Monday - August 25, 2025

Let me set the mood for today's story by referring you to the first sentence of Friday's post:  

I've been a little on edge lately, worrying about various things, and the slightest aggravation sets my head on fire, makes me evil.  

As I was writing the Friday post, I noticed a card I'd painted a day earlier and had laid aside to dry.  It was a cute little bird, whistling a happy tune.  Granddaughter #1 is away at college, a little homesick AND had come down with covid the first week of classes.  I decided to send the card to her, along with a package of laundry detergent sheets I'd meant to give her before she left for school.  

I got up that very moment and proceeded to do it.

Mailing the card and the detergent required a trip to the post office to buy an envelope big enough to hold everything and enough postage to mail it.  But I was happy to make the effort.  Doing something for #1 cheered me.  And I needed something from the grocery store, anyway.  Two birds with one stone, as they say.  

I arrived at the post office feeling a little calmer. 

There was one other customer in the post office, and one clerk, a college-age young woman, at the counter.  The customer was sending two envelopes by certified mail, return receipt requested, and was filling out the cards at the window.  As I formed a line behind the woman at the window, I heard the clerk say, "Ma'am, I know it's none of my business, but it looks like you might be going through something, and I just want to say that I hope it comes out good for you."  A few minutes later, as she was securely taping the green cards to the envelopes to eliminate any chance that they would come off in transit, she said, "I take my job seriously."

I smiled to myself, thinking that the clerk was probably a recent hire and was gung-ho about her new position.  I did think her a mite chatty, though, in this business setting.  The woman at the window seemed anxious to pay up and be gone.  

When it was finally my turn at the window, I laid down the envelope I'd chosen from a rack, the package of laundry detergent, and the little bird card and said, "I need to buy this envelope and enough postage to mail all of this."

The clerk saw the card and exclaimed, "HOW CUTE!" and she grabbed up the card, flipped it over, read the message on the back, flipped it back over to the front and asked, "Did you paint this?"  I said I had, whereupon she said, "Oh, could you paint me one with a hummingbird and some flowers?  I just love hummingbirds.  They're my favorite and - "

About this time, two more ladies came in.  One of them was carrying a heavy box that was going to need some serious taping.  

I reached for the card and said, "Can we get on with this?"

It pissed her off.  

She backed up, held up her hand and said, "Ma'am, you've got to be nice."

I gave her my Excuse me? look and said, "Oh, I AM being nice.  Let's move on."

She reluctantly asked for the address.  I reached into my purse for my phone - the address was in my notes - but it was not there.  I'd left it at home.  The clerk pushed my stuff back to me and said she could not calculate the postage without the zip code.  I asked her to look up the zip code for the college campus, but she would not do it, even though her phone was right beside her on the counter.

One of the two ladies that had come in behind me whipped out her phone and looked up the zip code for me.  

The clerk still would not weigh the materials and calculate the postage without an exact address on the envelope.  

Reluctant to cause a scene in front of the two new ladies, I left the post office, but I was boiling hot as I drove to the grocery store.  I'd have to go home to get my phone and make another trip to town to buy postage.  

While in the grocery store, I concluded that there was simply no legitimate reason why the clerk could not weigh the package and sell me the necessary postage when we knew the zip code.   I decided we'd see how serious the clerk was about doing her job.  I went back to the post office.

The clerk was chatting with someone behind the mailroom screen.  When she saw me, she braced for battle.

I laid my stuff on the counter and calmly said, "I need to know how much it will cost me to mail this," and gave her the zip code.

Another argument ensued.   I will spare you the details.

I left the post office with the envelope and a strip of stamps.  Came home, addressed the envelope, stuck the stamps on, walked it to our mailbox, raised the flag.

But I'd put an extra stamp on the envelope, just in case the clerk was as evil as I was.

* * * * * * * * 

The Grandson called about 8:30 Saturday night, wanting to know if he could spend the night here. He was down in the river bottom, attending a bonfire with some friends.   He has a 12:00 curfew at his home and suspected he might miss it.  I was a little hesitant to help him evade his house rules but told him we'd leave the front door unlocked for him and advised him not to pull any shenanigans that would get him injured or arrested.  

I don't know what time he got here, but he was snoozing when I got up the next morning.  He got up soon after I did and had coffee with me on the porch, and when The Husband got up, we all had breakfast together.  The Grandson stayed with us about half the day.  It was good to have him around for a while.

Friday - August 22, 2025

I've been a little on edge lately, worrying about various things, and the slightest aggravation sets my head on fire, makes me evil.  Even inanimate objects draw my wrath.

Yesterday, I decided that physical activity would help work off some steam, so I put on my gardening clothes and drove up to the community garden.  I'd intended to wheelbarrow more wood chips to my newly-planted squash plot, but when I got there, a truck was blocking the gate; the wheelbarrow would not fit through the space.  Two people were working a plot next to mine.  I'm sure one of them would have moved the truck if I'd asked, but I hated to interrupt their momentum when I wasn't all that gung-ho about wheelbarrowing in the first place.  We chatted a bit while I pulled nutgrass from around my squash, then I picked the cucumbers from a volunteer plant in an abandoned plot, weeded my pea patch, and came home.

Weeds are taking over the community garden.  Nutgrass and pigweed are thick (except in my plots and a couple of others), and they're going to seed.  I've been pulling them from my neighbors' plots in hopes of keeping mine clean, even though I know it's futile effort.  If I were the garden manager, I'd be sending out a text blast, telling people to clean up their plots.  Failing that, I'd ask for volunteers for a clean-up day, SOON, to pull weeds and pick vegetables from plots that were planted but not tended.

As you might guess, working in the garden did not do much to soothe me.

When I got home, I dropped my purse and keys on the table and went straight outside to weed-eat the yard with the weed-eater on wheels.  It cranked on the first pull.  I chopped down the phlox-iris beds around the porch, cleaned up the edges of the new "sunny bed," and tackled the edge of the thicket between the house and the pond.  There's a ditch in that area, and my weed-eater slid into it, and I had to wrestle the blasted thing to get it out.  Today, my old muscles and joints are complaining.

It's always something, ain't it?

Roscoe-Free! - August 18, 2025

Roscoe's family came home yesterday.

We were all very happy about it.  :)

I went over to his house to let him out of the kennel about 6:30 yesterday morning.  He gets out of the cage and stretches, first thing, with his back legs still in it.  Then he springs like a cat, and whirls around, and barks.  When I opened the door to let him go outside to pee, he just stood there and yawned.  I said, "Ok, if you aren't busting to pee, we'll just go on to my house.  Let's put your leash on."  

When I picked up the leash, the dog went buck wild, and started running (at full-on speed) a circle that encompassed the dining room table and the kitchen island.  He was running on vinyl, and when he made the turns, his rear end would slide out from under him, sideways.  I just shook my head at the goofy b*stard - it was too early for that crap - and caught his collar on the next pass.  

He was pretty good in the house while he was here.  Bathroom breaks required close supervision, since our yard is not fenced.  Yesterday afternoon, I put the leash on him to take him out, and when I opened the back door, he SHOT OUT the door.  Yanked the leash right out of my hand and ran.  I hollered, and he stopped at the corner of the house, and turned around and looked at me, like Give it up, old lady; you'll never catch me, and took off again.  I went after him.  He'd let me get within 5 feet of him, and then he'd bolt.  He ran over to the neighbor's yard, stopped 10 feet from me, and turned around to gloat.  Neener-neener.  

A line of trees separates our yard from the neighbor's yard.  Most of the trees are large enough for hide-and-seek.  I changed the game on him.

I stepped behind a big tree, out of his line of vision, while he was looking at me.  He made a hunh noise, like humans do when something mildly amuses them.  When he'd poke his head out where I could see him, I'd lean the opposite way.  This went on for about a minute.  He finally came around to my side of the tree to see wtf was going on, and I nabbed him.  SUCK-AHHHHH!  

"Old age and treachery . . . ."

It's good to be pet-less again.

I don't know what I'm going to do today, now that I've wasted half of it.    The community garden plots don't need working today; I pulled grass and hauled more wood chips Saturday, so they're good for a day or two.  There are always weeds that need pulling in our yard, but it's freakin' hot today, and I'm just not gonna do it.  I need to go to the grocery store, but since I won't be cooking dinner for a couple of days (The Husband left on a short work trip this morning) I can do that tomorrow.

The little clay fairy/mushroom house still needs a roof . . . . 

Roscoe - Day 2 - August 16, 2025

Yesterday afternoon, I let Roscoe out to do his business, and he went home, despite me hollering, "Roscoe, NO!" and beeping his shock collar.

Made me so mad.  

I got his house key, followed him home, put his butt in his kennel, and came back home.  This probably sounds terrible, but I was glad to be rid of him for a while.

In his absence, I went up to the community garden to check on my crops.  Everything was doing well, but grass was sprouting in the new squash plot.  Outside of the fenced area, there's a pile of arborist wood chips taller than me, so I decided to wheelbarrow some to the plot for weed control.  There was also a pile of flattened cardboard boxes against the fence.  I filched some, carpeted the plot with them, and started hauling wood chips to pour on top of them.  It was 3:00 and hot as heck, and I gave up after two loads.  Once The Husband gets up this morning to babysit Roscoe, I'm going back to the garden to move more wood chips.

I will be glad when Roscoe's family comes home.

Margarita night was a little different last night.  About the time The Sister-in-Law and I start texting, making our plans, Cousin Debbie called, wanting to know if we were going out as usual, wanting to join us.  She intended to bring her grandchildren with her, two little boys, 3 and 10 months.  I thought, Oh, no...children.  They are sweet little boys, and cute as buttons, but . . . little children and restaurants are not a good combination.  Says a woman who, years ago, took her own two little boys to restaurants.  

I sat next to the 3-year-old.  Correction:  I sat next to the 3-year-old's chair, for he stayed in it very little.  During dinner, he spilled his drink.  It went down my leg and into my shoe.  Then he started running around and around our table, reminding me of that story where the tiger (or maybe it was the boy?) ran around and around a tree until the tiger turned into butter.  (What?  You don't know that story?  Little Black Sambo.  You can read it here:  The Story of Little Black Sambo, by Helen Bannerman)  

Meanwhile, Cousin Debbie was wrestling the 10-month-old, who was so sleepy he could barely hold his head up.  Finally, grandma gave up.  She took most of her food and the 3-year-old's food home in a take-out box.

I helped her gather up her stuff - two tablet toys, a sippy cup, two take-out boxes, and a take-out dinner for her husband.  At the cash register, she handed me the baby so she could get out her money.  While she was paying, the older boy vanished.  We panicked and started frantically looking for him.  I found him outside, sitting in a giant chair on the porch, grinning like the Cheshire cat.  

We got home from dinner a little earlier than usual.  

About 10:00, The Husband went over to Roscoe's house to let him out of the kennel.  He came home with a giant, wet, dog face-print right in the middle of his chest.

Roscoe - August 15, 2025

Granddaughter #1 went back to college yesterday, and her family trailed behind her with stuff for her apartment.  They left about 4 p.m..  Her family will be back Saturday evening.  I can't wait.

We're dog-sitting Roscoe this weekend.  He is a pain in the ass, purely because of his size.

(Well, maybe not purely because of his size.  Those strings of foamy slobber that sometimes hang down from his jowls are disgusting.  One got on my leg last night and I 'bout had a come-apart.)

Last night about 8, I walked across the road to let him out before bed.  He peed and walked around a while (he's not a "romper" by nature) and then came back for some petting.  He wants to be petted ALL THE TIME, and he likes to be right up in your face if you're sitting down.  

When we came in from his pee break, I hated to just kennel him and leave, so I sat down on the sofa to let him wander around the house a little bit.  Did he wander?  No.  He came over and stuck his giant head under my chin, and when I pushed him off me, he backed up, assumed an attack position, and barked at me.  If I hadn't known his disposition, it would have terrified me.  

He was wanting to play.

Every night before bedtime, my son wrestles him.  Boxes his jaws.  Puts him in a headlock.  That sort of thing.  Roscoe retaliates by going after my son's feet.  He can clamp his jaws all the way around an ankle.

I growled back at him, and he lunged, and the fight was on.  He yanked off one of my crocs and I had to pry it out of his mouth.  He went back to the kennel, and I went home.

This morning, The Husband went over and got him and all of his accoutrements.  

It's gonna be a long day.

* * * * * * * * 

I worked on the mushroom/fairy house a little bit yesterday afternoon.  

My home-made clay seemed a little sticky.  It could've been that it was too warm, having sat on the counter near the stove during the oven cleaning.  I used it, anyway.  Dusting my fingers with cornstarch helped.  I did not think through the entire process and made a mistake in ordering the work.  After covering the house frame with clay, I attached it to the base, which had not been covered with clay.  The door of the house is open, which means the base clay will have to go under the door.  It'll be hard to make it look right.  I'd just take the house off, cover the base, and reattach the house, but I'm afraid the whole thing will crumble if I squeeze it.    

The clay isn't completely dry yet.  It's really humid, so it may be a while before it can be painted.

I'm going to experiment with coloring it with watercolor paint.  We'll see what happens.

Banished - August 14, 2025

I have banished myself from the house today.  It's toxic - or at least stinky.  It's my fault.

Yesterday, for dinner, I braised a pot roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions.  The braising liquid was gravy.  I cooked it in big skillet that is wide but not very deep.  It has a lid that fits fairly tightly.  When I took it out of the oven to check it for the first time, the lid had sealed itself to the rim - had to pry it off with a knife.  After I broke the seal, checked the roast, and returned the skillet to the oven, the gravy boiled out and made a huge mess in the bottom of my oven.

Admittedly, that oven was not particularly clean to begin with, but this disaster was of a magnitude that precluded further use of the oven until after some cleaning occurred.  This is a self-cleaning oven.  I did not want to run it last night; it stinks up the house something awful, to the point where it's uncomfortable to breathe.

(Might not be so bad if I cleaned it more regularly, eh?)

I knew that I would forget to run the cleaning cycle unless I left myself a reminder that would be hard to miss.  A yellow post-it note on the stovetop would have done the trick, but I couldn't find one in the junk drawer where the pad usually lives, but there was a pack of playing cards in that drawer, and I figured they'd work just as well.  The pack stuck out like a sore thumb against the black glass stovetop.  I said to The Husband, "I'm laying a pack of cards on the stove to remind me to run the cleaning cycle tomorrow.  Don't put it back in the drawer."  

He didn't, and it was the first thing I saw this morning when I staggered to the coffee pot.  

The cleaning cycle commenced.  

I took my coffee out to the porch, as usual.  

About 2 hours later, I started smelling something and realized it was the oven.  I went inside to look through the glass to make sure nothing was actually on fire.  All good, so far.  But smoke was pretty thick in the house.  I turned on the vent-a-hood fan and shut all the bedroom doors and put a box fan in the window of my sewing room.  When the smoke cleared a little, I started scrubbing the oven racks.  (The Husband said we're supposed to take the racks out before running the cleaning cycle.  This seems positively ridiculous to me, but I did it.)    

I've been on the porch, painting, ever since.  

A couple of days ago, I watched a video in which a lady was making mushroom/fairy houses out of a toilet paper roll and some home-made air-dry clay.  It made me drool, wanting to try it.  Almost everything one would need to duplicate the process was already in my house, except for a battery-operated tea light, and I can get that later.  So when I yanked off the last paper towel, I saved the cardboard tube.  

Check.

The next day, I watched somebody make air-dry clay.  Yesterday morning I made some.  It is on my kitchen counter, twisted up in plastic wrap.  (I hope the heat from the oven isn't cooking it.)

Check.

Yesterday afternoon, I started drawing/cutting on the tube.  Had to cut out a door and some windows with an exact-o knife.  Very tedious.  Had to try twice.  I made a little platform for everything to sit on, made some steps leading up to the door, made a pointy circular roof.  

There was one other thing I didn't have, which I deemed fairly necessary, and that was joint compound or some other stiffening agent to support the toilet paper roll so it won't buckle under the weight of the clay.  If I hadn't seen joint compound used in some other videos about other things, I'd probably not have gone to the hardware store for a tub of joint compound; I'd probably have come up with some other means of support (stuff the tube with quilt batting, maybe.  Whatever.).  But I needed potatoes for the roast, anyway, and the grocery store is next door to the hardware store, so . . . . 

If I wanted to, I could start assembling a fairy house while the oven finishes cleaning. 

A b*tch of a day - August 12, 2025

I was scheduled to make a business call at 9 yesterday morning.  Set my phone to alarm at 8:55 so I wouldn't forget.

I'd also planned to call the Social Security Administration about a matter that has been driving me nuts since I retired.  (I may give you the full low-down, once it's resolved, or perhaps before then, if I get any more pissed about it.  Which could happen.  Likely, in fact.  Anyway . . . .)   So, since I had almost an hour to kill, I called the 1-800 number.

Have you called the SSA l-800 number lately?  (If you haven't, don't.  Just get your butt in the car and go see somebody, face to face, and hope it does you some good.)

Right off the bat, the recording said the wait was going to be 30 minutes.  In the past few months, I've been on hold on that line in excess of 5 hours at a stretch; 30 minutes is nothing to me now.  So I put my phone on speaker, propped it up on my work table, and did my morning word puzzles while I waited on 9:00.  (I must say that the "hold" music is like an icepick in each ear, even with the speakers on.)

A real person finally came on the line about 8:50.  ("Thirty minute wait," my foot!)  Five minutes later, my phone alarmed to remind me of the 9 a.m. call.  I thought, "Oh, shit!  I am NOT hanging up to make that call!"  And yet I had to do it.

I ran inside, got the kitchen phone, and made the 9 a.m. call while the SSA worker was gone looking for a supervisor (yes, my problem was/is that bad).  When the person answered and I told him my situation, he agreed to post-pone the call until the afternoon.  

As usual, nothing was resolved on the SSA call.  Thirty minutes later, I hung up, frustrated.

But I also had a noon lunch date, and I'd been looking forward to it, so I shook off the frustration and tried to make myself presentable.  (It was a big job, but I had plenty of time.)  

At 11:30, as I was walking out the door, The Husband called and asked me to go check on one of our sons who was home from work, feeling poorly.  After lunch, I'd planned to run by the community garden to check on the things I planted last week.  I was feeling a little anxious about my son, but I went ahead with my lunch date but planned to cut it a bit short so I could see about the kid.  Though I knew it would make me a little late for lunch, I stopped by the community garden first and made a quick run-through.  My lunch date pulled into the restaurant parking lot at the same time I did. We did enough catching-up to last us a bit, then I went to see about the son.  (He's okay.)

I spent about an hour with him, then came home to find emails about the SSA issue.  The emails asked for the same shit I'd sent both by email and by snail mail.  

Fun, fun stuff.

Let me just say this:  if you have to deal with the SSA workers - really anybody, these days - try to be patient.  Try to be nice.  Every call they get is a problem, I imagine.  They are stressed.  We all are stressed, and it's pretty easy to "pop off" when things don't go well.  But it doesn't help, especially on the phone, where you can't immediately reach out and throttle somebody.  ;)  

On a lighter note, the seeds I planted in the community garden last week have sprouted well, one bright spot in my day.

Then The Husband came home in a new (to him) truck.  There is a running joke in our family about vehicles.  During our 45 years of marriage, The Husband has had many, many vehicles, while I've had, like, six, counting the one I had when we married.  I get attached to them and don't care about a new one until the old one gives up its ghost.  When we bought my current car in 2017, my "daily driver" was the Wrangler, and there was nothing wrong with it, I just didn't want to keep putting miles on it because I'd promised to give it to The Grandson.  My kids couldn't believe I'd about a new (to me) car.  My daughter-in-law asked, "Did you tell the salesman you'd see him in 2040?"  Smart aleck.  ;)

I may have told you this story, but when I got the Wrangler in about 2001, I was driving a 1995 GMC Jimmy.  It was a used vehicle, and after about a couple of years, it started giving us trouble.  A sulfurous, rotten egg smell emitted from the tailpipe.  I would see people at red lights holding their noses.  Then the digital dashboard lights went out on my way to work.  I banged the dashboard and they came back on.  This banging worked for a little while, then it didn't.  I never knew how fast I was going.  I ran out of gas a couple of times.  Then the driver door got to where it made a scrunching noise when opened or closed.  My brother-in-law (an auto-body man) said it was the bearings, and "That m*th*erf*cker is going to fall off in the road one day."  I said I'd drive it until it did.  

Then one day, Son #2 called to ask if he could trade in a Jeep Cherokee we'd loaned him.  The Husband said no, trade in the Jimmy and give Mom the Cherokee.  (I hated that Cherokee, but that's another story.)  When I came home from work that day, I cleaned out the Jimmy, and my son came to get it.  He traded it in the next day.  

Mid-morning that day, I remembered that I'd left some hat pins stuck in the back of the passenger seat headrest.  I called my son and told him to stop by the dealership and get my hat pins out of the Jimmy.  He did that on his lunch break.  On his way back to work, he called me and asked, "Mom, did you hear what happened to the Jimmy?"  I said no.  He said, "It's a good thing we'd already signed the contract.  When the salesman went to get your hat pins, he opened the driver door and it fell off in the parking lot."

I still laugh about this.

I called The Husband to tell him what happened, but only got his voice mail.  I was laughing and could barely get the words out.  When he listened to his voice mail, he collapsed on his desk, laughing.  His co-workers thought he was either crying hard or having a heart attack until he played the voice mail for them.

There was one other thing in the Jimmy that I'd forgotten about until a few days after the trade; a FedEx envelop of dried salvia divinorum leaves.  

Never heard of it?  Neither had I until I read about it in some book about brain stuff.  When smoked, the leaves of this plant are said to produce a sort of mystical experience.  I was curious, so I ordered some (it was legal in this state at the time), but I was also a chickensh*t, and had never even opened the mailing envelope, had just stuffed it under the truck seat when it came (to my office, no less) and forgot about it.  It had probably been under the seat for a year or more.  By this time, it had been outlawed in this state.  I'd probably have gone to jail if the cops had pulled me over.  

I called the salesman.  "I need you to get something else out of the Jimmy.  There's a FedEx envelope under the passenger seat.  Don't open it.  Just throw it away."

He said, "Hon, that piece of crap is long gone."  

I said, "Well, then you'd better call the salvage place that took it, because if Bubba opens that envelope and smokes what's in it, thinking it's pot, he's in for a big surprise."

I still laugh about that one, too.  :)

Movie Day - August 11, 2025

Last Friday night, as we were on the way home from margarita night with the Brother- and Sister-in-law, I happened to glance over at the movie theater on the corner and noticed its name had been changed.  This got me to thinking about movies, in general, and reminded me of one I wanted to see.

It's hard to get The Husband to go to a movie theater unless there's a superhero movie playing.  (Superhero movies are "a thing" with him and The Grandson.)  I generally don't do the superhero movies with them, unless I just want the popcorn.

But whatever.  

I could not recall the name of the movie, or even who was in it, so I googled the theater right quick, and it is showing there.  The Sister-in-Law and I have plan to see that movie this afternoon.  

Saturday afternoon, I had a nice long visit with my brother at his house.  It was fun.  I'd planned to stop by the grocery store on the way home, and did stop, but my heart wasn't in it and I came out having spent $55 on junk.  By the time I got home, The Husband had installed the new lawnmower blades and had just finished cutting our yard and Nanny's yard.  While mowing our yard, in the phlox bed he found a snake skin that must've have still had the snake in it while I was cutting down the phlox, for I hadn't seen it.   

I spent the rest of the weekend mostly drawing and painting on the back porch.  It was a treat.   

Tractor Bucket Tricks - August 9, 2025

The Husband does occasionally come up with good tricks for the tractor bucket, like the time he wondered if we could drive t-posts into the ground with the tractor bucket instead of the t-post driver.  (It worked like a charm.)  Yesterday, he wondered if he could drive the lawnmower's front tires into the bucket and lift the bucket enough to change the lawnmower blades without having to remove the mower deck.  

I first heard this idea last night at margarita night with the brother- and sister-in-law.  It sounded like a "hey y'all, watch this!" idea that could result in injury or death.  When the BiL seconded the idea with a big "Hell yeah!" it only increased my concerns.

Regular reader(s) may remember that we just installed new lawnmower blades two or three weeks ago.  Why do we need new ones now?  When I was sent to the store to buy blades, I was told to get 42" blades.  It turned out that the lawnmower takes 46" blades.  Because the blades didn't quite meet, we mohawked our yard and Nanny's yard for a couple of weeks before we got to the store for longer blades.

Anyway . . . . 

The Husband's blade-changing plan worked well.  We scotched the mower's back tires with some 2 x 4s and he slowly raised the bucket.  I stood nearby to watch for trouble, but the lawnmower stayed put.  I set a thick block of wood under the frame so that if something freaky happened, the lawnmower wouldn't fall all the way down.  The B-i-L's impact wrench made the blade removal/installation easy.  5 minute job.

WTG, Husband.  ;)

Home Garden Check-Up - August 8, 2025

The day before we left for our Muscle Shoals trip, nearly two weeks ago, we watered the vegetable garden as well as we could.  It has been weeks since we've had any rain.

I watered the tomatoes, butternut squash, and cucumbers with the water hose.  The hose would not reach the purple hull peas nor the squash on the far side of them.  The Husband dumped multiple tractor bucket-loads of water on the squash.  

A few of the peas were beginning to ripen, but not enough to fool with picking.  The situation was the same in the community garden.

We were gone from Wednesday to Saturday.  Monday, I checked the community garden and discovered that most of the peas had dried on the vines.  The situation in our home garden is the same.

I picked the dried peas in the community garden and sent them to the food bank, then I pulled up the pea vines and planted new seeds.  The dried peas can be shelled and stored and re-constituted like store-bought beans.  Barring a freaky early frost, the newly planted peas should have time to produce a crop.

The squash in the home garden had a few fruits on the vines that weren't too big and tough.  

The okra is making.  I cut what was ready and gave both the okra and the squash to Nanny for her supper.

The tomato plants that have survived the drought so far seem to have appreciated the watering and are putting on new leaves, which the tomato worms are munching.  I pulled off and smashed about 5 of the nasty buggers but didn't get around to all of the plants; I was in a hurry to get home and wash off the okra nettles.

As I sit here on the back porch, I hear thunder.  The temperature just dropped, and the wind is blowing.  My phone weather radar thinks there's a big cloud coming our way.  I sure hope it's right.

This week, I have been watering my yard flowers with a watering can - not all of them, just the ones I really want to live - two hydrangeas that I planted last year, and a couple of lantanas planted this year.  Everything else in this yard has learned to suck it up, swim or sink, and I'm not worried about those old, established things.  

Speaking of lantana, I accidentally broke a limb off one of the plants as I was planting it.  I poked a hole in the soil a few feet away and planted the broken limb in it.  Kept it watered.  IT'S GROWING!

(And IT'S RAINING HERE at this very moment.  A good soaker!)  

I cut the tall garden phlox (and anything hiding in it, like daylilies or sedum) down to the ground this week.  The butterflies and hummingbirds had done with them, and they were an awful, crispy brown sight.  I lit into them with the weed-eater-on-wheels and felled them like small trees.  I'll rake that mess up one of these days and run it through the grinder.

  

Community Garden Squash Planted - August 7, 2025

Yesterday morning, I spent about two and a half hours in the community garden, breaking up the ground for planting.  The little red tiller, which I'd left in the garden shed overnight, fired right up, but digging that hard ground was too much for her.  The tines would turn if raised off the ground, but they'd not dig when lowered to the ground.  I ended up digging the plot with a shovel.  By the time the squash seeds were planted and watered, I was about too whipped to walk to the car.

There were errands to be run before I came home - a stop by the liquor store for bourbon for a chicken recipe for supper, a stop by the grocery store for ginger for that same chicken recipe, and a stop by the gas station for gas for the lawnmower.  I was dirty, sweaty, and probably stinky, and had to apologize to all the attendants for being malodorous.  

I put the chicken in the crock pot first thing when I came home, then I went out to the porch to rest for a bit before starting the mowing.  

The Husband came home early, having been to a funeral for one of his classmates.  He said that one of the other classmates had invited everyone over to his house later for nibbles and drinks, and he wanted to go.  And there I sat, nasty and sweaty and tired.  But I eventually dragged myself to the shower and made myself somewhat presentable for the gathering.

While I was in the shower, I remembered that supper was in the crock pot and should be ready to eat at 6.  We were scheduled to leave for the classmates' gathering at 4:30, and I worried that the chicken would be slime by the time we got home.  We stayed at the get-together longer than expected, and while we were there, Son #1 called to ask if we could stop by the hardware store for a new thermostat for his home A/C.  So it was pushing 8 p.m. by the time we got home.  The chicken recipe contained a lot of soy sauce, and when I raised the lid on the crock pot, the chicken looked to be soaking in tar.  But it tasted okay.  

We ate it, anyway.  

I am taking the day off from hard gardening.  My shoulder joints are sore, and so are my butt muscles.   Once the grass dries up, I will probably mow our yard and Nanny's yard.  

Until then, I might play with my watercolors.  Last week, I discovered some video tutorials that I enjoyed and want to try.  The lady posted a new one yesterday:  Beginner Watercolor Tutorial--Autumn Garden Girl 

She does "cute" drawings and has sort of a laissez-faire attitude about painting.  "Cute-ness" has not been among my talents, but it needs to be.  And I need to learn to relax when I pick up a paintbrush, for I almost always screw up my paintings in some way, and, knowing this, I start the process already anxious about the result.

Maybe I ought to just give up painting . . . . 

Nah.  At least not until I run out of paper and paint.  ;)

Community Garden Peas - Round 2 - August 5, 2025

Yesterday morning, I went up to the community garden to check on the peas.  They were pitiful.  I ended up pulling up all the vines to start over.  There were too many vines to fit in the compost barrels.  I filled up one barrel, then piled the rest of the vines against the fence near my plot.  Hopefully, they will wilt enough in the next few days that the barrels will hold them.  

Today, I went back up there and planted new peas in the plot.  I also started working on an empty plot that is covered in grass and weeds, intending to plant another round of peas, or maybe some greens, or both.  Had to use a shovel to dig up some of the awful grass.  I took Gloria (the little red tiller) with me.  She cranked and ran like a champ, but the grass was so bad that it eventually completely clogged her tines.  I sat down on a bench and dug the grass out.  Sitting down was a mistake, though; I'd been working hard for nearly 3 hours by then, and once I got the grass out of the tines, I couldn't make myself get up and finish the tilling.  I'll go back and work again tomorrow.

When I got home, I sat on the porch under the fan for a while, then cranked the big push-mower weed-eater and cut down most of the phlox in the yard.  They were dried up and looked awful.  That took nearly an hour.  I am totally pooped.

Gardening is OVER for today.

The Usual - August 4, 2025

I had planned to go to the community garden early this morning, while it's still cool.  Last Wednesday, I picked the purple hull peas, but there were many more on the vines that were not ready.  Knowing I couldn't get back to them until today, I asked another gardener, an ag instructor who has a "crew" of students, to pick my peas if he saw them ready and add them to his own total (we're required to keep track of how many pounds of food we donate), but I don't know if he got around to it.  

While The Husband was getting ready to go to work, I put on some gardening clothes and told him my plan to go to the garden.  He reminded me that we're expecting a delivery today, a big metal culvert to replace the one that's rusted at the entrance to the field.  The spring rains washed out a huge hole around the culvert, preventing the farmer from accessing the field.  It's probably already too late for the farmer to plant his soybeans, but the situation needs fixing ASAP; maybe he can put winter wheat in that field.

Anyway....

I'm supposed to be here to show the delivery guy where to put the culvert.    No clue what time he's coming.  The Husband said the guy is supposed to call him when he's on his way.  I suggested he give me the dude's number so I could call him and tell him to call ME when he's on his way.

I just got hold of the guy.  It'll be two hours or more before he gets here.  Looks like I'll be picking peas this morning, after all.  

Home! - August 3, 2025

We made it home a little after noon yesterday.  You wouldn't think that a 4-day trip would require much stuff, but it took several trips to the truck to bring everything inside - clothes, shoes, road snacks.  We stopped at Dollar General on the way home to get cream cheese and orange soda for the orange crush cake for Granddaughter #2's birthday party, which happens today.

By mid-afternoon, I'd made the cake layers.  The recipe is simple: 1 box of white cake mix, and one 12 oz. can of orange soda.  After the cakes baked and cooled, to boost the orange flavor, I poked holes in them and spooned un-set orange jello over them, then froze them.  The jello might have been a mistake; I worry that the cake will crumble when we cut it.  If it does, I guess we'll dip it into bowls and eat it with a spoon.

While the layers cooled, I pondered how to decorate the cake.  Since #2 is on the volleyball team this year, The Husband suggested a volleyball theme.  There was gum paste left over from #3's gymnastics cake.  I rolled out a hunk of it, cut out a circle with my biscuit cutter, and painted black hexagons on it with food coloring.  It'll have to do.  

Late yesterday afternoon, we went to watch #2 play volleyball - pre-season practice games.  I noticed during the game that the volleyballs had stripes, not hexagons.  Hopefully, #2 won't mind the old-school volleyball on her cake.  

When we got home from the volleyball game, I stirred up the frosting and spread it on the cake.  I still have to write her name and "Happy Birthday" on the cake.  I'm kinda worried about this part.  Last night I traced one of the cake pans on a piece of paper and practiced writing the words with a pencil to get an idea of how much room I'll have.  I'll need to make a little more frosting for the lettering.  It might need to be a tad thinner than normal frosting so the letters will flow.  It would be great if I knew what I'm doing.  

Although I enjoyed the trip, I'm glad to be home.  This morning, I got up, took my coffee out to the porch, and enjoyed listening to the birds waking up, as I do every morning.  Two hours later, when I heard The Husband stirring, I went inside, cleaned up the kitchen, and started sauteing mushrooms, scallions, peppers, and ham for omelets.  When it was time for the eggs, I turned the job over to The Husband, who can manage to get an omelet out of the pan without wrecking it.  (My omelets turn out basically like scrambled eggs with stuff in them.)

Boy, that omelet was good!

This afternoon, after the birthday party, I need to go up to the community garden to pick peas.  I also need to do some yardwork.  Thankfully, the weather has cooled off some (it was even a little chilly on the porch this morning).  

Or maybe I'll relax this afternoon and do that other stuff tomorrow.

Muscle Shoals - August 2, 2025

Greetings from a back porch near Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

The Husband took some vacation time, and we decided to use it to tour a couple of recording studios near Muscle Shoals.  Got here Wednesday afternoon, after stopping for a slugburger in Corinth, Mississippi.  

Rather than stay in a hotel, we reserved a cabin at Joe Wheeler State Park. This cabin was built a long time ago by CCC workers, and I was a little worried that it would be shabby and inconvenient and smelly, but it's fine - clean and comfortable, which is about all we ask for in lodging.  It has a little back porch overlooking the lake.  We will stay here again, given the chance.

Wednesday evening, we had dinner at Lash's seafood restaurant, not far from the park.  The food was good, and there was a LOT of it. 

Thursday morning, we toured the Muscle Shoals Recording Studio.  It was a good tour.  Our guide was knowledgeable and personable.  He was a fairly young dude, but he knew his stuff.  You'd think he'd been here back in the studio's hey-day. 

After the studio tour, we looked around in some antique stores, then came back to the cabin to chill.  

Late in the afternoon, we noticed a barge going down the river and decided to go up to the dam to watch the barge go through the lock.  The crew had to take the barge apart and send it through the lock in two pieces.  We watched the first half go into the lock and watched the water level drop in the lock.  We wanted to watch the rest of the boat make it through and then watch them put the two halves back together, but it was a very slow process, and we were hungry by this time.  We ran up to the local Dollar General for bread and sandwich meat and had dinner at the cabin.

Friday morning, we toured Fame recording studio.  It was an OK tour, but we liked the Muscle Shoals studio tour better, mostly because the Fame tour was crowded and the tour guide talked too fast.  When the tour was over, we went to the Indian Mound Museum in Florence.  Did a little more junkin' after the tour, then came back to the cabin for lunch.

Last night, we had dinner at the Swamper's Bar & Grill.  Given the name, I'd imagined a little hole-in-the-wall place, with a live band blasting rock & roll music.  It was actually a hotel restaurant.  The food was really good.  The music was ... ok.  We got there at 6:30 in time to hear the first performer (a single performer, not a band) and stayed long enough to hear the next performers (a duet). 

We're heading home today.  

I've got a birthday cake to make for tomorrow.