That Other Tim

 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.

Dumb de dumb dumb...

 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 If Google maps ever fails us, we have outdated road information for all 50 states.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.

Nothing but giggles

The worst guard dog in the world:

(But what a good boy!)

This week has been full on.

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

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

Tomatoes. The gift that keeps on giving.

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

With tomatoes, anyhow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chickening Out

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

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

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

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

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

For a bit of silliness:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PS: Thanks to DB Stewart.

Saturday

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

 I am so sick of the nonsense. 

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

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

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

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

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

Hot Dog

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tuesday

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

It has to be a hundred years old:

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

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

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

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

(2nd jar pinged)

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

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

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

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Great kid. 

Would birth again.

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

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

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

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

6th and 7th jars pinged.

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

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

The man is crazy. 

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

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

So why, though?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Storms

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What the fresh hell is this, Mother?

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

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

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

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

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

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

Anonymous

 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. 

Isn't it Moronic

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.

Finally.

Another point

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.

It is changing. 

I just feel like it is changing.

Points To Ponder

Options

 The measles have been brought into the Amish community, brought back from a Lancaster horse auction. The Amish do not vaccinate. 

 I know that Mattie is afraid. She called me to say that her oldest son had been exposed. We discussed it.  They take quarantining very seriously. Since they had a family member exposed they were all homebound. 

Tim and I predate the vaccine, but we both had measles as children. We are immune. We can also not carry it. We made a deal that the answer would always be yes. If they wound up with measles, they could count on us if they needed anything. We would run it to them. 

14 days has passed and no one in the family got the measles, but it is still going around. Pennsylvania had its first measles deaths in 35 years, both cases in Lancaster, one of them an infant.

Last night, my phone rang. Levi had questions about my opinion on the vaccine. I was a little surprised. He listened. An 'English' had told Mattie's sister that the vaccine had made her son 'slow, like Down's syndrome'. I pointed out that the first dose of vaccine is given to babies, and that developmental delays may not have been recognized. "That's true," Mattie said. I said 'Everyone has to decide for themselves, but I will always follow the science."

Long story short, we ferried everyone to the health department today. The nurse there was very patient, the paperwork completed, and 10 Amish were vaccinated.

When we got them back home, a buggy pulled in. They visited at the wagon and when they came back, Levi said they told him that they heard of a man who got the vaccine and he got measles, and got them so bad he is in the hospital. 

He looked afraid. 

It will be okay. I am sure that the man got the measles from a person, not the shot. They will get their boosters in 4 weeks. I think it will be a powerful example in their community to see an entire family vaccinated, not braindamaged, not worried about catching the measles.

Maybe people in their community will say, 'I heard about this family that got the vaccine...'

I am about to become very busy here. 

This is my raised bed of romas and San Marzanos. 

I will close with a few words of wisdom:

Plots

 The big focus today is his big bluster about renaming Lake Ontario. 

It just seems like that ridiculousness pales in comparison to this mystery:

Trump and the Kremlin both denied knowledge of it. Let's be real though. Russia is at war. Military aircraft flying over Moscow would not have gone unnoticed. I don't think the director of the CIA would have risked his own safety, the safety of his staff and the safety of the military personnel without prior contact and the official okay to do so.

Don't even ask me to comment on 22 tons of Argentinian beef that was rejected by China because it had unacceptable levels of antibiotic and amoebas. That is a lot of beef that is looking  for a place to go. 

If only there was a country who was looking for a place to buy cheap meat to ease a beef shortage at home...

Joanne's Charity of Choice

 If anyone wishes to know Joanne's charity of choice it is listed in her obituary.

 https://share.google/jFoSH3dINJaHp3TMb

Thanks to Runnin' Rose for her email.

Saturday

Last night, I sat on the porch and shucked corn. We gave a lot of corn away. To all of our tenants, to our daughters' families, to two neighbors, but for all the giving away, I still had two dozen ears, so I shucked corn in the last light of the day as a formerly feral cat stretched at my feet in a  companionable way. 

I came inside with my biggest kettle full of corn, steamed it, packaged it and got it down to the freezer to join the other two dozen. I think that's enough corn. It will make a nice treat this winter. 

This morning, I could just not get moving to save my soul. I had slept poorly and the coffee wss not doing it. I saw Beth's note that Joanne passed from peacefully this morning just before six. I gave myself permission to stay home and do for my house what I can't do for the world...put it to rights. Tim went to the protest without me. 

We did a little running when he got back. The little store we go to had huge green peppers. 2 for $1.00. 50 cents each was not such a great deal, not really, but they were so big and perfect that it wasn't the worst deal I ever saw either, so I got 10 of them. 

It was a nice hour sitting at the kitchen table chopping peppers for the freezer while listening to a thunderstorm rolling in. Those 10 peppers filled 5 quart freezer bags, over six lbs of chopped peppers. They joined the 3 qts of chopped and sliced peppers already down there.

I carefully set the pepper seeds aside. I will dry them in the greenhouse and then pack them into a pill bottle for next year's garden. While I worked, I allowed myself the luxury of trying to imagine what the world will be like in 9 months when I am getting my next garden planted. Maybe it will be different. I sure hope so.

A terrible picture in the quiet, poorly lit livingroom. Tim got his mount back from the taxidermist today. He is proud. I think I will write a book called 'Decorating with Dead Stuff'.  It will be a backwoods bestseller.

I met a woman I used to work with. She was a quiet person, so quiet, you might not have thought she had opinions. Turns out that she does. So did her boyfriend.  It was nice to discover that. 

The trump administration has begun exporting wild horses to foreign governments who slaughter them for meat.

Today trump announced his plan to import cheap beef from foreign markets to bring prices down.

I am sure that those two things have nothing to do with each other, though.

Boud has an important call to action

The storm warnings have expired. I need to go to bed.

Cat Tales and Gardens

 Some time back, the outside cats began to show some nervous behavior as it got dark outside. I made them two safe places. I know that Possum began to sleep in the green house right away. The entrance was small enough that I was pretty sure she was safe at night. I made a bed for her there.

I was not sure about Tigerkitty though. I never saw him using either safe place. When he came up missing for a few days,  I was a little sick about that. I thought for sure something had snatched him away, but after 4 days, he showed up at the sliding door, back, very thin, very hungry, meowing loudly, and casting very nervous glances all around him. 

When I opened the door, he shot inside, ate two cans of catfood and disappeared into the basement. I was surprised about that, but the next morning, he came upstairs for some dry nibbles, and then asked to be let out. 

This has been his routine now for a few weeks. I found where he puts himself to bed at night. He is not a problem and I actually feel better knowing he is safe. Tonight, he showed up to come in as usual, but for the first time, Possum came inside with him. 

I am pretty sure that our 'predator' is another cat though.

My tomatoes are getting ripe. I have my morning coffee with a beautiful tomato sandwich. Toast the bread, mayo, a thick slice of tomato and lots of ground black pepper. 

We are eating a lot of zucchini and summer squash. Tim loves frittatas and the best thing about them is that you can mix up the vegetables you toss in with the zucchini and wind up with a completely different meal every time. 

My sister and her husband were cutting winter firewood. She didn't have time to process her green beans. I offered to do it for her, but she said, 'just take them. By the time we finish this tree, I will have double that to process.' 

I felt kind of guilty taking them, but when her mind is made up, there is no sense arguing with her. (It probably is genetic.)

We have been working at the house. We had some oil lamps to drop off with Levi and Mattie. I wanted to check on them anyway, because some of the men from the community went to a horse auction in Lancaster last month and brought measles back. The oldest boy had been exposed two Sundays ago and she was worried.

Tim and I have both had the measles. You cannot be a carrier if you've had them. If the family has them, they quarantine. I told her that we would stop in to check on them, and pick up any supplies they might need.

Anyways, checking on them, they have had a bumper crop of sweet corn this year. She has canned a years worth. They have eaten so much sweet corn they are tired of it. They are giving it away. They consider it a blessing and don't believe it should be sold. 

I said that we would be glad to have it. Next thing I knew there were two large bags of it in our car. I certainly did not see that coming. I should have.

On the way home, I stopped off to leave two dozen ears with my sister. It made me feel much better about the beans.

We had corn for supper, and I froze two dozen ears. It will be a real treat this winter. 

'Tis the season. 

Cup on the Bus

 I hope everyone will take a moment to stop in at Joanne's blog and leave a comment. 

In which we take a bow.

 We use our phones as hotspots for our internet and for streaming our television through Roku. We had to. The only way to get internet here is Starlink, and you can bet the ranch that this is not happening. 

(Side note: my weeklong adventure at the fair was interesting. They had just got the fairgrounds set up with Starlink. Everyone had access to the internet. Despite those assurances, we did not have internet. No one did. It never worked at all during the entire week.)

Anyhow, our system out here in the woods worked okay. We could stream TV, but sometimes there was a lot of buffering and error messages. Our phones worked, but when my daughter called from overseas using What's App, sometimes the calls dropped. The internet could also be pretty slow.

I began doing some research on cell phone boosters. We finally selected a $400 one with a roof mounted antenna. An Amish friend fabricated the mount for the roof.

The instructions called for downloading an app to find what band you were on, and where the cellphone tower was. This app made me very nervous because it wanted permission to 'control my phone', whatever that meant. It also deleted my email app without asking for permission to make room for the itself. 

At that point, I stopped the installation.

We mulled it over and decided that our phones used whatever signal they could get when we traveled. Why did we need to down load something to figure it out? We figured the phone was already picking up the signal here at home with just 1-2 bars. It would be picking up the same signal. It would just be (theoretically) stronger.

We also had no idea where the nearest cellphone tower was either, but Tim pointed out that the antenna was being mounted on a metal roof. We simply aimed it down the road which leads to the nearest big town. (It is also just about the only tree free area to point it.) We brought the wire in through the attic, drilled a hole in the ceiling and brought the wire down to the living room, hooked it up to the booster and plugged it in. 

We held our breath, afraid to hope. We literally had ignored the instructions completely. But day-um, people! We might be old and we might have no technological skills to speak of, but who has four thumbs and can now consistently pull 4-5 bars of connectivity? 

(Answer: Tim and I. We are pretty impressed with ourselves.)

They had another amplifier to wire in, but the house is so small we didn't even need it, so we ignored those instructions too. 

There is a huge fire reported in London tonight. I know they are in a drought.  Fingers crossed for Steve and Dave, even though they do not live in SE London.

These fires seem to be popping up everywhere.

 

Done and dusted

 The fair is over and I am about peopled out. All of us are, I think. The abortion guy came back with a model fetus he borrowed from the right to life group and made a big deal about 'baby killers'. The Republicans were set up right next to them, so I imagine this was planned ahead. 

Our current representative was there at the republican booth. The fair was being covered by a television newswoman, who was scoping out the happenings for stories. She spoke with Kathy Rapp about some issues. During the course of the conversation, the elected official dodged the question she was being asked to say 'Have you been to the Democratic booth? They've got antisemitic material over there.'

Shocked, the reporter said, 'No they don't.'

The representative said, side stepping responsibility for her lie, 'Oh? Someone told me they did.'

The reporter stopped by to see how things were going with us and related the exchange, which was maddening, because we were purposely trying to avoid criticism. Our goal was to engage and provide information. How to vote. Where to vote. These are our candidates. If people wanted to talk, we didn't shy from that, but we weren't there to argue or make people mad. It appears the republicans were playing by a different set of rules.

I met some lovely, lovely people. Lou and Lynn, married for 68 years. We talked for a long time. I said, 'Listen. What is happening now is unsustainable. It is going to collapse at some point. Financially it is imploding right now. We will get past this, and when it is over, we will be looking hard at what led us here.'

Lou said, 'I hope you are right.' We looked at each other and said almost simultaneously, 'We can't lose hope.' We spontaneously reached out our hands to each other. 

There were plenty of thumbs up. I had a indepth conversation with a woman about her third party vote. Another man stopped to talk about issues. We got on the issue of the NRA. He felt strongly that every gun owner should join the NRA. I was surprised because we had so many things we agreed upon. But his point was that if the NRA had more moderate gun owners, their votes would change the laws. I pointed out that the NRA had no power to change gun laws but that these membership dues went directly to lobbyists to persuade (bribe) lawmakers to oppose changing the laws. He listened and and nodded.

It wasn't a bad experience mostly although one of my last interactions nearly did me in. A man from Florida came along and wanted to know who we were going to run for president. 'I don't know, and I am not going to speculate.' You could tell that surprised him. He wanted to know why. I said because he would spend his time arguing about their theoretical lack of merit for the job. 'If you want to talk about right now, I am ready.'

What followed was a parroting of trump talking points. America is respected and all other countries are following our lead. (No, they are not.) Our stock market is booming. (10% of America owns 93% of stock. Things are going really well for them.) He agrees with our actions in Iran. (You agree that burning through our armaments and oil reserves is good for national security? I think we are very vulnerable right now.) He brought up Benghazi. I brought up Syria and Trump's phone conversation with Putin. I asked him what he thought about Ukraine. He did cede a bit. He said we are beginning to make that right. Gold plating statues was being done by donation. (no, the department of interior has spent 95 million taxpayer dollars so far). It didn't stop.

What made it difficult is that for whatever reason, he had triggered the other person there. She was mad. I hadn't seen that in her. She had been a very mellow person up to that point. I think his arrogance, coupled with the fact that he was all over the place with his comments...it was like getting hit with a verbal shotgun.  We had been dealing with this for six days, and I think it had become too much. She yelled and even cried. He weaponized that.  When I tried to counter him, he interrupted me to mock her or tell her to be quiet, and then simply moved on to a new topic.

He finally left when I said, 'you know, we are not going to agree and we need to accept that.' He agreed and I told him to enjoy the fair. That was a hellish 20 minutes though. I am proud that I was able to hold my own. He was trying to command that conversation and it did not happen.

It sounds like there was a major issue at the Republican booth after I left. That was poorly thought out and shouldn't have happened, but there was an eye-popping conversation with some Christian Nationalists who believe that like the old testament, God is directing them to kill all Muslims, men, women and children, to bring about the second coming of Christ. 

These people are fucking nuts. If Jesus came back they'd deport him. 

Entertainment.

 I have driven 'the new car' this week. This morning I could not find my key fob, which was annoying, since I just keep my key fob in my pocket. But it wasn't there. I took Tim's from the glass bowl and headed off, but it really bothered me all day.

I came home and looked everywhere. Under normal circumstances, I would have come home, took off my lanyard and fair ID along with my fair pass and set them on the end of the kitchen table, ready to grab the next morning on my way out. 

But it wasn't there. So I looked under cushions, under furniture, checked pockets. Went through the clothes in the hamper. Even checked the garbage.

Nothing. 

Tim was grumpy because he never loses stuff. 🙄

Tonight I was thinking about it. I went to the car and pushed the start button. It started right up. This meant that the fob was in the car. This was helpful information, although I still couldn't find it. Tim did though. When I put my Raincoat in the back seat, the fob had fallen out of my raincoat pocket, and slipped under the back seat.

Tim watched a foreign movie tonight. The subtitles were pretty strange.  There was a lot of 'footsteps pattering' and 'bell rings', 'laughter' etc. Things that did not really need translating. Actual conversation read 'Enzo speaks Italian'. 'Lucia speaks Italian' etc.

Isn't that just the strangest thing?

Tomorrow is Friday. Two more days and the fair is over. I am glad. I am about peopled out, but it is important to be there. We all feel it. 

Fair

 The fair has been an interesting experience. I went there expecting to change no MAGA minds, but what I notice is that they are loudest when we are quietest. If there is any amount of pushback, they are not so mouthy.

 That is the way of all bullies, isn't it? 

So, I am there every morning. I have worked with a number of different people, and they all bring their own skill set to our table. We have made good use of all of those skills. 

Today, for instance, a woman stopped. In a rather no nonsense way, she wanted me to give her reasons to support our candidates. She and I talked. She listened. Thanked me for talking with her. 

Another guy went through talking in a loud outraged voice about abortions being legal right up to the day the baby was born. Just as outraged 3 voices answered back in unison 'That is a lie!' Perfectly orchestrated, totally unrehearsed. He insisted it was the truth. I said 'Let me explain to you why that is not true.' He left quickly saying we were all crazy. 

We had a prominent citizen who wanted to talk to us about the Muslim 'agenda'. I told him that he was stereotyping and that there wasn't one. Heck. We are more concerned about the republican agenda.

 Freda was registering people to vote, and nobody passed the table without being asked. A rough looking fellow stopped. Ponytailed biker type if you are looking for a mental picture. Freda fired off her question. He said, 'No.' She asked him why, and he said, 'Because I spent 20 years in prison.'

Freda said, 'So you're not allowed to vote?' 

'Oh, I can vote but I think both parties stink.'

What followed was a polite little discussion on why we felt this was untrue. He listened just as politely. 

Out of the blue, Freda said, 'Am I allowed to ask why you were in prison?' The question shocked both me and the other worker, and we exchanged looks over Freda's seated head.

The man said 'Third degree murder,' and launched into a telling of a man with connections who had molested a young relative. (I am totally not kidding.) And when he was done, he admitted to wishing he hadn't done it, while feeling glad that his family was safe.

I said, 'So what do you think about the Jeffrey Epstein cover up?' We talked about our shared outrage at 'men who got away with it'. Before we were done, my coworker had him sitting at a computer helping to get him registered to vote. 

It surprised me the number of old men we had stopping by to tell us that they were Republicans, but could not understand how anyone in their right mind could support what was happening. A preacher's wife horrified at Christian Nationalists. Two ex coworkers that I never would have dreamed would claim the name 'liberal'. A church secretary. Way more support than I ever expected. Our table was seldom without someone there to talk.

Following Miss Merry's lead, I talked to all the kids and admired all the babies. Parents generally paused for pleasant talk.

Yes. There were those who went by without a word. A couple relatives who made quick shocked eye contact, immediately put their heads down, probably afraid that I would call them by name, and someone might think they were one of us. There were even a few rolled eyes and sarcastic comments, but these were muttered too low to be heard. Like I said, MAGA is not so loud when you are standing right there.

Interestingly, our state representative walks past us daily on the way to her seat at the republican booth. She's run unopposed for a number of years, but this year we have a candidate. She glances our way and averts her eyes in a haughty way. A doctor at our booth always wants to remind her that democrats are her constituents too. 

I am half way through fair week and despite my misgivings, it has been a mostly positive experience. 

The Totally Random Post

A couple days ago, I saw a headline that caught my attention: 4 Charged in Death in Warren Co Home Care Case

I worked in this field. In this county. And as I read the article, I realized that I had worked with these people too. 

I cannot wrap my head around the idea that for forty days a helpless man lay in a recliner dying and no one did anything. I can't wrap my head around the fact that I knew people capable of this. I can't get over the fact that it took 3 years to bring charges.

I cannot stop thinking about this. 

It has been a busy couple of days. Working on the old house. 

I went to a thrift store and boy, did I ever strike paydirt. I found two pair of jeans that looked brand new. Most important thing? The waist sits at my natural waist! Whoot! They were tapered leg! Whoot! They were 1/2 off! Whoot! I found also found a pair of fisherman sandals. And a crystal bowl that fits perfectly in my wrought iron bird bath.

We went to a street fair, which was fun. Tim wanted to see the antique cars and trucks. He wanted Mexican food. It was so hot and humid, I wasn't hungry at all, but they offered a cucumber lime ade. It was enough to pique my curiosity. It was excellent and surprisingly thirst quenching. 

So that was my excitement for the day.

Today was protest. Small group. We had a black SUV pass by. In the back seat was an elderly woman, a tiny thing. The window was down and much to my surprise a wrinkled hand came out, pointed like a gun and she made the motion of shooting us, picking us off, one right after another. It was a surreal moment.

I got my shirt and ticket for the fair booth. I am working every day. The guy in charge said that despite the initial enthusiasm and support, as the event drew closer, people had begun to 'ghost' him.

I get that. Standing on a street corner in a red county holding a sign is far different than engaging with people one on one. 

One thing I notice is that they want to engage on an emotional level. They want to provoke an emotional response. I have been practicing unemotional factual responses, but I would be a liar if I said I wasn't worried about this week. 

After the protest, we stopped to eat. Much to my surprise, my aunts and uncles were there celebrating a cousin's birthday. It has been years since I saw them. 

We walked today 5 miles today. I collected seed heads from a wildflower I am not familiar with and hope to grow here. It is called ironweed and it was covered in butterflies.

We are having one heck of a thunder storm. The rain has been torrential. It will be interesting to see the final precipitation amounts. 

I am back!

 I got back from my son's house pretty late last night. There was A LOT of construction on 80, with one lane traffic. This created huge bottlenecks because people will wait until the last damn minute to merge. Traffic crawled for miles. Consider the fact that there were 5 or 6 of these construction zones, welp...I did not get home until almost 7. I was whupped. 

It was such a fun visit, as always. 

Today was a jump up and get on the road. We have a tenant that is particular. She did not like her apartment sized washer and dryer. It was replaced with an LG all in one. She didn't like that. It is something that Tim and I feel strongly about. Clean clothes are a basic human dignity, so everyone has a washer and dryer. I said to the tenant, "We have met our scope of responsibility. This is a new $1900 unit. If you are unhappy with it, we will pull it, but you can buy your own." 

This was the morning. She messaged me over the weekend.  I told her to call Tim, that I was not home. She didn't. That meant that the first Tim heard that we had to get an appliance moved was late last night.

So, we got up early and got going. Tim was cranky. We did not have any place to store this appliance. He snapped, 'I am hauling it to the scrap yard.'  

I told him he wasn't. The machine was installed on April 17th, 2025. I told him there were plenty of people who'd be glad for a new washer. I put an ad on a Helping Hands site, and then we wheeled it to the road to load on the truck. These things are heavy as heck, so it was a bit of huffing and puffing. 

A guy passing by in his truck stopped to give a hand and the job was done. Tim asked him if he wanted it.

"No," he said, and asked how much we wanted for it. Tim told him it was free. My husband was bound and determined that he was not moving that thing into the basement where we have a stock pile of appliances. Like I said, the thing is heavy.

Our helper took down our number and names and drove away. We went down the street and dug up a snowball bush from the old house that I wanted to take to the new. I also wanted some lamb's ear.

We were about to head out when my phone rang. It was an elderly man. He and his wife were raising their great-grandkids, if you can believe it. They had just had their washer repaired and had been told that it was on its last legs. A stepson had called to tell him about ours. 

We told him it was on our truck and that we would deliver it.

And we did. 

His wife was so pleased. A naked 3 year old came to the door with her. I laughed and said that if the rest of them dressed like this one, she might not need to do laundry at all. Great-grandma wearily said, "this week she doesn't want to wear clothes."

We got the washer off the truck with the ramps and wheeled up on their porch. Their son in law was coming after work to switch everything out. We left the dolly there. He will drop it at the old house tomorrow.

Tim's mood brightened considerably once he stopped worrying about that washer. We stopped to grab a late lunch. "What should we do now?"

I reminded him that there was a bush we needed to get in the ground. I did suggest stopping by a yard sale on the way out of town. I had seen a hummingbird feeder that was perfect for my bottle tree.

The proprieter was a talker. He and his wife had just moved in. I pointed to their fence behind the house and explained that on the other side of that was our backyard. One thing led to another, and somehow he wound up on the subject of guns.

"You may not agree with me but if they're going our guns away ('oh no...not one of those!') the only ones left with guns will be law enforcement, and those seem to be the people we have to worry about."

Could have knocked me over with a feather. 

The evening was spent planting a bush, hanging my new bird feeder and two solar lanterns on my bottle tree. 

I have my first zucchini from my own garden.