Ouch! - June 7, 2022

I got my second covid booster shot yesterday.  If you knew what a chickensh*t I am when it comes to needles, you'd recognize how much courage it took for me to roll up my sleeve for the first vaccine.  The thought of that long needle piercing deep into my flesh . . . {{{shiver}}}.  But, as it turned out, dreading the shot was worse than the actual shot, and so when the time came to get the first booster, I marched fearlessly into the drug store.  As I did yesterday.

But it was a different person who administered yesterday's shot.  The actual puncture wasn't bad, but then when she pushed the plunger to inject the medicine, it felt like she leaned her whole weight against the syringe.  I squeaked out an involuntary cry and gave her a withering look.

My arm hurt for the rest of the day, and today it's so sore that it hurts to pick up my coffee cup.  

I shall not return to that store if a future booster shot is necessary!

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The plan for this weekend was to finish planting the garden, but we got another big rain yesterday, so the odds of working in the garden are slim.  

Concert - June 6, 2022

Saturday night we went to hear the Oak Ridge Boys sing at the Fitz Casino in Tunica.  Lots of gray hair in the audience, including ours and the ones on stage.  Our seats were off to one side, but it was a small venue so there weren't really any bad seats. 

Except for the seats directly behind the woman who stood up and danced and waved her arms during the first part of the concert.  

People in front of me were trying to take pictures with their telephones.  I could see the woman's silhouette in all of their pictures.  I wondered if the people directly behind her could see the band at all.  Finally, some guy a couple of rows ahead of me flagged down a security person.  When the security guy made the woman sit down, the applause from the audience was about as loud as the applause for the band.

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Son #2 and his family went camping in east Tennessee last week.  Granddaughter #1 had been chosen as one of the field commanders for her high school band and was scheduled to attend a 2-day leadership camp in North Carolina, so the camping trip did double duty.  Friday evening, the day before the camp was to start, our daughter-in-law texted us with the news that she and our son were feeling poorly and had tested positive for covid.  By Sunday night, their children were all sick, except for Granddaughter #1 (who may be sick by this morning).  The Little Rotten Baby was running a high fever and didn't want to eat or drink.  They were squirting orange juice into her mouth with a syringe, trying to keep her from becoming dehydrated.

Our son is supposed to go back to work the middle of this week.  I worry that they won't be able to hitch up the camper to come home tomorrow.  

Thursday (I think) - June 2, 2002

Having Memorial Day off from work screwed up my internal calendar.  Monday seemed like Sunday.  Every day since then has seemed like Monday.

But, surprise: this week is more than half over.  I'm looking forward to the weekend.  My Mother's Day gift from The Husband was two tickets to see the Oak Ridge Boys.  The concert is this Saturday night.  I'm not much of a country music fan, but I do like the Oak Ridge Boys.  Love the harmony.  It must be a relic of my "old time religion" church music.

I had planned to work in the garden Saturday until time to dress for the concert, but Mother Nature intervened with a big storm last night.  The garden is a swamp again and probably won't be dry enough to work until the first of next week, if we don't get more rain.  I still need to plant the remaining purple hull pea rows and get more tomatoes in the ground.

Cucumbers and squash had sprouted last Saturday.  The first planting of purple hull peas had sprouted, except in the wet end of the garden.  I thinned them - pull up 4, leave 1 - in the areas where the ground was dry enough to walk on.  

Still haven't planted the okra.  Need to get that done ASAP.

Memorial Day - May 30, 2022

We won't be doing anything special for Memorial Day this year.  We're just too lazy to host a big cookout.  The Husband has some "tractoring" to do.  I'm not sure how I will spend this day.  Right now, a day of reading in my recliner sounds like a fine idea.

Friday was The Grandson's birthday.  We could not get together with him on his birthday, but yesterday we took him to a movie then out to dinner.  We invited him to spend the night with us, but he'd already made plans to hang out with a friend for a couple of days now that school is out.  Can you believe a 15-year-old would rather hang out with his friends than with his grandparents? ;)  

Saturday, we set a live trap in the back yard, hoping to catch the groundhog that we've sighted a couple of times over the past week or two.  We baited it with a banana.  Mid-afternoon, we checked the trap; the banana was gone, but the trap was not sprung.  Squirrel, most likely.  

Yesterday as I was working on the back porch, I saw an armadillo trundling around in the side yard.  He eventually made his way around the porch, headed toward the shed.  As he passed by the live trap, I held my breath, hoping he'd smell where the banana had been and go in to investigate, but he only sniffed the air outside the trap then disappeared under the shed.  The Husband was in the house, playing his ukulele at the time.  When he came out, I told him about the armadillo.  He said, "You should've told me.  I would've offed it."  I gave him a disbelieving look.  How many times have I run inside at night to alert him that an armadillo was in the yard, only to have him shrug it off.  He read my mind when I shot him the look.  "I don't like shooting at night," he said, "but I would've blasted him in daylight."  I'll keep that in mind.

Later in the day, I put another banana in the live trap.  The trap was empty (of animals) when we came home from dinner with The Grandson.  As I began to write the above paragraph, I got up to check the trap.  

There's a raccoon in it.

Luncheon - May 27, 2022

Since The Boss will be retiring in a couple of months, she wanted to do something nice to show her appreciation for all of the court clerks in her jurisdiction.  She decided to invite them all to her house for a luncheon - about 24 folks, altogether.  

That luncheon happened today.

There were nice linens, fine china and silver, crystal glasses and place cards.  There were fresh flowers on the tables, and delicious food.  The Boss, herself, made two cheesecakes and a bodacious 4-layer chocolate cake.  And there were nicely-wrapped gifts - bracelets for the ladies, engraved pocket knives for the gentlemen.  

It was a very nice luncheon.  :)

  

The Swamp - May 26, 2022

 No, I'm not referring to Washington, DC (though . . . ); I'm talking about my garden.

Went down to check on it for the first time in a week.  The north end is a swamp.  Fortunately, except for the purple hull pea rows, I limited my planting to the south half of the garden.  

Tomatoes and peppers are a little yellow (from too much water, I expect), but they're all standing upright and don't appear to be near collapse.

Squash and cucumbers aren't up, yet.  Seems like they should be sprouted by now.  

Now, about those purple hull pea rows . . . . 

The Husband planted the peas.  I'd bought twice as many peas as I thought I'd need to plant 6 rows, but The Husband ran out of seeds on the third row.  He used a bicycle-on-a-stick-type planter, and must've had the dial set for butterbeans.  They are beginning to sprout, thick as cathair, even in the swamp rows.

First planting - May 21, 2022

Yesterday, the weather forecasters were predicting rain for our area, expecting it to arrive mid-afternoon.  Our garden had been tilled, but we'd not had a chance to build up any rows.  

We got busy fairly early yesterday morning to get ahead of the rain.  Uncle Jack loaned us his "hiller" attachment for the tractor.  We ran the tiller over the garden again, then used the hiller to build up the rows.

My main goal was to get the garden center plants - tomatoes and peppers - in the ground.  They'd been living in our front yard for more than a week.  We planted the tomatoes and peppers, then I decided we might as well go ahead and plant the purple hull pea seeds.  While The Husband was planting those, I planted the squash and cucumbers.  He ran out of pea seeds before he got all of the pea rows planted.  For some reason, we did not plant the okra and zucchini seeds.  I guess we just ran out of energy.

The rain held off until about 8 p.m., and boy did it ever rain.  We'll probably need to re-cover the seeds once the ground dries up enough for us to move around in the garden.  And I'll need to go back to the garden center for more purple hull pea seeds.

We still have a couple of rows left over for some other vegetables.  I think we'll try butter peas this year, which we've had some success with in the past.