Kacey Musgraves bites back at Kristi Noem after Talarico concert appearance:
https://share.google/ZPjSlE3VOCpYgrTgy
Ukraine destroyed 2 Russian Data Centers, badly damaged a third. They were Bot farms.
The internet got real quiet, real fast.
It's not all sunshine and roses:
Ukraine is not stopping.
Kimberly Giulfoyle is out.
She still owes that Amex bill, poor dear.
The new press secretary is having some issues:
China said that their bar exam is not administered to foreigners.
This was a good movie:
My cousin Tim Is out of ICU and doing physical therapy 3 weeks post transplant. He is on day 138 in the hospital, but I bet he's home for the holidays.
Husband Tim asked me to troubleshoot his trail cam. I couldn't link it to the phone. I spent an hour on the phone with customer service. I was starting to get frustrated because we logged in and out so many times. I removed the battery pack, antenna and SD card over and over. Nothing. It went to the sync screen and no further.
I was a bit shocked when the woman finally told me they were sending him a new camera. The camera coming is an upgrade, since they don't make the 2 year old model he has now.
Yesterday, before the protest, we drove to the rollerrink. She had a donation of 40 skate passes (skate rentals included) for our Helping Hands Toy Giveaway. I was delighted by her donation. Last year, we were a bit light on gifts for older kids. They donated 40 passes, which dumbfounded me. Even more surprising? She had 3 large bags of brand new toys. There had to be a couple dozen of them. The stuff on top seemed to be radio controlled cars. Things that would delight older boys. Not finished, she carried out a dozen rolls of gift wrap and tags.
I thanked her, but it seemed inadequate. She waved me off.
We went to the storage unit and met up with another woman and her son. They were donating a Thomas the Train railroad set. A Hotwheels racing track. Another thing I didn't quite understand, but I am sure that any adolescent boy will see that and know exactly what it is. The thing that was so sweet about that was that they had carefully sorted, cleaned and boxed up their donations. The thing that I did not quite understand was in its plastic carrying case.
When we carried things inside, she looked around. She said, "wait...you are taking games?"
"We sure are. Everything. Puzzles. Books. Anything like that."
She looked at her son. He said, "We have got a lot of things!" She said, "Let us do some sorting. We will be in touch."
Tim and I locked up. We still had time before the protest, so we stopped into the Goodwill in town. We had not been there for a while. We ran into my young hippie friend.
it is odd, this friendship. About 3 years ago, he just started talking. He had been locked into a dysfunctional relationship. I think he just needed a sympathetic ear. His girlfriend would leave, and come back, only to leave, and then come back again. Tall, skinny, tattooed, deadlocked, pierced...for all of that, he looked like a lost puppy as he told me the story.
I had read a book, so I explained the 'Let them' philosophy. About seeing people for what they were. Accepting what they are. Letting them go.
He said, 'She has another guy.'
'Let her.'
'They are living together.'
'Let them.'
I had watched the comprehension light his face. The next time I saw him, he had a new tattoo to show me. In cursive it said simply 'Let Them'
When Tim and I walked in yesterday, I saw him and called out a greeting. After a year and a half, he'd heard from his old girlfriend. I looked at him. "So, what did you do?" He said, "I told her not to call me anymore." I said, "There you go. Good job!"
As I walked away, I heard him tell his coworker, "She is so great." Made me smile.
Tim and I went back and looked at games. $1.49 each, and there were tons of things that looked as if they had never been played. We picked up a cartful of stuff and headed for the register. It came to $24.00 even. We dropped them off at the storage unit.
Seriously, we literally have hundreds of toys already, and it makes me so happy to think of it.
After that, we went to the protest. Lots of support. I was tickled to see a couple waving and tooting. They recognized me from the fair. It was Lou and Lynn, two 90 year old teachers. We had talked at length at the Democratic booth. A big tractor trailer went by blasting his horn and giving us a thumbs up. We laughed to see that he was from Ontario. We all planned for next week's 'No Kings'. I love these people.
We came home. Tim worked in his garage. I cleaned the chicken coop. I finished pulling the garden, weeding the beds and topping everything with a couple inches of composted manure. It was a good day to work outside.
There is a lot of good things in my world, and I am trying to focus on all that. I am not going to lie. Current events have really been overwhelming
Those Trump accounts? Even Dave Ramsey dismisses them as 'a political stunt'. He advises to take the seed money but not invest their own money. They are tied to the stock market. The money can be lost. When you have a president and high level insider trading, my question: is this a scam to get more money in the stock market for rich people to get their hands on?
Kim Guilfoyle peddling access to power for hundreds of thousands.
Just weeks ago, we were threatening 100% tariffs on China and India for buying Russian oil. Now we are buying it.
Ukraine hit a Russian data center. Turned out to be a major hub in the whole Russian bot system. Sharp decline in pro trump propaganda.
Trump sorely aggrieved he did not win the Nobel prize again. Claims it is "a stain on Norway".
The situation is devolving at such a rate, it is hard to keep up with. Every single time I watch the news, there is something new. Every fucking day.
I shut off the news and ponder the happy things in my corner of the world.
The Y has stepped up once again, allowing us to hold the Christmas Toy Giveaway in their gym. They approved our dates. Drop-off is Dec 11th, the Giveaway is the following day, on the 12th. We have donations coming in already. I am picking up one donation and meeting another person at the storage place before we protest tomorrow.
The other leader, Kathy is a driving force. She lives in town and has been hauling stuff to storage every other day. An old friend, Jill has jumped on board too. It almost seems to be going too easily. People are volunteering to help. People from last year. New people too.
Like last year, this is moving along under its own momentum. Last year, it all came together in about 3 weeks. None of us can even imagine what can happen with two months of lead-in and publicity.
Remember, I told you I was going to try to over winter some pepper plants? I pulled up my four biggest plants, plopped them into an old galvanized wash tub full of potting soil. I lugged it inside to the basement, set it under the fluorescent light and left it to decide what it was going to do.
After a week, it seems like it is kind of happy where it is. That little experiment might be successful too.
My sister messaged this evening to tell me that there was a large bear crossing to our side of the road. "Watch your chickens!" she warned. He did not come chicken bothering. In fact he never happened by at all.
All this babbling, all of it is because I am sick about current events. Nidal Hasan did a horrible thing. A radicalized army officer opened fire inside a Ft Hood in processing center, killing 13, wounding 32 more. I remember the horror of that day. Tim's daughter was in-processing at Ft Hood, and it was a sickening wait until the phone call came that she was okay. She wasn't in that building.
So yes. I understand. It was a heinous crime, a brutal betrayal of the oath Hasan took to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic".
But to live stream his execution by firing squad? My God.
Remember how sickened we were at the brutal public executions carried out by ISIS and the Taliban? The stonings, the beheadings? We thought they were barbarians.
And yet, here we are. This public debacle allows us to be added to the list: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen, North Korea and now the US.
I watched Hegseth almost gleefully making his big announcement in California, acting as if the military was chomping at the bit to witness this, as if he was doing this for them.
I suppose that barbarians are 'high t', something that seems very important to Pete Hegseth's Department of War. Interesting tidbit of info: any soldier over 30 is required to disclose whether they wake up with erections.
(Republicans are way too interested in other people's genitals, in my opinion.)
So...here we are. Hasan is scheduled to be executed on Dec. 3rd. Between now and then, we got midterms. Can it be stopped? I don't know.
My Affirmation/Mantra cards were a disappointment, but then I picked up a box of breakfast cookies.
Vòila. Affirmation.
I am putting my gardens to bed for the winter. Tomorrow I will lay down some organic fertilizer (aka well rotted manure) do a layer of mulch, plant my garlic and close everything up for the winter.
I read a post about digging up pepper plants and bringing them inside to winter. It says in the spring, you can put them outside in your garden. They will take off again in the spring and provide early peppers. So, I pulled up four of my sturdiest plants and we will see. It it does not work, I also have seeds drying in the green house. That is my experiment, and I am curious to see how it works out.
Cleaned my chicken coop out today. No eggs yet. I am trying to be patient.
No update on the other Tim.
We spent a beautiful fall day replacing a rotten support beam for a back deck on one of the rentals. William worked with us.
There was a post from my cousin Tim's wife, Noreen. After a week, his labs were looking good. He was eating a regular diet. It just seemed such a remarkable recovery from a heart transplant, at least from my perspective, which I admit comes from a place of ignorance.
Friday, just before 10, a post went up that there was a complete electrical block in the new heart, and he was back into surgery just over an hour later to install a pacemaker.
The latest that I have heard is that he is doing well.
Latest update: he is showing mild signs of signs of rejection. They are trying to control this with drugs.
This has been a busy week. I tweaked my back helping Tim carry 16 12-foot boxes of siding from the front of the old house to the back. We got it done.
At the same time I did myself damage, I was coming down with the dreaded 'Dylan-bug' that my son carried home from a California convention. To be honest, I did not realize I'd hurt myself until the flu went away and I was still gimping around.
It has gotten cold enough at night that dehydrating has begun. Carrots, celery, onions, potatoes, corn and green beans for my 'soup jar'. I will do some potato slices for 'instant' scalloped potatoes. The dehydrate over night. The low oven keeps the house warm without turning actual heat on.
I have been collecting seeds from the garden for drying in the greenhouse. As they dry, I put them in pill bottles and label them for next year. I have Roma tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, peppers, sage, dill, basil, hyssop, and spearmint. That is always such a hopeful thing...planning for next year's garden.
We built a grape arbor today. The back needs attached still, but I did get the four grape vines planted.
I also planted six raspberry plants Tuesday behind the house in my 'berry patch'.
So, that's what we have been up to.
At yoga class, the instructor always ended the class with an affirmation, an encouraging word. I thought it was a nice thing. When I saw a deck of mantras at a thrift store for a buck and a half, I picked them up. Midterms are coming up and it is hard to keep myself focused and positive.
(Example: today at the protest an ugly MAGA rolled down his window and yelled, 'Why don't you all get a life??!!!' I came back from a place of peace and light and yelled, 'We all have lives. What are you doing with yours, loser??!!' He wasn't prepared for a comeback and tried to come up with a retort but it just sounded weak. I sent him off with one more mighty 'LOSER!' One of the protesters laughed with raised eyebrows. I said, 'I just did not want him to feel like he got the last word...')
So...yeah. a little affirmation would probably do me some good. I opened the cards.
Just great. The universe throws me a deck of MAGA mantras...
Well, I am back home now. We got things done while I was there, but it was plain to see that my daughter-in-law was tired. When we found out that my son was returning home sick, I had this quiet niggling fear that she was getting whatever he had.
She was.
In the meantime, I managed to start coming down with the cold William was recovering from when we took everyone out for my daughter's 45th birthday the previous week.
A plague of plagues.
The girls enjoyed crafts.
I showed them how to make a jack-o-lantern that stood on its own and and had different faces.
We collected pine cones to make these:
We did not actually get them done. The eyes for ours will be made from acorn caps, and the wings are made from paper hearts cut in half lengthwise.
We did make bats.
Even our simple plan to go to dinner Sunday night when my on-the-mend (we thought, anyway) son began throwing up.
In the end, I took my sniffles and body aches home. It was a long drive, but I got here. As I feared, my daughter in law is currently flat out with whatever my son had. I am hoping not to get it.
I came home to quite a pickle. One of our tenants moved an acquaintance in. He is having mobility issues. We were shocked because we know this person. She has a drug history, and she has a criminal background that goes along with a druggy lifestyle. Burglary, disorderly conduct, assaults, possession. 17 pages of it. She has been incarcerated. She has 5 counts on an open case which will be heard on Oct. 14th.
Most alarming is that she was taking care of her mother during her final months and had a history of taking advantage and manipulating her. She was part of a drug trafficking scheme out of the old lady's home.
All of a sudden, there were security cameras going up on our house. Tim caught her smoking dope twice in the same week on the back porch.
The issue became security. Providing a safe place for the two elderly tenants in the duplex. She is always there, so I tried to message the tenant with our concerns. Much to my surprise, she took his phone saying that it was better that I talk to her. At that point, we feared that she was intending to control the situation with the tenant just as she had with her own mother.
It is not the pot. It is her history, a history that the tenant is well aware of. Somehow, she convinced him that she had changed. He needed in home assistance. She was going to help him.
After discussing it with the police, we made the decision to start the eviction process. We gave her 30 days. She should receive the paperwork today. The tenant is upset. We feel bad. In the end, we feel like it was the only way to handle it.
The other Tim continues to improve. He is on a regular diet again. Amazing.
The 'other' Tim is off the ventilator. His wife Noreen says that he sleeps a lot, but she managed to get a picture of him awake while the nurses had him sitting up. For being 3 days post transplant, he looks surprisingly chipper to me although I am admittedly no expert in this field.
I am at my my son's house. He got home from a business convention in California late last night. He began to feel unwell on the flight home. By the time the plane landed he was decidedly sick. He still had an hour and a half drive from the airport. He made it but date night was definitely not in the cards. He slept all day but managed a light supper, so it looks like he is getting over it
One fairy tea party and a craft day. Bats today, cheese cloth ghosts drying, and they each made a 'squishy'. Tomorrow we will finish our ghosts and we have a pine cone owls to make.
Tomatoes were canned, peppers and onions chopped and frozen for the freezer.
If you can spare a good thought, this is Tim. Not my husband Tim but my cousin Father Tim. (Oh we do have fun with this...) After 540+ days on the transplant list, the last 117 of them spent in the hospital, he was awakened this morning to the news of a possible heart.
After a long day, it was decided that the heart was a healthy one and that he was a good match. Surgery started just before 7PM.
It will be a long night for him, his wife and family and the surgeons.
While we all wait, filled with hope, we cannot forget there is a grieving family who has made an incredibly generous gift. Remember them, too.
Tim's faithful sidekick Wilson was bouncing with excitement at this morning's news.
Jabblog has been on my mind. 2 weeks without a post is unlike her. You are missed, Janice.
I hear there is a movement to remove the 'Kennedy' nname from RFK Jr.
A possum just might be my spirit animal.
Sad truth: we still have a road atlas in our car. If Google maps ever fails us, we have outdated road information for all 50 states.
ARGHHHHHH, Matey!
Phantom the feral cat has begun to come to the door and meow when he is hungry. He also makes eye contact when I talk to him.
I am heading east a day early with my tomatoes and onions and cucumbers and peppers and chicken and summer squash and a sewing machine and an armload of clothes for my girls. The weather has changed so dramatically that my vines are dying. I am going to pick all those remaining tomatoes tomorrow afternoon. It is strange that it is all winding down, but the last two days have been long sleeve weather. Septem-brrrrrrrr!
I used my 'new' wok for the first time today. I like my wok a wot. I made a passable chicken stir fry, although I did get a bit carried away with the ginger slices. It will take a bit of experimenting to find the best recipes.
Trump's ban on CNN, MS NOW, and Politico backfired on him. The television networks took turns doing the video and audio for trump coverage. The film and audio was shared with all the networks. In a show of network solidarity, CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX are refusing to provide television press coverage. Trump did a ribbon cutting. No one could hear him without the microphones provided by the television networks.
I believe he is at the FO stage.
I did such a stupid, stupid thing. I will tell you what I did to make you all feel much better about yourselves. It was one of those busy days. I got home from errands with a list of things that needed doing. It was one of those scattered days. Long story short, I got my stuff from the car, headed for the house and jumped right into checking boxes.
The next morning I had an early meeting. I got into the car and turned the key. Nothing. I dashed back into the house where Tim was eating breakfast. "The battery is dead in the Subaru!" I grabbed the fob for the Honda and flew back out the door.
Tim put the battery charger on the car, and when that didn't work, he figured that it must be the starter, ordered one from RockAuto and jumped into his truck to do his own work. It was just a busy stretch of days. The following day, Tim went out to take a second look at the car, and I was surprised to hear it start. I went to the door and said, "You fixed it!"
(To be fair, he has a long history of fixing stuff)
He stood looking at me oddly.
"What?" I asked.
"You didn't put the car in park before turning off the key."
When the part showed up today, I very quietly and very humbly handled the return.
There...don't you all feel better about yourselves? If you can top that story, I sure wish you would.
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.
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!
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
I have said it before: all people are entitled to their opinions, but when someone comes here to bemoan all politicians as corrupt but refuses to put their name to their comment, they will be deleted.
He had a lot of emotion but stated no reasons for that emotion. He invoked the name of 'slick willy' but offered no explanation as to why he was focused on that presidency while overlooking current events. Decrying all politics as corrupt allows a person to avoid taking a stand.
The comment was deleted.
What is happening now cannot be normalized. It shouldn't be normalized. It is a time to speak up and to speak out. It is time to own your words. If you can't do this, then do not think your comments will join the words of those who do have that courage.
I processed my first batch of tomatoes. Probably 3/4 of a bushel. I turned part of that into a nice pot of 'scratch' spaghetti sauce with my own fresh basil. Tim loves that.
The rest of it just went into a pot and after cooking down, I used my immersion blender to give a quick whisk. Vòila! 12 pints of tomato sauce.
Tim made a great discovery over the weekend. He stopped in at Albert-Down-The-Road's perpetual garage sale. There was a newish upright freezer for $150. We have a chest freezer that is probably 35 years old that runs perfectly, but it is inconvenient to dig through, and sometimes things get lost, requiring prolonged digging through frozen stuffs while standing on my head..
We will use the upright for meat storage and the chest for vegetables. In the great sorting, we think we have come up with the perfect organizational system: large Aldi shopping bags! We used crates but the plastic did not stand up to the cold.
The most exciting thing? Today I am picking up six chickens.
I have a nice picture but blogger is not 'taking' it.
This is something I noticed during yesterday's protest: people were not only tooting and giving us thumbs up, they were hanging out their car windows cheering for us. That has never happened before.
