Garden Check - October 9, 2020

 About 4 o'clock yesterday afternoon, I was feeling all out of sorts and didn't know what to do with myself.  I'd already decided that the kitchen was CLOSED for this night; we'd have to eat sandwiches, or rummage around in the refrigerator for left-overs.  I surfed the TV news channels for a few minutes, and that just made my restlessness worse.  So, even though I wasn't planning on cooking dinner, I went to the garden to see what vegetables I could pick.

Three squash.  That was all.  

There wasn't even any okra, except for a couple of big ones that I missed the last time I cut okra.

There were a few turning tomatoes, and some green ones.

Turnip greens are still too little to fool with.

Butterbeans are still flat as pancakes.

Cabbages are just beginning to make heads.  The broccoli and brussels sprouts appear to be a long way from making anything.

There was a good-sized patch of that old foxtail grass in one end of the garden, and it was about to go to seed.  I decided to pull it up, hoping to reduce the grass problem for next year.  I pulled up a wheel-barrow load of the stuff.  If it doesn't rain before I get home from work today, I'm going to run the tiller over that spot and plant more greens.

The purple hull pea vines needed to be pulled up, but by the time I got through pulling up the grass, I was out of the mood to tackle the job.

I laid the three squash on the bench beside Nanny's back door (she wasn't home) and walked back home with my empty bucket.  

We had frozen pizza for supper.

About 8:30, my son and his wife dropped in for a visit.  Their house-sitting job will end this weekend, and they and The Granddaughters will be coming back home.  School is out for fall break next week, and I've been trying to come up with some craft ideas to help them pass the time.  While I was looking for my knitting needle pouch last weekend, I found a rug-hook kit that I'd bought a couple of years ago.  The pattern looks like piano keys, and I thought the oldest granddaughter might enjoy making the rug, so I set the box out so that I would remember to give it to her.  When her parents got here last night, I showed them the kit.  Digging around in the box, I discovered that the mesh (the rug background) was missing from the box.  Evidently, I've already worked on it a little bit - yet another UFO (un-finished object) in my house.

Somewhere in my house.

I did not run across it last weekend when I tore the place up-side down, looking for the knitting needle pouch.  The only place it could be is the top shelf in the craft closet, the one place I did not tackle.  That top shelf is an avalanche waiting to happen.  I'll need reinforcements to help me pull down the heavy tubs.  No telling what I'll find in them.  I just hope the rest of the rug hook kit is there!

A Froggy Day - October 7, 2020

 When I came home from work today and sat down on the back porch to chill, I looked up to find a green tree frog chillin' on an elephant ear leaf.  

After dinner, I came back out to the porch to finish my chillin'.  My rear end had no sooner hit the chair than I realized that I'd forgotten to bring my water glass (and, yes, I was just drinking plain water).  As I stood up to go back in the house, my peripheral vision caught a movement on the cabinet behind my hair.  It 'bout scared the bejeeezus out of me.  Turned out, it was another tree frog, this time a gray speckled one.  It was hard to capture a picture of him; the light wasn't good, and he was leaping around.  (I finally blinded him with the spotlight we keep on the porch to look for armadillos, and he held still for a minute.)

By the time I remembered to go get my water, he appeared to be tucked in for the night.

From the back porch - October 6, 2020

 

How I am going to miss my morning back porch sittin' when the weather gets cooler.  Right now, the sun is peeking through a tiny gap in the trees, shining directly on my face.  The birds are tweeting, the crows are cawing, the woodpeckers are jack-hammering.  I am going to miss all this when cold weather drives me inside.

Last week, I got a Bedazzler in the mail.  I was going to wait to play with it until The Granddaughters get back home (they've been house-sitting with their parents for over a week), but Sunday afternoon, I couldn't stand it any longer, so I plugged it in and bedazzled some masks for the girls (and myself).  Each little jewel has to be heat-set for 10 to 15 seconds.  So, as I sat there counting - one thousand one, one thousand two - I fired up YouTube and watched random craft/art videos.  

Eventually, I came across a video entitled "Neurographic Drawing."  It sounded fun and interesting, so when I got tired of bedazzling masks, I pulled out a sketch pad and some colored pencils and tried the drawing technique.  It was fun, and also relaxing.  The drawing turned out kind of cool (though it resembled a tangled string of Christmas lights), but I wanted to try the technique with some watercolor brush pens that I bought months ago but haven't used.  I also wanted to try a calligraphic pen for the base drawing.  

I knew exactly where the watercolor brush pens were - they've been on a shelf in my home office since they arrived - but it's been a while since I've seen the calligraphic pens.  Thus began yet another turn-the-house-upside-down search.

In the process, I found the knitting needle pouch that I searched for ALL DAY Saturday.  It had fallen behind the watercolor pen box, which was stacked on top of a shoe box full of pencils, which was stacked on top of a box of paints.  

Of course, I had already ordered the knitting needles I needed on Sunday . . . . 

But I did find the calligraphic pens.  

 

Callery Pears - October 4, 2020

 

Over a decade ago, Nanny planted some nectarine pits in a big tub in which Pop-Pop was growing a tomato plant.  The pits sprouted, and she moved them to the yard, where they grew like weeds.  About three years ago, the trees started producing fruit, but the fruit was not nectarines.  It looked more like little brown apples. The skin on the fruit is a bit rough, like Asian pears.

This year, the trees are LOADED with these little brown apples.  When I went to the garden Friday afternoon, Nanny (who has been calling the fruit "crabapples") said she was going to make jelly out of them.  I came home and did some googling and concluded that this fruit is NOT crabapples.  I went back to her yard yesterday morning and snapped some pictures of the foliage and the fruit, intending to post them in a FB gardening group to see if anyone knew what kind of trees these are and if the fruit is edible.

As I passed by the shop on my way home, I heard some banging, and I poked my head inside to see what was going on.  Nanny was in there disassembling a weedeater on wheels - you know, the kind that operates like a lawnmower.  She bought this thing at a yard sale for $20 many years ago, but it played out last year, and she has been grieving over it ever since.  By the time I arrived, she'd removed the pull-crank and was trying to get the hood off.  The bolts wouldn't come loose.  I said, "Nanny, I think you're turning them the wrong way.  'Lefty-Lucy, righty-tighty.'"  She insisted that she was not.  

She was.

We got the hood off and she dusted the inside of the fly wheel with a cosmetic brush.  We sprayed lubricant under the fly wheel and cleaned some other toothy parts.  We dumped out the old oil and reassembled the thing, but we could not test it because she didn't have any new oil.  While she went to the store for oil and gas, I came home and uploaded my pictures to the gardening page.

The Husband was working in our yard by this time, cutting limbs off the trees along the road bank so that we can see how to get out of the driveway.  When he finished, I enlisted his help in weed-eating the phlox beds, which had grown into a thick, scary jungle.  We hauled four or five big wagon-loads of debris to the woods.  

After that, I went back to Nanny's to mow her yard.  I'd finished the yard and was mowing the edges of her long driveway when the lawnmower ran out of gas.  I was closer to my house than to hers, but I wasn't sure if we had any gas in our gas can, so I walked back to the shop to get the big gas can that we keep down there.  Nanny had just filled it, and I wasn't about to lug that heavy thing all the way down the driveway, so I put it on a wagon and pulled it to where the lawnmower was.  As luck would have it, the gas cap on the lawnmower was next to a barbed-wire fence, and I had to push the lawnmower to the center of the driveway to give me enough room to work without being shredded by the barbs.  The gas can was full to the rim, and heavy, and I spilled a good bit of gas onto the lawnmower deck before I finally got some in the tank.  I finished mowing the driveway and towed the wagon back to the shop, where Nanny was about to fill her weedeater with oil and gas.

About this time, my son showed up.  He helped us put the oil and gas in the weedeater and tried to crank it.  Nothing.  He said maybe it was the spark plug, but we didn't have one that would fit.

I finally got back home around 7 p.m., pooped and covered with dust. 

By this time, someone in the gardening group had identified Nanny's trees as "Callery Pears," which I'd never heard of.  The root of this tree is often used to graft other fruit trees, like peaches and nectarines and apples.  The pits that Nanny planted evidently sprouted the root stock instead of the graft.  I did a little more research and learned that the fruit is edible and makes good jelly, but that it needs a good frost to sweeten the fruit. 

I'm for sure going to try to make some jelly after we get a good frost.

Lost and found - October 3, 2020

 

Well, damn.

Now that fall is approaching, I'll be shifting gears from gardening to crafting.  Earlier in the week, when I went to pick up my sewing machine from the repair shop, I had to pass near a Hobby Lobby, and I could not prevent my car from turning in the parking lot.  I came out with canvases for the grandchildren to paint on, and some wool yarn for knitting hats. 

I did not not buy knitting needles because I already own more knitting needles than Carter has liver pills - at least one set in every size known to man.  Months ago, as I was re-organizing, I gathered them all up and put them in a pouch I had made specifically for knitting needles.  That pouch laid on a bookshelf in my office, in plain sight, for months.  Now, it is nowhere to be found.

With kids moving in and out of my house for the past year, and The Husband working from home every other week, I have tried my best to confine my craft stuff to my sewing room and to this craft closet:

This morning, I tore that closet apart.  Looked in every tub, every drawer, every schlepping bag.  Found a lot of stuff I'd forgotten about.  Threw away a lot of stuff that should've been thrown out years ago.  Demolished a lot of cobwebs.

No knitting needle pouch.

I'm about to mail order some for the hat pattern I want to make.  

Watch the pouch turn up the day after the new needles arrive.

We didn't kill the dogs - October 2, 2020

 

It looks like the dogs will survive the mouse bait fiasco.  They seem to be their normal, playful selves today.  

I went to work a little early this morning because I was in charge of a 10 a.m. Zoom conference between two judges and four lawyers, and I was a little nervous about it.  I'd set the thing up with Zoom a couple of days earlier and had emailed everyone the link, but we'd received emailed documents yesterday that needed to be forwarded to everyone who didn't get copied in the emails.  While I was in the middle of emailing the documents, twenty minutes before the conference was supposed to start, THE POWER WENT OUT IN OUR BUILDING.  No phones.  No internet.  No lights.  Jeeeeeeeeez.

I called the other judge's assistant and asked her to email everyone and tell them that the conference might not happen.  Fortunately, about five minutes until 10, the power came back on, and we were able to start the conference on time.

After work, I went to the garden to see what was there.  The purple hull peas have "done their do," as my mother used to say.  I will be pulling up the vines tomorrow.  I picked a few squash, a dozen tomatoes, and enough okra for two armies (not counting what had gotten too big and had to be thrown away).  

The cabbages look marvelous!

The broccoli and brussells sprouts?  Meh.

I brought the vegetables home and made okra & tomatoes.  The Husband and I are both in a funk about what to eat.  I have been taking antibiotics for a sinus infection, and my tummy doesn't appreciate it one bit.  We aren't particularly feeling okra & tomatoes tonight.  I cooked some rice, and cut up some shrimp in the okra & tomatoes.  I wonder if I could turn it into gumbo tomorrow?

From the back porch - October 1, 2020

 

What a lovely, pleasant day it is!  I am killing time on the back porch while the embroidery machine runs, and watching The Granddaughters' dogs make fools of themselves.

I guess you've heard me tell a lizard story or two, and so you already know that we have frequent visits from lizards on the back porch.  The Granddaughters' dogs have not encountered lizards very often in their lives, being house dogs and all, and lately they've had a good bit of entertainment sniffing and chasing them on/around the porch.

Just as I started this post, a lizard ran up the screen on the outside of the porch.  His shadow scurried across the floor.  Both dogs, which had been lazing peacefully in the sunny patches, suddenly jumped to their feet and pounced on the shadow.

And then they both looked around, ears bowed up, like WTF? Where did it go?  Bahahahaaaaaaaa!  :)

But I was going to tell you about my sewing room.

My embroidery machine has been in the shop.  It was sewing
fine, but it had stopped telling me when it was out of bobbin thread, and it would just sew and sew and sew before it realized the stitches weren't locking down.  It's been doing that for a good while, but I've just tried to remember to check the bobbin thread each time I change thread colors.  But I've got a big project to do, so I finally took it to the shop Saturday.  Picked it up Tuesday, and it's been sitting on a table, waiting to be plugged up, ever since.  Today, I decided to put my work area back together again.  

On the sewing table is a wooden thread rack that holds 32 spools of thread.  It sits on the table like a picture frame, with a leg that extends from the back to hold it upright.  It barely - barely - fits on the table.  I have several others just like it that are nailed securely to the wall instead of sitting up like picture frames, but when I first got this thread rack, the wall space where it needed to go had something else in it, and I didn't have the time or the desire to take the stuff down, so I just set it on the table "temporarily."  It's been there at least a year.  I have been sooooooo careful not to knock it over.  

Until today, when I was trying to plug the embroidery machine back in.  As I was leaning over the table, looking for the socket, I must've bumped the thread rack.    

My sewing room floor is hardwood; thread spools went everywhere.  

So today was the day that I took the other stuff off the wall (now I've got to figure out what to do with that mess) and screwed the thread rack in its place.  I found the 32 spools of thread and wound the un-spooled thread back onto the spools, and put all the spools back on the pegs.  Once that was done, I started the embroidery machine and came out to the porch to relax while the machine did its thing.

* * * * * * * *

[Two hours later]

As I was sitting here writing, I heard a crunching sound, and looked over to find both of the dogs gnawing on something.  I yelled and jumped up, and the dogs jumped back from whatever it was they were crunching on.  I picked it up and could not identify it.  It was gray and crumbly.  

Long story short (too late?), we think was a block of mouse poison - or, rather, half a block.  I could not tell which dog had eaten the other half, or if either of them had eaten any of it.  (There could've been only half a block when they found it, if a mouse found it before they did.)  We scooped them both up and headed for the vet clinic.

The vet squirted syringes of peroxide into their mouths to make them puke.  And they did puke.  The vet said he did not see anything but dog food in the puke.  He said he thought they'd be ok, but told us what symptoms to watch for over the next few days.

We've searched the back porch but have not found any more mouse bait.  

Ollie, the bigger dog, puked again - a foaming puddle that appeared to have some grass blades in it.  I guess he's still a big queasy.

Other than that, both dogs seem fine, so far.  

I am a wreck, though.