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 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. 

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 measlesfrom a person, not the shot, I am sure of it. 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, un-braindamaged, not worried about catching the measles.

Maybe people 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.