A Tribute to Pop-Pop

Our Pop-Pop passed away on November 19th, after a long, hard struggle with more problems than I care to name.  Even though he was in and out of the hospital since early October, none of us believed that his time was up.  He left a wife, a mother, three children, seven grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren, all of whom loved him dearly.  We miss him, already.

Pop-Pop was a quiet man with a wicked wit that bubbled to the surface at the most unexpected times.  When my husband and I announced that we were expecting our first child (and his first grandchild), his response was to look at my husband and say, "Ain't that just like a woman?  You just want to poke a little fun at them, and they take you seriously."  But when that child was born, before leaving the hospital, he leaned over my bed, kissed my cheek, and said, "Thank you for my grandson."

He was crazy about all of his grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and delighted in acting as their accomplice in mischief.  When our boys got a go-kart, he put the blade on the tractor and scraped a dirt track all the way around the front field so they'd have a safe place to ride at top speed.  He taught his 3-year-old great-granddaughter how to drive his Rascal scooter, and let her take it up the long driveway to get his newspaper.  He teased them, and argued with them, and good-naturedly endured their jokes about his age and his turtle-paced gait. 

He let the kids tinker in the shop with him, and ride the tractor with him.  He let the girls stick bows on his bald spot at Christmas, and wrote a letter nearly every day to a home-sick granddaughter who went away to Army boot camp. 

His great-grandchildren remember him for the candy he always had stashed in his shirt pocket or in a bowl high on a kitchen shelf.  While the family was gathered at his house after his death, one of them, a six-year-old girl, led me out to the workshop and asked, "Has he got any Tootsie Rolls in here?"  The next day, I caught the 4-year old boy in the shop, climbing onto the workbench and peering into plastic coffee cans, looking for the one that held the stash. 

Pop-Pop and I had a system:  I'd bring the dull hoes to the shop and deposit them in a barrel; he'd sharpen them and put them in another barrel in the gardening shed.  My favorite hoe was almost always ready to be used when I was ready to use it.  He kept my ragged old tillers running, and always took time to fill up a small gas can with a gas/oil mixture that wouldn't make their motors smoke the way they did when I did the mixing. 

After his funeral, the pall-bearers - mostly grandsons - loaded into Pop-Pop's old red-and-white Ford pickup truck and followed the hearse to the cemetery.  They piled out of it, and sang "I'll Fly Away" in the rain at his graveside.  He would've loved it.

Sweet Potato Casserole Recipe

This stuff is lip-smackin' good.

Basic recipe:

3 c. mashed sweet potatoes (takes about 3 big ones) *
1/3 c. milk **
2 eggs
1 c. sugar ***
1 t. vanilla
1 stick of butter
pinch of salt
cinnamon, if you like it, however much you like ****

Mix above ingredients well with mixer or by hand.  Pour into large casserole dish. 

Topping:

1 c. brown sugar
2/3 stick butter
1 c. chopped pecans
1/3 c. flour

Melt butter.  Mix flour, sugar, and nuts.  Pour melted butter over mixture.  Mix well, and spread over potatoes.  Bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees.  Serve hot or cold.

* Do yourself a favor:  boil the sweet potatoes and THEN peel them.  It much easier than doing it the other way around.  ;)

** Half & Half makes it richer.

*** I only had 1/3 c. of sugar in the canister, so I supplemented with light brown sugar and some cane syrup.  Whatever works, eh?

**** The recipe in this church cookbook does not call for cinnamon, but we like it.   Taste the potatoes before you add it, though; they're really good without it.

Chili Kohlrabi Rellenos

Um...yeah.  Chili kohlrabi rellenos.  They're in the oven now. 

You see, I rode my bike down to the garden this evening to see what was happening.  Though I haven't done much writing about the garden for a couple of months, things have been clicking along.  When the summer heat relented, the tomatoes and peppers kicked into high gear.  Every week, I've harvested enough tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants to make sauces for supper and to freeze.  The tomatoes are getting a little "nubby," but the peppers are in their prime.  The limbs of the Big Jim pepper plant were bent and broken with the weight of the peppers.  I wanted to leave them to turn red, but we've had a few very cool nights lately, and I decided to get most of them before the frost does.

And when I turned around, behold, there sat the two kohlrabi plants, planted on the summer solstice, that had managed to escape the varmits and our hoes.  Since I'd paid them any attention, they had each grown themselves a nice green bulb - the size of a tennis ball - atop the ground.  They had big, spiky, collard-type leaves.  I pulled one of them up, root and all, but broke the other off at the ground to see if it will make again.

My original plan was to roast the Big Jim peppers and either pickle them or freeze them.  Before I made it back to the house with them, I decided I'd stuff them, instead. 

But what was I going to do with kohlrabi?  I'd never eaten the stuff.  I'd seen a few recipes on the internet.  None of them exactly turned my crank.  I peeled one and tasted it.  It was turnip-y, but surprisingly sweet, good enough to eat raw.  I chopped it into little cubes and decided that it could just go in the stuffed peppers, along with some tomatoes, onions, and cheese.  A few of the chopped leaves got tossed in, too, for color.  I wrapped two of the peppers in bacon, pinned on with toothpicks.

I'll let you know how they turn out.
 

Sears Repair Service, Part III

Today is the day that the Sears appliance repairman was originally (rather, most recently) scheduled to work on our refrigerator.  Earlier this week, someone from Sears called and said that it will be NEXT Friday, October 7, before the repairman comes.

I haven't heard the noise in a while.  Maybe the freezer fan isn't making the noise, anymore, or maybe I've grown so accustomed to it that I just don't hear it, anymore. 

In any case, it will soon be a month since I made the first call requesting repair service. 

Sears, Part II

The saga continues.

The Sears repairman came on September 6, about 1 p.m.  Naturally, the refrigerator was not making the offending noise when he arrived.  I explained to him that my diagnosis was that there was frost building up on the freezer fan, and that the blades eventually knocked off the ice for a time, then it would build up again.  He said he suspected that I was absolutely right, since it is a common problem.  He said that the culprit was the half-tube that feeds water into the ice-maker.  Since it's only a half tube (like a mini-water slide), water splashes when it squirts into the ice-maker.  He slipped a whole piece of tube over the existing half-tube, and said that oughta do it.

The fridge started making the noise again this weekend; this time, it's a serious snarl instead of a low purr. 

Today, I took a deep breath, and dialed the Sears repair service again.  The deep breath was to keep me from going all ape-shit on them right off the bat.  After giving the customer service rep. all of the necessary info, we began to talk about appointment times.  I took another deep breath and said, "Can we talk, girl to girl?"  She said we could.  I told her about the crap we've been through, so far, with this refrigerator.  My main complaint was that the repair service historically hasn't done what it said it would do, when it said it would do it.  I asked her to please flag the call, somehow, to let these people know that I'm already irked.  She said she would.

I can't get a repair appointment until September 30, 10 days from now.  The time will be between 8 and 5.  They're supposed to call 30 minutes in advance of coming. 

We'll see.

Meanwhile, I have video-taped the freezer with my cell phone, to capture the noise.  I've also taken snapshots of the freezer contents, because if this problem is as big as it's beginning to sound, Sears may have to buy me some groceries.

New York, New York - 9/9/11 thru 9/11/11

My niece, Libby, and her finance, Jordan, invited us to their wedding in New York City on 9/10/11.  When we received their "Save the Date" card and saw the date and the location of the wedding, we thought, "Have they gone mad?"  Granted, "nine-ten-eleven" is a catchy date, one the groom should not have trouble remembering in years to come, but why New York City?  Won't it be especially crowded, and maybe even a little dangerous? 
The "why" had one main point:  Libby loves NYC, specifically Brooklyn, having lived there for three years while she was in law school.  And, in the good old American spirit, the thought was, "Hang the trouble-makers, they'll not keep us down." 

Friday, 9/9/11

So, on 9/9/11, Joel and I, along with six other members of our family, boarded an early morning flight to New York City.  My Aunt Barbara and Uncle Larry were part of our entourage.  They'd never been to New York.  Uncle Larry was especially excited about the trip, and he wanted to see everything - EVERYTHING - that he could see in the three days we'd be in town. 

When we arrived at noon on Friday, my brother, the father of the bride, picked us up at the airport and took us to our hotel on Smith St. in Brooklyn.  As we checked in, the clerk handed us cute little gift bags with tags that said, "Thanks for coming!"  We peeked into the bags when we got to our rooms and found little bottles of champagne, a little bag of macarons (no, not "macaroons" - "macarons"), a map of the area, and menus from nearby restaurants.  How sweet!

After stashing our bags in our rooms, the group re-assembled in the hotel lobby, then hit Smith St. in search of lunch.  Not far from the hotel was a restaurant called Coco Roco.  The menu on the storefront listed Peruvian dishes.  "I've never had Peruvian food," I said.  That settled it.  "Then let's eat here," my brother said.  We went inside. The food was good.

That evening, the groom's family hosted an outdoor cocktail party at Anable Basin Sailing Bar & Grill.  We had been expecting drinks and light hors d'ouvres, and we'd made plans to nibble at the party, then go to Chinatown or Little Italy for a late dinner.  If food had been our only consideration, we could've skipped the trip over to Manhattan; the "light hors d'ouvres" would've sufficed.  I still don't know the specific names of the dishes served to us, but there were delicious little sandwiches of pork belly wrapped in pancake-like bread, sausages, corn on the cob, broccoli, pulled pork with barbeque sauce, and several other treats that I did not get around to trying. 

As the sun set, the view of Manhattan across the water was amazing. 

We left the party around 8 p.m., went back to our hotel to swap our dress shoes for walking shoes.  With maps in hand, we headed for the subway.  I shall (mostly) refrain from teasing my brother about his map-reading skills.  I shall simply say that we walked quite a long way before finding a subway entrance, and that men, in general, seem unnecessarily reluctant to ask passers-by for directions.  ;)

Chinatown almost made me puke.  For real.  Oh, it was an amazing sight, for sure.  But the smell of old, rotting fish was almost more than my constitution could bear.  I put my hand over my nose and mouth, but it did not block out the smell or the sound of my gagging.  We hurried toward the next corner, anxious for the sight of green, red, and white decorations that would signal Little Italy. 

Maitre d's attacked us as we entered Little Italy.  We escaped several of them before one snagged us and dragged us into his restaurant.  The waiters quickly pieced together a table for 12, and we sat down to a very good Italian dinner. 

Back at the hotel, I showered and fell into bed.  It was only 11 p.m., but I'd been up since 5 a.m., and my feet were aching from all the walking.  Sleep did not come as rapidly or deeply as I expected.  Country bumpkins normally sleep in quiet places, where the only sounds that can be heard (aside from house noises) come from insects and frogs.  The city dwellers among us may not have even noticed the symphony of noise coming from the street, but I heard every horn blast and siren.

Saturday, 9/10/11 - Wedding Day

After breakfast, we headed back to the subway to get to Times Square, where we bought tickets for a double-decker bus tour of the city.  Times Square was writhing with people.  The sights on the billboards are almost more than one brain can process.  As I stood there, numb with visual overload, I doubted that the founders of the city could ever have imagined what it would become in 400 years.

But, oh, the weather was perfect, and when we climbed aboard the bus and snaked our way to the top deck, life was good.  We did the "downtown" tour this day, going past Rockefeller Center, the Empire State Building, Macy's - all the tourist destinations.  Uncle Larry most wanted to see the Statue of Liberty, so when we reached Battery Park, we left the bus and took a round-trip ride on the Staten Island Ferry to see her from afar.  After that, we got back on the bus and went back downtown in search of gen-u-ine New York pizza.  When lunch was over, the group split up, with some going shopping and others going back to the hotel to rest and dress for the wedding.

The ceremony happened in the Dumbo area (which I later learned stands for "Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overlook"), in a tiny park between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge.  We assembled on the slate steps at the water's edge, where the bride and groom sneaked in a quick vow-saying between the rumbles of passing trains.  The bride's brother had passed out a basket of wooden train whistles, and we merrily honked our whistles as the newlyweds enjoyed their first kiss(es) as husband and wife.  With the legal formalities done, we scurried across the street to the Smack Mellon Gallery for the reception. 

The sign outside said "Eat, Drink, and Be Married!"  What a fun party it was!  Food, booze, music and dancing.  There was "Connect Four," and "Operation," and a Ms. Pac-Man video game.  There was a photo booth where we grabbed masks, plastic moustaches, and eyeglasses on sticks and acted goofy while a photographer snapped our pictures.  We had a great time.

Sunday - 9/11/11

Since we didn't have to be at the airport for the flight home until 3 p.m., and since our bus tour tickets were good for 48 hours, and since we hadn't had time on Saturday to do the "uptown" tour, back to Manhattan we went.  A tour bus was loading as we emerged from the subway.  Seeing that it was almost full, already, we asked the tour guide, a cute little octogenarian, if there was room for 8 of us on her bus.  "Yes, of course!" she said.  "But no talking on the tour!"  I looked at her as if she'd sprouted a second head.  "I mean it!" she insisted.  "No talking, and no cell phones!"  I could see right away that she might need to be thrown from the bus before this tour was over.

Off we went - past Central Park, over to Harlem, past rows of burned-out tenement houses, around to 5th Avenue, past rows of mansions and museums - and all the while our cute little tour-nazi was informing us, not so much with facts and dates, but with stories about the buildings and the people who lived in them. "Don't look for it," she would say, as she began the next story, "we're not there, yet!"  "Slow down, Miguel!" she would call to the driver from the top deck.  "Now, Miguel, go slowwww-ly forward...a little more...a little more...there!  Ladies and gentlemen, there's your picture!" 

We didn't have to throw her off the bus, after all.  :)


Lunch at a corner deli fortified us for the trip home.  We grabbed our bags, called a car, and headed for the airport.  Our driver was from Bangladesh.  He was smiling and friendly and didn't seem to mind one bit when I fired off a dozen questions to him about his home and his life, but I must admit that I did not understand all that he said.

The flight home was uneventful and arrived on time. 

It was such a fun trip, but, as always, it was good to be home.

SkeeterVac Review #4

The SkeeterVac ran out of gas over 2 months ago.  We were about to leave the next morning for a short vacation, and didn't want to fool with the machine.  Over the next few weeks, daytime temperatures hovered around the 100-degree mark, and we didn't hang out in the yard much, so we weren't encountering any mosquitoes, anyway.  Replacing the gas tank on the SkeeterVac hasn't even been in our thoughts.  Now that the heat is beginning to relent, we're starting to venture out again, and since we have not had the SkeeterVac running, the mosquito population growth has been unhampered.

Last Sunday at dusk, when The Husband and I were puttering around outside, he said, "I'm going in. The 'skeeters are eating me up!"


"We need to crank the SkeeterVac back up," I commented, as I followed him inside.

Yesterday, I picked up a new gas tank.  After installing it, I changed out the TacTrap and put in a fresh bait cartridge.  Happily, the machine started on the first try. 

You should have seen the old TacTrap.  While I didn't see many mosquitoes stuck to it, I did see loads of horseflies (which I loathe more than mosquitoes), houseflies, and crickets.  There was even a dried-up skink stuck to it.  Sadly, there were also a couple of rows of feathers from a bird's wing.  (Poor bird probably thought he'd found some easy pickin's.)  All that was in the trap drawer was dust and fuzz, stuff that was in there before the gas bottle ran out.

Theoretically, I guess we're starting over in trying to decimate the mosquito population around here.  Before the heat drove us indoors, we were not seeing many mosquitoes in our yard, but neither was I encountering many in the garden, which is far outside the SkeeterVac's reach.  Had the SkeeterVac been doing its job, or has this simply been a slow year for 'skeeters?  Hard to say.  We have never seen mass quantities of mosquitoes stuck to the TacTrap or in the trap drawer - nothing that even distantly approached the drawer-full of mosquito carcasses shown in promotional videos.  But we have also (until recently) not been eaten alive by mosquitoes in our yard.  Perhaps the real test will come in the next few weeks, now that the mosquitoes seem to be out in force.

* * * * * *

On the gardening front, I mailed a garden soil sample to the University of Tennessee yesterday.  I am hoping that the results will come back about the time the garden poops out so that I can amend the soil for next year's garden.

Monday afternoon I tilled up the green bean rows and would've done the same to the purple-hull peas except that they had a "mess" of peas still on the vines.  Nanny picked them while I weeded the tomatoes.  The black-eyed peas need to go, too, but their vines are massive and should be mowed, first.  The butterbeans and butterpeas are still producing, so I'll leave them alone a while longer.

The squash is kaput, except for the zuccinis.  The okra is still making like crazy. 

The raccoons have gotten every single ear of corn, so far.  I'd be mad, except that I knew when I planted the corn that the 'coons would get it.  This year's corn crop, such as it was, is a dwarf variety, seeds that I bought half price at the end of the season last year.  The whole plant is barely waist high, and the little ears aren't two feet off the ground; the 'coons don't even have to break a sweat to reach them.  If I plant corn again next year, you can bet it's going to be giant stuff that the 'coons will have to work to get.

As for the tomatoes....    I sprayed fungicide to combat late blight over the weekend.  This may sound weird, but Monday when I went to work in the garden, there already seemed to be less of that throbbing, yellow-ish glow that a full-swing blight infestation seems to emit.  The top two-thirds of the tomato plants still look healthy, and the plants are still blooming, so maybe we'll get more ripe tomatoes this season.

The tomato vines have been outrageously large and lush this year, spilling over their cages and trailing onto the ground, but they haven't produced all that much fruit.  I blamed it on over-fertilizing until I heard other gardeners complaining of the same issue.  Uncle Jack says that he has lopped off some of his tomatoes to see what will happen, and they are doing well, so far.  I'd thought about doing that, myself, and may yet try it with a couple of the plants.  I'll let you know what happens.

Shame on You, Sears!

I have always been a fan of Kenmore appliances.  Our washer, dryer, refrigerator, and dishwasher all came from Sears.  One of my sewing machines is a Kenmore.  We own a Craftsman lawnmower, two Craftsman tillers, and some Craftsman power tools.  My 26-year-old kitchen stove (a Whirlpool that came with the house) is about to poop out, and I'd planned to replace it with a Kenmore.

Last July, our 7-year-old Kenmore refrigerator went on the fritz on a Saturday.  I phoned the Sears repair hotline and scheduled an appointment for the next Monday.  The repairman arrived as promised, checked out the refrigerator, and said that he would have to order parts before he could fix the 'fridge.  He said the parts would arrive by Wednesday, and that he would be back on Thursday to install them.  On Tuesday, the repairman called and said that the parts he needed were on back-order, and he would not be coming on Thursday.  As it turned out, all of the parts arrived by Wednesday, but we had lost our place in the repair schedule.  This part-ordering screw up and a series of re-scheduling screw ups resulted in us being without a refrigerator for 13 days and caused me to take several afternoons off from work, waiting on repair appointments that never happened.

A couple of months ago, The Husband bought a refrigerator service/maintenance agreement from Sears.  Over a week ago, when the refrigerator's freezer fan started sporadically making a funny noise, I called the repair hotline to schedule service.  I called on a Monday.  Sears would have scheduled a Tuesday service appointment, but I asked them to hold off until Friday, since I would be working out of town until then and the refrigerator was still cooling adequately.  They set the appointment for Friday, "between the hours of 1 and 5."  They said that I would get an e-mail confirming the appointment, and that the repairman would call 30 minutes before his arrival.

Mid-morning on Friday, when I had not received a confirming e-mail, I called the repair hotline to make sure I was on the list for service.  They said that they had, indeed, scheduled us for service between the hours of 1 and 5. 

At 4:57 p.m., I phoned the repair hotline again.  Yes, I was on the list.  Yes, the repairman would call before his arrival.  Evidently running behind.  Blah-blah-blah.  At 6:30, having not heard from a service technician, we went out to dinner. 

Today is Tuesday.  I have still not had a call from the repairman.

Sears, your service stinks.  I realize that you contract the work and thus are even farther removed from your actual customers' needs, but somewhere in your big corporate world, the buck should stop with someone.  Your service repair hotline won't/can't tell me who that person is or how to reach him/her, so I'm hereby letting you know that someone, somewhere, has dropped the ball.

Sears, doing what you say you will do is one of the basic necessities of human interaction.  It is one of the fundamental principles of business.  It builds trust.  Trust builds customer bases.  Customers build profits.  You know how it works.  You can't leave us out of the equation indefinitely.  I understand that my refrigerator's "funny noise" is not (yet) an emergency, and that other customers may be experiencing far more serious problems that should receive attention first.  Since my ice cream and 'tater tots are still frozen, I'm not all that upset that the service call has been delayed, but I am upset with the lack of communication.  The service company with which you have contracted is not doing its job. 

NEWS FLASH:  I just phoned the Sears repair hotline to determine when the new repair appointment will be.  Guess what?  There is no repair appointment scheduled.  Sears' notes reflect that a repairman showed up at our door at 7:01 p.m. on Friday evening, and that the homeowner cancelled the service call. 

Sears, I am boiling mad.  We left the house to go out to dinner around 6:30 p.m.  There had been no call from the repairman to let us know he was coming, and there was no one here to answer the door or cancel the appointment when he arrived.  Your contract technician has told a big, fat LIE.  And guess what else?  When I asked to schedule another appointment, I was told that the next available appointment was Saturday, at a time when I cannot be here.  The next available appointment after that is on Tuesday, between the hours of 8 and 5.  And guess what else?  The telephone operator said that the repairman MAY call before his arrival, but would not guarantee it.  So that means I either have to stay here all day Tuesday (when I'm supposed to be at work), or risk missing the service call.  It's last year's repair ordeal, all over again.

Sears, this frosts the cake.  I am done with you.  When I go out to shop for a new kitchen stove, I will not be buying from you.  I will be going to my local hardware store, which has an in-house repairman to service the appliances they sell.  Let me tell you a story about their service.  My niece bought a refrigerator from them.  When it went out, this hardware store brought her a "loaner" refrigerator to use while they fixed/replaced hers.  That, Sears, is service.  You could learn something from them.

Risky Moves

Thursday, as I pulled in my driveway after work, I glanced across the road out of habit to see what was going on at Nanny's and Pop-Pop's house.  Their cars were home and the workshop door was open.  Disturbingly, Pop-Pop's 10-ft. painter's ladder was standing open directly in front of the shop.  I squinted, but couldn't tell if anyone was on the ladder.  To be honest, I didn't think Pop-Pop could climb a ladder because of the arthritis in his feet, but I didn't doubt that Nanny might give it a go, and she doesn't have any business on a ladder, either.

I came on in the house, changed clothes, and sat down at my computer desk.  From here, I could glance out the window and see the workshop door.  Every few minutes, I'd lean back and have a look, ready to intervene if I saw someone move toward the ladder.

Sure enough, after a while, I saw movement near the ladder.  Judging from the speed at which the person was walking, I knew that the person was Pop-Pop.  As I watched, he made his first slow step onto the ladder.  Oh, I don't think so!  I jumped up, grabbed my car keys, and went down there.

By the time I got there, Pop-Pop was standing on the ground, holding the giant streetlight-type lamp that normally hangs over the shop door.  The look on his face said he knew he was busted.

I got out of the car and walked toward him.  "Hmmm...I'm not liking the looks of this," I said. 

"What?" he asked, trying to look innocent. 

"You, near a ladder.  Need some help?"

He hum-hee-hawed around and eventually said that he didn't think either of us would be able to re-attach the lamp.  I was a little relieved that he was apparently abandoning the idea for the moment, for I wasn't too thrilled about climbing the ladder, myself.  A few minutes later, one of his grandchildren drove up, and, thankfully, Pop-Pop delegated the job to him. 

While The Nephew reinstalled the light, Pop-Pop pointed out that the tomatoes were "firin' up."  Sure enough, it looks like they've been hit with late blight.  I couldn't remember exactly how long it had been since I'd sprayed fungicide.  "I'll have to check my records," I told him, meaning this blog. 

Looking back, I see that it's been about 3 weeks since the last treatment - too long, really, considering the vigor with which this fungus thrives around here.  I should have been spraying at regular intervals, regardless of whether or not signs of blight were present.  You'd think I'd have learned that lesson by now.

The Lazy Weekend that Wasn't

Last week was a seriously busy time for me, and so as I snatched an old Patricia Cornwell novel out of a sale bin at the drugstore on Friday evening, I envisioned myself piled up on the couch for the weekend, absorbed in the thriller.

It was not to be.

Standing before the open refrigerator on Saturday morning, I realized that I'd have to break down and go grocery shopping or we'd go hungry all weekend.  I showered and dressed and hit the road about 9 a.m.  As The Husband and I were putting away the groceries an hour later, he told me that The Grandson had called, wanting to come over.  Before we finished, the phone rang again.  The Husband answered it.  "Ok, we'll be down there in a little bit to get some of it," I heard him say.  He hung up the phone and turned to me:  "Mama's picked a bucket of tomatoes, a bucket of butterbeans, and a bunch of okra.  And somebody gave her a bucket of pears.  She said for us to come get some of it." 

Oh, boy...there goes my lazy Saturday, I thought, but I went across the road and relieved Nanny of the tomatoes and butterbeans.  While I was there, she told me that the squash plants in the garden were infested with bugs.  I went out and had a look and, sure enough, the squash plants were crawling with squash bugs of every size and description.  They'd already demolished some of the older plants and were working their way down the row.  Watching them, I remembered that a month ago a friend in Albuquerque had complained that squash bugs had arrived in his garden, and that he had given them $5 and my address.  Thanks, buddy.  I'd have to deal with them later. 

Back at home, when The Grandson saw me assembling the tomato squeezer, he made a bee-line to the kitchen, volunteering his help.  Letting him help seemed like a good idea.  I clamped the contraption to the kitchen table, showed Caleb how to turn the crank, and began slicing the tomatoes into the hopper.  We'd only ground a few tomatoes when he leaned into the juicer too hard and knocked the whole business, bowls and all, onto the kitchen floor.  He needed no encouragement to go play with his trains when he saw the mess he'd made.  I cleaned it up and finished the job without his assistance.

It was early evening by the time I'd canned the tomatoes and shelled and blanched the butterbeans. My feet were aching, but I knew that if I sat down to rest them, I'd never get up again, and there were still squash bugs to be dispatched.  I went across the road, mixed up a few gallons of insecticide, and went out to greet the squash bugs.  Truth be told, the squash plants weren't worth saving, but I knew those rotten bugs would multiply, or over-winter in the soil, or something; getting rid of them this year might save me some headache next year.  I let 'em have it with the bug spray and didn't even feel bad about it.

Sunday was far less hectic, even though Caleb was still with us.  We had a semi-lazy day loitering around in our pajamas, reading books, watching cartoons, and watching the writing spider catch bugs in her web outside our living room window.  Between all that, I managed to wash four loads of laundry, change the bed sheets, and put meals on the table - all in all a productive weekend, despite the non-productive plans I'd made. 

Tiling the Shower (The Finale)

I was reminded this week that I never wrote the rest of the story of the shower tiling project. 

There is a reason for this - the not writing, that is.

You see, ten years ago, we undertook another do-it-(partly)-yourself project, a bedroom/bathroom addition.  In fact, that project involved the very bathroom that has been the subject of these posts.  Now, we didn't do much of this project, only simple things like painting and trim work.  As of this writing, that project still is not quite finished after all these years.  The Husband cut and painted the baseboards for the bathroom, set them in place against the walls, but never nailed them to the wall.  Why this occurred (or, rather, didn't occur) is still a mystery.  As we started the tiling project, I said to him, "When we finish tiling, we need to nail those (#!@ baseboards to the walls."  Having spoken the words that added that step to the process, in my mind the shower project won't officially be finished until the (#!@ baseboards are nailed to the walls.

Nevertheless, we are showering in it.  Here it is:

The Husband took over the final stages of the project.  He did the grouting and sealing and installed the final trim pieces.  There is still a place or two where I think we should add some trim work, just to spiff it up a bit, but that may never happen. 

As you can see, we haven't installed a shower door yet, and we probably never will.  (I'm thinking it'll be a lot easier to periodically replace a slimy shower curtain than to keep a glass door free of soap scum.) 

Am I 100% satisfied with our work?  No, just 99%.  The tile job is not perfect, but it ain't bad for amateurs.  We had to replace a small strip of sheetrock near the ceiling, and we still haven't painted it, but I hereby vow (and you are my witness!) that we will do it.

And we might even nail the baseboards to the walls while we're at it.  ;)

* * * * * * * *

In the garden, the tomatoes continue to ripen.  Nanny canned a load of them earlier in the week.  I should go to the garden this morning to see if more are ready, for I haven't put up nearly enough spaghetti sauce and salsa.  The okra continues to churn out pods at an astonishing rate.  The cucumbers, squash, and blackeyed peas have about pooped out.  I planted more squash seeds a few weeks ago, and those plants have begun to bloom and produce squash, but they are only making a half-hearted effort.  Who could blame them in all this heat?  Some time in the next couple of weeks, I am going to pull up the pea vines and plow those rows for greens.  The corn plants have small ears on them.  So far, the stalks are still standing, but I know in my heart that the raccoons are watching, waiting to harvest the ears one day before I do. 

 

Tomatoes! (and Gadgetry)

I went to the garden when I got off work, thinking that there might be enough ripe tomatoes on the vines to make a batch of spaghetti sauce, and was delighted to find that there were LOTS of ripe tomatoes - two plastic grocery bags near-to-bust full.  I brought them home, washed them, and fed them to my new kitchen gadget.

It's a "Sauce Master" sauce strainer.  Clamps to the table, cranks like a meat grinder.  It comes with one strainer attachment, its mesh small enough to hold back a tomato seed.  You set a funnel bowl on top of it, drop quartered tomatoes into the funnel (belly buttons and all), and commence cranking.  It has a plastic auger inside that smushes the tomatoes against the mesh.  You don't even have to peel the tomatoes; the juice and pulp run out one spout, and the seeds, skin, and cores run out another.

I also bought a salsa attachment that has bigger holes, like a round box grater instead of a mesh.  With this attachment, you get juice, pulp, and little bits of tomato.  The seeds - and sometimes even little bits of skin - will come through the holes of this attachment (I don't care).  When I finished squeezing all of the tomatoes with the salsa attachment, I changed back to the original strainer, squeezed the skins again, and got more pulp and juice.  This is a good gizmo.  It drastically cut down on the tomato prep time.

There are now three pans of tomatoes simmering on my stove, altogether about 12 quarts of raw tomatoes and juice.  I've added garlic powder, salt, and pepper to the tomatoes and will cook them down until they've made a nice, thick sauce. 

Cucumber Pigs

My grandson, Caleb, came to spend the evening with me yesterday.  About 30 minutes after his arrival, he announced, "I have a great idea.  Let's go to Nanny and Pop-Pop's."  It so happened that I had already planned a trip to Nanny and Pop-Pop's to deliver some things I'd picked up earlier in the day, but I was shelling butterpeas at that moment, and needed to start the supper cooking, so I put him off for a while.  When his Poppy had come home, and we'd all eaten dinner, we headed across the road to Nanny's.

While we were there, I made a quick sashay through the garden to check on things.  On my way past the cucumbers, I found two big yellow ones.  Finding them gave me a flashback to my childhood, when my grandfather showed me how to make a pig out of a big yellow cucumber and a few spent kitchen matches.  I told The Husband, "I'm going to show Caleb how to make a cucumber pig."

Caleb was at that moment zooming around the yard in his Power Wheels Jeep.  I snapped a branch off of a cherry tree, and when Caleb zoomed past me, I hollered, "Caleb, come watch; I'm going to turn this cucumber into a pig!" 

He stopped and gave me a disbelieving look.  "Pigs are not made out of cucumbers," he said.  "They're made out of meat."

"This one's going to be made out of cucumber," I told him.  "Come look." 

He climbed out of the Jeep and followed me onto Nanny's back porch.  I sat down at the table and broke off four equal lengths of the cherry branch to use as legs, another length for a tail, and some short pieces for eyes.  Caleb stood at my knees, watching as I poked the sticks into the cucumber.  "He needs a nose," Caleb said.  I broke off another piece of the branch to make the nose. 

"There!" I said, setting the pig onto the table.  It immediatly collapsed onto its belly, with all four legs splayed out to its sides.  My sticks were too thin to hold its weight. 

"It looks like an insect," Caleb observed. 

I broke off two more pieces of stick and jabbed them in.  "Ok, now it's an insect," I said.

Caleb looked skeptical.  "What kind of insect has a tail?"

He had me there. 

Fortunately, Poppy had witnessed the pig's collapse and had already gone for sturdier sticks.  With them and the second yellow cucumber, we fashioned a fine (if slightly disproportioned and rather startled-looking) pig that could hold its own weight.

Rain!

It rained Monday night.  The garden needed it, but I wish it would've waited one day, for I'd sprayed for tomato worms a few hours earlier.  I don't know whether to spray again or wait and see if the little green devils ate enough supper that night to kill them.  I'll probably wait, since (1) I hate using pesticides, and (2) I'm lazy.

Temperatures are cooler this week - low 90s instead of high 90s.  Yesterday was wonderful, with sunshine and a nice breeze.  As soon as I came home from work, I went to the garden.  The butterpeas - rather, some of the butterpeas - were ready for picking.  I haven't shelled them, yet, but I'm guessing this picking will make enough for a 2-person supper.  The plants still have loads of pods on them, and plenty more blooms, so we should get another picking or two.

The purple-hull peas have about "done their do," as my mother says.  One day soon, I'm going to pull up the vines, till the rows, and find something else to plant in their place.

Something has eaten most of the leaves off of the green beans.  They may put back on after this rain.  I'll give them a few days before I yank them up.

Still waiting on tomatoes.

Pssssst...Bugs!

Note to self:  I sprayed the tomatoes for bugs and blight this evening.  We've had a good rain since the last time I sprayed, and tomato worms are beginning to trim up the plants.  Pssssst!  Take THAT, horned worm. 

Tonight on the local TV gardening show, the questions were about why the tomato plants haven't borne fruit as they should have.  Apparently, I'm not the only gardener with green, bushy plants and not many ripe tomatoes to show for it.  The experts said that we can blame it on the excessive heat of the past couple of months, and that if we persevere (and water regularly), the situation should improve when the weather cools a bit.  They said, "Be patient."

I jumped the gun last week and bought a case of tomatoes from a road-side stand.  (How THEY're getting ripe tomatoes is anybody's guess.)  On Tuesday, the ripest of them went into a batch of salsa.  It tasted good, but wasn't spicy/hot enough to suit me.  By Sunday, the rest had ripened, and I made a second batch of salsa.  I threw the hot peppers to it, and shook in a few dried red pepper flakes for good measure.  This batch is hotter than a firecracker, just the way I like it.

Note to Self re. Watering

I watered the butterbeans, squash, tomatoes, peppers, and corn today.  Didn't make it to the cucumbers, green beans, and peas.  While the water was running, The Husband and I picked squash, cucumbers, peppers, and okra.  The okra is really going to town.  Heh...must be all that swagglin'.  Anyway...finish the watering tomorrow.

We had a garden supper tonight - fried eggplant, butterbeans, and frozen ravioli with fresh tomato/basil sauce.  That sauce was good on the eggplant, too; with a little parmesan cheese grated on top, it was a like a quickie Eggplant Parmigiana.  The butter beans were good.  I chopped and fried one piece of bacon until it was about halfway done, then I dumped the raw butterbeans (about 2 cups) into the skillet, swooshed them around with the bacon, and let them heat for a couple of minutes.  Then I poured enough water on the beans to cover them, simmered the water out, then watered/simmered them again.  What little liquid remained was like gravy.  Next time I do it, I'll add a little finely-chopped onion - and/or a little roasted red pepper - in with the bacon.

First Butterbeans and Zucchini Bread

As I was finishing my first cup of coffee this morning, I looked out my window and saw Nanny on her way to the garden with a picking bucket.  I suited up and rode down on my bike to join her.  Two hours later, we'd picked a canner full of butterbeans, a 5-gallon bucket full of purple hull peas, and several two-gallon buckets of squash, zucchini, eggplant, okra, and cucumbers.  I left the peas and okra with Nanny (she's got folks coming for dinner tomorrow), and I brought home the rest.

Among the bounty was a zucchini as big around as a baseball bat.  I washed it, scraped out the big seeds, and grated the meaty part, rind and all.  This grated stuff went into a batch of cranberry zucchini bread.  I'm fixin' to give you the recipe, because it is da bomb.

Makes two loaves. 

Oven:  350

3 cups of self-rising flour
2 teaspoons of ground cinnamon
[Mix those together and set them aside.]

2 cups of grated zucchini
2 cups of sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup oil (I used olive oil)
1 cup of dried cranberries (I'm estimating, here.  I had part of a bag left over from another project.  It all went in.  More wouldn't hurt.)
1 cup of pecans. 
1/4 cup of Limoncello *
[Mix all that stuff together, then add the dry ingredients.  I added the pecans after stirring in the dry ingredients.]

Pour into greased loaf pans and bake at 350 for 55-60 minutes. 

Yum.

* Now, I know what you're thinking:  "Like I have limoncello in my pantry."  I normally wouldn't have it, either, but I made some limoncello a few months back, and it's been sitting in my refrigerator ever since, waiting for me to either drink it or do something with it.  I tasted the raw bread batter before the limoncello, and after.  It was o-kayyyy without it, but it was way better with it.  I really can't taste the lemon, but it gave the batter an extra little zing that lit up a bunch more taste buds.  Lemon juice might do the same thing, but I might add another 1/4 cup of sugar with plain juice.

While I was making the zucchini bread, I saw a TV chef making "meatballs" out of grated zucchini, bread, and eggs.  (Hmmm...I think we call 'em "fritters" here.)  He ate them with marinara sauce and pasta, just like meatballs.  He did the same thing with cooked, mashed eggplant.  He said you could either fry them or drop them raw into the marinara.  I shall try this with the next baseball bat I pick.  ;)

Beans & Peas

Thursday evening, Nanny called to ask if I intended to pick the green beans, squash, cucumbers, and okra.  She said she'd picked all that stuff mid-week, but it needed it again.  To be honest, at that moment, with the summer heat raging, I couldn't have cared less if they never got picked, but I said I'd have a look at them after supper.  When we finished eating, The Husband and I got on our bikes and rode down to the garden.  There wasn't enough daylight left to do everything, so we picked the easy stuff, and I said I'd be back Saturday morning to get the green beans.  As we were preparing to ride back home, Pop-Pop hollered out the back door that if we would put the soaker hose in the tomatoes and turn it on, he'd come out later and turn it off.  The Husband dutifully complied.

Saturday morning, I woke up at 6:30, drank a cup of coffee, put on my gardening clothes, and headed to the garden for my appointment with the green beans.  I'd been working about an hour and a half when Nanny came out to help.  We finished off the green beans, picked a "mess" of purple hull peas for Nanny's supper, and checked the other vegetables.  The squash, cucumbers, and okra needed picking again, so I went to the shed to get a knife to cut the okra while Nanny started on the cucumbers.

Now, I haven't mentioned that Pop-Pop recently strung wire for an electric fence around the entire garden, except for one little gap near the tomato plants.  No, I didn't get shocked, for he hasn't electrified it, yet.  But the wire is waist-high - too high to step over, too low to bend under - and so right now the only convenient entrance into the garden is through that gap by the tomatoes.  Coming back with the knife, striding full steam ahead, I took about two steps before sinking ankle deep into mud.  I hollered, "Whoaaaaa!" and started windmilling my arms - reverse the engines, Captain! - to regain my balance.  Hearing me holler, Nanny looked up and said that Pop-Pop had forgotten to turn off the soaker hose Thursday night.  It had dripped all night long, deeply saturating the ground around the tomatoes.  Friday's blistering sun had dried the top layer, making it look deceptively safe to walk on.  When I tried to pull my feet out, the mud sucked off both of my plastic garden clogs.  I stepped out of them and left 'em where they were until I finished cutting the okra, then I pried them out, hosed them off, and rode home with my bounty.

Back at home, I canned 7 quarts of green beans and 3 pints of pickled okra.  The squash and zucchini went into the food dehydrator.  Having fooled with various ways of preserving squash over the past few years, I've learned that we like it best dried.  I sprinkle the squash slices with a seasoning blend and dry them until they're brittle.  They make pretty good chips for dips, but my favorite thing to do with them is toss a handful of them into soups and pasta dishes.  They re-hydrate fairly well, and they bring a little taste of summer to winter meals.  I suppose they'd be ok stored in an air-tight jar, but I like to put them in bags and freeze them.  A 5-tray dehydrating nets about a scant quart bag full of dried squash.  Since they're dry when they go into the bags, they don't stick together, and I can just reach in, grab what I need, and put the rest back in the freezer. 

With this canning, I think we have about all the green beans we need.  Unfortunately, the green bean plants do not know this and will continue to make, especially if we get a shower or two along the way.  Thus, if you live nearby and need some green beans, grab your pickin' bucket and come on over.  I'll even help you pick them.

Note to my sister:  another week and the eggplants will be ready.  Come & get 'em!

Blight & Beans

I sprayed the tomatoes for blight and bugs this evening.  Looking back through my previous posts, it looks like I haven't sprayed since the end of June.  I should not have waited so long between applications, but we've had a few little showers these past few weeks, and it seems like one came up every time I decided to spray.  And then we started the tiling project, and everything else sort of fell to the wayside.

Speaking of showers, The Husband finished the grouting yesterday.  One of these days, we're going to seal it, put the fixtures back on, and try it out.

While the grouting was happening, I was canning the green beans I picked on Saturday morning.  Ended up with 8 quarts - not a bad haul for the first picking. 

Picking & Canning & Grouting (Tile Project - Day Who-The-Eff Cares)

Oh, the agony of de feet...and de hand...and de back....

Been fooling with fruit and vegetables today. 

Netted 13 cute little half-pint jars of peach jam (laced with Jack Daniel's Tennessee Honey), and as many jars of blackberry jelly.  The blackberry jelly might not set.  Operator error.  Technical malfunction. 

Note to the unsuspecting:  When you're using Sure-Jell fruit pectin, the Sure-Jell goes in at the beginning of the cooking process; you boil it, and the sugar goes in at the end.  When you're using Certo, it's the other way around; the sugar goes in first, and the Certo goes in at the end.  This reversal in procedure is not immediately obvious from casual glances at the instructions on both products.

I cannot yet vouch for what happens when you discover this after you've already added one pack of Certo to a double batch, then added the sugar, boiled it, then added the other pack of Certo at the end.  Right now, it's looking like I might end up with blackberry syrup instead of jelly, but let's give it a couple of weeks before we call it.

Another note to the unsuspecting: just because your big pan holds a double batch of peach jam without boiling over doesn't mean it'll hold a double batch of blackberry jelly without boiling over.

I started and ended this day with green beans.  Picked them this morning - almost a whole water-bath canner full.  Took me two hours.  When I put the last batch of jelly in the canner, I started working on the beans.  It took me another two hours to wash and snap them.  I would have liked to have canned them tonight, but that would take another hour, and I just ain't got it in me.

While I worked in the kitchen today, The Husband assumed responsibility for the grouting of the shower tile.  We'd bought two bags of grout.  About halfway through the job, he opened the second bag and while mixing it noticed that it seemed to be a slightly different color.  He checked the labels, and, sure enough, we'd bought two different colors instead of two of the same color.  It was about 5 p.m. when he made this discovery.  It would take an hour to get more, and he'd be plumb out of the mood (read "plumb stove up") by the time he'd get back with it.  We agreed that we should just STOP for the day, clean ourselves up, go get the grout, and take ourselves to dinner. 

But I left the kitchen a mess.  We set about cleaning it up when we got home.  Pots and pans piled as high in the sink as they could pile.  Sticky purple stuff everywhere from when the double batch of blackberry jelly boiled over.  Wiped up all that mess, and turned around, and there sat the green beans.  "No way," I said to them.  "I'll deal with your butts tomorrow."  I picked up the big old pan they were in and took it to the refrigerator...and, of course, the refrigerator was way too full to accommodate the pan, which meant we had to clean off a shelf, all the way to the fur-lined containers in the back.

The Husband is now in his recliner, washing down ibuprofen tablets with beer, icing down his carpal tunnel hand after his encounter with the grout float.  Tomorrow night, after he grouts his way down to the floor, he'll probably need ice on his knees, too.

As for me, I'm going to bed, if I can walk the 14 steps it'll take to get there.

P.S. - The shower is looking good.  Another month, and we'll have this thing licked.  ;)

Titty Tomatoes

Yeah, "Titty." 

As in breast, boob, hooter.

Here's what happened:

My son-of-another-mother and his sweet wife came to see me last Saturday evening, bearing a basket of peaches and a basket of tomatoes.  He set them on the counter, and I pawed through them, squeezing and sniffing.  When I got to the tomatoes, I picked one up and asked, "What kind of tomatoes are these?"  Their skins were smoothe and red, and they were shaped like upside-down onion domes. 

"Granddad calls them 'titty tomaters," he replied. 

I could see the resemblance.

Because the peaches were very, very ripe, I dealt with them first.  Sunday morning, I scalded, peeled, and chopped them.  There was enough fruit for 2.5 batches of jam (per the fruit pectin box recipe).  I cooked them in two batches.  To the second batch, I stirred 1/4 cup of dark rum into the jam mixture before I put it in the jars.  Boy, oh boy, was it ever good!

It was Monday before I got to the tomatoes.  There was probably enough of them to make a few jars of salsa, but I had not yet had my fill of fresh sliced garden tomatoes on sandwiches, and I decided to eat them now rather than preserve them for later.  Talk about a slice of heaven....

Last night, I chopped up two of the tomatoes and tossed them in a skillet with squash, zucchini, and onions that I'd already browned in olive oil.  I added a couple of chopped basil leaves and let the mess simmer until the squash was soft, and then I tossed in a few kalamata olives, a handful or two of cooked, peeled shrimp from the freezer, and some cooked bowtie pasta.  Finished it off with a squirt of left-over red wine (I would have preferred white wine) from the fridge, salt, pepper, a pat of butter, and a grating of parmesan cheese.  Truthfully, it was not my best work, but it was quick and filling and tasted like summertime. 

So, thanks, Granddad, for the titty tomatoes.  I'll be sending a jar of jam your way, next time I see our boy.

Tiling the Shower (Days 7 - 11)

I bet you've been dying to hear what's been going on in the shower since Thursday.

The answer is, "Not much."  Nothing, in fact.

By Friday of last week, I was plumb pooped.  I got up that morning and went to the office for a while.  Got home around 11:30 a.m., and was planning to finish up the few stray bits of tiling that remained to be done.  I'd made a detour by the lumber company on the way home to buy a manual tile cutter, for the pieces that remained to be cut were little bitty things that I was afraid to cut with the wet saw.  The tile-cutting thing did not come with any instructions, and I could not get the blasted thing to cut a tile without breaking it in the wrong spot.  I was bone tired and short on patience, and I said, "Screw this," and went to read a book for the rest of the afternoon.

That evening, when we went for our regular Friday margarita night, we were sitting there, having the first sips of our frozen margaritas, when this lady came walking through the restaurant, wearing the big birthday sombrero, shaking a basket of tortilla chips, calling, "Chips!  Salsa!"  She passed by our table, then turned around, and behold!  It was my friend, come all the way from Georgia for a surprise weekend visit!  Though she said she brought her "grouting clothes," I spared her.  Truth was, I was pooped, and did not want to start the grouting job.  Her visit was a welcome excuse for a respite from the tile project.

But I am slowly preparing for the grout job.  Went to a different tile store today and found some trim for the final spot that had me stumped.  Bought a giant beater-thing that goes in the drill to mix up the grout.  Maybe we can glue up the trim strips during the evenings this week, and start the grouting this weekend.

I've not done much in the garden in a week, except to peek under the squash, zucchini, and cucumber plants and inspect the tomatoes for worms.  Everything is looking good.  Nanny's already made a couple of batches of cucumber relish.  The tomatoes are starting to ripen.  Beans and peas are putting out runners and blooms.  Okra is about ready to bloom. 

And it's 100 degrees in the shade, here - way too hot to work in the garden except for early morning and dusk.  A small measure of relief from the heat is in sight for the weekend, but there isn't much to do except wait on the veggies to grow.

Tiling the Shower (Day 6)

I should've paid that guy to tile the shower.  Now that I've done this, I see why folks charge so much to do it.

Yesterday morning, all that remained to be tiled was the doorway, the floor, and the step-over.  Tiling the doorway would require a lot of sawing, as it was all narrow spaces.  The floor I expected to be a piece of cake, since the tiles are on mesh sheets.  Because I had some errands to run, it was 11:30 before I could get started.  It was nearly 11 p.m. when I quit, and there's still a little more to do before we can grout.

Before leaving to run the errands, I had stood in front of the shower, inspecting my work with a fresh, critical eye.  There was another spot that bothered me, a foot above the floor in the front corner.  The wall wasn't *quite* straight in that spot, and we'd had to cut the tiles progressively wider as we moved up the wall.  The lower three tiles in that corner, the first ones we'd cut, were too narrow.  Since I had not yet tiled the doorway, there was nothing to disturb to the left of the tiles, and I could get a pry-tool in there, using the doorway for leverage.  I made up my mind to try to pop those three tiles out and replace them with wider ones before I started anything else. 

This proved easier than I expected (which kind of makes me worry about the strength of this adhesive).  I pried off the three tiles, replaced them with tiles that were 1/4" wider, and felt much better.  It was so easy that I turned around and eyed that spot on the opposite wall, the one I said will probably annoy me for the rest of my life, thinking I might just...nah, better not. 

Now, onto the rest.

Our shower is in a corner, not angled across it, but squared-up in it.  To the left of the doorway is a 7"-thick wall that separates the shower from the vanity.  I'd decided to tile the face of this narrow wall in the same design as the shower, itself - square tiles from the floor up to a border, then diagonal tiles from the border to the ceiling.  We are using 6" tiles (they are actually 5.75", or thereabout).  This meant that the 7" wall would only hold one row of tiles, with a little over 1/2" to spare on either side.  At the tile store, we'd looked for trim pieces - we wanted narrow L-shaped things to put on the corners of this wall - but they didn't have any that matched our tile.  We had left the store without trim, thinking we'd cross that bridge when we got to it.  Well, I was to that bridge, and there was nothing to do but make my own trim.  All I could think to do was cut 1/4" wide strips to border the tiles.

Let me tell you, cutting a 1/4"-wide strip of tile is a pain in the butt.  First, a strip that small will snap in two halfway through the cutting process if you're not careful (and even if you are).  And if you do manage to cut a strip without breaking it, there's still the problem of a raw, slightly-jagged edge that must be ground smoothe.  Working with pieces that small, that close to a running saw blade, is a nerve-wrecker.  Before I'd cut too many of those strips, I was wishing for a gin & tonic to relax my shoulders, but was scared to have one, for fear of relaxing enough to lose a finger to the saw.  It took a long time, but I cut those narrow strips - nearly 30 of those m*th*rf*ck*rs, not counting the ones that broke in the saw - and glued them end-to-end up both sides of the tiles, leaving a space for grout.  It doesn't look too bad, but I'm scared one of those strips is going to fall off the first time somebody bumps the wall.  We'll see. 

The floor was fairly easy.  The Husband took over this part of the job.  Since the tiles are so small, they contoured themselves nicely over the slope around the drain.  Since they are on a mesh strip, spacing them was not a problem.  Best of all, we didn't need the saw to cut the rows apart.  I'd envisioned tiling the step-over with the same 6" tile we put on the walls, but when we discovered that we'd have to crank the saw back up to do this, we opted to use the tile mesh, instead, no cutting required.  It looks good.

Incredibly - how long have we been at this now? - there's still a little stripping and cutting to do today, to finish places we were just too tired to tackle last night, like places where 1" tiles will have to be halved to fit into the space, and one place where I still haven't come up with an idea for finishing the edge.  Those places will need to dry overnight before we can start grouting, and then the grout will need to dry for a couple of days before we can seal it, and then the sealant needs to dry a couple of days before we can use the shower.  We might be showering by next Saturday, two weeks from when we started.

Yeah, I can see why they charge so much to do this.

Tiling the Shower (Days 4 and 5)

Absolutely nothing happened in the shower on Day 4, as the tile-setter was whipped and opted to employ Scarlett O'Hara's mantra, "Tomorrow is another day."

Day 5, however, was a different story.  As soon as The Husband left for work, I got busy.  By the time he came home from work, I was almost finished setting the tiles on the walls.  I'd been climbing in an out of a chair all day.  My gimpy knee was the size of a cantaloupe, my back was aching, and my stomach was growling from hunger.  My face and hair were freckled with tile-saw spit.  He took pity on me and pitched in to saw the final triangles for the gaps at the ceiling, and then he sent me for a much-needed shower (in another bathroom, of course) while he cleaned tools and vaccuumed debris.  Bless him.

There's still a little more to do, but, overall, I'm pretty satisfied with the job we've done so far.  There is one spot on one wall that doesn't suit me, a place where a tile slipped after I pinched a rubber spacer from beneath it when I was tiling on the opposite wall.  The slippage created a "kink" in the diagonal grout line that, though probably not noticeable to a casual observer, will likely annoy me for the rest of my life, but I have a feeling that trying to correct it at this point might stir up a whole mess of trouble.

What remains to be tiled is a strip at the edge of the doorway, the step-over, and the floor.  We also have to figure out how to deal with a couple of raw edges - places where tile meets sheetrock - as nothing we saw at the tile store seemed right for the job.  I'll finish the doorway and the step-over today.  I think I could finish the floor, too, but I am contemplating waiting to lay the floor tiles until we've grouted the walls.  The tile we chose for the floor is 1" square tiles affixed to a 12" x 12" sheet of mesh.  It should be easy to lay, but I am worried that walking on it, and especially setting a chair or step-ladder on it, while grouting the walls might dislodge, chip, or crack the tiny pieces.  As for the edge-finishing part...well, tomorrow is another day.

Tiling the Shower (Day 3)

Day 3 of the tiling project, and it's the 4th of July, the last day of our 3-day weekend.  We'd hoped to finish the tiling today, but we'd been invited to two cookouts, one at noon, and one at 2, and were supposed to cook food to take to each meal.  With only a couple of hours to work, we dived in. 

Last night, I'd tiled the "plumbing wall" up to the point where we'd have to cut tiles to go around the water control knob.  When I went into the bathroom to resume the work, The Husband was already standing in the shower, inspecting the hole we'd cut for the control knob.  He had a frustrated look on his face.  "I think we've covered up one of our screw holes," he said, pointing to the plumbing.  ("Screw holes."  You learn techical terms like this when you become a do-it-yourselfer.)  We got the flashlight and looked, and, sure enough, we'd goofed.  The brass plate that covers up the ugly plumbing business has two holes in it where two screws should go to hold it in place.  Behind the wall was a metal bracket with two holes to accomodate the screws.  We could only see one of them.  We'd have to make the hole bigger.

I groaned, remembering how hard it had been to cut the backer board.  The hole didn't need enlarging by much, but cutting off a little bit of that stuff is harder than cutting off a lot.  What in the world were we going to use to do it?  We couldn't use the jigsaw or the Craftsman cutter; there were pipes nearby, and we wouldn't risk drilling into them.  The job would take forever using a utility knife.  Our minds raced to think of some tool in this house that might saw, or gnaw, or file a half inch off the hole.  I went to the utility room to dig around in the toolbox and the cabinet, looking for a saw we once had, but couldn't find it.  I went back to the bathroom.  "Remember that bad-ass little hand saw we used when we cut that metal threshhold?" I asked to The Husband.  Its blade was rectangular and edged with viscious teeth.  "It might be too wide to fit in the hole, but...."  The Husband said he thought we could replace the original blade with the jigsaw blade.  He disappeared for a moment, then returned with said saw, jigsaw blade in place.  It took him less than a minute to hack away enough board to uncover the hole.  We were back in business.  I started smearing adhesive while he went to cut some tiles to fit around the knob.

For a few minutes, we were like a well-oiled machine, pasting and cutting and slapping those tiles on the wall.  In no time, we reached the point where we'd decided to insert a decorative tile border.  This stuff is cool.  It's a mesh strip on which small tiles have been glued in a pretty pattern.  It's all tiny squares and diamonds and triangles. You just glue the strip to the wall as a unit.  We'd bought an extra strip to use for parts, knowing that the odds were against being able to use only whole strips, and we'd been right.  Before the border was completely in place, we'd peeled off a good number of tiles to fill in the design in the corners and at the edges.  Thank goodness we'd picked up a tool to score and nip tile, for we did have to trim a few of those tiny pieces.

Above the border, we'd planned to set the tiles diagonally (a quilter would call this setting them "on point").  This meant cutting tiles in half to place along the top edge of the border and at the ceiling.  But, hey, we have a wet saw, right?  How hard could this be? 

Well, it's hard.  Kind of.  First, using the wet saw can be kind of a pain.  The tile wants to chip as the sawblade nears the end of a cut, and that leaves a little notch on the corner of the triangles.  (We found that if we hold the tile really tight, and keep an even pressure while pushing the tile across the blade, it doesn't chip as much.)  Then there's the problem of the way a diagonal messes with the mind.  After hours of looking at the tiles set square, I had to learn to re-see the pattern.  We had trouble remembering which side of a triangle needed shaving once we moved it to the saw.  Plus, I was now working directly at eye level and could plainly see every little imperfection in angle and distance.  We didn't get many of those diagonal tiles laid before it was time to make ready for the cookouts. 

7:30 p.m. - Having been outside in the heat all afternoon, and having stuffed ourselves with food, the last thing either of us wanted to do was to come home and commence tiling.  At 9:30, it was lights out for us.  The shower can wait.

Tiling the Shower (Day 2)

Work on the tiling project resumed just after breakfast this morning.  The plan was to quickly cut and install 3 more strips of cement board to cover the step-over, do a little caulking, mud the seams, and start tiling. 

The strip-cutting didn't move so quickly.  Our last good masonry blade broke just as we started the final cut of the 3rd strip.  "We still have the two cheap-o blades that came with the saw," I told The Husband.  He said we might as well try them.  Whereas the "good" masonry blades had gnawed through the cement board at an agonizlingly slow pace, those cheap-o blades sliced through it like a hot knife through butter.  Who knew???  If we'd broken all of the good blades sooner, we'd have finished the sawing in half the time.  With the cement board in place, it was time to start tiling.

One of the videos that we had watched had recommended nailing a straight-edged board one tile width (plus an extra 1/4" for grout) from the floor, tiling upward from that point, using the straight-edge as a baseline, and then going back to install the bottom row later.  The reason for this is that the mortar bed might not be perfectly level, and if we'd started laying the tile along an unlevel floor, the whole thing would've been crooked.  We used a level to draw a straight, level line, and then we nailed yardsticks along the line.  The first row of tiles would nudge against the yardsticks.  Rubber spacers would keep the vertical spacing even for that first row, and they would keep both the horizontal and vertical spacing even for the following rows.  When we go back to install the bottom row, we'll use the spacers to maintain even spacing above them, and fill in any un-level areas below them with grout, after we lay the floor tiles. 

We'd just finished nailing the yardsticks in place when some friends dropped by for a visit.  We spent a couple of hours talking to them, but hurried back to work as soon as they left. 

Smearing that first blob of adhesive on the wall and setting that first tile is the scariest part.  We stood there for a moment, staring at the blank wall, dreading that leap.  Finally I said, "Gimme that trowel," and went to smearing adhesive.  With the first tile in hand, the question became, should we start in the middle of the back wall and work outwards in both directions, or should we start in a corner and work across?  I expect the answer to this question might differ from one project to the next, depending on the size and location of the space, and the angle from which the space will most often be seen.  We decided to start in the right-hand corner because it is the corner that is most visible.  Working from right to left required us to cut a narrow strip of tile to fill in the left-hand corner, but, when the project is finished, one will have to be in the shower to notice the narrow strip.  If we'd started in the center and worked out in both directions, it would have been necessary for us to cut narrow strips for both corners, and they would have been very visible from outside the shower stall. 

As I was set the tile, The Husband worked the wet saw, cutting the strips for the corners.  I laid about three rows of tile, then stood up to stretch and drink some water.  The Husband offered to take over the tiling while I took a break.  I shoved a few more boxes of tile within his reach, opened another bag of rubber spacers, and left him tiling while I went for a glass of water.  A few minutes later, he came out, throwing up his hands in frustration.  Something was amiss, it seemed.  I quietly went into the bathroom to see what the problem was.

The spacing was off.  I checked to see if all of his tiles were snugged up against the rubber spacers.  They were.  I peeled off a few tiles and jacked around with the spacing, lining up the edges of the tiles as best I could, but something was still wrong.  The tiles weren't level anymore, and the spaces weren't even.  It was then that I noticed that some of the rubber spacers were smaller than others.  At the tile store, we'd grabbed two bags of spacers from the same hook, but one bag contained 1/4" spacers, and the other contained 3/16" spacers.  He'd randomly used some of the 3/16" spacers, and that measly 16th of an inch difference skewed the pattern.  Once we figured out the problem, we ditched the smaller spacers, re-set the tiles using the 1/4" spacers, and moved on. 

We're using 6" tiles on the walls, so the work moved pretty fast when we worked out the glitches.  In the four hours that we worked at the tiling, we managed to do a little less than half of the shower.  Though The Husband finds this part of the work to be tedious and nerve-wracking, I find it kind of relaxing.  (My quilting hobby might account for this difference; I am used to working with small squares and 1/4" seams; it's a lot like tiling, minus the adhesive.)  I expect he will be more than happy to turn me loose with the trowel  tomorrow when we get back to work.

Tiling the Shower (Day 1)

When we bought our tile a week ago, I imagined that we would start working on the shower right away, finishing it in the evenings, a little at a time.  As it turned out, the week was crazy with meetings and working late, and we opted to wait until the weekend, when we would have 3 days of uninterrupted work time.

It was 11 a.m. yesterday (Saturday) when we started.  The weather man had predicted the temperature to reach nearly 100 degrees, so we set up the outdoor part of our work station first by situating the patio umbrella to knock the sun off of us, and directing a large box fan toward the table where we'd be doing the cutting.

Step 1: hang the 5' x 3' tile backer board, which would have to be cut to fit the small shower cubicle.  We'd watched internet videos on how to do this.  Piece of cake, they'd said.  Just mark a line with a pencil, score the line with a utility knife, and snap the board in two along the cut, they'd said.  We dragged the first piece of 5' x 3' backer board onto the table, marked it, and scored it.  It did not just snap in two, like the video guys said it would.  The problem was that we were cutting only a 1" strip off the long side of the board; there wasn't enough room to grasp it or put weight behind it for a clean break.  We scored and scored and scored.  We flipped the board over and scored some more.  Finally, after about 45 minutes, we managed to break off the 1" strip, one ragged little piece at a time.  Our backer board was dotted with big drops of our sweat. 

"This scoring-and-snapping technique ain't gonna work," I said to The Husband as we raised up, our backs aching from having bent over the table for so long.  "We need power tools." 

Years ago at Christmas, my mother gave the family men-folk a Craftsman All-in-One cutting tool.  We had never used the one she'd given to The Husband, but just last week, my nephew had commented that it was "the stuff."  I fished it out of the utility room.  We inserted a cutting bit, took it outside, plugged it up, and tried it.  The cutting bit finally punched through the cement board, but it would not then proceed along the line we'd drawn.  We switched bits.  Same deal.  "We need a cutting bit for masonry," The Husband said.  I said I'd run to the hardware store to get one.

On the way to the store, I remembered how the video guys had cut the holes for their pipes.  They'd drawn squares instead of circles.  They'd drilled holes at each corner of the square and used a jigsaw to cut the lines between the holes.  We'd already looked for our jigsaw but had not found it.  I'd buy one at the hardware store, along with some masonry blades and, for good measure, a masonry cutting bit for the Craftsman tool. 

The hardware store did not have a masonry cutting bit, but they did hook me up with a jigsaw and three masonry blades.  I brought them home, and we went back to work.  We cheered when we brought the first piece of board inside and discovered that the holes we'd cut actually fit over the plumbing pipes.  I held the board in place while The Husband nailed it.  He'd not finished nailing the top of the board when he bashed  his thumb with the hammer.  I sent him to put a Band-Aid on his bleeding thumb while I finished nailing that piece.  We went back outside to cut another board.

The first jigsaw blade broke as we were cutting the second board.  We inserted a new blade and kept working.  The cutting went painfully slow.  Since we were cutting such small strips from the edges of the boards, the vibration was terrible.  Our marked lines were a blur, and we'd have to stop every inch or two to make sure we were actually cutting on the lines.  The air under the umbrella was thick with cement dust, and we nearly suffocated inside our masks despite the breeze from the box fan.  Sweat poured.  A horsefly bit me on the neck, sending waves of pain-chills down my arm.  Our noses were full of cement dust boogers.

Whose idea was this, anyway?  When I voiced this thought aloud, The Husband cut me the "I am going to kill you" look. 

We kept sawing and hammering.  Broke another saw blade.  Hammered the thumb and made it bleed again.  Realized that if we'd hung the board on the back wall sideways instead of lengthwise, we wouldn't have to cut skinny strips to fill in.  Decided to take that board down.

5:30 p.m. - "I'm going to take a short break and stir up the banana pudding," I said to The Husband as he was removing the ill-fitting board.  His sister had invited us to a cookout and pool party at her house, just down the road.  We were supposed to be there around 7, and I was to bring dessert.

6 p.m. - Back to work.  We had to cut  two more boards to finish the back wall, and then we'd be done, or so we thought. 

7:30 p.m. - I gave a little squeal of triumph as we hung the last sheet:  "Yay!  We're done!  Let's get cleaned up and go eat!"  The Husband turned around to come out of the shower stall, and then he gave a little groan.  We had not yet covered the "step-over" (the little ledge at the front of the shower) with backer board.  That would take three more strips.  Skinny strips.  Pain-in-the-*ss strips.  At the rate we'd been going, it'd take us another two hours to do that part. 

"Tomorrow," we said in unison.

I headed for the shower in another bathroom.  When the water hit my cement-dust-soaked hair and skin, I was momentarily afraid of being turned into a concrete statue.  "Do yourself a favor," I told The Husband when I got out of the shower, "and shake some of the cement dust out of your hair before you wet it." 

Thank goodness someone else was in charge of cooking supper. 

Today, we'll saw and install the remaining strips, seal the seams, and, hopefully, begin tiling.  I would not dare to venture a guess as to how long it'll take us to finish. 

Come look for us if you don't hear from me soon.  Since today's work will involve some bad-ass adhesive and small spaces, you'll probably find one or both of us stuck to a wall in the shower.