Making Paper - October 24, 2020

 I am going to try making paper out of - well, paper.  :)

It all started with a small embroidery kit that I bought to keep my hands busy during long, boring work days.  The design is a canning jar with a few flowers in it.  The whole thing will finish about 4" x 5".  As I was working on it at home a few days ago, The Nugget asked, "What are you going to do with that when you finish it?"  I hadn't really thought about it, but as I continued to work on it, I thought that it would make a nice cover for a journal or a book of poems.

But I didn't want to just go out and buy a journal or a book and cover it.  I've been wanting to try making paper, anyway, so . . . . 

We have a lot of scrap paper around here.  The stabilizer that I use for machine embroidery is made of paper.  My sewing room trash can is full of it.  The Granddaughters draw and write on copy paper and leave it all over the place.  So this morning I gathered up all the stray paper and chopped it into bits.  Those bits are soaking in a tub of water right now.  

I'll need to make a screen of some kind and gather some other supplies.  Time to watch some how-to videos!

Garden Check - October 22, 2020

 

I went down to the garden this afternoon to see if the butterbeans were ready to pick.  According to my earlier posts, I planted them the first week of August, and they sprouted within just few days.  The seed package said 90 days to maturity.  We're getting close.  The pods are beginning to fatten, but they're not ready yet.  There's a big stomped-down trail across the rows where a neighbor's cows escaped their pasture and strolled through the bean rows.  And while I was bending over, feeling the pods, the plants commenced to shaking like there was an earthquake.  I couldn't see what was causing it - my first thought was SNAKE! - and nearly broke my neck trying to back away before a big old rabbit shot out of the garden and headed for the woods.  

The turnip greens are about ready to pick.  The cows tromped through them, too.

We're STILL picking squash.  Got a few tomatoes, too.  

The okra is about 8 feet tall, and still blooming.  I didn't even think about cutting it.

We have three very healthy-looking cabbages.  They're starting to form heads.  The brussels sprouts are coming along, too.  

Tooth Fairy - October 21, 2020

 Yesterday afternoon, when The Granddaughters arrived home from school, The Nugget ran up to me and said, "Grandmama, I lost a tooth today at school!"  

I said, "Show me!"  

She grinned real big, but the poor kid was missing so many teeth that I had to ask her to point to the space where the tooth had been.  

She asked, "Do you want to see my tooth?"  

Thank goodness that I said, "Yes," for if I had not, the Tooth Fairy might have wound up on The Nugget's bad list.

She dug around in her back-pack and came up with a tiny orange plastic treasure chest.  Inside it was a tiny white tooth.  (Do 1st Grade teachers keep a stock of tiny treasure chests for this purpose?)

Fast forward to 10 p.m..  The Nugget had been asleep for an hour by that time.  As I was on my way to bed, I spied the little orange treasure chest on the desk in my office.  I picked it up and shook it, and it rattled; the tooth was still in it.  Nugget had forgotten to put it under her pillow.  Both she and her older sister were asleep on the top bunk bed, with the older sister on the outside.  I had little hope of getting the treasure chest under Nugget's pillow without waking her. 

I went back to the living room and told The Husband about the problem.  Neither of us knew how much money the Tooth Fairy pays for teeth these days.  In any case, I was limited to cash on hand, a whopping $2.00.  I smoothed out the two bills, laid them on the desk, and set the orange treasure chest on top of them.

Fast forward to this morning.  When I came out of my bedroom, Nugget and her older sister were in my office, arguing.  

"Yes, you did," Nugget was insisting.

"NO, I DIDN'T," Lou-Lou said.

When she saw me, Lou-Lou said, "Grandmama, the Tooth Fairy left Nugget some money for her tooth, and she didn't even put it under her pillow!"

I said, "WOW!" and continued my trek toward the coffee pot.

Behind me, I heard Nugget say, "I know it was you.  The Tooth Fairy always takes the tooth."

For me, it was one of those forehead-slapping moments.  It had been a very long time since the Tooth Fairy had visited my house.  ;)

* * * * * * * * 

October 18, 2020 - Addendum

 

Remember the potatoes I planted in the 40-gallon tub?  I harvested them today.

Here's my crop:

From the back porch - October 18, 2020

 It's raining this morning.

I hope it drowns that blasted mole I've been trying to trap for 2 days.  

I found his trail Friday afternoon about 2:00.  It was at least 30 feet long.  I stomped it flat and set the trap - a viscous, scissor contraption.  Two hours later, the mole had re-dug the entire tunnel, somehow managing to avoid the trap.  I pulled up the trap, lubricated it, and re-positioned it in the trail.  Yesterday morning, it looked half-sprung, but when I pulled it up, the scissors were still closed, and there was no mole in it.  It appeared that the mole had dug around it.  I stomped the trail flat again and re-positioned the trap.  From where I sit now, I can see that I still haven't caught the mole.  

Yesterday was an exceptionally beautiful day, trap failures notwithstanding.  Mid-afternoon, we went to a "drive-by" birthday party for Uncle B from across the road.  It was his 90th birthday.  They held his party at his church.  I'm not sure how effective the "drive-by" part was for keeping him safe from covid, for he walked up to every car to visit with each guest.  Hopefully, the occupants of the car were wearing their masks, as we were.

After the drive-by party, The Husband and I drove down to the river (the Mississippi) and through the river bottom farmlands, cotton on one side of the road, soybeans and corn on the other.  It had been years since either of us had taken this drive.  The river was surprisingly low, with sandbars exposed.

Last night, after the kids and granddaughters came home from their excursion, we built a fire in the back yard and listened to the owls and coyotes while the granddaughters played hide-and-seek in the yard.  It was nice.  :)

Sunday dinner - Oct. 11, 2020

 

Cooking Sunday dinner today.  Cooking BIG:  baked ham, hamburger steaks in gravy (brown AND tomato), mashed potatoes, slaw, butterbeans, pineapple casserole, and peach cobbler.  I'm hoping that'll do it for a couple of days.  Most of it is done, already, or on auto-pilot. 

The butterbeans were dried Fordhook beans.  I cooked some for the first time a few months back and was not very impressed with them.  They tasted fine, but had big, tough skins that slipped off the beans during the soaking and the cooking.  If I'd cooked those beans long enough to get the skins tender, the insides of the beans would have been pure mush.  Today, I tried a new tactic:  as the bean skins floated to the top during cooking, I dipped them up into a cup, and when I had a cupful, I whizzed them (with some cooled cooking liquid) in the blender and poured them back into the pot.  Then I just cooked until the beans suited me.  Problem solved.

I was going to tell you about the big dinners I used to have every Sunday, before my children got wheels and while my parents were living, but I am distracted by a battle going on under one of the porch chairs.  This chair has two little spiders living under it.  (I battle spiders every day.)  I just watched one of the little spiders attempt to wrap up a stink bug that's probably 10 times the spider's weight.  I thought for a minute that the spider was actually going to win, despite the stink bug's struggles.  I saw it hurry down the web, do a few spider moves, then hurry back up the web.  The stink bug was cowering between in the space between two floor boards.  The spider came back down the web and approached the stink bug, then it (the spider) suddenly JUMPED BACK, as if the stink bug had blasted it with something caustic.  (Can stink bugs blast?)  The stink bug calmly disentangled itself, and motored away . . . straight toward the other spider's web.  I wonder if the stink bug is stupid or self-confident.

  

Armadillo APB - October 10, 2020

It's raining this morning, courtesy of whatever hurricane is in the Gulf this week (Delta, maybe?).  It was raining - okay, misting - when I came home from work yesterday, so I didn't get any gardening done.  Truth be told, I could've worked a little, but was too lazy.

Instead, I looked for the piano rug.  It wasn't in the top of the craft closet, as I expected.  I'm stumped.

After supper, The Husband and I came out to the porch to chill for a while.  Suddenly, he jumped up, grabbed the spotlight, and started shining it around the back yard.  He's heard something crunching through the fallen leaves.  "There he is!" he exclaimed.  It was a big armadillo, probably the one that has been digging up our yard for the past couple of weeks.  It was hunkered down between the porch and the 4-wheeler, which was parked less than 10 feet from the porch.  

I said, "Shoot it!"

He said he hated to shoot it, especially where it was (he didn't want to hit the 4-wheeler or shoot in the direction of the neighbors' houses).  

I said, "Then club it with something!"

He didn't think that was a good idea.  

As we stood there, deliberating, he armadillo went under the 4-wheeler.

The Husband went inside to get the .22.  

I should have held the spotlight on the armadillo, for it had disappeared by the time The Husband came back out with the rifle.  We went out to patrol the yard, looking for it, but couldn't find it.  He shined the spotlight around the yard several more times before we went inside for the night, but never saw it again.

As we were getting ready to go to bed, The Husband picked up his telephone and saw a text message from Cousin Jamie next door.  (She and The Husband have been playing a texting game for the past couple of months.  Every time one of them hears a gunshot, he/she will text the other, "Did you get it?")  She'd sent the text two hours earlier, while we were out hunting the critter:  "Just a heads up.  Saw a big armadillo.  It's been tearing up my yard.  If I see it again, it's toast."

Looks like that old possum-on-the-half-shell is on everybody's "most wanted list."