Mouse!

 

I swear . . . if the rodents, insects, and reptiles don't stop coming into my house, I'm moving.

A week ago, when The Husband said he thought he saw a mouse run under the refrigerator, and I said maybe it was a lizard, and then we caught a lizard on a sticky trap, I was feeling pretty smug about having been right.  For the whole week, we've had two mouse traps set - one on each side of the refrigerator.  Saturday night, I said, "We should get rid of these mouse traps before one of us loses a toe."  The Husband agreed, but said he'd move them in the morning.

Yesterday morning, there was a dead mouse in one of the traps.  Even worse, The Husband said he'd seen a LIVE one in the living room.  He moved the traps - including the sticky trap with the dead lizard still stuck to it - to the living room.  This morning, there was a mouse stuck in the sticky trap, and it was still alive.  The Husband finished it off with a bb gun.

I can't have this.

Today, I'm stopping at the dollar store for mouse poison.  I'm going to get one for every closet and maybe 10 for the attic!

We just had the laziest weekend we've had in months, thanks to the mud situation in the garden.  

A Maiden's Prayer - August 31, 2020

 

There's something about bluegrass music that gets me straight in the gut.   I don't care who's playing it, or what the song is, when I hear that hard-driving beat.  Sometimes, I think it might be because of a recessive gene, or something.

I got my first taste of live bluegrass when we camped in Mt. View, Arkansas, probably 30 years ago.  We've been back numerous times, and about every other trip, one of us - either I or The Husband - comes home with a new (but cheap) instrument.  We built a dulcimer from a kit we bought there.  I bought a "starter" fiddle and a teach-yourself books and an extra book of songs, but never learned to play any of them; my arms would go numb after only a few minutes of practice.

The song book had the scores to songs like "Cripple Creek," "Soldier's Joy," and "Arkansas Traveler."  It also had "A Maiden's Prayer."  The first time I heard it, I was transported.

Sixty-ish years ago, or more, country artists recorded the song, but the melody was written in the 1870s, if I remember correctly, by a Polish composer.  It is a beautiful tune.

And look at the words - I don't know who wrote them (I should look it up, eh?):

* * * * * 

Twilight falls,

Evening shadows find,

There 'neath the stars a maiden so fair divine.

The moon on high seemed to see her there,

In her eyes was a light shining ever so bright,

As she whisper'd a silent pray'r.

Ev'ry word revealed an empty, broken heart;

Broken by fate that holds them so far apart.

Lonely there she kneels, and tells the stars above,

In her arms he belongs, then her pray'r is a song,

Her unending song of love.

* * * * * * * 

The singers who recorded it added words to those verses to make them fit the music.

I'm trying to learn it.

Here's the tune, courtesy of a mandolin jam I found on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMkKdKHhVf0

High-tech senior citizens - August 29, 2020

The Husband and I have been busy today doing high-tech stuff.  Well, high-tech for us old people, at least.

The coronavirus has thrown wrenches in some seminars/meetings that The Husband was to attend this fall.  Instead of cancelling the seminars altogether, they're going to try to do them "virtually."  The Husband is part of a team that is putting together one of the seminars.  He is scheduled to be working from home on the week that his seminar is to take place, and he's been trying to test-drive his plan today.  

About 10 this morning, he asked me if I had a large piece of green fabric.  I had several, though none in quite the correct shade for a "green screen" to put behind him so that he could project the seminar logo behind him, like the weatherman does, while he is hosting seminar participants in a "Zoom room."  It didn't quite work, so he will either have to go back to the drawing board, or I will have to go to the fabric store for the correct green fabric.  

I would SO hate to be sent to the fabric store.  (*snicker*)

I was doing something completely different on the back porch.  A number of my Etsy customers have told me that they own digitizing software but don't know how to use it, so I have been producing digitizing tutorials to upload to YouTube.  I bought some software that records what is happening on the computer screen, and it also records my voice so that I can explain what I'm doing.  It may seem counter-productive to teach my customers how to do what I do - they might make their own designs instead of buying them from me.  But I'm all about learning, and in addition to learning the software and processes for making these tutorials, I've taught myself a few things about digitizing.  Win - win!

Over the past few days, we've had quite a bit of rain from the fringes of hurricane Laura.  Nevertheless, I sloshed around the yard a little bit today to see what's going on in the yard.  It was a surprise to discover that the Sweet Autumn Clematis is in full bloom.  There's some growing up a crape myrtle tree near the back porch.  The crape myrtle is blooming now, too, and it gives the effect of a bi-color bush.  What really surprised me, though, was walking around to the end of the house, where the phlox beds grow, and seeing how the autumn clematis has climbed over the garden arch.

The rain beat the phlox down something fierce, but just look at the clematis on the arch.

Back in March, when my cousin's daughter's wedding venue cancelled the wedding because of the virus shut-down, I loaned her this arch as an emergency wedding decoration.  It was still entangled with last year's clematis, which was nowhere near the top of the arch.  I hacked that stuff down to the ground, and we peeled the twisted vines off the arch, and the thing nearly came apart in the process.  Her husband took it home and welded it back together, and they brought it back better than it was.  We plunked it down in the same spot.  A couple of times this summer, as I've walked under the arch, I've dragged some straggling vines out of the phlox and twined them through the arch, and moved on.  And today I walked around there and found this.  It was a gift.

After more high-teching in the afternoon, we walked down to the garden to stretch our legs.  Ugh.  What a mess.  Nearly every tomato cage had fallen over, plants and all.  Since the tomato row is right at the edge of the garden, near the grass, we were able to stand the cages up, plants and all, at least for now, without marring up in mud.  The butterbean rows are as flat as pancakes.  I may have to pry the runners off the ground when the soil dries up.  

The squash?  Well, they look just pitiful.  Since I was in the garden a few days ago, more of the vines  look stressed, and I didn't find a whole lot of squash that needed picking (not that I was willing to wade out there to get it today if there had been).  But I still saw lots of blooms.  If it survives the drowning and the inevitable fungus that comes with hot, wet weather, it may make a while longer.

The 2nd crop purple hull peas will probably be ready to pick by the time the soil dries up enough to pick them.  Before I step off in that pea patch again, I need to hunt down the source of the fire ants that tried to eat my foot off last week, and dispatch them all to hell.  Nasty, mean little assholes.  I only had four bites on my foot, but they stung like fire, and itched all night and the next day, and festered up, and swole my foot up enough that it puffed up around my shoe!  

 

From the back porch - August 28, 2020

 

This back porch was made for days like today - warm, slight breeze, gentle rain.  I'm just sorry that so many folks down south of us got the hurricane that spawned this rain.

Gardening activities are officially on hold for the next few days.

I'm sitting here looking at the tub of potato plants in my back yard.  Since I last noticed them, some of them have grown above the top of the tub.  Those tall ones need more dirt piled around them, but there are just as many short ones that will be buried if I add dirt for the tall ones.  What to do?  I think that when it stops raining, I'll just fill the tub to the rim with dirt and be done with it.

Meanwhile, I need something to do this weekend.  

I should digitize some new embroidery designs.  

Or shovel out the sewing room.

But, for now, I should go to work.  ;)

Rain's a-comin' - August 27, 2020

 

The four brussels sprouts plants and the six broccoli plants have been sitting on my front porch steps for several days now, waiting for the garden soil to dry up enough to plant them.  Since we are expected to receive rain from hurricane Laura, I zoomed straight home after work, put on my boots, and went to the garden.

It is wetter down there today than it was yesterday.  Evidently, we had a little shower while I was at work.

I planted the broccoli and brussels sprouts, anyway, for it's going to get even wetter, and I doubt I can keep those little plants alive for much longer.

I threatened to pull up some of the squash vines today, but didn't.  Some of them are turning yellow but, bless their hearts, they're still blooming and some are even putting out new growth, and I hate to kill them with them trying so hard.  

(If I were a superstitious person, I might wonder if this year's bumper-crop garden is a sign of an early, bad winter on the way.  I wouldn't be surprised by a blizzard in Florida before 2020 ends, would you?)

The garden's getting a little grassy, especially in the rows where I planted seeds, where I haven't hoed and treaded.  

The poor tomatoes.  They, too, are trying hard - just loaded with fruit - but blight is rampant.  I've been trimming off blighted leaves and spraying with neem oil, but every few days it rains enough to wash off the oil.  

The butterbean rows are fast turning into a butterbean patch.  These were labeled as bush beans, but I'm beginning to wonder if that's true.  Haven't seen any blooms, yet.

Yesterday at work, one of my co-workers asked if I had any okra to give away, and said she'd trade me a dozen eggs (she has 5 chickens) for some okra.  I didn't make her any promises about the okra.  We had cut it the previous evening.  Just as we were finishing, Nanny came out and said she wanted to make some pickled okra before the okra runs out.  We went back down the rows and cut the smaller ones we'd left to grow, and handed the pickin' sack over to Nanny.  I was doubtful that there'd be enough okra for a meal.  As it turned out, there was enough.  We'd also picked the squash pretty closely, expecting rain, figuring that anything we didn't pick that night would be too big by the time the garden dries up enough to pick again.  We sent the squash with the okra.

And, still, if I had a hankering for squash for supper, I could pick enough for a meal today.

Evening Walk - August 25, 2020

 

After supper, I said, "I think I'll walk down to the garden and see if my fence is still standing." 

The Husband put on his shoes and walked with me.

Picked squash.  Cut okra.

Fence is still standing.

The purple hull peas have little pea pods on them!  And loads of blooms.

I stepped between the pea rows to pull up a clump of grass, and about 10 seconds later, my right foot felt like it was on fire.  Ants!  Only one or two got me, thank goodness.

A couple of brussels sprouts have poked their heads out of the ground.

Still no sign of the carrots.

Butternut squash have several sets of leaves.

We played "kick the pine cone all the way up the driveway."

Casper the frog was waiting to greet us when we got home.

Cabbages In, Fertilized Sweet Peas - August 24, 2020

 

I stopped at the garden center after work to see what kind of fall vegetables they had.  Came home with a 6-pack of cabbages, a 6-pack of broccoli, and a 6-pack of brussels sprouts.  

I planted the cabbages at the vacant ends of the butterbean rows.  This was probably a mistake, as the butterbeans may wrap them up, but my planting space is quickly filling up.

The broccoli and brussels sprouts did not get planted.  Well, two broccoli did.  But the ground was really too wet, so I've saved the rest of the plants for a dryer day.

I did manage to put up a half-assed support system for the sweet peas.  Just pencil-thin bamboo canes with jute twine stretched between them.  The jute will probably sag and stretch when it gets wet (seems like I've been down that path, already), but maybe it will at least keep the plants off the ground until I can come up with better supplies.

I side-dressed the sweet peas and a few of the tomatoes with pelletized fertilizer.