Sunday dinner - , 2023

I was on my way to the grocery store Friday, listening to a college radio station that has rather odd programming, when I heard an old, old song - a duet featuring Louis Armstrong and another Louis - that mentioned corned beef and cabbage.  At that moment, I decided to get a corned beef brisket and a cabbage and invite the kids to Sunday dinner.  We'd have fried okra and purple hull peas from our garden for side dishes.

The grocery store had a corned beef brisket, shrink-wrapped with a packet of spices.  

When I got home, I sent everybody a text inviting them to Sunday dinner at 5:30.  Son #1 jumped on the invitation.  Son #2 said he would be working, but the wife and kids might make it.  Before the afternoon was over, Son #3 (who nearly grew up here and calls me "Ma") made contact, and I invited him and his wife to dinner, too.  

Saturday, I spent some time surfing the web for corned beef brisket recipes.  One recipe served a whipped cream horseradish sauce with the brisket, and I decided that we must have it with ours.  Another grocery store run would be required, as there was no whipping cream in my refrigerator.  I'd also have to make another dash to the garden to cut okra.  

Sunday morning, when I was calculating what time everything had to be happen, I got the brisket out of the refrigerator to double-check the weight and realized that the brisket was not big enough to feed all the people that might show up for dinner - 5 adults and 6-8 kids.  When I went back to the store for whipped cream, I picked up a big package of ground beef for a meatloaf to add to the meal.

The actual cooking was scheduled to begin at 1:30, so after the grocery store run, I drove down to the garden to cut okra.  I was a bit hesitant to wade in, considering what the fire ants did to my feet two days earlier, but I got in/out without incident.  

It is a good thing that I made the meatloaf.  Son #2's wife and kids didn't make it, so I didn't feed the four of them, but that brisket shrank to half it's original size.  Nearly everyone who ate brisket also ate meatloaf, too.  We had a couple of slices of each left over, along with a few vegetables, enough that I might not need to cook again until Wednesday.  Woohoo!  

Jelly and Okra and Peas - July 30, 2023

I got my tail in gear yesterday and canned pepper jelly and pickled okra.  The Husband and I also shelled the peas that I picked Friday, and they're already blanched and in the freezer.

Cross your fingers for the pickled okra.  This is my second attempt (in my whole life) pickling okra.  The first one turned out a little floppy and sad.  Pickled okra should not be floppy and sad.  This time, I soaked the okra overnight in pickling lime water.  If the canning process didn't make it floppy, it should be okay.  Since this was an experiment, I only made 3 jars.  Although I stuffed the pods into the jars as tightly as I could, they still floated - there's about an inch of brine showing below the pods.  Oh well.  Next time, if there is a next time, I'll use taller pods.  After August 28, we'll find out if the pickling lime worked.

!@$%^*@ Ants (and others) - July 28, 2023

It has been putrid hot and humid this week.  I went to the garden at 8:30 this morning, hoping to cut okra and pick peas before the real heat set in.  

Nanny came out with a cardboard box and started picking at the other end of the patch.  We met in the middle.  I went on to the peppers and the okra while she picked the few remaining squash.

Ants attacked me in the okra.  Here is a picture of part of the damage.

I bummed a Benadryl off Nanny, came home and showered, and slathered my feet and legs with Benadryl cream.  Something got me on the wrist that left a big, red, hot, itchy knot.

Between the ants, the mosquitoes, the horseflies, and the chiggers, I'm about ready to give up gardening.  FOR GOOD.

Office Day - July 27, 2023

Yesterday was my regularly-scheduled office day.  I did not really want to go, for I'd had a fitful night.  My jaw is sore, and my gut is all jacked-up from the antibiotics.  But I got up and got a move on.

My first stop was Burger King.  I am a sausage/egg/cheese biscuit addict.  Since I (mostly) gave up sugar and flour, biscuits are generally off my menu, but I allow myself to have one sausage/egg/cheese biscuit a week, on office day.  Burger King is not my favorite biscuit, but it's acceptable, and it's on my route.  Last week, when I got to the office and finally unwrapped my biscuit, I discovered it to be a bacon/egg/cheese biscuit, not a sausage/egg/cheese biscuit.  I ate it, but I was pissed; I don't like limp bacon.  Same thing happened yesterday.  I'm about ready to have a talk with the manager to suggest an investigation of the break in the chain of events that should result with a sausage/egg/cheese biscuit in my bag.

Teeth - July 25, 2023

I had to have a tooth pulled yesterday.  Fun times.

Years ago, this tooth got crowned.  Days later, it began to hurt a little, and when I went back to the dentist with the complaint, he drilled a hole straight through the center of my new crown and shot some medicine in it.  I think he puttied it up with something, which came out straight away.  Anyway . . . . 

The crown came off in my mouth on a Friday night about a month ago while I was eating some almonds.  It's a miracle I didn't swallow it.  The next day, I bought some dental adhesive to put the crown back on until Monday, when I'd let the dentist put it on.  The adhesive instructions said to first put the crown back in place without adhesive to make sure how it was supposed to fit.  I did that, and it kind of snapped in place, and when I went to take the crown off to put the adhesive in it, it wouldn't come off.  I thought, "Huh," and left it alone.  A few days ago, it came off again.  I put some adhesive on it and put it back where it goes.  That lasted about a day, so last week I visited the dentist, who said the tooth needed to come out.  My tooth replacement options were (1) an implant, (2) a bridge (which he didn't recommend), or (3) leave the gap.  

I stewed hard about this, for I have a friend who almost died from getting septic after a dental implant.  Freak thing - the dentist drilled into her sinus cavity - but still . . . .  I finally decided to start the implant process.  The bad tooth came out yesterday.  The dentist said, "...and keep your tongue out of it for at least two weeks."  Shhhyeah, right.

He called in some pain medicine - stout ibuprofen - but it was late in the day and I knew it wouldn't be ready until today, so I came home, popped an over-the-counter ibuprofen tablet, and started shelling the purple hull peas we picked Sunday.  At 10 p.m., I was halfway through the bucket and decided to leave the rest for today.  I finished them this afternoon.  They shelled out to 5 quarts.  They're blanched and in the freezer, already.

It's a good thing that I'm not in bad pain from the tooth-pulling.  When I went to the drugstore just before lunch, my prescription still wasn't ready.  I told them to just cancel it.  

When I finished the peas, I planted pumpkins that I sprouted from seeds.  They probably won't have time to make pumpkins before frost, but the vines might be cute.

After planting the pumpkins, I took a tour of the yard and discovered that Jose dug up some black-eyed Susans I planted a couple of weeks ago.  Shithead.  He must have done it right away, because the plant had rooted itself to the ground sideways.  I tore it off the ground and re-planted it.  That'll probably kill it.  I also planted some zebrina mallow, but I put a wire cage around it.  It'll be interesting to see what he does with that.

Bloody, painful pickin' - July 24, 2023

Gardening is not for sissies.

I didn't want to pick purple hull peas yesterday morning, and I sure didn't want to do it by myself.  I wanted to get it done and get back to the house and spend the afternoon painting.  Trying to paint.

About 9, The Husband got up, ate his breakfast (I'd had mine three hours earlier), and brought the last of his coffee out to the porch, where I was trying to sketch a picture.  After a few minutes, I said, "Well, I think I'll put on my mud boots and go pick peas."  And I got up and went inside to find my boots and some socks.  My boots still had a little mud on them from last year.  When I brought them out to the porch to knock the mud off them, The Husband said, "I'll put on some shorts and help you."  I put on my apron/toolbelt and a hat.  Properly "suited up," we loaded a big rubber storage bin and a cardboard box into the car and drove down to the garden.  The Husband said he would start cutting the okra.  I went to work picking peas and pulling grass, trying to watch for ants and snakes.  A horsefly got after me and succeeded in biting me on the arm.  An ant got me on the thumb and it hurt so bad it made me cuss.  Whatever nerve he bit goes all the way to my scalp.

The Husband helped with the pea-picking when he finished the okra.  We ended up with half a tub-full of peas, and a grocery bag full of okra, most of which was too big.  We decided to pick any tomatoes that were starting to turn to keep them from turning to mush on the vines.  On one plant, there was one whole clump of tomatoes on a thick stem near the ground, too big to just break off.  I took out my pocket knife to cut off the stem and immediately sliced my thumb open.  When we left the garden, I tossed the keys to The Husband and said, "I'm dripping blood and mud.  You drive."  I rode home on the tailgate.

We dumped the peas on the back porch rug and spread them out and turned the ceiling fan on to dry them.  (Uncle Jack says they're easier to shell when they're not damp.)  

Later today, I'll sort through the okra and see if there's enough of the right size for pickling.

After I showered off the chiggers and the mud, I came out to paint but spent most of the time drawing.  Trying to draw.  

In the middle of the afternoon, my daughter-in-law texted us an SOS.  They'd been camping all week and were pulling the camper home when the water pump went out on the truck.  They were an hour from home, stranded on the interstate.  A tow truck came for their truck, but they had no way to get the camper home.  Our truck won't pull it.  We know several people with a big enough truck, but none of them were available.  Finally, after about an hour, the kids got hold of someone, and they made it home with the camper before dark.

Of course, this crisis interrupted any "zone" I might've eventually discovered.  I put my pencil down and went to help Link slay Bokoblins.  

This quest game can be so funny at times.  In the game, there is an object called a "muddle bug."  The description said it confuses enemies.  It looks like a cross between a mushroom and a rose and can be collected and attached to an arrow.  Yesterday, as Link was exploring a desert, two bad-ass monsters jumped him.  I climbed him up a tall pillar and shot them with muddle bugs.  Big pink clouds of bubbles floated around their heads.  I was about to fire another round when the two monsters noticed one another and set to fighting.  They beat the crap out of each another, and all Link had to do was finish them off with one good whack.  LMAO

(Yeah, I know.  Pitiful.  Cut me some slack.  I work from home and spend most of my time alone.) ;) 

The Husband has gone to a conference for a few days, so the pea-shelling is up to me.  I have a dentist appointment later this afternoon, but after that I'll park myself in the recliner and get to shellin'.  The bright side is that I'll have control of the TV remote and can watch all the PBS videos I want.  ;)

Cousins Lunch - July 22, 2023

Yesterday was an unusual Saturday for me.

It started with a painting class at a local craft store.  It was one of those classes where everyone paints the same picture.  In this case, it was a sunset scene with a lighthouse.  I'd seen the prototype on an easel when I went there this week to buy a paintbrush.  I saw it again when I logged onto the store's social media page to ask if they'd found my debit card and again when I went to pick up the card.  As I'd scrolled through the social media posts, I'd gotten the sense that the store was (or had been) in danger of closing.  Although I was not particularly fond of the lighthouse picture, I decided to join the class, both for my benefit and theirs.

This store has been in business since the early '80s.  They offered painting classes way back then.  At the time, I was a young wife/mother, barely able to afford either the cost of the class or the time to take it.  Subsequently, life intervened, and I had neither the time nor the money to take advantage of the classes.  When I went into the store this week, it had been years since I'd been there.  The store is now being operated by the original owner's granddaughter.  The grandmother, 80-something years young, was on hand yesterday to help with the class.  It was wonderful to see her.  I was not very happy with my painting, but the class was fun.  I'll probably do another class soon.

Yesterday was also the day on which The Husband and his cousins had planned to have lunch together.  They typically see one another only at the extended family gatherings that occur a couple of times a year.  This year at the 4th of July family barbeque, they scheduled this lunch date.  I did not expect to be finished with the painting class in time to go, but when I got home, The Husband had not yet left for the restaurant, so I changed out of my painting clothes and went along.  The lunch lasted three hours.  As we sat there talking, it occurred to me that we were now the age that The Husband's grandmother and great-aunts were when we married.  My, how time flies.

Today I need to pick purple hull peas and cut okra.  I'll have to wear mud boots!

RAIN RAIN RAIN - July 21, 2023

Good grief, it is raining hard!  Wind is roaring, thunder is booming.  My phone is screaming, "A severe thunderstorm has been detected in your area."  As if I didn't know.  

This is the second round of storms within 24 hours.  Last night about 9 o'clock, a big thunderclap out of nowhere, followed by the longest continuous rumble I've ever heard, ran me off the porch and into the house, where it wasn't so noisy. During the night, every time I woke up it was raining.  The sun came out for a little while this morning, but it didn't last long.  I've had to turn on the back porch light to see what I'm doing.

The ditch out by the road is full and spilling into the yard.  There are limbs in the road - not huge ones, but ones you'd want to drive around rather than over.  I should go out and drag them out of the road, but not in this storm.

If it keeps this up, our vegetable garden may be a goner.  :(  Many of the tomatoes are just brownish-green bags of water.  I've thrown away four times what I've harvested.  

All that work . . . 

Well, it kept me off the streets, at least. 

Speaking of tomatoes, so far this year we have had fewer tomato hornworms than ever.  (I hope I didn't just jynx us.)  We've found maybe 5 small ones all season.  I picked them off and smushed them and have not had to use any pesticides.

So what is different this year?  To what do we owe this luck?

It has been the rainiest gardening season I can remember.  Pop-up showers all over the place.

The farmer planted corn instead of soybeans.  

For a second year, we paved the middles with cardboard.

I put home-made compost around the tomato plants.  It is full of scratchy eggshells.

All I know about tomato hornworms is that they start (or end, depending on how you look at it) with a brown moth that can hover like a bee.  This moth lays eggs on the tomato plants, and out of those eggs hatch tiny green worms that start eating immediately.  I don't know what happens to the ones that grow into monstrous green worms and never get killed by anything.  I guess it goes somewhere and morphs into a moth.  There's some pupating in the cycle, somewhere.  And I think the worms go in and out of the dirt.  I do know that I used to find GOBS of those little green ones - brown ones, too - when I pulled up weeds late in the season.  They'd be all in the dirt, and I would smash them.  But I haven't pulled all that many weeds for the past couple of years (thanks to the cardboard carpeting and the rain), so I don't know what the below-ground population is like this year.  

Are they trapped under cardboard?

Are they getting injured by eggshells in the mulch?

Are they drowning?

Oh, I hope they are!  ;)

Old and Crazy - July 19, 2023

I had an appointment with my dentist at 1:00 Tuesday.  After the appointment I ran a few errands in which I paid for things with my debit card.

Yesterday, "office day," I had other errands to run before work.  On my first stop, I could not find my debit card.  I had enough cash in my wallet to do my business (which was rare), so I went on to work, where I searched the car for my card.  Not there.  Went through my wallet multiple times.  Not there.

All day long I worried about the debit card.  I did not want to call the bank, for there was a good chance that the debit card was on the kitchen table, or in the kitchen trash can, or in the pocket of the shorts I'd been wearing.  I retraced the previous day's activities in my mind:  dentist, Burger King, drug store, craft store, home.  I'd used the debit card at Burger King and had taken it out of my wallet at the drug store drive-thru, but my prescription had not been ready, so I went to the craft store, where I had enough cash for a $2 paintbrush.  

On the other hand, I remembered gathering up receipts and other bits from the passenger seat when I got home.  Maybe I'd put the card in the Burger King bag, which I'd tossed in the kitchen trash can.  

The first thing I did after work was go through the trash can.  The debit card was not there.  I began to fear that I'd laid the card in my lap while waiting at the drug store drive-thru, and that it had fallen onto the pavement when I got out of the car at the craft store.  

When The Husband came home a few minutes later, I told him about my missing card.  With his phone app, he determined that the card had not been used since I used it at Burger King (whew!), and he turned off the card until we could determine whether or not it was truly lost.  I kept searching the house but didn't find it in the likely places.  

The craft store is a locally-owned store in the small town near us.  I sent them a Facebook message, and within a few minutes, the owner replied that I'd left my card on the counter when I paid for the paintbrush.  

BIG WHEW!

Things like this make me worry that I am getting senile.  

Or senile-er.  

I was such a slug yesterday.  

I don't have any real work to do for the office, my primary complaint about this job.  People tell me, "Don't worry about it!  Just enjoy it!"  But I can't, not without feeling guilty for being paid for almost nothing.  For the first few months on the job, I stayed busy trying to educate myself on the mechanics of grant-writing and the mechanics of local government.  I took classes, watched webinars, read books on all sorts of subjects.  At this point, I'm kind of . . . saturated on the various subjects.

I've threatened to quit come September, my one-year anniversary.  The point of taking this job was to boost my eventual monthly retirement check.  I have enough years of service and am close enough to retirement age that I could retire in September and draw full benefits.  But for every additional year that I work, my monthly pay will increase by some small percent that, down the road, might make the difference between affording that "Medicare supplement" and not affording it.  So I intend to hang in there for as long as I can stand it, or as long as they will keep me.  

It's kind of scary, actually.  

Yesterday morning after checking my email - nothing but newsletters and mail lists - I decided to practice painting.  Why not, eh?  Might as well make use of all this time.  Been trying to learn watercolor.  I have watercolor pencils, watercolor brush pens, watercolors in pans, and watercolors in tubes.  Good thick paper, flimsy sketch paper.  Might as well make use of all this stuff.  

Watercolor mystifies me.  It is unpredictable.  Maybe that's why I enjoy it.

I turned out two quick "paintings" yesterday.  One was a paint-along with an online video.  The painter's name is Diane Antone and I do not mind giving her a plug.  Her video tutorials are great for a beginner like me, simple lessons that help you learn to use the materials.  I just like to hear her talk.  Anyway . . . .

I painted with the paint-along.  

And I also played Zelda on the Nintendo.  Link was getting his ass kicked by a throng of gibdoes when I left him.  (They are already dead, so they're hard to kill.)

Around lunchtime, I mopped the floors.  Washed a load of clothes.  Did the second painting from a  "today's challenge" list - "paint a lively street scene with people enjoying drinks."  I probably will throw that one in the garbage.  

And every thirty minutes or so, I'd check the work computer, hoping to find some lead to follow that would produce something useful for the office.  Found a webinar (for Thursday) for learning how to query the U.S. census.  Fun times!

Since The Husband had a board meeting to attend last night, I did not need to cook dinner.  If he had been here for dinner, he would have gotten left-overs from Sunday's bean/cornbread lunch.  Tonight he has another meeting, so no cooking tonight, either.

Tomorrow is my office day, which means I won't be home until 5:30.  Our menu for tomorrow night might be a drive-thru salad.

Today is not looking too promising on the work side.  I'll probably be offing gibdoes before too long.

Feeding the Sibs - July 17, 2023

My two siblings and I grew up eating white (Great Northern) beans.  

We were poor.  Dried white beans were cheap.  We usually had them with potatoes and home-made biscuits or cornbread.  We all still love them.

I grew white beans in the vegetable garden this year, planted from a grocery-store bag in my pantry.  They did very well.  We picked them and shelled them this week, and I invited my siblings for lunch on Sunday for the novelty of eating white beans that had not first been dried.  With the beans we had ham, slaw, cucumbers and onions in vinegar, and sliced ripe tomatoes, quite a step up from our childhood meals.

We all decided that fresh white beans aren't really any tastier than dried ones.  As long as I can continue to buy dried white beans, I probably won't grow any more.  ;)

* * * * * * * * 

Saturday afternoon The Husband and I went to a ukulele concert in the big city.  The musicians were all from other cities.  They had electric instruments and fancy sound equipment and canned back-up music (for some songs).  Ever heard "Honky Tonk Women" on the ukulele?  I hadn't.  

It worked.  

The concert was held in the lobby of the Crosstown Arts building.  This building has a special place in my heart.  When I was a child, it housed a Sears store on the lower floors and corporate offices on the upper floors.  It was one of the tallest buildings in town.  My brother worked there in the warehouse as he was paying his way through college.  The Husband's great-aunt retired from the corporate arm of the business in the 70s.  For me, a country kid, going to that building was a great treat.  For starters, there was an actual escalator. Riding it was both terrifying and thrilling.  Near it was a candy counter where you could buy candy by the pound.  We never got any candy, but it was pretty to look at.

Now, this building houses restaurants, specialty shops, an art gallery, a school, and a radio station, among other things.  People live in apartments on the upper floors.  In my artsy-craftsy opinion, the coolest thing in the building is a shared workspace for artists.  There is woodworking equipment, silk-screening equipment, pottery stuff - all sorts of things.  I'd live in that workspace if I lived in that building.

Confused - July 14, 2023

Yesterday started off rainy, but it didn't last long, and the sun came out and made the back porch into a sauna.  

The day before had been my usual "office day."  I pretty much despise office day.  It's not the getting up and getting dressed and leaving the house by a certain time that bothers me.  It's not the people in the office that bother me.  It's mostly just being somewhere other than here, where I have so many things I need to do and so many more I'd like to do.  It's also the fact that I don't have - and never have had with this job - my own workspace.  My "desk" is more or less a sofa table set in the middle of the lobby.  With people coming and going, concentration is impossible.  Anyway . . . .

Wednesday, The New Boss's secretary said, "We have a project for you."  I was thrilled.  "You're going to be in charge of the community garden."  I was thrilled again.  I'd gotten wind of a community garden project and had been researching how, where, when, why to do it.  I'd been pondering soil tests and materials for paths and usage agreements.  

The secretary gave me the name of a person who was interested in donating the land for the project.  I emailed him yesterday and invited him to call me, which he did before long.  

It turns out that he had gotten the ball rolling on the community garden.  Soil tests have been done.  Local FFA clubs and scout troops have pledged involvement.  Several garden plots have already been reserved.   

What I'm to be "in charge of" is not the creation of the community garden but the maintenance of a 10 x 10 garden plot.

Oh goody.  

This is what I get for complaining about having little work to do.

(Are they trying to run me off?)

But I was ready to get started.  Made a list of plants that can produce a crop between now and the time to plant turnip greens.  Made plans to go to the greenhouse today for seeds/plants.  Pondered how I would get The Big Black Tiller to the plot.  

Then I found out that the plots will not be available for planting until March.

<sigh>

This made me inordinately frustrated.  I could tell you why, but it would just frustrate me more, and it would bore you.  Come to think of it, you're probably already bored.

Anyway . . . . 

About 1 p.m. yesterday, I decided to work off some frustration.  I'd bought some perennials - echinacea, black-eyed Susans, and a wrinkly daisy - and they'd been wilting on the porch for a couple of days.  When I bought them, the plan was to put them in the phlox bed, gradually phasing out some of the phlox (which are out of control).  It took about an hour to remove some phlox, plant the perennials, and re-plant the spring bulbs that got dug up in the process.  

During this time, I decided to invite the kids and grandkids to eat white beans and cornbread with us for dinner.  White beans and cornbread turned in to a big meatloaf, white beans, slaw, and jalapeno/cheese cornbread.  One set of young'uns was too busy to come eat, but the other set did.  We had a nice dinner.

This morning a storm is coming.  The yard is as dark as dusk, and my phone just announced that "lightning has been detected in [my] area.  

I think I'll go inside for a while.

Rain - July 13, 2023

Yep, it's raining again this morning.  I hope it doesn't last long or rain hard.  Yesterday after work I went to the garden to spray for squash bugs.  The wilt-y tomatoes were looking a tad better, giving me hope that the cause of the wilt is too much water and not fusarium wilt.  But if we get much rain it will wash off the neem oil that I sprayed on the squash and set the tomatoes back again.

Yesterday's neem oil treatment was the first time I've used the sprayer this year.  This is either the 3rd or 4th season we've had it.  It's a 2-gallon metal cylinder with a brass spray wand.  I paid a lot of money for this thing, hoping to finally have a sprayer that would work for at least one whole season.  One year I lost the gasket that goes around the pump and had to order a new one, but otherwise the sprayer has worked well.  Last year when I put it away for the winter, it was fine.  Yesterday on the very first squirt, my neem oil mixture shot out the SIDE of the wand.  Inspection revealed a SPLIT in the brass wand about 2 inches from where it connects to the nozzle.  How curious.  All I can figure is that there was liquid in the hose when I put it away, and the single-digit winter temperatures froze it and caused it to split the wand.  

I probably applied way more neem oil than necessary with liquid squirting out in two directions, but felt lucky that the sprayer held enough pressure to pump.  There were a lot of bug eggs on the squash leaves.  I cut off the infested leaves and discarded them, then came home and ordered a replacement wand.  The "economy" shipping option cost as much as the wand, and I could've bought a whole new sprayer for what it would have cost to ship it overnight.  But I got a shipping notice before I went to bed, so hopefully the wand will be here before I need to spray again.

We shelled the white beans after dinner last night.  The two half-rows produced almost 5 quarts of beans.  About a third of the pods were either too old or too young.  We could've had a second picking had I not pulled up the plants, but I'm not sorry that I did it.  

Those grocery store dried beans went in the ground on May 3 and popped up right away.  It took them a little over 2 months to produce.  They survived the spring monsoon and put on a LOT of beans per plant.  Since then, we've planted dried grocery store pinto beans (which did not come up) and another round of white beans from Nanny's pantry (those also did not come up) on the remaining half-rows.  This is the "low spot," which I tried to fluff up with ground leaves and wood chips.  I may have ruined the soil while trying to improve it, or it may be that the seeds were old, or that it was too dry for them to sprout, or that some critter dug them up and ate them.  In any case, I still have a pint jar of the first beans, and I'm going to plant them as soon as the soil is dry enough to work.

We'll be eating white beans and cornbread for supper tonight.  :)

White Beans - July 11, 2023

I'd planned to cook squash for supper last night, but when I opened the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator, there were no squash in it.  I was puzzled - we'd picked squash the prior evening - until I recalled seeing The Husband carrying a plastic bag when he went to work.  He'd taken the squash to give to co-workers.  

No big deal, I'd just go pick more.  I jumped in the car and went to the garden.  

There was ONE squash in the garden big enough to pick.  I got it, and also cut a few small okra pods (we'd picked those, too, the day before).  While moving around, I discovered that the Great Northern Beans ("white beans" in these parts) were ready.  

The ground was wet, and ants and mosquitoes were eating me up, and I wasn't about to squat down and start picking beans.  I decided, instead, to pull the plants up and pick the beans at home.  I pulled the big yard wagon to the garden and filled it to the brim with bean plants.  Tied it to the bumper of my car to get it home.  After dinner, we picked the beans and got a 5-gallon bucket full.  Some were not quite filled out and some were past ready, but there should be enough beans for a meal or two and some to give to Nanny or put in the freezer.

We'll be shelling beans after dinner tonight.

Garden Check - July 11, 2023

We went to the garden last evening, planning only to lay down some cardboard boxes we'd collected (we carpet the middles with them) and return the picking bucket to the shed.   

Oh, dear....the tomatoes....  Half of them are wilted.  Drooping.  I don't know if it's fusarium wilt or if they're simply drowning from all the rain we've had in the past week or two.  The garden soil is like soup, even under the cardboard.  

Oh, no...the okra....  It needed cutting again.  

And the squash needed picking.

The rows between those crops are pretty well carpeted, so The Husband waded in and cut the okra and picked the squash and a few cucumbers while I worked on the tomatoes.  I don't know what kind of tomatoes they are, but they are running like crazy.  We tie them to their posts with pantyhose strips, but it's a losing battle.  We have 5 or 6 tomatoes that never got staked, and they are beyond corralling at this point, so we've just carpeted the soil beneath the limbs and let them do their natural thing.  This will be easy pickings for the turtles.

The purple hull peas are making pods.  

We kept a few squash and some okra, and gave some to the relatives on the hill.  Cucumbers and onions are soaking in vinegar in the refrigerator.  

Birthday Doings - July 9, 2023

Another birthday weekend in the books.

Saturday was a fairly lovely day - a bit of sunshine, a bit of rain - and The Husband and I had nothing on our schedules.  To be honest, I was moving kind of slow Saturday morning, thanks to too much food and too many margaritas Friday night.  When we went out to dinner with the Sister- and Brother-in-Law, all I'd eaten all day was a piece of toast, and I was starving by dinnertime.  I probably ate a whole basket of tortilla chips by myself and drank two small frozen margaritas (2-for-1 special, you know).  At midnight, I woke up parched and got up and drank some water.  About two hours later, I woke up, lying flat on my stomach, with my gullet on fire and all that stuff trying to come back up.  Blech.  I got up, took some antacid, and sat up reading for an hour before going back to bed.  The coffee pot woke me up at 6.  When the sun came up, I came out to the porch to work on a little watercolor painting I'd started the day before.

I am loving watercolor.  It suits my constitution.  

I'll be brave and show you the picture I was working on:

Here's the photo I worked from:

These are Granddaughters 2 and 3, painting flowers on our compost bin.  

Here is the current view of the compost bin from where I sit on the back porch:

Makes me smile to see it.  

Anyway . . . . 

After I worked on the painting Saturday morning, I decided it was awful.  The bin is lop-sided - but it kind of is - and #3's butt is too big or too colorful, or something, and her shoulder is too high.  My plan was to let it dry again and work on it some more.  The shoulder probably couldn't be fixed at that point, but the butt could be toned down, and I wanted to add some pen & ink details in the foliage.  

But they were over here last night, and I got brave and showed it to them, and they both went, "Awwwwwh! in the way little girls do.  #3 said she wanted it (we did not discuss the big vibrant butt), so I tore it out of the sketchbook and gave it to her.  I guess we can call it "finished" now.  

That might be a milestone in my painting career.  ;)

First Okra - July 6, 2023

A friend wanted to come get some cucumbers this afternoon.  I said to The Husband at 7 this morning, "It ain't gonna get any cooler today," and went to the garden to pick.  Filled a 5-gallon bucket three-quarters full, then filled it the rest of the way with squash.  

While picking the squash, I noticed that the okra (which I noticed was blooming just last weekend) needed cutting.  Some pods - nearly half the haul - were already too big and tough.  There were enough right-sized ones for our supper and Nanny's supper.  

We had sauteed squash & onions, fried okra, and ham for dinner.  Mmmm....

All the plate lacked was a good, ripe tomato, but we're still a good way from that.

July 4, 2023

Happy Independence Day.  

Later today we will be going to Cousin Gus' house for barbeque.  He cooks the meat, the guests bring the sides and desserts.  Our contribution this year will be a chilled watermelon and a freezer of homemade strawberry ice cream and a box of waffle cones.  The ice cream is already made and "ripening." 

While I was scurrying around, collecting equipment and ingredients for the ice cream, I noticed that the "plant incubator" had some new sprouts in it.  

The big sprout is a pumpkin.  It has sprouted since yesterday.  The empty-looking pot has more pumpkin seeds of a different type.  I planted big jack-o-lantern pumpkin seeds in one pot and mini-pumpkin seeds in the other.  I'm not sure which one has already sprouted.  Though I to recall saying to myself, "Little pumpkins on the (L)eft," I also seem to recall looking at the one on the right while I said it.  So who knows?  Doesn't matter.  I'll figure it out as they grow.

The little pot in the back with the small seedling is mallow - the pink/white striped one.  A lady once gave me a few mallow seedlings from her garden, but they died.  If these do well, they'll go in the zinnia bed.  If not, I still have seeds and will plant them in the ground next spring.

The two plastic-wrap-covered containers have African violet seeds in them.  (The magnifying glass is for looking for tiny plants.)  I planted these seeds almost two months ago from seed pods that developed on two of my plants.  It seems they should have sprouted by now.  Internet searches said from one week to nine weeks, so who knows?  I will leave them alone for another month, then toss them if they haven't sprouted.  But I will be very disappointed to do that.

Rain! - July 3, 2023

We got a good soaking rain last night.  This ought to bring up those great northern beans we planted about a week ago and help everything else that didn't get watered deeply when we ran the sprinkler one night last week.  

It was so hot last week.  I moved my work station from the back porch to the kitchen table and spent very little time outside.  All around us there had been pop-up showers, and I had put off watering the flower beds in the hope that one would pop up over us.  By the time I poked my head out again, everything in the flower beds was drooping.  I watered the front beds and the zinna bed, but never made it to the phlox/hydrangea bed.  Yesterday afternoon, I noticed that the hydrangeas seriously needed water, but before I could get to it, someone came to get those 18 pounds of cucumbers I'd picked the day before, and I never gave the hydrangeas another thought.  Thank goodness Mother Nature did.

Speaking of the zinnia bed, it makes me so happy.  :)

When I was growing up, we almost always had zinnias, marigolds, and bachelors buttons in the flower bed in front of the house.  I did not like the marigolds because they were stinky, but I liked the colorful zinnias and the soft bachelors buttons.  Many times, all that stuff volunteered the next year.  Until this year, I haven't been able to grow either of those flowers - not enough sun - much less get volunteers.  I may not get any volunteers from these zinnias next year (they're on a hill, and the seeds may get washed down to the pond), but at least I got blooms!  

I planted big zinnias and little zinnias about two weeks apart.  The little zinnias all got washed to the back of the bed and came up thick as cat hair.  I moved some of those to the front bed and left the rest alone.  They are starting to bud and should begin to bloom before the big ones poop out.

There are also perennials in that bed.  Yarrow in the lower left corner, bee balm in the upper left.  Both have already bloomed.  Lavender in the middle.  A few other things whose name I can't remember.  

Here's the phlox/hydrangea bed.  It has been growing wild for years.  Last year, it got its first two hydrangeas when Nanny gave them to me for my birthday and I began to envision a whole bed full of hydrangeas.  Tried to start some cuttings from my old blue hydrangea, got one or two.  Bought two more at the greenhouse this year.  I've just been pulling up great clumps of phlox to make room.  Hopefully, the phlox and hydrangeas will share the space without a fight.

P.S. - Axel goes home today.  This makes me happy, too!  ;)

Sunday morning rambling - July 2, 2023

It's 7 a.m. Sunday morning.  I've been up for more than an hour.  The Husband and the great beast of a dog are still asleep (although the great beast of a dog did wake up long enough to gobble up a can of dogfood).  

Although this dog is not a huge amount of trouble, I will be glad when he goes home.  This morning when I got up, his big butt was stretched out on our couch, head on a pillow, snoring to beat the band.  I don't like animals in my house, and I especially don't like them on the furniture.  

It has been incredibly hot this week - temperatures near 100, dangerous heat alerts from the weather app on my phone.  What little gardening I've done has been in the early mornings or late afternoons.  So far, all we're getting is squash and cucumbers.  Loads of both.  Earlier in the week, I posted a "free cucumbers" message on my Facebook page and had a couple of takers for upcoming harvests.  Yesterday, I gathered nearly 18 pounds of cucumbers.  Someone is coming to get them today.  There'll be more in a day or two.  

I tried to make "cinnamon pickles" a couple of days ago.  The recipe called for "red hots" candy, but I could not find any (what's up with that?).  "Hot Tamales" candy seemed like a fair substitution, but it wasn't.  After the candy coating dissolved, gummy insides remained and had to be strained out.  My pickles turned out faintly pink and faintly cinnamon-y.  Good thing I only made three pints.  I probably shall not try the recipe again, even if "red hots" cross my path.  In fact, unless some wild bit of motivation hits me, I probably won't make pickles (or relish) at all this year, since we have some left from last year.  All but one or two of the cucumber vines may go on the compost pile soon.

* * * * * * * * 

I want to go somewhere, anywhere.  

Since we sold our camper a couple of years ago, we have not had a real vacation.  The Husband has had several work trips that seemed interesting enough for me to go along, but they have been short trips that did not turn out to be fun.  

Working from home has probably aggravated this mood.  I go for days without leaving the yard or speaking to anyone except The Husband and the relatives on the hill who happen to cross my path between here and the garden.  

Where would I go if I could go anywhere?