Immortality

 For a time, there was an old woman sitting on the porch of an old house in a wheelchair. Whenever a car passed, she would smile and wave. 

The first time I saw her, I smiled and waved back. The second time, I gave a friendly toot on my horn. The third time. I realized that she did this nearly every day. 

I began to purposely take that side street in to town for no other reason than to smile and wave back. She always seemed so joyous.

Winter came, and it was a long one, but spring came along as it always does. However that old woman no longer sat on her front porch. Still, though, I find myself turning down that side street. I remember the waving and her big smile.

In a way, that is immortality, and that is not the worst way to be remembered, is it?

What I have been up to

Over 5 years ago. Tim and I built a little greenhouse. 

As is my nature, I started stacking stones on the west side of it for a flowerbed. 

In the intervening years, I did not keep up with it because we were building a house, and Tim got sick. A lot of upheaval there. Nature started taking that little space back. 

Yesterday, I started work on it. I weed whacked. We have blades on the weedeater so it does a good job on the tangley overgrowth. When I chopped back to the stone wall, I was able to kneel and begin sorting out the mess inside. I was happy to find a nice patch of aquilegia/columbine and it reminded me so much of Weaver. I miss her voice.

I dug on. Tiger lily. Spearmint. I am going to replant wild flower there. 

I had a meeting at 5:30, so I only got halfway done, but before I headed back to the house, I decided to give a quick weeding to the front of the greenhouse. I was shocked to see a hydrangea stubbornly doing battle with the tall weeds. 

I'd seen that struggling little plant in the store years back and it reminded me of my old friend who died of brain cancer close to 20 years ago now (how is that even possible?!!)  I got it. Planted it. It promptly died. I chalked up as one of my poor plants that did not make it. While I may have given up, that little plant did not, and yesterday I found it. I was so pleased at that little miracle!

There is something very grounding about weeding and sweating and thinking about other people and other times, even if it is hotter than hades. It was a sweet afternoon and I really enjoyed my quiet time.

My nephew made me a bottle tree and delivered it when he came off his hill on Sunday. That was something else I did yesterday. I transplanted some established morning glory vines at the base of it. The vines will climb the trunk and spread across the branches. Maybe not this year, but we will see. 

Yesterday, those vines looked wilted and unhappy. Today, a series of thunderstorms are rattling through. Between downpours, I snuck out to take a peek. Things look a lot more hopeful today.

Step by step.

just another rock in the wall

 It is not a professional Northsider Dave wall, and it is not complete. This started out as a 'junk bed' that I knew I meant to be a flower bed one day. Probably a couple years of dumping distressed clearance plants. Two forsythia, a hyacinth, an azalea, two lilacs, some lilies, spider wort, dianthus. Delphinium, coneflower, bee balm. I planted blue morning glries to climb a trellis. I have columbine seeds sprouting. An assortment of wild flowers outside the wall surrounding an old wheelbarrow full of annuals Mattie gave me. 

For all of that, it looks pretty sparse, doesn't it? Poor thing has been run over with heavy equipment over and over. It's been trampled. Mowed over. That is kind of why I put the little wall there: to provide a visual for the man. Much more aesthetic than a sign that says "Stay the hell out!"

Anyway, the stuff that remains has shown that it has what it takes to be in my garden. Hopefully, after 20 bags of mulch, everything will begin to spread out and fill in. 

The funny part is how pleased Tim is. After I put out 10 bags of mulch, it was his suggestion to buy 20 more bags. When I was done, he cast a critical eye and suggested we probably need to go out today and get at least five more bags. It is nice to have him on board. 

We had quite a bit of rain yesterday, which has knocked a lot of the smoke down. We must have had some pretty strong winds. It laid down 24 tomatoes in cages. Today will be reconstruction there, along with hauling up more rock.

The protest was small. The air quality is quite a concern. An irony I have noticed is a lot of people ranting about Canada's culpability are angrily puffing their vapes or cigarettes as they bitch. Remember 'cognitive dissonance'? JD talked a lot about that in his book before he became the poster child for it.

And this sums up MAGA. Their motto is "I am sure there is a scapegoat around here somewhere."

You know, as it gets closer to midterms, expect the noise and misinformation to increase. If ever was a time to hold steady and not give way to despair and hopelessness. What is happening is NOT sustainable. It will fall. How quickly it falls depends a great deal on us. 

(Well...that an the dying out of unreasonable minds and corruption of those who hold power.)

We can stonewall them.

Smokin'

 Today was a good day. The smoke from the wildfires has died down. 

Yesterday was pretty awful. It was hot. It was humid and the smoke was so thick that you could not only smell it, you could taste it. My sinuses were nuts. 

So...yesterday was an inside day. I cut up a watermelon for the fridge. I made a bowl of chicken salad with grapes and tarragon for cold sandwiches. I made a cucumber salad and a broccoli salad. It is always a good thing to have a fridge full of ready to eat stuff on a hot day. 

When I was cleaning up, much to my surprise I saw three young men working in the wooded strip between our house and the road. I slipped on my sandals and went out to see what they were doing. 

They were industriously working with picks and shovels, digging around the base of a telephone pole. They explained that they were checking telephone poles for signs of rot. 

I observed that it was a hot day for such physical work. They looked pretty miserable, and they agreed. I said, "well if you need a cold drink, just come to the house," and went back. Almost immediately, there was a young man at the door, asking for water. I got out the Brita pitcher from the fridge and poured 3 glasses of ice cold water. He said, "we all have water, but it is in the truck about a mile up the road." I felt so sorry for them that I sent him off with watermelon and forks. They took a break standing in the shade and then moved down to the next pole in the neighbor's field. 

It cooled off last night, down to 58 degrees. Crazy 30 degree drop, but it was a good night for sleeping.

This morning, Tim was off to do Tim things. He is rewiring the ceiling lights in the old house, which was, despite the previous owner's updates, still knob and tube. He also had an appointment to get the new car inspected. 

It gave me a morning to do Debby things. It has been a good month for collecting clothes for my granddaughters, so I got them washed, dried and folded. A heaping bushel basket of things for them. I cannot wait for them to see. 

I got the house vacuumed and even vacuumed under chair and sofa cushions. Things like that.

This afternoon was so much cooler. The air much clearer. I weedwhacked. Tim mowed. We got 10 more bags of mulch (a distressed delphium and coneflower begged me to take them. At $4 each, I couldn't bring myself to leave them behind) and muriatic acid for the porch roof of the house in town. I dropped some stuff off at Goodwill. I also picked up some more nice clothes for the girls at Goodwill. Wouldn't you know they had a special deal going on too. Women's long sleeved shirts and sweaters were 2 for $8. Must be $4 is my lucky number. So I got myself 4 shirts for the fall. 

Tim wanted to stop at his favorite ice cream place. As always, it was busy. As we waited, I began sneezing. I apologized and explained I had been weedwhacking. 

A Johnny-come-lately said loudly from behind us, 'Canada complains so much about the United States. They owe us an apology for all this smoke in the air!'

That pissed me off. I said, "I am sure that Canada is having a worse time than we are, and they sure didn't do this intentionally.''  Another round of sneezing hit me before I could point out we had our own wildfires in Minnesota. 

I think that he realized he had stepped on toes, because he quickly said, "A guy in my church says if you sneeze 3 times, that's a sign of the divine."

I looked at him. What church does he go to? The Christian Sinus? Do they pray to the Almighty Mucus? All praise Kleenex? Hallelujah to hankies? Waiting hopefully for someone to sneeze so they can all bless him and go home?

Then he sat down at a picnic table. He said to Tim, "Right behind you. I just wanted you to know. I didn't want to hear you giggling when you sat in my lap."

What the freaking what???!!!

Lucky for him, my cone came out and I took it to the farthest seat and sat down. Tim followed with his banana split. Wouldn't you know, the man followed along with HIS banana split. 

I am proud to say, I bit my tongue. I think he also was biting his. He said more stupid stuff but pretty much avoided the offensive stuff. 

You know, an encouraging thing happened esrlier. My daughter posted something about the VA cuts. It made me mad that a relative immediately commented "This is false. Do research!"

The fact is that it isn't false. So I began posting 'research'. NPR. Newsweek. Articles from the government. From the VA. 9 in all, one right after another. I also suggested he do some research on proposed HR 9732/S. 4744. As a partially disabled veteran (Iraqi IED), if he wasn't aware, he needed to be. 

Normally I woild not have said anything. No point. I scroll past his stuff although I vehemently disagree with much of it. But he commented on someone else's post with the aim to make them look uninformed. He is a Christian Nationalist and MAGA so i figured he would just blow me off, but much to my surprise, today there was another comment, short. "I do have to say that you were right about the post. I was wrong for saying what I said. I'm sorry."

I couldn't believe my eyes. I replied to his comment: "I appreciate this. I hope you will follow the VA's suggestions."

That felt like such a major thing. Buoyed by that, tonight I ate my ice cream cone and let a foolish man babble. I got the idea he knew he was wrong too.

A Memory

 

Facebook memory from 14 years ago. 

Today William is taller than I am, and has a mustache.

Superstition

 In October of 2008, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It was a scary time because there was no way of knowing how it would work out. People die from breast cancer. Would I be one of them? I  remember an early morning appointment, where 4 women sat together talking about cancer, but still somehow finding plenty to laugh about, and that laughter was, I think, encouraging to all of us. 

Treatment ends, and you ring that bell and walk out of the cancer center, and I guess that I expected to feel something. Triumph. Relief. A hallelujah moment. But I didn't.

For the next 6 or so years, what I felt was as if I was waiting for the other shoe to drop. My cancer, I was told, was the kind of cancer that had the tendency to break away and travel, metastasizing in other areas of the body. The brain, lungs, liver, or bones was the most likely areas for those secondary cancers, a 1 in 3 chance.

So...there are the mammograms, and I learned a new word: scanxiety. It is a cute word but a real situation. The mammogram dredged up old ghosts and fears. The no evidence of disease (NED) from the doctor wasn't much of a comfort either. I wasn't expecting it to show up there...I was more worried about my brains, bones, liver, and lungs.

There was the day I realized that of the four women in the waiting room that morning, years back were all dead now. I was the last surviver. 

All these things worked together for a few years to keep me anxious, but then a truly Debby-thing happened. I was climbing an extension ladder. It was my own carelessness. I should have checked. It was not properly set, and as I reached out for the roof, the ladder suddenly 'unextended' and fell over leaving me hanging off the edge of the roof by one arm, the other hand still clutching at the collapsing ladder. The young man on the ground grabbed the ladder. The husband on the roof grabbed on to the seat of my pants and hauled my ass to safety. 

It was a terrifying moment, not just for me but everyone there. Thinking about it though, I got a case of the giggles. I mean, really...I was so worried about cancer but I could just as easily die by falling off the roof, or getting hit by a car, and the more I thought about it the more ridiculously funny it seemed to me.

(Side note: when you have scared the mess out of your husband, bursting into laughter is going to make him mad. And when you can't stop laughing, it is going to make even the quietest man yell his head off at some point.)

Anyways, at some point, I simply stopped worrying about it. To be honest, I stopped being a stickler about the mammograms, even. When Tim was having his own issues there were a couple years that I didn't get around to having it done.

There is a woman. She and I had cancer about the same time. Her husband hauled two dump truck loads of gravel to the new driveway last spring. He and Tim talked a while. After all these years, her cancer has returned. He said, 'Yeah. She's not doing well.'

Today was my mammogram. After all these years, 18+ of them, and as ridiculous as it sounds, I found myself feeling superstitious. 

LATE EDIT: It was letting my fears take over. I received my phone call. All looks as it should.

In Which Tim Does Not Buy a Car

Thursday, Tim said that there was a car he wanted to look at up in Cassadaga, NY.

I get confused because he has said, over and over, that he does not want to buy another car right now. Gives very sound reasoning for not doing so. Yet every evening he is looking at cars on the internet. Lately, he has been fixated on an Acura. So I say things like 'but I thought you didn't want another car right now." He says, "you always want to keep an eye on what's available."

Things to know: 

1) I could not care less about what car I am driving as long as it gets me from point A to point B, so I am happy with the Suburu, and Tim has two trucks.

2) We never buy new cars. They are overpriced and begin to depreciate as soon as you drive them off the lot. So we were looking for a good used car.

3) Tim does the maintenance on our cars, so....

4) in the end, car decisions are his to make which people don't quite understand, but it is the way we do things. Always have. 

Seriously, we discussed upgrading to a newer car last spring, gave away the car we were replacing, and then Tim began the search. In April, I was visiting my son's family. During our evening phone conversation, I mentioned to Tim that on the way to the Mennonite grocery store, I had noticed a number of neat farms with shiny black cars parked out front with for sale signs on them. I suggested he make the trip out with me next time to scope out potential purchases on the eastern side of the state

He laughed."Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you I bought a car." The fact had completely slipped his mind. 

But I digress, this time, I had only one request. I liked hatchbacks rather than a trunk. That was more practical in my mind. Night after night, he looked through listings. We went to probably a half dozen dealerships scoping out the offerings. For all of that, we definitely did not buy anything because we were not buying another car right now. 

Then he read about that Acura up in Cassadaga, so we made a trip up there to not buy it. And I was glad we didn't buy it. It was an okay car, but I thought it was overpriced compared to the Honda Pilot sitting next to it, with comparable options. Tim studied that car too and made the decision not to buy that one either. 

But then I saw his head pivot. He went quiet. He very likely heard angels singing. He headed for another car on the lot. He was all over it. All under it. Inside it. He was ticking mental boxes. I noticed it had a hatch instead of a trunk. My mental box: ticked. 

The salesman came out, slapped a license plate on it and handed Tim the fob. We took it for a test drive. We pulled off in a parking lot and he tested the options out. I read things from the car manual to him. 

He certainly was spending an unusually long time not buying this car. We drove back to the lot. Tim got out and studied the car. He gave me a list of things to look up on my phone while he studied under the hood again, and examined the frame.

I began to have some real doubts about whether we were still not buying this car. He said, "I am going to offer him (x dollars)" and headed off to the office. At this point, I knew for sure that we were definitely not not buying this car. We didn't, of course. And we did not not put a deposit on it, and we are not not picking it Monday afternoon.

It is a fleet car, well maintained, something called a Honda Crosstour, which was discontinued once Honda discovered that their Accord/SUV marriage was not a good seller. At that point, they made the switch back to selling Accords and offering a Honda Pilot to appeal to the SUV crowd. 

 

On the way home, Tim sighed. " I am glad that problem is done."

I said, "I had no idea that not getting a car was so stressful! I thought that once your mind was made up, you just went ahead and didn't do it."

Here is a random shot we got coming home from Tim's family reunion/outdoor brick oven breadmaking extravaganza yesterday. We drove home in comfortable carbed-out bliss.

I hope this makes up for the lack of train pictures, Andrew. I boarded with an allergy situation and got motion sickness. I did not spend a lot of time looking out the window, so no. I did not take pictures. 

The rest of the story.

 This a possum, playing dead. I scared him, again. He got stiff, and fell over. Probably still laying out there. I scared him when I went out to chase the raccoon off the porch.  Again. 

We have a doe who has been here for several years, and each year she has given birth to twin fawns. She is a good mama. Last week we were sad to see that one of her fawns was hit by a car. Coming home tonight, it broke my heart to see that her second fawn was hit in just about the same place. The thing is that she kept returning to her dead fawn. Tim finally went out and moved the little body out of the road before the doe got hit too. She usually keeps her fawns on this side of the road. Not sure why she has done it differently this year. 

We took an historical train ride through the Oil Creek region. It was a nice way to spend the afternoon. Many of the long hikes we took when my youngest was home followed along the same route as the train took. It was nice to see the scenery from a different perspective. 

I miss my daughter though.

I am building a rock wall. Nothing like Northsider's drywall masterpiece in Ireland, but I am pleased with it. 

So that is what I have been up to.

Wildlife

 We have had a small buck hanging around the yard. He likes the clover. He startled me the other night. Despite all the noisy fireworks, when I went out to deposit the burnables in the burn barrel, he was standing quite near, stock still, watching me. I stopped and stood quite still watching him. When he realized he had been seen, he turned and bounded off. I told Rim about it, and he said, "He is a strange one. I watched him sniffing all around the tracto when I had it parked in the yard."  Yesterday, Tim went out to the lean-to. It runs the length of the garage, and he parks his tractors under cover there. He was quite surprised to discover that little buck curled up between the bucket and the tractor. The little buck wasted no time in making for the woods. I said, 'Perhaps he is a John Deere.'

We also have had a coon around. That fellow is quite bold too. He comes up on the steps. He is looking for any catfood. He is looking for garbage. He is interested in the compost bin. I have chased him off 3 times tonight. The last time the motion detector came on, I threw open the door to chase him away. Much to my surprise, this time it was a possum who was scared stiff. He promptly fell over to play dead.

We also had another visitor just before nightfall. A small black bear walked down between the house and the garage, moseyed his way through the yard down to the lease road and walked back to the gas well. He was so unexpected that by the time I got my wits about me, he was on that road and hidden by the brush. It would not have mattered, I suppose. I cannot load pictures tonight.

I don't suppose I should be surprised at all that the feral Tiger decided to come in for his supper. We don't mind that. Usually he comes in, has a second supper and then cries to go out. We were watching a movie (Japanese Story - Tubi) and forgot about him. He is somewhere in the house. We cannot find him.

Perhaps he has decided that it is just a little too wild out there.

4th of July

 We had a nice celebration up on the hill with Levi, Mattie and the kids. Their neighbors joined us, and Grandma came over too. We ate a late supper on the porch, just a simple meal but plenty of it. They had been working at breakneck speed to get the last of the cut hay in the barn, since there was a chance of thunderstorms. 

Then began the wait until it got dark enough for fireworks. Levi doesn't want anything that makes a boom, because it scares the animals so we stick with fountains and sparklers. We had brought in two packages of assorted fireworks and five or six packages of sparklers. 

Little Rudy was in an agony of excitement as he sat on his little bench. The older kids disappeared for about an hour or so. Two were spreading calcium chlorite on the dirt road to stop dust. Two were using rotary mowers to finish mowing the grass. The oldest boy went down to help the neighbor with his chores. 

Rudy asked several times if it were almost time. It was getting darker and darker. Then it finally did get dark enough, but then we had to wait until the oldest boy got back from the neighbors'. Poor Rudy was very close to exploding himself. 

When Andy did come back, I was pleased to see that the neighbors came back with him. When Mattie said it was time for fireworks, a half dozen pairs of feet went pounding in to the house to retrieve the boxes and the long-handled lighter. Everything was dropped in their mother's lap. 

The sparklers were first. We found some good ones this year. They burned in colors and took about 4 minutes to burn out. Likewise, our collection of fountains contained some long burners too. Some of them made that satisfying crackle as they burned. It made quite a satisfying display that lasted about 40 minutes. 

No sooner did our show end then the English down the road set off three aerial fireworks with the loud booms. We heard a shout up the road and suddenly a horse went racing past the house. Somehow, in the dark, they were able to recognize it as one of theirs. Everyone rushed to get headlamps and headed down the road, but the chase ended very quickly when the horse came racing back and put himself in his own barn.

All's well that ends well. 

This horrible heat was supposed to end Friday evening at 8, and after a long miserable day where no one felt like doing anything at all outside, finally, blessedly, it did cool down and for the first time in a week, we were able to sleep well. 

So well that Tim had to wake me up Saturday morning. He didn't want to miss the 4th of Julu parade.

I am going to tell you a shameful secret. I am not a fan of parades. I went because Tim loves them. 

The first thing I noticed is that the crowds were much sparser than usual. I wondered if that was due to the heat. It was cooler, only 89° but it was humid. We sat on the bench in front of my old church. Usually that site is packed. This year, it was comfortably not packed. A fellow in front of us wore his veteran hat and his veteran shirt. He tried to start conversation. He told us that he arrived in Vietnam on July 4th. Ironic, since my discharge was July 4th, 1986. It soon became evident that this was about our only commonality. 

The parade started with our politicians. Ash Khare, Our very own fraudulent electorled the parade in a convertible. What struck me was the dead silence. He waved grandly to a silent crowd. The republican candidates marched along smiling and waving to the silent crowd. The democrats  had quite a display. Again...silence, although our veteran friend flipped the bird and began muttering under his breath about 'goddamn communists'. That surprised me. I was sore tempted to ask him what exactly it was that made him decide that we were communists. (Later, I discovered that calling democrats communists is our dear leader's holiday message. ) But as I said, everywhere else...silence. That was shocking to me. I think everyone is just tired of the chaos.

Finally we got to the parade. It was local business after local business driving their shiny trucks with their business advertising. Landscaping companies pulled their lawnmowers, excavating companies pulled bulldozers, oil tanker trucks from multiple trucking companies, John Deere show their shiny tractors. Like that. There were also fire companies spraying water on the crowds, very popular. Churches with floats calling for one nation under God. There were a half dozen marching bands, the Shriners and the ZemZems had their little cars and motorcycles zipping about. A rock band marched along side a truck hauling the drummer and the amplifiers playing screaming guitars as they played 'American Woman'. Interesting choice, I thought. Roller skaters, gymnasts, a radio car display. An off road group driving muddy jeeps. A local junkyard hauled two crushed cars, red and white. I think they could not find a blue car.

In honor of the 250th birthday of our nation, the parade was 2.5 hours long.

I watched the kids catching candy, all having a good time. I am ashamed to say that I was glad when it was done. Really, there must have been over 100 trucks blaring their airhorns. Cars from a local dealership, all shiny and pretty, revving their engines. A motorcycle driver who blared his motorcycle so loudly that it was actually painful. That was when we headed for our car. 

But I survived. 

So will the country.

Over in England, my youngest, a new citizen of the UK, spent her 4th by going to Sulgrave Manor for a picnic. It is the ancestral home of George Washington.

Community

Yesterday was another scorcher of a day. We were on a mission though. We had volunteered to drive Levi and Mattie to Pittsburgh for their second youngest son to be seen at the children's hospital there. Because it is a holiday week, they had trouble finding a driver. 

We were up early. We needed to be in their driveway at 6:30. I set my alarm for 4:30, but was awake at 3. We got there and there had been a change. Levi could not go. 

Hay had been a problem for all farmers here. A week ago, we were having one storm after another. You can't do hay in the rain. This week, with a long stretch of hot, dry days, everyone cut their hay, Levi included. Unfortunately, it needed an extra day in the field to dry due to the humidity.

We use balers, but the Amish do it differently. They fork the loose hay onto wagons, where kids are waiting to stomp it down as it comes on board, one fork at a time. Then it is pulled to the barn. They have a 'claw' on a arm and pulley system. The huge claw is dropped on to the hay wagon to pick up a big wad of hay. It is pulled up, hand over hand, swung over to the hay mow. The hay is dropped and it is once again stomped down so that as much hay as possible can be tucked away for winter feed. 

It is labor intensive work and in this heat, a hard job becomes even more grueling. A couple years ago, we were sitting on the porch. Levi was telling us that he had a strange experience. He was working in the hot sun and sweating up a storm. Suddenly he noticed that he wasn't sweating. He got a severe headache, followed by violent shakes. He had to stop what he was doing and lay down in the shade. "It always starts when I stop sweating, though," he said.

I could not believe my ears. It had happened to him before? I taught these classes in the military. "Levi, I said, "people die this way! What you are describing is the first stage of heat stroke." I explained to him about sweating being his body's way of cooling itself. When your body has lost enough water and salt that it stops producing sweat, your body temperature begins to rise. Just like a patient with a high fever will get violent cold chills, a heat stroke patient does the same. This explained his violent shakes. Everyone on the porch was listening intently. "If your body temperature goes high enough, it will kill you. All of you need to keep yourselves well hydrated when you are working like that." I explained the difference between water and sports drinks. 

Tim said, "we still have time before the Dollar General closes..." and just like that they were up and headed out. They take things like this very seriously and have been sticklers on hydration ever since. 

Anyway, Levi could not go to Pittsburgh because he had hay down. Although the oldest boy is a grown man now, he was not going to leave his children to do the job alone.

Mattie was worried about this meeting with the surgeon. She wanted Levi there to make any decisions with her. We picked up her mother on the way and drove just over two hours to get there only to discover that the appointment, made months back had been rescheduled to next month to accommodate the doctor's vacation. No one had contacted them to tell them this. 

Very frustrating. They were very apologetic but it didn't change the fact that it had been a wasted day.

We drove back home, determined to make the best of it, getting groceries and stopping at the Goodwill. 

As we pulled up, the haywagon had just been unloaded. Everyone came across the road tired and sweaty to grab a cold gatorade. Levi wanted to know what the doctors were going to do. 

I said, "weeeeelllllll..." and explained. Mattie was inside directing the putting away of groceries. 

Levi took off his hat and mopped his face with his handkerchief. "No...that's not right!" He exclaimed.

Mattie came out and said, "I was glad you were not there..."

Anyways, tonight we are doing a 'frolic', which is what they call a party after a big job is done. We are taking up hotdogs to roast, all manner of toppings, a roaster full of sloppy joes, potato salad, chips and a homemade ice cream cake. Afterwards, we will have sparklers and fireworks. 

A sad thing. A young Amish man was coming home after a long days work last week after those bad storms. He noticed three horses laying in his neighbor's field. He notified the neighbor that something was wrong. As he went back to investigate, he stepped over a barbwire fence. An electric line was down, and he was electrocuted. The horses were dead although they were nowhere near the fence. 

We knew him because he was part of a team we hire for construction work in town.

Lessons learned

 Well, I have been a-visiting and I have returned. A lot has happened. 

I got a very late start because Thursday morning my phone started ringing. It was the insurance company with the settlement. We are quite relieved. Tim has a keen eye for bargains. This car sold for well under Bluebook. It had a problem that they tried to cover with a bit of JB Weld. Tim saw the oil leak and insisted on a repair. It was a $4000 repair. If the dealership had done the right thing to begin with, they would have made that repair and sold it at full value. Their duplicity cost them in our case.

The insurance company paid full bluebook. They have been way more than fair with us, paying for things we did not expect. They even waived the deductible. Why? We can only assume that it is because we immediately went up there, paid the tow, got it out of a $100 a day impound, and drove it home ourselves. This alone saved them two or three thousand. 

So, what this means is that this has worked out quite well for us. So well that last night, watching television, a streaming company that plays one gambling ad after another (easy to win! Your winnings go directly into your bank account! Download today! Begin playing now!), I looked over at Tim and said our odds of making big money were better driving a Lexus into Canada.

So that is resolved. All they had to do was come and get the poor old car. They texted while I was driving. They continue to text every hour with texts that began 'You still have not responded,' etc. When I stopped midway in the drive I called and told them they needed to contact Tim. The texts must be automated because they kept coming in to my phone anyway. It made a long drive very stressful. 

My visit was so nice. The girls are growing so fast. I cannot believe they are going to turn 8 and 4 this year.  The oldest made me a clever banner of cats dressed in detailed clothing and jewels.

They are always excited to see me, and I hope that never changes. In fact there was so much excitement that a remote ended up kicked into a cup of water that was in the sofa cup holder. That put the kibosh on TV for the weekend. Not a bad thing.

We went to the library. The oldest girl loves the Ramona books. She had just finished the last one. I suggested Ellen Tebbits. She is a dancer too and has been giggling her way through the opening chapter in which Ellen's underwear are slipping down during ballet practice. 

There was a birthday party which was held at a local bounce place. Two hours of trampolines, climbing walls, ninja courses. Those two girls are both very athletic and ran full bore for 2 1/2 hours. Lesson learned: one does NOT attempt to do splits on a trampoline.

A supper out at a wonderful Mexican restaurant. I had Chiles Relleños. So very, very good. Lesson learned there, too. Margaritas are a big drink, and grandma has become a lightweight in regards to alcohol consumption. 

A failed bouncey ball making experience. Lesson learned: we look at why it failed. In this case it was an incomplete recipe. We found a National Geographic one with a video and two missing steps.

There were giant bubbles, chalk drawings, poppits, walks, swings, playground, church, ice cream, even a parade. What was learned? One does not wander around with a little flag stuck in her mouth.

Adult slushies were in order. Grandma once again learned that she is a lightweight in so far as alcohol consumption is concerned.

On the morning of art class, I saw them off and then headed for home once again. This time, the long drive was made even longer by multiple long stretches of one lane traffic due to road construction. The sudden flashing of an idiot light on the dash scared the wits out of me. Tim said 'Keep driving'. Lesson learned here as well. The Suburu is over dramatic. It was half a quart low on oil. 

Second lesson learned: I thought the wavy lines indicated water. No. This is oil. 

I am home once again. Unpacked. Laundry done. Dishwasher run. The house seems very quiet compared to that faraway house filled to the brim with excited giggles.

Driving home, I saw a huge billboard. CHAOS, CRUELTY, CORRUPTION: ARE WE GREAT YET?

Right next to it on a barn: TRUMP 2028. 

I will never understand how people are so gullible to swallow his bullshit hook, line and sinker. But there are people who believe his 250 rally crowds are tremendous. They believe the reflecting pool was damaged by vandals. That he has put the Iranians in their place. That the ICE Seizure of a nun is totally justified. That the cost of groceries and gas is some how linked to Biden's failures.The list goes on and on.

Then Christian nationalist Jesus said unto the sick, "you better have insurance."

Then Christian nationalist Jesus said unto the stranger, "go back to your own country"

Then Christian nationalist Jesus said unto the hungry, "my taxes better not be paying for these loaves and fishes."

Then Christian nationalist Jesus said unto the poor, "this is your own fault."

Then Christian nationalist Jesus said unto the little children, "let them come unto me, but only if they are part of my religion, my ethnic group, my nation, and are here legally."

Then Christian nationalist Jesus said unto John the Baptist in prison, "you should have just obeyed the law."

Then Christian nationalist Jesus said unto the Samaritan, "stop shoving your beliefs in my face. You are promoting sin. I am king!”

Then Christian nationalist Jesus said unto Mary outside his tomb, "did a man give you permission to be here? Go tell Peter I have a message for him to preach then head back and tend to your home where you belong."

Then Christian nationalist Jesus said unto Satan when he offered him power over the kingdoms of this world, "what an incredible offer, I accept."

Then Christian nationalist Jesus said unto Caesar, "we are going to rule this world together."

"You have a clever way of ignoring the commands of God so you can follow your own teachings." -Actual Jesus (Mark 7:9)

Headed out.

 We had two dry days and I tried to make the most of them. I got my junkyard flower bed weeded. I got the dahlias, and Mattie's plants, and my morning glory seeds planted. I spread the mulch.

I gave the raised beds a good weeding. After 5 days away, I imagine that my garden will look like a jungle. I am amazed at how everything is growing. 

I am all packed up and ready to head east tomorrow. My granddaughters are waiting. We are going to make galaxy high bounce balls. I have a rock painting project. I imagine there will be a teaparty or two. 

At the last protest, a candidate walked our line speaking to us. His question? "What is it that keeps you up at night?" When he got to me, I had my answer. "My grandchildren." He laughed and said. "Do they live with you?"I said no, but that I worried about the world we were leaving them. His smile faded. "I understand that."

You know how things all come together sometimes and you find yourself in a situation that is way out of your comfort zone? That's where I am. 

I live in a red county, and this red county has some ignorant people in it, people who can get pretty hostile when confronted with different opinions.

A woman brought the subject up to me. They are looking for people who can speak knowledgeably. They want people who can respond with facts, not emotion. 

I am not sure that is me, to be honest.

But I stood there with my sign, and I thought. About my grandchildren. About the woman at the ice cream place who was so shocked to meet someone would speak so openly in public. About family and divisions. About what matters. 

I signed the paper before I left. 

So far out of my comfort zone, but I feel as if it needs done. 

Much to my surprise, in broad daylight, I looked out the door and saw a deer tearing off a pumpkin leaf and chewing happily. Not more than 10 feet from the sliding door. She reached down and tore off another leaf. I opened the door and shook my finger. "You! Leave my pumpkins alone." Sheshowed me a bit of respect: she stopped chewing while she decided if I was a threat or not. She ambled out by the truck and watched me watching her. 

Later we had another visitor. It is a poor picture, taken through thermal pane glass.

Looks like we will have to put up fencing this year.

The insurance company is moving kind of slowly. We are prepared to wait them out. 

Happy Things

Today was a day of little wins. We both slept in until 9 am, unusual for us, but I think we were the better for it.

I continued weeding my plant junkyard. I have been buying distressed plants for a couple years now and tossing them into a spot I had designated to be a flowerbed at some point. Now I am weeding, taking stock of what has grown, filling in the empty spots with plants Mattie bartered for a ride, dahlia bulbs I had been given for my birthday, planting seeds,  rearranging plants.  A couple more days of working at it should make me feel better about it. 

As I worked Possum, one of the ferals came over to keep me company. She loves to be petted. She purrs and rubbed against me. She chased dirt clots and finally laid stretched out close next to me. It is so strange. As friendly as she is, I still can't pick k her up and she won't come inside for more than a couple minutes. 

The big news is that Tim got his tractor running. That has been troubling him. I am glad. I have been wanting some rock moved to make a little back drop to my flowers.  He spent a couple hours mowing. 

The vegetable beds look great too. They are so easy to keep weeded. I planted a couple dozen tomato plants - cherry, beefsteak, and San Marzano. Peppers sweet and jalapeños, onions, garlic, peas, beans, zucchini, carrots, corn and pumpkins. Herbs- rosemary, basil, chives. Oregano. It makes me happy to see everything doing so well. 

I saw a bluebird. It is nest building. That made me happy too. 

Thursday, I am headed east for granddaughter time. Another happy thing. 

Step by step

 Last night, I woke up about three hours after I went to bed. My leg just felt strange. Like an achy, sort of electrical thing going on. I got up, took some aspirin, and sat up a bit until things eased a bit back, and then went back to bed.

While I was sitting up though, I found myself fretting a little about the car. I will tell you what it was that troubled me: with that empty gaping hole in center of the console. What did it connect to? Were those components still there? How do you know? I mean, without the rear view mirror, with out that big screen, so many systems did not work. The automatic wipers, the back up camera, the electronic portion of the hybrid system. No navigation system. Simple things. No A/C. No heat. The white liquid sprayed across the console resulted in buttons that stuck when pushed. My big concern was how on earth do they tell what these computers connect up to? Did we still have those components? How can anyone know?

I finally went back to bed. Imagine my surprise to wake up this morning and discover that I managed to do something to my back. I can scarcely walk. It either was pushing a wheelbarrow or a couple days of aggressive weedeating. I was gimping around trying to look presentable before the claims adjuster came.

I almost made it.

The guy spent a long time studying the situation. He played with the sticky buttons. He took a lot of pictures. He retreated to his car to make some calls. He came back out from his truck and took more pictures. He said, "Let me talk to my supervisor on this one." Back to his truck he went. 

The raised beds had already been weeded. Nothing left to be done, I hobbled over and sat on the bench with Tim to wait.

Eventually, he came back out and gave it to us straight. "My supervisor is leaning towards just writing this off. The nearest Lexus dealer is in Buffalo. It would cost $750 to tow the car there. I am already at $7300 worth of parts, and who knows what else they are going to find..."

I think he thought Tim would protest, but all he said was 'That's fine."

The adjuster looked relieved. He made a joke. "I just have this feeling that if we wind up trying to fix this car, you will have to put an addition on your house. I would have to live here because you would be calling me every day with another problem. I am just afraid the car would never be right again. It really is all the Lexus bells and whistles..."

He ran some comps. Everything will be turned over to the claims guy. 

Tim stood looking at the car after he left. "We really had a pretty fancy car for a couple months."

Red Tape

 Tuesday, when I called the guy in charge of our insurance claim to tell him we had the car, that it was badly damaged, he immediately said, 'Let me get in touch with a local adjuster.' He assured us that he would have everything in place before we even got home. He said he wanted to get things settled for us as quickly as possible. 

Sounded good to us. 

This morning, we were trying to plan our day. I felt like we should wait to hear from the insurance guy. Tim, being Tim, had a tractor issue and needed to run into town. I decided to stay home and work on resolving the stolen plate issue. 

The first phone call was to DMV. Their automated system had no way to resolve that. 

I then called the state police. They told me about form MV-44 to replace the plate. I said that I couldn't really file for a replacement plate until I knew what the insurance was going to do with the vehicle. We might not need a replacement tag. 

He suggested calling our representative. I did. Her office assured me that I didn't need to worry about it. I said that I was not comfortable with that approach. Whoever had it was not honest. If they committed a crime... but the woman said, 'as soon as they run the plate, they will see that the tag does not belong to that vehicle.' 

Right...but the tag is still associated with our name and address. 

Boggles my mind that such a simple thing can't be done. 

In any case, it was 11. We still had no contact contact from the claims adjuster. So I tried to reach him, but got his voice mail once again. I left a message. 

I mean, what do you do? Just stay home until someone shows up?

I took my grumpy self outside and worked on weeding my poor flower garden. I weedwhacked for an hour. I planted 30 caladium along the north side of the house. I felt better.

I finally got a call back from Jason who was handling our claim. He was amazed we hadn't heard from the adjuster. He gave me his name and number. 

We know him.

I called and he was bemused. He knew nothing of our case. I said that he was supposed to have been emailed yesterday. He was driving, but pulled off the road to check. "Noooooooo," he said slowly. "Nothing yesterday...wait! Here it is. It just came in now."

Long story short, we are on his list for Friday. His appointments tomorrow are already in place.

Ugh. 

I went back outside to play in the dirt.

Remember those circling clouds that convinced Tim to put on pants? Turned out we had a tornado touchdown here in podunk. 

 https://www.weather.gov/ctp/Tornadoesof14June2026

Long Day.

 We went back to Canada today. The police were quite apologetic about the fact that no one reached out to us from their end. They did call our insurance guy. That is how we found out. The claims adjuster called us to call them and then call him back. 

We were afraid that it would take weeks of bullshitting around to get the car back. The impound guy could not even tell us whether there was damage or if it was drivable. 

There are some real peculiarities to this story that I am too tired to go into right now, but the computer/sat nav stuff has been ripped out. The windshield will need replaced. They backed into something.  Our license plate is gone (although the police officer noted that it was removed from the car and laying on the rear side passenger seat...)

The police released it to us, so I guess the investigative part is done. I can't tell you anything about that because the officer who should have called us but didn't is away on vacation.

The impound guy refused to let us take it out because there was no plate on it. We drove back to the police who called the impound people to say there should have been a plate, that the officer specifically said so, and pointed out that they were the authority not him. Then we drove 20 minutes back to the impound lot, where the guy released the car, writing on the paperwork that it was not to be driven.

You know, it is funny. I guess in the beginning maybe I was too surprised at the theft to be mad, but seeing that car totally ripped apart and our dirty laundry thrown everywhere, the car filthy with greasy hands, an unknown white liquid splashed everywhere...well...I am mad. 

Tim drove it home, despite Mr Impound's clearly written instructions not to drive it.  He was following me because I had the Sat Nav. At the border, I handed my license out, explained what had happened briefly and said that the vehicle behind me had no license plate and that Tim had the police documentation. She didn't even blink. She said that all she had to do was record the VIN for the Lexus. As if stuff like this happened every day.

That made me a little mad too. 

We are home now. Road weary and frazzled. We drove 3 hours with no plate on the car. Still amazes me. 

Insurance adjuster is coming to the house tomorrow.

My favorite shoes were in the back, believe it or not. 

The lines were snaked at the rental. Again. 3rd time in six weeks. I think we have a painful decision to make.

Totally burned out tonight.

Whiplash

The car has been seized. We know no more than that.

Another disaster.

Today after the protest, we moved our tenant's furniture back on the deck. We needed to pick up a half dozen things from the store. Then we headed home. Tim was tired so he undressed and went to bed. He took a long nap, and he needed it too.

When he got up, he was slow to rouse. Thank goodness our phones both started screaming. Weather alert: "Tornado warnings. Take cover immediately." Suddenly Tim was wide awake.

We studied the sky through the sliding glass doors, and the wind was wild. The big white pine was thrashing around. The thunder boomed. Strangely, I did not see any lightning. The clouds were that thick.

Tim said, "The clouds are moving in a circle! I haven't seen that before...." My phone rang. It was my youngest daughter. "Hey," I said, "can I call you back in say 10 or 15 minutes? We need to keep track of the weather, here."

Tim decided it was prudent to go get pants on at about the same time it began to pour. The wind had the rain falling just about any way but down.

And dang...all hell broke loose. 

Storm damage on top of the stolen car. It has been quite a brutal week.

LATE EDIT: JUST TO BE CLEAR, THIS WAS MEANT TO BE A JOKE. IT WAS A BAD ONE, I GUESS. WHILE OTHER AREAS DID SUFFER DAMAGE, THE TORNADO DID NOT TOUCH DOWN HERE. THE ONLY DAMAGE WE SUFFERED WAS AN OVERTURNED BENCH. MY APOLOGIES. 

The Dust Settles

As always, we are slowly moving past June 10th. We have both frozen our credit and taken care of the documentation for the stolen passports. We are wading through the insurance stuff. We will have to wait 30 days before the insurance company lists it as well and truly gone. 

It was a professional job. There is a professional network(s) at work. They utilize teenagers to steal the cars which are then driven to Quebec and loaded on a ship headed for west Africa. The number one target? Lexus RX models. (Number 2? Toyota Camry.)

As we slowly move through the morass of red tape associated with an event like this, little by little, life begins looking brighter. This is a survivable bump in the road, after all. 

Something that I have noticed is that Tim just expects that I will take care of the paperwork. He struggles with things like this. I understand why. I understand he can't help it. But the fact is, this stuff is stressful to me.

Something I have noticed is that he has become...um...demanding. Impatiently so. I am not the most patient person in the world, so I try to forgive that in him, but it has become increasingly difficult to ignore.

Yesterday we needed to go to the store. He needed his pop. He saw a rack of jeans on sale. We stopped to look. He did not find what he was looking for. 'Let's go,' he said. 

But they had a rack of tee-shirts marked down to a dollar and so I said, 'let me look through these...' He simply took off without me. 

My hearing is not so great and sometimes I don't hear him. If I ask him to repeat, he gets frustrated that I need to listen. But when I said that I was going to look at plants while he looked at deck stain and that I'd be right back, though he was looking right at me, when I came right back, he was no where to be found. I hadn't passed him between here and there. When I finally found him, he was irked. He couldn't hear me when I told him where I was going. "So why didn't you ask me to repeat myself?' He snapped, 'you need to speak up!'

A myriad of other frustrations. 'I will be back in 20 minutes and I want something to eat' is quite different from 'can you start supper?' 

An unexpected bill for $1400 that I was told would be covered by insurance wasn't. He is upset by that. He had been against the procedure, but it was important to me. In his mind, this was an unnecessary bill. I pointed out that he has just bought a tractor and spent $10,000. " 

Stupid stuff like me watching 'The Four Seasons". He didn't like it. Said all they do is talk. So we wound up watching "Yellowstone." Or when he is tired and just announces it is time for bed.or when I want to try ethnic food and he doesn't, why is it that we always wind up at Pizza Hut or McDonalds or Burger King?

All small and petty stuff. All of it, but it is just a stressful time for both of us and we both are snappier than usual.

This morning, I got up early to relax with my coffee. A few minutes later he came out. We have a tenant issue which he is upset about, and rightfully so. We have spent over $800 to snake out the sewer lines. This always happens of Friday afternoon, when we pay weekend fees for the plumber. It happened again. The other tenant in the house called to report. This time he said that he was told that the other tenant was flushing her cat litter when she did a full litter change on Friday. 

This required a direct discussion with the tenant, which upset her terribly. She has cognitive decline. We understand. I love that other tenants have gather about her to help her to continue to live independently. We will do our part too, of course. 

Tim and I discussed this this morning as I was trying to relax with my coffee and light blog reading. He wants to call her son and tell him she is not capable of living on her own. I think we have been very direct about it. She is upset. I think it may well not happen again. If it does, then we will rethink. This wait and see attitude made him mad.

Tim got snappish. "I am getting my shower and when I am done, you need to get yours. We have work to do." He decided that we were going to work on the old house before the protest. We already have a full schedule afterwards. We powerwashed a tenant's deck and today we are staining it. 

I said that he hadn't said anything about this. His response infuriated me. He said, "I didn't know what I would feel like doing."

I said, "How about what I feel like doing? Does that even matter anymore?"

 He glared and the floodgates opened. I yelled. He yelled. In the end, I said, "I am having a relaxing morning. It is the first time since we got home that we haven't had to hit the floor running. I am taking my morning. You feel like working, drive your truck to town."

And so he did.

I am sure this dust will settle too. 

Welp, Mrs Lincoln...

 ...other than that how did you like the play?

We had a very nice trip to Canada.

It ended early. Our car was stolen out of the hotel parking lot. The car was locked of course, but our passports were in the glove box. 

Also my favorite shoes were in the back.

Everyone has been kind and helpful. We are headed home now.

Now is later.

 We have not been to a protest for three weeks due to all the comings and goings, and a reception and family time. Tim said last night that we must go today. I agree. 

A funny thing happened this week. Tim had a serious craving for a banana split so we stopped at an ice cream place, pulling into a parking place next to a minivan with a VOTE! sticker on the window. The driver was waiting on her order, texting as she sat sideways in the driver seat, her feet sticking out the open car door. 

My initial impression was that she was a kindred soul, so I said, 'Not just 'vote' but vote blue!' and headed to the ice cream place. 

She shot out after me so fast that I initially thought I had misjudged. She wanted me to repeat myself. I did. The look on her face, people! She could not believe her ears, that I would just come out and say it. She is afraid to. 

I told her that she needed to find a group, that she wasn't the only one seeing it...more and more people are seeing it everyday. 'You can't see this as hopeless!' I said.

She agreed that it was changing, but was discouraged at how slowly it was happening. 

"Come protest with us! Find a group! You will be encouraged."

When her number was called, she got her food and passed by us. "Keep the faith, sister!" She smiled.

And I guess that is why we need to 'find our tribe'. That little exchange. It is too easy to fall into the hopeless thinking that we are the only ones who see what is happening as wrong. That the vast majority see nothing unusual about this at all. 

This is not true: It IS wrong. Most people DO see it. What we do with that knowledge is what separates us.

I am re-reading Elie Wiesel's 'Night'. What has struck me happens at the beginning of those terrible years. The Jews themselves tried to justify it, to normalize what was happening.

When the foreign Jews were loaded into trains to be deported, the Jews not taken comforted themselves: "It is not that bad. They were sent back to where they belonged." 

When Moishe Beadle escaped and came back to tell the story that all those people were forced to dig their own graves,  lined up at the edge of their grave and shot to death, his stories were dismissed as the stories of a crazy man.

As the government was replaced by pro Nazi officials, the same people told themselves that the Red Army was defeating Germany and that their authoritarian government would not last. 

When the Germans did march into town, they lodged with local families, even Jewish families. 'It is not that bad. They are behaving with courtesy.

When the synagogues were closed, they said 'It is okay...our Rabbis hold the services in their home'.

It went on and on. Jews could not own valuables. They buried them in their basement. 'We can survive this'. 

After all, the yellow stars did not kill them to wear.

Even the ghettos: 'We are together. We don't have to deal with the insults and cruelty of outsiders.'

And it went on and on, that normalization, the comforting. 'It's not that bad', except that it eventually did get 'that bad'.

Like Moishe Beadle, many of us are sounding the alarm. We are surrounded by people who dismiss all of it as 'it's not that bad. These people are crazy.'

In the end, I suppose, it comes down to this: we are all seeing the events of these days. Each one of us, even MAGA, sees things that should not be happening. The question becomes simple. What are we going to do with that knowledge? 

You are free 'to do you'. As for me and my house, we will 'do us'. That includes being vocal enough that if a doubter stands on the sidelines, they know who we are. Easier to find us.

It has been a quiet week. I have been earnestly weedwhacking, trying to bring this wildness to some semblance of order. Weeding flower beds, which to be fair, are two chaotic spaces where I tossed distressed plants bought on clearance last year. I figured that if they grew, I could sort them out and replant them later. Now is the 'later', I guess.

Monday, we head for our Canadian vacation. 

you know, I cannot post pictures right now. I have many things to show you. Right now, though, I need to get ready to protest.

...yet the magic remains

 It went too quickly. 

But it was chock full of special moments. One night, as we watched a movie to finish out the day, I caught my first glimpse of a firefly through the sliding glass doors.

There are no fireflies in England, so Cara immediately got up to go see. When she opened the door, one came straightaway inside to do lazy loops around the livingroom and kitchen, blinking on, blinking off.

The last Saturday of her visit, we arranged to meet her brother and the girls at the halfway point between our house and theirs, meaning they drove 2.5 hours west. We drove 2.5 hours east. We ended up at Bald Eagle state park. It was too chilly to spend a lot of time on the wonderful beach, but they had a great playground. We had a great cookout. We hiked the butterfly trail (there were frog eggs).

In an amazing coincidence, they had nature activities for the kids. They had booths set up to teach them how to cast a fishing rod and to identify fish. There was a woodcarver's display for bird identification. Another display of taxidermied birds to learn amazing bird facts. Native plants and seeds to give away. A chainsaw carver. A display of tanned animal hides for the kids to handle. 

Probably the most exciting thing was the 'nuisance bear'. He was trapped in a culvert bear trap. You can google this. I tried to post a picture, but cannot. It is baited with donuts. The bear walks in, the door closes behind him.  

The trap is hooked to a truck and hauled away. The bear is sedated. While the donut filled bear snoozes, he is tagged, a tooth pulled to determine his age, and a vial of blood taken to do a health screen. He is driven far out into the woods and released, hopefully never to return to populated areas again. 

The sedated bear slept right through the demonstration he was starring in. He continued to sleep as the most daring children petted him. When he showed signs of waking up, the door to the trap was closed and he was driven away to his new home.

So this was A. Very. Exciting. Day. My daughter in law had to work the previous night so she wasn't there. I made a joke about 'mama bear' would never put us in charge of her cubs again once she heard her 'baby' had petted a bear. My son was sure she already knew, probably awakened from a sound sleep by 'a disturbance in the force'. 

There were cookouts and easy laughter, sunny days and starry nights. Memories dusted off and related once again. 

And then it was time to drop her off at the airport.

We Gather.

 Time rushes by, doesn't it? 

Thursday, we drove to Buffalo and picked up my youngest daughter from the airport. The traffic was hairy, but the old folks did alright. 

Friday and Saturday rushed by in a flurry of activity. People coming in. Meet ups. Food prep. 

My youngest daughter spent the next 3 nights in town to maximize her time with nieces and nephew, and siblings too. 

The reception went well and was a pleasant celebration. I am sure glad we pushed so hard to make it happen indoors. It was 53° and raining. Not a day anyone wanted to sit in an outdoor pavillion. It was nice though, and a chance to meet my son in law's family. Being a merry prankster, he showed up in a shirt he had ordered special for the occasion. It said, "I am my mother in law's favorite child." (After the laughter died down, I offered to give him back. His family said there was a no return policy.)

I had bought the flowers from Mattie's greenhouse. She also made 5 dozen rolls and the girls churned butter for us. They were a huge hit. People were able to take the hanging baskets from their tables. Even still, I ended up with three baskets at my house. They really were just gorgeous.

As mentioned, I made 20 lbs of barbecued chicken, 20 lbs of garlic herb chicken and about 30 lbs of ham. To my relief, everything was very good. I am nervous about things like this because if there is to be a disaster of any sort, it will happen at an important day. I was a little more nervous than usual because the day had actually started out with a power outage.  I had three large roasters plugged in and everything blinked off. It was only for a few minutes, but oh, people! I nearly had a heartattack!

After the reception and the clean up/packing up, we were glad to get back to our little house and end the day relaxing...after dividing the left over meat up into single serve packages for the freezer and scrubbing out the roasters. 

Sunday, Tim went to church. I spent the morning getting ready for dinner here. The kids and their families and their dad were all coming here for an old family comfort food: homemade pepperoni rolls, or as my oldest granddaughter called it, 'inside out pizza'. 11 for dinner.

Because the day was not busy enough, I found a find. Someone I knew was selling an old fashioned oak table, 3 feet wide, 6 feet long. I knew it was perfect for our kitchen space. It was 40 min away. Tim grumbled, but as soon as he got home from church, I left my dough to rise and we headed off with the truck. For all of Tim's grumbling, he fell in love just as soon as he saw it. It is Amish made and extremely heavy. 

We got that home, the old enamel table to the basement. It will double the work area at the meat cutting station. The new table went in, and I was rolling out dough on it when people walked in the door. We don't have a lot of counter space and this was a beautifully functional addition.

Monday morning started with a huge breakfast send off at my sister's. I made a strata. She made a breakfast casserole and monkey bread. Fresh fruit and plenty of coffee, juice and milk completed that. 15 at the table that morning. We said our goodbyes there and Dylan and his family left for home.

Cara is now sleeping here. She is a very avid 'rambler' and belongs to a club back in the UK. She does 15 mile rambles and thinks nothing of it. We have walked over 20 miles in 3 days at Oil Creek Park. They have 35 miles of trails, but some of those trails were little more than deer paths, literally. We were walking on steep paths with sheer drops. She may have thought nothing of this, but it was challenging for Tim and I. We got it done, I am proud to say. Yesterday was 7.2 miles.

It is an off day for walking. Cara has business to take care of before she heads back home. Tim is chauffeuring. I am going to get my garden beds planted this morning. This afternoon, I am making homemade pizza. My sister and Cara and I will play a ruthless game of scrabble after.

Tomorrow is Friday already. Cara will spend the afternoon at my nephew's house. We will meet up with Dylan and the girls on Saturday at Bald Eagle Park which is almost precisely half way between our house and theirs. We will have a picnic and go hiking once more. 

We watched three good movies here in the evenings. Remarkably Bright Creatures. Thursday Murder Club. Grandma. Light and enjoyable.

We will be driving Cara back to Buffalo airport Monday morning. I am trying to hold on to these precious days but they trickle through my fingers like water.

Crazy

 We have been busy here. I finished my last day working on the old house for the next couple weeks. The day after tomorrow  we will be driving to the Buffalo Airport to pick up my youngest. Friday night my son and his wife and my granddaughters will be coming. I plan to savor this. Tim can do as he wants.

Saturday is the wedding reception for my oldest and her husband. They got married late last fall in a small  ceremony, delaying the celebration until the weather was a bit more predictable. This is also a long weekend which allows more out of towners to get in.

You know. Things like this stress me out. I have my agenda. Thursday: airport. Friday. Pick up produce order. On the way home, pick up four roasters. We will thaw 40 pounds of chicken breast and 30 pounds of ham. Saturday, we cook that meat. 20 lbs will be BBQ. 20 lbs will be lemon pepper. I will make the salad. I need to drive up to Mattie's to pick up the rolls and a pound of churned butter. Also to pick up 8 planters of flowers for the tables from her greenhouse.

 My sister gave me a load of manure for my birthday. I told her I don't take shit from anybody but her. We shoveled manure and blabbed. It feels like forever since we have had time to just visit. They are pretty busy too, demo'ing a house on their side of the road. Today I planted my onions, peppers and tomatoes.

So...it has been a bit crazy at my house.

It has also been crazy outside our house. We had two police shootings in 3 days. I mean, we live in the middle of nowhere. To have two separate shootings within 20 miles of us is crazy. Today an 18 year old stabbed his father. A man was sitting outside with his dog. A bear showed up and took a swipe at the dog. Also in that 20 mile circle.

Outside that 20 mile radius, it is even crazier. 1.7 billion dollar slush fund for trump allies. The IRS cannot investigate any of the trumps for tax evasion.  Trump claims he was within an hour of resuming attacks on Iran but has called them off because he was asked nicely. 

There is just too much crazy right now.

 .

If I don't laugh...

Gees...sorry about the spam comments on the last post. Miss a few days of blogging and those guys sneak right in there, don't they? I hope no one contacted those pesky faith healers with strange names who can cure breast cancer. We don't need them. 

Our president claims:

"We've taken people that were dead. We had a person given the last rites -- gone, the kids are crying and everything -- and started them on this drug. And the person became better. It works."

Of corse this miracle drug is not named and no one has left their death bed to testify to this miracle. 

It doesn't matter, people will still flock to the golden idol to pray.

https://youtu.be/tdcJ85PQw90?si=38PFfTTrWrI0uDfT

Sorry for going silent. It is a busy time. My daughter is flying home this month. I am planning a small wedding reception for my daughter and her husband. My son and his family will be coming home.

After this is done, we have a trip that will take us up into Canada for a week.

In the midst of this, because Tim cannot and will not wait, we are  clearing out the old house to put on the market. 

It is a crazy time, but no matter how crazy it gets, it is crazier in Washington. This is not comforting.

We have had two hard frosts in the last two days. It dropped to 25° two days ago. Will summer ever get (and stay) here.

Posting may be light for the month of May. Ignore the spam. Don't contact any African faith healers. Ask for the revival/Lazarus drugs instead.

Just Another Rainy Day in Paradise.

 It started out as another very rainy morning. This after a very rainy night. 

Protest started at 12 and I was dreading the thought of standing in the rain again. Miraculously, it cleared off before we got to the courthouse. 

It was a small group but we have a great comaradry. And it is not just the protesters. The people driving by know we are going to be there. The tooting begins before we get situated. 

Encouraging. 

I carried this:

It is a flip off sign. The reverse side says: BLESS YOUR ❤️! When we get flipped off, I can "flip them off" right back with my sign.

 

It was a good day.