Nothing but giggles

The worst guard dog in the world:

(But what a good boy!)

This week has been full on.

I have done 5 batches of tomatoes. Today I am going to make ketchup, and then we are going to call it good. I have never made ketchup before but the crazy lady across the road made 70 pints of the stuff last week. (Note that the crazy lady scross the road is my sister.) She had a bushel of tomatoes on her porch and begged me to take them, saying she was about sick of looking at tomatoes, having canned them in about every incarnation you could think of. 

I did not need those tomatoes. I have a crazy glut of them over here, and I am getting a bit sick of looking at them myself, but then I got the idea that if I took Anna's bushel and processed those, it would move me one step closer to about sick of looking at them. I am heading to my son's house next week. That is the perfect opportunity to foist my excess tomatoes off on my daughter in law so that she can get sick of looking at them too. 

Tomatoes. The gift that keeps on giving.

Anyways, when I went to get the tomatoes off my sister's porch, her husband sent me off with a jar of homemade ketchup. My husband had some at lunch time and loved the stuff. I have a juicer and so many tomatoes that I had no real excuse not to make a batch of it for him. But after that, I am done, well and truly. 

With tomatoes, anyhow.

It has gotten cool enough that I can start dehydrating. As the garden starts winding down, I pick the little dribs and drabs of the end of season stuff and dehydrating. All those dried vegetables go into a glass jar. Whenever I make vegetable soup, I just scoop out a couple scoops.

We finished the last birthday celebration Friday night. My oldest has turned 45. That celebration marked the last of the September birthdays, 4 in 3 weeks. 

In between that we are working on the old house. It will be sided in October. Once that is done, we will just close it up for the winter and resume work next spring. We are putting in replacement windows in the attic. Those 4 windows are the only windows that have not been replaced. The house has 26 windows, so that is a big deal. 

Saturday was a nice day. We protested (it is changing, people!) and then Tim needed to mow the lawn at the old house. I needed to go to the library to look up a death registration. So he headed off in the car, and I headed off on foot. A couple walking their dog recognized me as one of the people on the corner and we all offered encouraging words. 

After the library, I began the walk to the old house where Tim was. They must have been selling out a home business. They had new sweatshirts on sale for $5, 5 for $20. I only found 3 that would work, sad, but it was a good find to put away for Christmas. I was also pleased to find a large, heavy wok for $3. We like stir fries here and I have always used a big skillet. I will swap them out. 

I walked on carrying my wok and the folded sweatshirts and met a friendly dog and his human. She commented on my load, and I told her about the yardsale. I commented on her beautiful yard and she invited me in her gate to talk plants. She was moaning about an invasive ground cover which gets a pretty white flower. I said I would take that off her hands to plant along the banks on both sides of the walk leading to my basement door. 

A deal was struck, and I headed off walking with my wok, 3 sweatshirts, and a handful of starts for my ground cover.

I finally made it to the house. Tim was wondering where I'd gotten to. 

We needed to stop at a couple stores. Wouldn't you know, there were bargains there, as well. 25# bags of Miracle Grow potting soil for $3 (down from $9.48) and seed starting medium marked down from $5 to $1.87. The back of the Subaru began fill up. 

We had a satisfactory day indeed, and I came home to process another batch of darn tomatoes.

Chickening Out

 Today was a getting it done day...except I didn't get it all done yet. I spent the day individually packing and vacuum sealing 120 lbs of chicken breast. The lesson of the day was 'cheap freezer bags might be cheaper BUT when you have old eyes, sealing them can be tricky and it slows you down.' 3 hours later, I finally finished. All of it is in the freezer. 80 lbs of it will go east with me next week, and 40 lbs of it is for our own use.

Buying in bulk like that allows me to get boneless, skinless organic chicken breast for $1.75 a pound, an unheard of price, so it makes it well worth my time though. After it goes in the freezer, I can transport it to my son and daughter's house safely. It stays frozen solid for the trip and is unloaded from the ice chest straight into their freezer. Compared to $4.99 a pound for chicken there, this is a very nice savings for them.

I hope to be able to take a bushel or two of tomatoes to them as well. I will go a day early to help her can them.

Anyways, that is today. I have tomatoes to do here and they won't get done if I keep sitting here.

I live his calm measured way of speaking. I believe that we will see him as president one day.

For a bit of silliness:

Something very great: I have a couple meetings tomorrow. We are setting out to recreate last year's very successful Christmas toy giveaway. We have a donation of a minimum thousand new toys. Mind-boggling to me. We have two storage places offering free storage. One place is actually accepting the donations for us, starting in November. This means we do not have to go there every time someone has a donation. 

What is incredible is that this is happening with very little effort from me. I don't know if you remember last year, but I posted an idea on a community helping hand site: 'We live in a poor area. At the same time, we have people going through their children's things to get rid of toys to make room for what Santa is bringing. What if we could get those toys collected and allow people who are struggling a chance to pick out toys for their kids for free?'

And boom! That idea took off. The YMCA offered their gym as a venue. Volunteers stepped up. We collected one day, gave away the next. Even though this was all pulled together in a matter of one month, we literally had thousands of toys to give away. 

The best part was that everyone there felt like they were in the middle of a miracle. I can tell you that it made my own holiday season.

Here we are, not even close to the holidays and the community is reaching out to do it again. I get a little thrill of excitement remembering what a community pulled together in a month and imagining what could happen with 3 months of lead in time.

This post took several sessions, but supper was made (BBQ chicken), those tomatoes were skinned and are in a pot simmering away with the appropriate spices This batch of tomatoes will become spaghetti sauce. The house smells great.

I even got the kitchen cleaned. I am on fire today!

PS: Thanks to DB Stewart.

Saturday

Today at the protest, a big SUV drove by. The window came down and the woman began screaming 'If you hate this country, LEAVE!' 

 I am so sick of the nonsense. 

I roared right back: "Freedom of speech doesn't just apply to the opinions you agree with, sistah!' 

I don't know what she said but I could hear her shrilling as she traveled down the street, moving slowly so that she could argue. She must have proclaimed that "Trump is the best!' or something to that effect, because a good natured protester's voice rang out clear and loud: "The best what though?" and she burst out laughing. So did the rest of us.

I don't imagine we changed her mind, but we did shut her mouth.

While we were there, a fellow came around with flyers. He is organizing a march for Canada Thursday evening. We told him we would be there. This week will be full on. I just want it to matter.

Tiger Kitty has been missing for a couple weeks. He really had been so very good about sleeping inside. I feel pretty bad about this. 

Hot Dog

 We did not have a frost last night. It didn't get anywhere close to cold enough for that.

We had more weather though. We had to go to the bank. I needed to buy eggs. I buy the 5 dozen box. It normally lasts a couple months, so hopefully I will have my own eggs by then *side eye at the 'ladies'* it will be winter, so who knows really? We are putting a light in the coop to balance the short days and we will hope for the best.

Anyways, back to the weather. While we were in town, we stopped at the Goodwill which is right by the bank. It was 79 cent day. I found this and knew immediately where it should go. I also found a chenille sweater for my youngest granddaughter. 

(I also realized when I got home, the sign was printed crooked. Lucky that I am not OCD.)

But back to the weather...while we were in the store, the skies opened up and it was yet another torrential downpour. We scooted to the car, got soaked, and the water rushing to the storm drain went to my ankles. It is always amazing how quickly this happens. 

Tornadoes went east of us, but I have not heard of any touchdowns. 

At his GOP convention, Trump promised every American $5000 if Republicans win the midterms.  1) that is a violation of federal law. 2) it would cost a trillion dollars and 3) We are still waiting on our D.O.G.E checks, our $2000 tax rebates and our $1000-1500 health rebates as a reward for letting the ACA lapse. 

Nobody in their right minds believes these promises. I take it one step further: no one in their right mind would stand in front of a camera making promises like this, or telling boldface, easily disproven lies. It always amuses me when people talk about 'Trump derangement syndrome. Our president is literally crazy, but the people who notice are the ones that get labeled. 

Gas went up 30 cents a gallon yesterday. Are you seeing that where you are?

Tuesday

Painted at the old house today. Got another load of stuff out. Cleaned. Loaded up an old homemade bookshelf. I had plans for it. I wanted it in the basement to hold my canned stuff. It is parked right next to the freezers. 

It has to be a hundred years old:

Ignore the dust. We had a busy day, did not get home until 6. I had tomatoes to be picked, processed and put into jars for stewed tomatoes

 I am pleased to say that I got it all done and am waiting for the "ping'. (1 down, 7 to go.)

Anyways, what I love about that shelf is that it is made out of a shipping crate. You can see the "use no hooks' on the back. The rest of it is painted. The door is gone. But look at the top of it. The man who made it took the time to 'pretty it up' for whoever he was making it for. Me, being me, imagined a happy little story about a happy little couple in a happy little house about a hundred years ago. I imagine him proudly giving it to her, and her believing she had married the cleverest man in the world. 

How can you get rid of something with a story like that?

(2nd jar pinged)

I also found a very excellent find today. My oldest granddaughter sews little things for herself by hand  but she dearly wanted a sewing machine. She bought herself a child's sewing machine from her own money, but it never did work properly. I read up on it (3rd jar pinged) and my daughter in law and I discussed simply getting her a regular adult sewing machine. The concern was spending a lot of money on an 8 year old's hobby, but today on marketplace. $30! Even if she loses interest, the machine can be sold without losing money.

I could not wait to tell them (4th jar pinged) and her grandma there has offered to teach her to sew. 

Today was my son"s 40th birthday. I sent him a review:

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Great kid. 

Would birth again.

No reply. Poor guy evidently did not find it as funny as I did. His real gift was a bottle of blended bourbon/maple syrup (it actually is quite smooth and I don't even like bourbon) and  pancake makings. He is the master breakfast dad. 

Today was my youngest granddaughter's first full day of preschool. She decided at the last minute she wanted to stay with mom, but she didn't cry. At the end of the day, she was all smiles. She loved it, much to everyone's relief.

5th jar pinged while I was breaking up at cat fight. 

Tomorrow, it is supposed to rain. I am glad for that. It gives me a day off from working on the old house, which is good. I have peppers to chop for the freezer. I imagine we will have another round of tomatoes to pick. Tomorrow night we will have to cover everything. Unbelievably, there are frost warnings.

6th and 7th jars pinged.

Trump claimed today that two burly firemen dragged him from the rubble on 9/11. I remember that day. He called WWOR on his penthouse line

https://youtu.be/aPvemZHnd0s?is=suKje94yYPdlg4wM

The man is crazy. 

In Canada, fancy plaques are going up on public toilets, designating them as trump monuments.

I am waiting on one remaining jar to seal. It is after midnight. Hopefully it will ping without me.

So why, though?

 The question becomes 'what sort of data are data centers storing?' When you have a government that is actively monitoring our online activity, and not hiding the fact, to me, personally, it makes me suspicious of the sudden need for so many.

The trump sycophant running for governor in my state is advocating building these in our "vast unused" rural spaces. She also says these data centers need to be deregulated, meaning local government will have no sway in the decisions made by these behemoths.

I don't think any massive corporation should be deregulated, especially one with the potential to be used against a country's own citizens. 

I can already hear you self proclaimed seeing-both-sides folk snorting and rolling your eyes as you point out valid uses for these storage places. Sure. So let those corporations store their own data. It might be cheaper to use massive storage data centers, but why are we so concerned about making another way to cut costs for corporations? 

Stacey Garrity is trailing Josh Shapiro in that governor's race by double digits right now, very good news.

(Reminder to anonymous: if you don't put your name to your comment it will be deleted.)

What has six heads, twelve legs, makes a lot of flappy, agitated noise? (Answer: six chickens who immediately flock and head straight at any cat looking interested.) After a week, the cats ignore them. I have begun to cautiously turn them out in the morning.

Storms

 We have had some pretty fierce weather here for the last three days. Some pretty violent thunderstorms, torrential downpours. Hail at times. High winds. Tornado warnings. Lots of severe weather warnings. Coming back from Pleasantville tonight, a 20 min drive, we had five alerts. The worst of today's storms passed slightly south of us, so we were spared the brunt of it. 

If you have Facebook, you can link to some of today's weather. 

https://www.facebook.com/share/1H5CQt9ZHw/

The weird thing is that the storms have been rolling through in waves, multiple storms over the course of a day. Last night we were awakened at least four times by crazy loud cracks of thunder, once by a prolonged lightning flash.

Still...we have been lucky compared to a lot of folks. 

The chicken coop Levi built for us is solid and good. The chickens seem to know when things are going to turn and they scurry in. I keep food and water inside, because some days they spend more time inside than out. It doesn't seem to bother them.

Ignore the mess in the foreground. I swept the coop out, put fresh chips down. The picture was taken before I raked.

When we get a break in the weather, I turn them lose to get some free range time. They love finding earthworms in the water logged ground. 

I put them in the run when I go inside because I still worry about the cats, but so far, the cats seem afraid of them. 

What the fresh hell is this, Mother?

So I am pretty sure they will be able to eventually free range as I hoped. 

Possum (in the picture above) still doesn't want to come inside. I take her supper out to the greenhouse to keep her food dish from flooding. Tonight, I got caught out there when a storm moved in. The rain pounded down so hard I could not see the house but I had been drying seeds from the wild flowers and put them in empty pill bottles I have stashed down there for that purpose. I labeled the ironweed and the echinacea.

Eventually the rain let up and I scooted back to the house, stopping to close up the chickens for the night. It was so dark they were calmly roosting.

Tiger Kitten still comes in for the night. I feel bad for poor Phantom, the big old feral who has been coming to be fed. The storms have been so bad that he did not come to the house to eat last night. Today he darted to the house between storms and stood gazing pitifully through the sliding door. He ran when I slid the door open to put food in his dish. He always does, but tonight he was hungry enough that he stayed very close. I talked to him and he listened keeping steady eye contact. As soon as the door shut, he was on the porch gobbling supper. 

He is the one I worry about the most with the chickens. He is a hunter. I am pretty sure that he is the reason that Tiger sleeps in at night and Possum holes up in the greenhouse. (Phantom is too large to get access to bother her.) He is fierce. I think that the chickens are too large for him to mess with but I am not going to take a chance. 

Today I baked 4 loaves of zucchini bread and a pan of zucchini brownies.