathroom door, and left the light on in the bathroom, thinking to draw any remaining flies to the light, and killed two more in the bathroom before I went to sleep.

The Husband said he killed two more in the bedroom this morning.

I googled "big hairy fly."  Turns out, they're cluster flies, and they can nest in your walls and attics and come out in swarms.  Tough to exterminate unless you're willing to soak your house in pesticide.  (We're not - not for this problem.)  

The Husband came up with the idea to hang another Tarfoot ball in the attic.  

The lizard is still stuck on the trap in the kitchen.  I think The Husband hopes to add a mouse to the collection.

Lord, grant me the serenity . . . . August 20, 2020

 

Should I have expected, when I had to change clothes TWICE before work this morning, that the whole day was going to turn out pissy?  We won't even go there with the clothes change story.  (No, I didn't sneeze.)  

Work was unremarkable, except for a sad case.  I may tell you about that, eventually.  

On my way home from work, the computer repair shop called and said The Grandson's laptop was ready.  I picked it up, drove it to The Grandson's house.  He opened it up, and nothing happened.  I told him to plug it in.  He did.  Nothing but a black screen (though I could hear the fan humming).  I called the repair shop, and they said to bring it back.  15 more miles back to the repair shop.  One of the geeks took charge of the situation and said he would look at it right then, that it shouldn't take long.  

I treated myself to a strawberry limeade at Sonic and read a magazine article to pass the time, then went back to the repair shop.  The geek said that he raised the lid, and it came on.  I made him show me that it worked.  There was some strangeness going on on the screen.  He said he was running a program to sort of re-set the pixels, as there was there was ONE pixel that was "stuck" on.  A tiny pinprick in the center of the lower 1/4 of the screen.  Tiny.  He said that the strangeness on the screen was a program he was running to sort of re-set the pixels.  He said it might also just go away by itself.  I said I would take the computer, but made him promise to fix it if it became a problem.  15 miles back to The Grandson's house.

They'd had new flooring installed in two of the bedrooms, and the contents of both bedrooms were in the living room.  A nice person might have stayed and offered to help.  I left as quickly as I could.

I feel sorry for The Grandson.  His world is a little chaotic right now.  And this covid crap on top of everything else.  He's a good kid.  

I probably shouldn't even have mentioned that pixel to him, but I wanted him to watch out for screen issues.  That one tiny pixel would probably drive me apeshit, just knowing it was there.

I gardened a little bit yesterday.  Picked squash.  Cut okra.  Pulled/chopped weeds.  

There are volunteer cucumbers coming up all over the former cucumber patch.  The butternut squash are growing there now.  I thought about letting one or two of them grow, just to have a few late cucumbers.  But they'd probably get tangled up with the butternuts.  I probably ought to pull them up.  Maybe not today.

The tomatoes need to be sprayed with fungicide.  I probably won't do that today, either.  

As I passed by the garden center on the way to get the computer, I thought to call them to see if they have any fall vegetable plants.  They do.  I may stop there tomorrow and pick up a few things, for I'm not sure my broccoli is coming up.

Butterbean Runners and Lizards - August 18, 2020

 

This evening I spent about 2 hours chopping grass, fracturing crusty seed rows, and doing general maintenance in the garden.

The butterbeans have foot-long runners today.  They did not have runners yesterday.  I would have noticed.  

Now that the sweet pea rows are dry enough to walk through, I got up close and personal with the pea plants and discovered that more peas sprouted than I realized, but something has been eating them.  The suspect is the big rabbit that lives somewhere around Nanny's yard.  Remembering the last time a bunny ate my bean crop, I decided to back off and see what happens.  Mr. Bunny may have made the plants bush out more.  If he keeps this up, though, he may make a good stew.

Speaking of "offing" critters . . . . 

Yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the sticky trap I'd set on the settee was gone.  My first thought was that the lizard had gotten himself only partially stuck and had dragged the trap off with him (though that did seem a little improbable).  I looked around the settee, and found the trap underneath, near a front leg, with no lizard on it.  I asked The Husband if he had moved the trap, and he said that he had.  Today, he moved the trap to the back site of the settee, where I routinely see the lizard.  And guess what?

GOT HIM!

He was stuck fast.  The Husband and I stood over him for a minute.  His little sides were huffing in and out.  We both felt kind of sorry for him.  

But we had given the m*th*rf*ck*r a chance.  I had trapped him in a box and dumped him in the yard.  He should've stayed there.

Then the problem became what to do with the lizard.  We hated to just throw the whole trap in the garbage, lizard and all, and make him suffer for who knows how long before he gave up his ghost.  And chopping his head off - well, that's just gross. 

I bowed out of this decision.  

Lizard disposal is not my job.

After a minute of deliberation, The Husband took one of the granddaughters' BB guns from the cabinet where we keep them, and took it and the lizard trap out to the yard.  I heard the gun cock and the little "ppppttt" sound as it was fired.  Then I heard it again.  And again.  

I hollered, "Tell me you're not MISSING that lizard, and him glued to a piece of cardboard."

The Husband said, "No, I'm not MISSING it; the BBs are kind of bouncing off.  His little skull must be really hard."

I said, "Do you want a hammer?  Soften him up a little?"  

About 10 shots later, he put the BB gun back on the cabinet, and we decompressed from the trauma by talking about how we had given the lizard a fair chance.

Thirty minutes later, when I headed out the front door to go to the garden, there was an IDENTICAL lizard on the front porch.  

They'll haunt us now.

Purple Hull Pea Runners, Broccoli up - August 18, 2020

 

Coming up with something for supper every day is such a pain.  

We had a bowl of about 12 nice tomatoes on the kitchen table yesterday, and I wanted to come up with something to do with them that did not involve canning.  When I was a kid, my mother's weekly grocery shopping almost always included a can of okra & tomatoes.  Somehow, the okra was never slimy, but always semi-crisp.  Since there was okra in the garden, I decided to try home-made okra and tomatoes.

I searched the internet for recipes.  The one I chose called for slicing the okra on a steep angle and searing it in a screaming hot skillet for a couple of minutes to reduce the slime.  The recipe said to let the okra cool for a bit before adding it to the tomatoes.  

I could not resist sneaking a bite of the okra as it cooled.  It was slightly brown, not quite crisp, but so good that I hated to make it soggy by adding it to the tomatoes.  I decided we'd just eat it as a side-dish.

But what to do with the pan of tomatoes, peppers, and onions simmering on the stove?  By itself, it wasn't a very exciting dish.

The Husband's grandmother used to make a dish that the family just called "macaroni and tomatoes."  Sauteed onions, cooked tomatoes, and cooked elbow macaroni, with only salt and lots of black pepper for seasoning.  I decided to throw a handful of raw elbow macaroni in my tomato mixture (had to add some chicken stock for some extra liquid to cook the macaroni) to make it more substantial and hearty.

It was absolutely wonderful.  The starch in the macaroni tightened up the sauce and made it creamy and delicious.  We ate it with sauteed squash, the seared okra, pork loin medallions, and toasted home-made biscuits left over from Sunday morning.  Supper was gooooood.

While I was in the garden cutting the okra, I saw that a few broccoli plants had sprouted.  At least, I think it's broccoli and not weeds.  

All three hills of butternut squash have sprouted.  I thinned the hills down to 3 plants per hill.

The new purple hull peas are putting out runners.  I planted those rows so close together that the plants are shading out the grass.  Bonus!  If the plants produce well, I will space the rows closely from now on.

I am a little perplexed about what to do with the potatoes in the tub in my back yard.  This is a new experiment.  The online instructions say to add dirt around the potatoes when they reach 6" tall or so.  My problem is that some of the plants are 6" tall, but others are much smaller.  I'm afraid that if I add too much dirt to the tub, it will smother the smaller plants.  Over the weekend, I tried to pile up dirt around the tallest plants without covering up the smaller ones.  This did not work very well.  

From the back porch - August 17, 2020

 

I was pretty near worthless this weekend.  For the past few months, working in the garden has eaten up all of my leisure hours.  The recent lull in gardening activity (the garden is sort of on auto-pilot for a few days, due to weather and recent plantings) has left me with time on my hands and nothing to do with it. I don't have any projects in progress, which is an unusual situation.   I don't want to start a new project, for this gardening lull is surely a temporary thing.

We did do a little bit of work in the garden Saturday afternoon.  We gave away a bucket of squash and a pile of okra, but kept the dozen or so tomatoes that we picked.  Since then, I've eaten tomatoes at every meal.  They are too precious to waste.

This is where I planted sweet peas, broccoli, brussels sprouts, carrots, and butternut squash.  This end of the garden is contrary, but there was empty space after I pulled up the cucumbers and purple hull peas, so . . . . 

Butternut squash coming up!

As the weekend came to a close, I sat on the back porch playing computer solitaire in the dark.  The owls in the trees behind the house were chattering like crazy.  I went inside to get my phone, intending to record them, but they moved deeper in the woods and I didn't get a good recording.  But while I was using the voice recorder, I found all sorts of recordings I didn't know I had, some of which my grandchildren had made without my knowing it.  Those were fun to listen to.  

I also found a recording of myself singing "Happy Birthday" to my niece.  Ugh!  I hate hearing my own voice, especially singing.  I deleted that recording, but a few minutes later I decided that I should have kept it to send to my niece for her next birthday, and every birthday after that, for as long as I am alive to send it.  I looked everywhere for "recently deleted" stuff, but couldn't find it.  Finally, I said, "Siri, show me my recently deleted voice recordings," and it worked!  The birthday song is back!

That Siri is a smart woman.

Sprayed - August 15, 2020

 

As soon as I sent the previous post, I suited up and went to the garden.  Picked two gallons of squash while The Husband cut the okra. 

I also sprayed for fungus.

Butternut Squash Up - August 15, 2020

 

The whole point of this post is to remind me what day the butternut squash came up.  I planted them on the 6th, and here it is the 15th.  That's nine days, but they actually came up YESTERDAY, so let's say eight days.

The butterbeans, butterpeas, and purple hull peas round deux are showing off, but I'm not too thrilled with the sweet peas.  It seemed to take them a long time to come up, and there are a good many skips in the rows. Plus, they have looks on their faces like, "Oh, geeez, it's too hot!"  Perhaps they'll look better if it cools off next week.  Before they start growing, I need to figure out a support system.  I have hog wire and metal fence posts, and I planted the rows fairly close together, so I might be able to run one fence for both rows.

Next year, I may plant the sweet peas next to the okra, and let the okra be the support system.  I don't remember what variety of okra this is, but its stalks are more like trunks.  It is over my head.  It would surely hold the peas, but . . . do I want to pick peas in an itchy okra patch?

Maybe not.  

The squash needs picking and the okra needs cutting.  The garden might not be too muddy.  I ought to go do it.  Maybe I will, when it cools off a little.

Shopping for School Supplies - August 12, 2020

 

While The Grandson was with me yesterday, I asked him if his parents had bought his school supplies yet.  He said they had not, so I donned my mask and did something I have not done in months: I went to Walmart - early, in an effort to miss crowds - with a supply list in hand.  At the checkout counter, my shopping cart contained maybe $50 worth of stuff that was not on the supply list.  The total bill?  $197.00.

Jeeeeeez.  Well over $100.  For one kid.  And that doesn't include clothes or shoes.  (The shoe-shopping trip, including socks and shoe-funk-repellent, set me back another $100.)  

Back in the Dark Ages, when I was in school, I don't recall school supplies being a budget buster.  I don't even recall a supply list.  We were expected to show up with a 3-ring notebook, a package of "filler paper," and a pencil.  Those were the days, eh?

* * * * * * 

When I went to the garden to pick squash this evening, I was so sure that it would be a mud pit that I wore my mud boots and took another pair of shoes to wear home.  The ground looked relatively dry in most places.  Crusty, even.  I figured that it was a trap, that below the dry crust was a gushy ooze, but much to my surprise, I didn't sink anywhere.  Barely left footprints.  

There's some grass coming up in the rows where the new butterbeans and butterpeas are growing.  For about 30 seconds, I considered getting out a hoe and chopping it down.  But then . . . nah.  It was really hot and muggy, and those wetter places I mentioned were in those rows.  Maybe I'll do it tomorrow.

Uh-oh...it's raining - August 11, 2020

 

The Grandson started texting me fairly early this morning, wondering when I would take him to buy some shoes.  I picked him up after lunch and took him shopping.  The boy just turned 13, is a head taller than I am, and wears a size 10.5 Wide shoe.

He asked if he could come to my house for a while after we finished shopping.  I said, "Sure."  He asked if he could stay for dinner.  I said, "Sure."  We had spaghetti and meatballs, slaw, and what he calls "spaghetti toast" (garlic bread).  After dinner, I asked him if he wanted to just spend the night.  He said, "Sure."  I'll take him home in the morning on my way to work.

After we cleaned up the dishes, I went down to the garden to finish watering.  Once again, the weather radar showed some puny little clouds to the west, and I didn't expect much rain from them.  Still, I did not absolutely soak the ground, and it's a good thing I didn't, for the instant I got back home, it started sprinkling.  Now, we're getting a good, slow rain.  Hopefully, I didn't water enough to drown everything.

I believe the garden can be on auto-pilot for a day or two.  I promised a co-worker some squash on Thursday, so I'll need to pick it tomorrow evening, mud or no mud.  And the okra will probably need cutting again.  But those chores will be a piece of cake compared to the work I've put in for the past two or three weeks.

Watering and Carrots - August 10, 2020

 

T'was a little hot today, wasn't it?

For the past couple of weeks, we've been doing the gardening work in the evenings, and eating supper afterwards.  But who wants to cook after all that work?  So it's been tomato sandwiches, frozen pizzas, and such.  This afternoon, I decided to cook a real supper and have it ready the minute The Husband walked in the door so that we could eat first and then go work, when it should've be a little cooler.  I started cooking a little too early, and The Husband got home a little late, and supper was all shriveled up and not all that wonderful.  We ate it, anyway.

I wanted to water the garden tonight.  It's not terribly dry down deep, but the ground is a little crusty, and I have a lot of tender babies sprouting and growing; their roots can't be very deep yet.  This morning, the weatherman said that it might rain tomorrow and/or the next day.  Late this afternoon, when I looked at the weather app on my telephone and saw just a few puny scattered clouds to the west, I decided to disbelieve the weather man about the chances of a rain.  

It was a little after 7 when we went to the garden.  I took a pack of carrot seeds to plant.  (The space I reserved for turnip greens is getting smaller every day.)  I wanted to run the little red 4-tine tiller down the row to loosen the soil before I planted the carrots, but couldn't get it to crank.  Hateful thing.  But the big old black tiller fired up on the first pull, and I pulverized a row and planted the carrots.  We cut okra and picked squash and peppers, and started the sprinkler.  

I need a different sprinkler, one I can aim left or right and make it stay there so that I could approach it from behind on dry ground.  My sprinkler sprinkles in a circle, which means wading through mud in every direction to move it.  

We didn't let the sprinkler run as long as I wanted.  It got too dark.  We left the water hoses strung out across the yard, planning to water more tomorrow evening.

I just looked at my weather app again.  The situation appears to have changed in the last 4 hours.  We may not need to water again, after all.

Lazy Day - August 9, 2020

 

The closest I've come to gardening today (so far) is looking up gardening information on the internet.  And shelling the purple hull pea seeds I'm saving for next year.

The Grandson texted me before noon and asked if I'd take him shopping for shoes.  I didn't really want to do it, but I told him I would if he would take responsibility for seeing what time the shoe store opened and closed today.  He didn't answer me right away, so I looked it up, myself.  The store opened at noon.  I called him later to tell him I'd pick him up about 12:30.  By this time, he'd made plans to go to the guitar store with his dad, and they came home too late for us to head back to town to shop for shoes.  That suited me fine.  I didn't want to go anywhere, anyway.

In between these phone calls, I made a batch of cookies, shortbread sandwiches with raspberry filling.  They are exquisite.

Went to the grocery store.  

Might walk down to the garden before dark, just to look.

Yard Day - August 8, 2020

 

The vegetable garden is sort of on auto-pilot for a few days (except that we did pick squash and cut okra), and so we worked in the yards - ours and Nanny's - for most of the day.

While The Husband mowed the back yard with the push mower, I weeded a flower bed and hacked the compost tumbler out of the ivy so that I can use it.  It had a fairly thick layer of compost in the bottom that has probably been in there since the fall.  It was nice and black, but very damp.  I tumbled it out onto a piece of screen wire, dumped it into a wheel barrow, and set it in the sun to dry.  (Tomorrow I shall take it down to the vegetable garden and spread it around a few of the tomato plants to see if it gives them a boost.)

There was a giant patty of leaves in the side yard that The Husband had raked up early in the season.  Last week when I mowed the yard, I ran over it with the riding mower to chop up the leaves, intending to compost them.  But it had a ton of sweet gum balls in it, and I didn't know how well they would compost, or if they would sprout sweet gum trees (which we definitely do not need more of).  Internet articles said that they do well as mulch, and apparently they've already shed their seeds, so I scooped up some of the leaf and sweet gum ball mixture and put it in the compost tumbler.  But there was a WHOLE LOT more - three big yard wagons full - and I scooped it up and piled it up thick around the tumbler, hoping it'll keep down the weeds and the ivy around the tumbler.

While researching the sweet gum balls, I learned something interesting.  The Native Americans made tea out of sweet gum balls for the treatment of flu symptoms, and an acid from sweet gum balls is used in Tamiflu.  And the sweet gum balls help keep away slugs and animals.  It's not fun to crawl/walk on them.  Having spent most of my outdoor hours barefoot for most of my life, I can testify to the truth in that statement.  

After lunch, we went to mow Nanny's yard.  The lawnmower was almost out of gas, and the gas cans were empty.  While The Husband went to the store to fill up the gas cans, I mowed the tricky spots and then started on the back yard, and when I looked up, The Brother-in-Law was zooming around the front yard on his big zero-turn mower.  We finished the yard in nothing flat.  I sent him home with a bag of squash as a participation prize.  ;-)

Afterward, I took a stroll around the garden.  The butterbeans and butter peas are doing well.  I believe every seed sprouted, and they all have their first real set of leaves.  The sweet peas are beginning to pop through the soil, but only a few here and there.  I threatened to water the garden this afternoon to help them along, but it was really hot, and we'd been out in the heat most of the day, and watering is such a pain in the @ss.  So I let it slide one more day.  

We brought the okra home to cook for supper.  Until today, I had not cooked any of the okra we've grown this year, mostly because I've been too busy gardening or canning to do much cooking.  But The Husband had a hankerin' for some, and so I fried what we cut today.  Boy, it was good.  I'd seen a video about frying okra that recommended coating it with a little buttermilk, salt, and pepper, then tossing it in a mixture of flour and corn meal.  I didn't have any buttermilk (it makes the coating stick to the okra), but I did have some home-made kefir, which is not far from buttermilk, if you ask me, and so I used it to make the coating stick.  Worked like a charm. There was only about a  cup full of vegetable oil in the bottle, but I mixed it with the last of the coconut oil I found in the pantry and a hefty glug or two of olive oil and managed to come up with enough oil to fry the okra in a cast iron skillet.  It came out golden brown and crispy, just like we like it.

Butternut Squash and Fertilizing - August 6, 2020

Home Depot had a little pack of butternut squash seeds.  I bought them and planted 3 hills, and had some seeds left over.  I'm saving them for next year.  

Speaking of saving seeds, I saved the purple hull peas that dried up on the vines.  They're laid out on a table on the back porch.  They need to be shelled (I guess - need to research this) and put away.  But I'm too lazy to do it right now.

After planting the butternut squash, I hooked up the hoses and dosed the new peas with plant food.  There was still blue water in the sprayer when I finished the peas, so I just fertilized everything in the garden, except the okra - even the new butterbeans.  

The sweet peas aren't up yet.  The ground looked awfully dry and crusty on top, so I gave it a misting.  The seed package said they'd sprout in 7-10 days.  I planted them last Friday, so I'm not worried yet.  I also misted the soil where I planted the broccoli and brussels sprouts yesterday.  Maybe it'll help those tiny little seeds swell up and grow.

The Husband has been a slacker for the past couple of days, but we shall change that trend tomorrow.  There's a pile of cucumber vines and grass the size of a Volkswagen at the edge of the garden, and he knows how to use a pitchfork.

Maybe I should suggest that he may need to fire up his new tractor and use the bucket.  ;)

After my lizard rant the other day, I washed off the settee cushions and emptied a can of Febreeze on them.  My hope is that when he flicks out his tongue in the vicinity of the settee, it comes back tasting awful, and he won't go near it. 

Butterbeans Up, Cucumbers Out, Broccoli and Brussels Sprouts In - August 5, 2020

I went to Tractor Supply this morning looking for winter squash seeds and tomato cages.  I also got a sticky trap for the lizard. (If he poops on my settee one more time, he's getting a Brazilian wax.)  Tractor Supply had little chicks - cornish, I think - and I wanted some so bad, but didn't get any because I'm afraid the raccoons will eat them.

I shopped for a grow light, thinking I might sprout these fall vegetable seeds on the back porch.  But when I went down to the garden after work, almost all of the butterbeans were up, as well as a bunch of the butter peas, and I decided that the good old earth is the best place for seeds.  (I'd tried sprouting cabbages and broccoli indoors years ago, and wound up with a bunch of spindly things that died when I took them outside.)  Problem was, I didn't have any space to plant the seeds.

Since the cucumber vines are turning more yellow by the day and not earning their keep, I pulled them  up and tilled the space where they'd been.  I planted a 1/4 row of broccoli seeds (they're TINY), and another 1/4 with brussels sprouts seeds (they're tiny, too).  There was plenty of space left for the  butternut and acorn squash - I was only going to plant a hill or two of each - where the cucumbers had been.  But when I looked for my winter squash seeds, they were nowhere to be found.  The receipt from the store didn't show charges for them, so either I dropped them before I got to the register or the cashier just didn't see them.  I was so disappointed.  I was anxious to get them in the ground today, for they reportedly take 100 days to mature and cannot tolerate even a little frost, so even if I could get some seeds in the ground this week, I'd be pushing it. 

Maybe I'll just plant turnip greens in the left-over space.

The internet keeps pushing gardening videos at me (because I keep watching them, I guess).  Today there was one that talked about red ants.  I didn't watch it, but the topic of ants reminded me of a little experiment we conducted a couple of weeks ago.

I'd mowed Nanny's back yard and had noticed a couple of hills of what I presume were fire ants.  Later, as we were all sitting around her kitchen table, the subject of ants came up, and Nanny said she wished she had a can of club soda to pour on the ant mounds, as she'd heard it kills the ants, right down to the queen.  The Husband said he, too, had heard this.  Said it smothers them.  

This made no sense to me.

I'd heard that grits would kill them.  Blows them up, I guess.  Which doesn't really make sense, either.

Nanny said she didn't have any grits.  I said that I had some, and as I stood up to go get them, I remembered that we have a Soda Stream, and that it actually has gas in it.  I could make carbonated water.  So I went home and fizzed up a bottle, and went back and poured it on the two ant hills I'd run over with the lawnmower.  When I went back to Nanny's kitchen, feeling all self-satisfied at having offed the ants, The Husband and The Sister-in-Law and Nanny were all laughing.  During my absence, one of them had googled about killing ants with club soda, and they'd learned it doesn't work.  Same deal with the grits.  

Nanny said, anyway, there were about 3 more hills that I'd missed out front (The Brother-in-Law had mowed the front).    

So, assuming Nanny still had a fire ant problem, I stopped somewhere last week and bought a big bottle of fire ant killer.  Brought it home, handed it to The Husband, and said, "Here.  Go kill your mama's ants while I pick the squash."  

There weren't any ants on the two hills that had been dosed with carbonated water.  In fact, we had a hard time determining exactly where those ant hills had been.  The other 3 hills had been re-assembled and were still squirming with ants.  They got a dose of the fire ant killer.  

I kind of wish we'd done an experiment on those three hills;  fire ant killer, carbonated water, and grits.

From the back porch - August 5, 2020

After yesterday's post, I went to the garden to pick the squash.  

This squash is totally out of control, and is showing no signs of letting up.  It is still blooming like crazy.  I wonder if it has anything to do with the "pruning" I've been doing after watching a video that recommended taking off some of the leaves to increase air flow, make the blooms more visible to the pollenators, and prolong production.  

Of course, I couldn't just pick squash and quit.  The okra needed cutting.  The peppers needed picking.  A few tomatoes were nice and red.  The cucumber vines had cucumbers sticking out in plain sight, so I had to get those, too.  The cucumbers were grassy, so I waded in and pulled up much of it.  

When I looked up, The Husband was chopping the grass from the new pea rows.  I grabbed another hoe and helped him.  I'd planted those new rows pretty close together, and the plants are almost touching their neighbors in the next row.  We may not be able to weed those rows much longer.  Maybe they'll shade out the bulk of the grass.

Before leaving the garden for the evening, I checked on the tomatoes to see how they were faring after the scalping and spraying I gave them over the weekend.  Happily, they look much better.

Incredibly, a few more butterbeans had sprouted in the two or three hours since I'd checked them after work.  In fact, I am pretty sure that even more sprouted WHILE I WAS IN THE GARDEN.  

The potatoes in the tub in the back yard are punching leaves through the soil.  

I am ecstatic over the way the garden has produced this year.  

P.S. - Lizard poop - August 4, 2020

Have y'all ever seen lizard shit?

I'm about to show you some.

He is pooping along the back of the settee on the back porch.

The Husband laid his hat on the back of the settee, so the lizard pooped in it, too.  

 I put the mouse in that final picture to give you a sense of proportion.  

Can you believe a turd that big comes out of a lizard the size of a #2 pencil?  

And what's with the color change?  No, it's not just a dried-up spot.  They look that way when they're new.

The settee totally disgusts me now.  I won't sit on it.  I'm pretty sure the lizard lives in it.  I don't really mind him living on the back porch - he probably helps keep spiders at bay - but I've about had it with his bathroom habits.

Butterbean (singular) up - August 4, 2020

I turned straight down Nanny's driveway when I came home from work today.  My mission was to inspect the garden and then come home and plan my evening.  We've had rain since I sprayed the tomatoes, and I wanted to check for bugs and blight and stuff, to see if I needed to haul my butt out there and do something or take another day off from gardening.  

One butterbean is up.  Well, almost up.  It's trying.  The ground is a tad crusty, but it looked moist underneath where the bean cracked it.  I wonder if misting the garden tonight would loosen the soil for the beans, or make the crust harder tomorrow when the sun beats down on it.  

But misting the garden will culminate in me being pissed off at the world.  For starters, the water hose that's connected to Nanny's house is located in a potential snake pit.  Nanny is certain that a snake lives under the porch.  I'm half scared to get in there to turn on the spigot and unwind the hose.  I have to fight my way between a big hydrangea and a monstrous clematis that yanks my hat off every time.  The water hose, itself, is silver and makes me think SNAKE! every time I see it.  Then there's the hose cart that stays in the garden.  It's got 300 feet of hose wound on it and weighs a ton, and it's a pain in the butt to drag it out and hook it up.  And then it all has to be put back.  

The butterbean package said they should sprout in 7 - 10 days.  We're only on day 3.  

Yeah, maybe I'll wait another day to do the misting, and see how they're doing tomorrow.

But I do need to go pick the squash.  Some of it is already too big.  

 

And a few of the new tomatoes still need to be staked or caged.  All of my stakes and cages are piled onto an old trailer at the edge of the woods.  

Weeds.  Spiders.  Snakes.  Wasps.  This will require boots and gloves.  

Yeah, maybe I'll wait another day for that, too.  ;)

   

Sprayed for fungus - August 3, 2020

Yesterday was busy enough to make up for the slacking on Saturday.  

Did some digitizing.

Went to the grocery store.

Roasted a chicken and made chicken salad for lunches next week.

Roasted a pork butt for supper.

Made a batch of lemon cookies (they are divine).

Cleaned up the kitchen 40 times.

Worked in the garden for 2 hours.

The tomatoes look pitiful.  Blight.  I snipped off so many bad leaves that there's not much left of the plants; they look like little palm trees.  When The Husband saw them, he said, "Wow...you gave them a buzz cut!"  I mixed up a fungicide/pesticide cocktail and doused them good, which was easy since they are mostly stems.  

The newer tomatoes weren't faring quite as badly, but they got a dose of the elixir, too.  They are just now starting to produce.  They need to be fertilized (so do the new peas).  Maybe I'll do that this afternoon.  

The Husband picked the squash and cucumbers AGAIN, and cut the okra.  All the relatives on the hill have had their fill of squash, it seems.  Looks like I'm going to have to start leaving it on strangers' porches.

From the back porch - August 2, 2020

Doesn't the garden look nice?

Left to right:  (1) new purple hull peas, with cucumbers at the far end; (2) a row of tomatoes that you can't see, (3) squash, (4) butterbean rows planted yesterday, with okra at the end, and (5) a row of tomatoes and peppers.  The sweet peas are at the far end of the garden, between the okra and the cucumbers.  The tomatoes have blight something awful.  I'm going to spray them today if it doesn't rain.

I hardly knew what to do with myself yesterday, with the ground too wet to work in the garden.  After breakfast, I sewed a new mask pattern to see if it was more bearable to wear than others I've made, but I made the ear straps too short and it folded up my ears and rolled off them.  *sigh*  I could've undone the seams and put in longer ear straps, but I was too bored to fool with it.  It will probably fit one of The Granddaughters, so all is not lost. 

Having abandoned the sewing, I brought my mandolin out to the back porch and practiced a while.  Still working on "I'll Fly Away."  I've got the basic melody down fairly well and am trying to figure out some good double stops and fills.  Yesterday, I ran across a play-along video for a simple version of "Georgia."  I didn't like the way he was strumming it, and it seemed to be missing some chord changes, so I searched for a tab.  Holy mackerel . . . if I ever get all those chord changes down, I'm going to print myself a diploma, or something.

When my fingers got sore, I went to the garden to pick tomatoes.  (Since they are on the outside row, I could stand in the grass and pick them, and not have to wade in mud.)  There were only about 10, but most of them were pretty big.  I  made spaghetti sauce with them.  We'll have it tonight for supper.

Butterbeans, Butter Peas, and Sweet Peas - August 1, 2020

It's a really nice day to sit on the back porch.  Right now, it's overcast and about 70 degrees.  We had a pretty good rain last night, so it's too wet to work in the garden.  I haven't yet decided what to do with my time today.  

While at work yesterday morning, I got an email that said my butterbean seeds had been delivered.  Since I'd heard rain during the night, I figured the ground would be too wet to plant, and so I made plans to do some genealogy research when I got home from work.

On the way home, I stopped by the garden store for fertilizer and fungus killer, and some fire ant killer for Nanny's yard.  As promised in the email, the seeds were in my mailbox.  I left it all in the car and came inside to do my research.  After a while, I went out to the car to look for a notebook, and when I opened the car door, the smell of all those chemicals wafted out.  I decided to take them on down to the garden shed so they wouldn't stink up my car.

And guess what?  The garden wasn't very wet at all.  The top layer was dry as a bone, and beneath the  dry crust, the ground was perfectly moist for planting.  I grabbed those seed packets and a hoe and got busy.  I had enough seeds for 2 half rows of butterbeans, 2 half rows of butter peas, and 2 half rows of sweet peas.  It's supposed to rain this weekend.  Maybe those seeds will pop right out of the ground.

After planting the seeds, I picked squash AGAIN.  Land sakes, the stuff grows fast!  Knowing that it was supposed to rain later, I picked every squash over 2" long.  Brought it home and made a squash casserole for supper and froze the rest.  I'll need the space where the squash growing when I can get my hands on some fall vegetable plants, but I hate to pull it up now, with it still making like crazy.  We'll just keep giving it away, I reckon.