I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
The Repairman
EJ had to work Saturday, which is only the second time he’s had to work on a weekend at this company. This is totally different from EJ’s company downstate where he had to work seven days a week for months without a break. Poor guy. With EJ at work, I had a very quiet day.
Sunday we worked in the garden a bit, and I put some more herbs in the dehydrator while EJ put new headlights on the suburban. I was considering mowing the lawn, but the grass was still wet from the much-needed rain we got overnight so EJ said no.
Yesterday afternoon EJ walked down the driveway with Hannah and me. EJ’s back was really hurting–it always does–so he walked slower with our cat Josette while Hannah and I walked on ahead. As we rounded the last curve at the bottom of the driveway, I saw the Mama Turkey with her babies. Hannah was investigating interesting smells in the long grass so she didn’t see them. I took a quick photo and then quietly pulled my dog away and we rejoined EJ and Josette up the driveway.
Early this morning the repairman showed up to install the new compressor for our geo-thermal heating/cooling system. When Hannah noticed the repairman, she went ballistic. She’s quite protective and always sounds very fierce as she barks and growls. I actually think she’d be ok with strangers if they took time to greet her, but not everyone likes dogs and I don’t want to risk there being a problem. I shut Hannah up in the master bedroom at first. After she had gotten used to the idea that there was a stranger here, I let her out. She barked whenever she saw the repairman, and then she’d come up to me with a very anxious look on her face. I told her it was ok for the guy to be here.
EJ doesn’t take the day off to deal with repairmen, propane delivery guys, septic tank people, installers, etc., which means I’m usually the one who has to deal with them. The few times EJ is here he always chats with the people and then later tells me interesting stories that they told him about their lives or the community. I never know if I’m supposed to chat with the people or not, or what I am supposed to say if I do chat with them, so I usually just greet them and let them go do their job. I’m an introvert, I don’t do well with chitchat with strangers.
I live in fear that repairmen, etc., will ask me questions, which they usually do, and I feel like a blooming idiot when I don’t know the answers to questions like “Where is your breaker box?” Uh…..I did actually remember where it was today, after initially telling the guy I had no idea. I don’t usually mess with the breaker box–EJ does–so I tend to forget where it is. When he asked me if I knew exactly what was wrong with the compressor, I said no–that my husband probably knew. I was thinking, “Duh, it doesn’t work. That’s why it’s getting replaced” but I didn’t say that.
Because I dislike dealing with repair people, and I dread them asking me questions that I might not know the answers to, I feel very uncertain and my mind freezes so I forget answers to questions that I actually do know. I think I sound really ditzy and stupid, even though I am definitely NOT. It’s as if, just like magic, I become what I’m afraid I’ll be. Just for the record, when I’m dealing with people, situations, or topics that I’m comfortable with, I can sound quite intelligent. Ugh.
The repairman worked several hours, replacing the compressor, doing something in the crawl space, doing something else with the breaker box, and got everything hooked up and working. We now have air conditioning and we propane will only be our backup system to heat our house in colder weather! Yay! The repairman turned on the air conditioning before he left, but when he drove away, I turned it back off. It’s not oppressively hot today and I figure why run it when I don’t need to. I’m grateful for the air conditioning on oppressively hot days when I’m in danger of melting, but otherwise I prefer the fresh breeze flowing through the windows and the sound of birds singing. Air conditioning makes the house feel closed up and stuffy.
I’m so glad when repairmen drive away. I always breathe a sigh of relief!
Both Hannah and I survived today’s repairman. In a few weeks we will have to endure the flooring installers. They will actually be in the house working. That will be a fun day. Ugh. I’m thinking we will have to shut the cats in the pantry so they don’t get out of the house, and we will shut Hannah in the entrance hallway where she can growl threats at the workers.
While the repairman was working on the compressor, I went to the garden in the back yard and picked a bowl of green beans. I brought the beans into the house and washed them and snapped them into pieces, but I didn’t blanch them until the repairman had left because I didn’t want to risk being interrupted at a crucial moment–when I have to take the beans from the boiling water into ice water to stop their cooking.
We have a sunflower blooming among the morning glories along the deck. A few more sunflowers are almost ready to bloom. I hope the deer don’t eat them because they are such a bright spot of cheerfulness. The morning glories had already closed by the time I got out to take a photo. I was tempted to wait until tomorrow morning to photo the sunflowers and morning glories both blooming, but I figured that I better capture the sunflowers while they are still there. The deer have eaten some of them even before they budded. The deer have also eaten most of the lilies lining the driveway. There are only a couple still blooming among the now-empty stems. I think it’s funny that the deer eat all the lilies, and I don’t mind that they do, but I would kind of like them to leave the sunflowers alone.
The Biker Bees
Our son JJ stopped by yesterday to pick up something I had printed off for him. He doesn’t have a printer of his own yet. We rarely see him, but that’s ok. He is busy with work and his girlfriend, establishing a life of his own. And, to be honest, although many people talk about how terrible the Empty Nest is, EJ and I are enjoying our quiet, peaceful life together. We enjoy each other and share most of the same interests. It’s nice.
JJ gave his two-weeks’ notice at the Mall, and will be beginning a new job in early August. He had interviewed with this new security company a few weeks ago, but when they told him he’d only get something like 27 hours a week, he politely declined. He can’t pay his bills on such few hours. A couple days ago, the company called him back and said they really want to hire him, and they would give him the hours he needed. They provide security for a number of companies and JJ will be working at two different locations–basically it’s kind of like having two part-time jobs.
While JJ was at our house, I asked him if he was still interested in taking one or more of our bikes. We had bought them a number of years ago–while we still lived downstate–but we almost never rode them. I tended to walk Danny, our beloved dog who died last November, and EJ worked so many hours that he never had time to ride bikes. The bikes were leaning side-by-side against the garage. When I moved the first one out of the way, a cloud of angry bees rose into the air. “JJ! Bees!” I yelled as we both ran. With so many bees, it was impossible to get near the bikes so JJ decided to look at them next time.
After the bees had calmed down a bit, I went back outside and noticed that there was a large hive on the front sprocket of the bike that I had dropped when I ran. I wouldn’t be able to move the other bikes with the hive so close so I got a garden rake from the garage and hooked it on the bike and pulled it a few feet, then ran as angry bees flew out of the hike. I waited until they calmed down again and then hooked the rake on the bike again and moved it another few feet, then ran. I did this several times until I had moved the bike an adequate distance from the others. I figured I had irritated the bees enough for one day so I left them alone until this morning. I saw only a couple bees calmly flying in and out of the hive so I was able to move the others far enough away that JJ will be able to look at them with no problem. If he decides not to take them, we will donate them to Goodwill.
This afternoon I decided to try to ID the bees that on built their hive on the bike. I took a photo of one of the bees sitting on the hive and then kept it for reference while I searched the Internet. No matter how many times I try to learn the difference between bees, hornets, wasps, and yellow jackets, I always get them muddled–especially hornets, wasps, and yellow jackets. I always just call them all “bees” for simplicity sake. They are all from the same classification family, although different branches. I believe that the biker bees are yellow jackets, which are quick to defend their homes, can sting multiple times, and will chase a threat quite a distance before giving up. I think JJ and I–especially me–was very fortunate to have escaped unscathed. I told EJ that we might need to wage war on the yellow jackets because they are so close to the house. I’m worried one of the cats will get hurt. Stay tuned….
This morning after I had done my chores, said goodbye to EJ, eaten breakfast, gotten dressed, and watered the veggie and flower gardens, I took a colander out to the garden and picked more green beans. I felt very contented and peaceful as I hunted in the cool morning for beans that were big enough to pick. I thought that having a garden is a bit like treasure hunting–searching the plants for ripe vegetables and feeling thrilled when I find one. Later I washed the beans and then blanched them and put them in the freezer.
My old food dehydrators, which died last year, tended to really heat up the house so I didn’t want to run the new one while it was so hellishly hot outside. But yesterday was a wonderfully cool day so I thought I would try out the new dehydrator. I took the colander and a pair of scissors out to the garden and snipped some Apple Mint. When the colander was full, I brought it inside, washed the mint, picked the leaves off the stems, laid them on the trays, and inserted the tries into the dehydrator. I’ve never had a dehydrator with temperature and timer controls, so I had to read the directions. It was easy. I pushed the right buttons. The dehydrator hummed very softly. I could hardly hear it. It did not heat up the house at all–at least, not so I could notice. Awesome!
After the Apple Mint was dried, I put it in a glass canning jar. This afternoon I picked some Chocolate Mint to dry. Now that I know that the dehydrator doesn’t heat up the house too much, I will be busy drying herbs–oregano, thyme, basil, sage, and others. I love using herbs fresh from the garden in the summer and drying them to use in the winter.
In the afternoon when I went out to gather duck and chicken eggs, which is also like treasure hunting, I glanced at the zucchini plants and caught a glimpse of dark green. Could it be? I moved aside the leaves and found not one but TWO zucchini! Awesome!
Besides trying to ID the biker bees and working in my garden, I also washed laundry and hung the clothes out on the line to dry. And, of course, I walked Hannah Joy down the driveway several times. The spotted knapweed are in bloom and the fields are a haze of purple. It is actually more vibrant than shows up in the photo below. I have a lovely walk along the driveway.
Seen and Unseen
Sunday afternoon EJ went into the garden while I gathered duck and chicken eggs. He picked a bowl of green beans. Yay! I don’t know how to can. I remember my Mom having a large garden when I was a young child, but I don’t remember her ever doing any canning. It’s a skill I would like to learn someday because I would like to be able to can tomatoes. However, I dry my herbs and I prefer to freezing veggies such as bell peppers and green beans. Many articles say that green beans ought to be blanched before they are frozen. Blanching means that you cook them for 3 minutes to kill the enzymes before you freeze them. However, I’ve also read articles that say you can just freeze without blanching them. I wasn’t sure which was best so I asked a homesteading group at Facebook that I am a member of. Some people said that blanching was a necessity others said it was fine to just freeze them. Some said that beans frozen without blanching were inedible, others said they noticed no difference in taste. Not exactly helpful. LOL. So I went ahead and blanched the beans, but I am going to do an experiment and skip blanching a handful to see which method works better.
Yesterday a large truck with a crane on it lumbered up our driveway. Hannah Joy went wild barking warnings to them. I shut her up in the hallway and slipped on some shoes so I could go out and discover who and why the truck was there. But then I saw the company logo on the truck and realized it was our previous propane company coming to–finally! after more than a year!–pick up their tank. I’m glad it’s finally gone. The company charges a $75 rental fee if you don’t buy propane from them within a year. When they sent me a bill a few weeks ago, I called to tell them that, uh, we notified them a year ago that we were switching to a new company and to please pick up their tank. They told me to disregard the bill and someone would pick up the tank. EJ said that if they try to charge us another rental fee, he is tempted to send them a bill for storing their tank for a year. LOL. But I suspect it won’t come to that.
Yesterday the weather was quite wonderfully cool–only in the low 70s. It was perfect. The temperatures dipped down into the high 40s overnight, which makes sleeping very comfortable. Meteorologists say that it will be cool again today–although not as cool as yesterday. Then temps will warm up and we will have rain this weekend. Rain is good. We have moderate drought conditions this summer and really need some rain.
A couple of days ago when I walked Hannah down the driveway she walked up to some pines trees and started wagging her tail. I wondered what she saw that got her tail a-waggin’ so I looked more closely. I spied Madeline hiding under the pines. She was so camouflaged that I didn’t see her until Hannah pointed her out. Although Madeline is very timid, she held very still as Hannah sniffed her. I thought, wow, this is how Madeline catches little birds, rabbits, chipmunks, and other critters. She is really quite an amazing (and scary) huntress. Madeline is in the photo at the top of this post: Did you see her? Can you see her now in the closeup below?
Hannah gets along with most of our cats most of the time. She and Luke didn’t get along right from the start because Luke hissed and growled at her and lay in wait to ambush her. Now whenever they get too close to each other, Luke growls and hisses and Hannah lunges at him with a snarl. They don’t hurt each other, but it disrupts the peace. Hannah also chases Timmy–not because Timmy hisses, growls, or ambushes Hannah, but because he runs. Hannah thinks it’s fun to chase a running cat. Yesterday I watched Hannah do a little jump near Josette to try to make her run, but Josette is mellow and friendly and didn’t so Hannah didn’t chase her. We are trying to teach Hannah not to chase cats. We don’t want her to think it’s fun or acceptable.
Timmy hasn’t been able to sit on my lap since Hannah joined our family because Hannah lunges at him, he runs, and she chases him. Poor kitty. He loves cuddling, but he spends most of his time now in our master bathroom or on one of the beds, trying to keep out of Hannah’s way. They only way we can keep Hannah from chasing Timmy is if we catch her when she first sees Timmy and say “No!” as she’s tensing up to lunge. Yesterday Timmy made his way to the end table next to me. I told Hannah “No!” as she perked up. I made Hannah sit quietly while I petted Timmy, and every time I noticed her tensing up to lunge after Timmy, I told her to sit. I didn’t let Hannah on my lap because she was jealous and I know she would have lunged at Timmy and chased him away. I took a video of it. You can see Hannah yearning to chase Timmy, you can see her eyes glancing over at Timmy, and then she begins to grumble and complain. It’s pretty funny. Hannah actually did quite well with letting me give attention to Timmy:
Hannah Joy is an interesting dog. She is very alert to the slightest sight, smell, or sound. She sometimes leaps to the window to bark. When she does, I look out the window to try to discover what she has become aware of. Sometimes I’m able to see the critter she has noticed while other times I see nothing at all. But I know that she doesn’t bark for nothing so there was something there.
Yesterday evening Hannah alerted me that something was outside so I looked out the window and saw a doe with her two little fawns walking across the driveway. This is the first time this year that I’ve seen fawns. I was delighted and was hoping to watch them for a while and to photo them, but Hannah barked and scared them off. Bummer. I’m going to have to somehow teach her not to bark at deer.
Early this morning I was putting the sprinkler on the hose after I had filled the ducks little pool so I could water the garden. I haven’t watered it in several days and the tomato plant are looking a bit unhappy. I suddenly saw a turkey on the other side of the garden. I hunkered down and kept still while she walked along the fence and up the hill. She made a “put-put-put” noise as she walked along. I looked for little babies, but didn’t see any. After a bit I got a little tired of stooping down, so I quietly stood up and went back to fastening the sprinkler on the hose. I went over to the faucet and turned it on. I looked up the hill and saw a second turkey. They wandered calmly into the forest.
I went back into the house and put Hannah’s harness and leash on her to take her outside, as I always do every morning: I feed Hannah, feed the inside and outside cats, take care of the ducks, and then go back into the house to take Hannah outside to “do her business.” It’s our routine. With Hannah suited up and on her leash, I opened the door–and saw that the two turkeys had wandered into the front yard. Hannah hadn’t seen them or she would be dashing out with loud barks. I blocked her from going out and quietly closed the door. If there is wildlife in the yard, I wait until they leave before I go outside. I sat in my chair and watched the turkeys meander down the driveway. Then I saw the Mama Turkey with her flock of little ones come of the forest. Mama walked gracefully down the driveway while the little ones clumsily hopped, skipped, and followed after her. I waited several minutes to give all the turkeys time to get down the driveway and then I took Hannah outside.
I love watching the critters. It’s so magical.
Hannah, Our Daugher
Thursday night we finally got a storm–the biggest we’ve had this year. It began to thunder just as I was thinking about heading to bed. I stayed up thinking that with all the thunder I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. However, when it continued, I decided to go to just go to bed. The thunderstorm woke me frequently throughout the night, and a few times I wondered if I should get up and unplug my laptop, but I fell back to sleep before the thought turned into action.
I was so tired from interrupted sleep that I went back to bed after EJ went to work the next morning–not that I’m complaining, we need the rain. After I slept for a bit, I got up, ate breakfast and drank coffee, and then went grocery shopping. I also had to do laundry. We were expecting a slight chance of rain, so I thought I’d had to dry the clothes in the dryer. However, the rain went north and south of us so I thought I’d risk hanging the clothes outside. The worst that could happen if it began to rain was that I’d have to run out and bring the clothes in. The day was rainless so I got all the clothes dried. During Friday night I heard the pitter patter of rain on the roof so we did get some more rain, which is good.
I thought the rain would bring coolness, but it brought heat and humidity instead. Ugh. I’ve been melting. I take Hannah outside, then sit in front of the fan to cool off. Do dishes, then sit in front of the fan to cool off. Take care of the ducks and chickens, and then sit in front of the fan to cool off. We have only one more week to endure before the guys come to repair our geo-thermal heating/cool system. EJ predicts that the weather will turn cool after we get air conditioning–because isn’t that the way it goes?–but we both agreed that cool weather would be good.
Saturday morning I woke up to the sound of Sassy Rooster crowing. I got out of bed and opened the curtains. I saw the ducks Daisy, Rose, Lilly, and Cuddles walking through the garden and I could see Sassy patrolling the dividing fence. I thought, “Huh. EJ must have let the ducks and chickens out for me.” He has done it for me before, but usually doesn’t. Then I thought, “Wait a minute. I don’t remember shutting them all up in the coop last night. I must have forgotten! Gasp!” This is the first time I ever forgot. EJ came out with me when I went to check on them in case a predator had slaughtered the hens. I was apprehensive when the only chicken I saw outside was Sassy. But everyone was ok. Whew. Hot weather must be addling my brain.
Except for the morning scare and hot weather, we enjoyed a quiet Saturday.
This morning we headed out early to TSC for poultry feed. Then we went to Meijers. They have a few products that our little grocery store doesn’t–such as large packages of toilet paper and non-GMO cereal. We bought ground beef that was on sale, colorful bell peppers that were on sale, a cabbage for coleslaw, and EJ also bought a few things for the vehicles (oil, headlight, etc.). On a whim, we threw a package of rawhide bones in the cart as a treat for Hannah. Then it was back home to put the items away.
I gave Hannah her bone. We have bought her balls and ropes, but this is the first time we bought her a rawhide bone. We were curious to see how she would react. Oh, my goodness! She was ecstatic! She gnawed on it nonstop for at least 3 hours. EJ’s long-time friend TH came for a visit. We call him “Hannah’s favorite uncle” because when he met her on his last visit and made friends with her, she wouldn’t leave his side. When she heard him come through the door today, she carried her bone to see who it was, and then she growled at him as if afraid that he had come to steal her bone. Since I sometimes try to take paper towels away from her, she didn’t trust me either and kept turning her back on me if I got too close. We all kept telling her that none of us wanted to take her bone. For the rest of the visit, Hannah totally ignored her favorite Uncle in favor of her bone. I think I will give Hannah a bone whenever we need to leave her at home. Maybe it will keep her occupied and out of trouble.
We call Hannah our “daugher”–a made up word combining “dog” and “daughter” which we pronounce as “dog-her”–because she is our dog daughter. LOL.
After Uncle TH left, EJ and I sat together at the kitchen table and cut up the red, orange, and yellow bell peppers. I like to freeze them for later use. We are growing some green bell peppers in our garden, but not enough to last the year, and I like a variety of colorful peppers to make pizza and other dishes festive. Next year I want to grow more peppers of different colors.
After we had sat in front of the fan for a while to cool off, we went outside together. EJ picked beans from the garden while I gathered eggs
Then we came inside and sat in front of the fan to cool off.
Irrepressible Hannah Joy
Sometimes when I walk Hannah Joy down the driveway, she goes into what I call her “Tasmanian Devil” mode. She gets a wild look in her eyes and a maniacal grin on her face and she races madly back and forth to the end of her leash. I think she just gets a lot of energy built up and needs to release it. She used to stop just short of the leash, but lately she keeps running so she is jerked to a stop by her leash. I have wanted to take a video of her but I’m too busy trying to grip the leash. This morning I was able to take a video of her racing about. She wasn’t be as wild as she usually is. She was actually quite calm.
Yesterday, when I walked Hannah down the driveway, she went into Tasmanian Devil mode and she jerked so hard that she yanked the leash out of my hand and I had to quickly grab it as it slid past me on the ground. This is a bad habit that Hannah needs to break–especially before winter when she might cause me to fall in slippery conditions. After she jerked the leash, I made her walk quietly beside me all the way back up to the house. Later, when we went for a walk again, I attached her leash to the ring at the front of her harness instead of on her back. The chest ring teaches a dog not to pull, but Hannah hates it. She drooped as she shuffled sadly down the driveway, all the joy drained out of her. At the bottom of the driveway, she lay down in protest and wouldn’t move until I moved the leash from the ring at her chest to her back. She’s such a drama queen.
Hannah is like a toddler: If she’s quiet, she’s up to no good. Yesterday afternoon I found her on our bed eating a paper towel. As soon as she saw me, she turned away from me and started eating it faster. I tried to pull it out of her mouth, but she clenched her teeth tightly together and refused to let go. I was able to retrieve only a small portion of the paper towel. Then last night I walked into our bedroom and saw the toilet paper stretching from the bathroom into the bedroom with Hannah at the end eating it.
Hannah was skin and bones when we adopted her from the animal shelter. The animal shelter had rescued her and two other dogs from an owner who kept them outside and starved them. Hannah eats everything so I sometimes wonder what the dogs ate to survive. Hannah isn’t skin and bones now!
Usually I take Hannah outside in the evening and she doesn’t need out again until morning. However, last night at about 12:30 a.m., she wanted out. She doesn’t take no for an answer. She pawed at me, licked my face, and lay on top of me until I sighed and got up. I wasn’t crazy about taking her outside in the middle of the night. However, when we walked outside, I was almost–almost–glad Hannah had been so insistent because the night was quiet and there were billions of stars in the sky. The Milky Way was amazing. I stood in awe looking up at the night sky before Hannah pulled me back to the house.
Hannah has her bad habits and gets into trouble at times, but she’s such a lovable troublemaker! And she isn’t always in trouble. She comes bounding joyfully to me when I command her “with me” in Hebrew. I’ve taught Hannah to sit when we get to the mailbox so I don’t have to struggle to keep her out of the road while I take the mail from the mailbox. She now automatically sits when we reach the mailbox without being told. And I love her snuggles. And her grumbles. We adore her.
This morning went I went out to the garage to feed the outside cats, I found a pile of internal organs. I have been doing very good at disposing of the creatures Madeline kills, but this made me sick. I asked EJ to take care of the mess because this time I just couldn’t do it. He cleaned it all up when he got home from work. Yuck. I don’t want to think about it.
I mowed the lawn this morning while it was still cool. I could tell where I had watered because those areas were green and lush while the other areas were dry and yellow. When I finished, I looked at the weather radar on my computer because I knew there was a chance of rain beginning this afternoon and continuing through Saturday. When I saw the mass of rain heading our way, I thought, “Whew! I finished mowing just in time.” But it didn’t rain…and it didn’t rain all afternoon. I think we got maybe three drops of rain total this afternoon. EJ said this evening that the meteorologists were saying that the rain was evaporating before it hit the ground. However, overnight we could get heavy rain.
I got to thinking that if the first sign a person sees when they enter our driveway is our Wildlife Habitat sign, they might think the property is a wildlife refuge and not know that there is a house on the hill. That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem except I would hate for delivery people to not deliver packages to us. So I thought it would be better to switch my Enchanted and Wildlife Habit signs so that the first sign a visitor sees when they enter our driveway is the Enchanted sign.
This evening I carried the posthole digger down the driveway in case I needed it. With some effort I was able to pull the Wildlife Habitat post out of its hole, but I didn’t have the strength to lift the Enchanted post out. I was glad when EJ came walking down. He was able to easily pull the Enchanted post out for me and we inserted it in the hole where the Habitat sign had been.
The hole where the Enchanted sign had been had filled in when we pulled it out so I used the posthole digger to remove the sand from the hole. Only everything is so dry that the posthole digger couldn’t hold it and the sand just kept pouring back into the hole. EJ suggested that I use his auger so I went to the garage and got it, but it didn’t work either. It was like trying to auger water of a lake–all the sand poured from it back into the hole. I finally scooped the sand out of the hole with my hands, but with every scoop, half of the sand slid back into the hole. It was awful. I knew it was dry here, but not that dry! I wouldn’t have taken on this particular project if I had known how difficult it would be. I finally got the hole emptied enough to put the post in it and then I heaped sand around the post. I don’t know if it will hold. However, if we do get rain, it will pack in the sand and hold up the post. That is, if it doesn’t wash away the sand first so that the signs fall down. Well, if it does, I will just put them up again!
The North Post
Yesterday as soon as EJ left for work, I quickly took my shower and ate breakfast because EJ had told me that the septic guys were expected to arrive before 8:30 a.m. I waited as the hours passed and they still hadn’t arrived so I began to think that maybe I had the day wrong. Then it occurred to me that perhaps they meant that they would be here before 8:30 in the evening. (EJ said later that, no, they had said morning, not evening.) I finally gave up expecting them, but they appeared shortly after 1 p.m. Well, a little late, but at least they came. Hannah Joy suspiciously watched them through the window and barked ferociously at them.
It didn’t take long for the truck to suck up the waste from the septic tank. This is the first time we’ve had the septic tank pumped out since we moved here, and we don’t know when the previous owners last had it done so we had no idea how full the tank was. This is one concern I can cross off my list. EJ said that when he was growing up in a family of eleven, they had to get the septic tank pumped out every couple of years. With just EJ and me here, we won’t have to do it again for a while. I sneaked a few quick photos of the truck and hose, hoping I wouldn’t be seen, because it feels sort of silly to take photos of such things–but I wanted them for my blog.
After the guys left, I filled in the hole and put a short wooden post where the septic lid is so we don’t have to dig lots of holes in the future trying to find it. I am tempted to write “North Pole” on the post just for fun. We do live in the snowy north and the pole is on the north side of the house so we have two reasons to legitimately call it the north pole. Although technically it’s a post, not a pole. Maybe we can find a real pole in the future….? And maybe we can put a North Pole flag on the pole? Or maybe we can just continue calling it “The North Post.” It’s worth considering.
EJ and I always text each other while he’s on his lunch break at work. Yesterday he said he was having a little trouble breathing, which worried me. I always worry about him because I know he lives with terrible back pain every day. Often I pray that God will help us pay off our house quickly so EJ won’t have to work so hard. We keep trying to think of things to make and sell at my Etsy store to help bring in more income. We have some ideas, we just need to finish organizing the garage so we can get things set up.
After reading EJ’s text that his allergies were troubling him, I texted him, “What if we did a bit of ‘what if-ing?’ What if we went ahead and got the floors redone anyway?” We had decided to postpone getting new floors when we found out that we needed to repair our geo-thermal heating/cooling system. However, carpets really aren’t all that sanitary especially if you have lots of pets like we do. We think they aggravate EJ’s allergies which is why we wanted new flooring. Our bedrooms have carpet too, but the living room carpet is especially bad with stains from the previous owner’s dog and hair and stuff from our pets. We have really worked hard to pay off our credit card, but EJ’s health is important. So even though it’s going the wrong way in paying off the credit card, we decided to go ahead with the flooring so EJ can have some relief. We chose the “no interest for two years” option on our Lowes card and we will work hard to pay it off within that time.
So now we have new flooring to look forward to.
Early evening yesterday EJ and I were sitting in our comfy recliners when EJ suddenly exclaimed, “Josette has caught something!” I looked out and our black outside cat was trotting toward the house with a little bird in her mouth. I saw the bird move, so I ran outside and yelled at Josette. She must have relaxed her grip because the bird–it was a cute little chickadee–escaped and flew up into the tree. Whew! I was glad I could save the little chickadee. I think they are so adorable and cheerful. Now there are two critters (a chipmunk and a chickadee) who owe me a life-debt and must save my life in the future. That is, if the fairy tales are accurate. I do live in an Enchanted Forest where anything could happen.
Saving the chickadee reminded me of a toe-tappingly cheerful song by Michael Kelly Blanchard called “Chickadee Cherub.” MKB is a musical storyteller; I love his songs. You can listen to some of his songs on Youtube–or go to his website for samples of his music and to order his CDs. I found the following song “Chickadee Cherub” on Youtube. I don’t think MKB is actually singing in the video, and I don’t like it quite as much as on his CDs, but it’s the only one I could find of “Chickadee Cherub.” Another favorite MKB song of mine is “Top of the Morning.” Click on this link to listen to Top of the Morning from his website and enjoy the picture he paints for you in your mind. You won’t regret it! The song is very joyful and makes me think of beautiful mornings in my Enchanted Forest. MKB’s songs make me feel like joyfully dancing or touch me deeply.
The natural world is beautiful, but it can also be harsh as every critter tries to survive by eating or avoid being eaten. I recognize this, but I’m also glad when I can rescue a critter from my cats, who do not need to hunt to eat, although to hunt is still in their predator nature.
There was only a 20% chance of rain last night, which is very low so I didn’t expect it to rain at all. However, the world was wet when I woke up this morning so it obviously did rain overnight. Yay! I didn’t need to water the garden or trees today. The temperatures have been dipping into the low 50s overnight, which is wonderful for sleeping. The morning coolness also feels refreshing. But then the temps climb into the 80s in the afternoon and that is much too uncomfortably hot!
Sunday we emptied the large crate in the garage, moved it to the garden, and filled it with dirt. EJ and I discussed what to plant in it–or whether we should plant anything until next year. I remembered that we had beet seeds, and it’s not too late for those–probably–so this afternoon I planted some. Our garden is doing very well. The tomatoes are ripening. When it’s not so blasted hot, I will begin drying my herbs. I can’t wait! The ducks enjoy patrolling among the raised beds, gobbling up any insects they find.
I found an interesting insect on the door yesterday. It looked like a bit of dead leaf. I assume it was some sort of moth? It was difficult getting a good photo of it because it was backlit by the light outside. There sure are some interesting creatures in the world.
This afternoon I saw a Monarch caterpillar crawling about. I’ve been seeing Monarch butterflies soaring around our property. They are always a delight to see. They are very remarkable butterflies, taking several generations to fly south and then north again.
I really love our Enchanted Forest!
The Porcupine
Friday night I didn’t sleep well at all so I was very tired on Saturday. Plus, it was very hot and humid. It was a day of doing almost nothing. EJ did more than I did. He cooked spaghetti for supper with a delicious sauce. My hero!
I slept better last night.
The temperature was near 90(F) degrees today but the humidity must have been lower because it didn’t feel hellishly hot. After I completed my morning chores, ate breakfast, and drank several cups of coffee, I went out to pick raspberries. We have many, many bushes on our property, but this is the first year that I have picked any. There weren’t a lot of berries ready in the bushes at the edge of the forest near the house. I only got a handful. The bushes near the big rocks have some that aren’t yet ripe. I asked EJ if he wanted to pick berries with me down in our little valley, which we call Deer Valley because the deer bedded there. But first we were going to empty a large crate in the garage so 1. we could gain space from having it gone, and 2. we planned to use it for a raised garden bed. When EJ emptied the crate, we carried it out to the garden and I filled it with old wood and then garden soil that I bought from Meijers last month. We continued working in the garage and ended up working in it all day. We never did make it to the berry bushes. Oh, well. We made great progress at organizing the garage. Little by little, we are getting rid of the clutter. It won’t be too long before EJ will have a wonderful workshop to create in.
If the weather this last week had been like today, we would have accomplished MUCH. But EJ’s vacation is now over and he has to go back to work tomorrow.
After we were finished working, we came inside, ate supper, and then relaxed in our chairs. EJ went out into the kitchen for something or another and suddenly called to me to come look because there was a porcupine in our yard near the fruit trees! I grabbed my camera and took a not-so-good photo through the window. I went outside, intending to sneak up on the porcupine to capture it on video, but Josette was stalking it, and I saw her pounce, so I urgently called for her to come. Keeping our sweet kitty from getting a face full of quills is more important than getting a video of a porcupine. Josette ran up to me. EJ came out and kept her occupied while I walked around the big rocks. If I were a porcupine being stalked by a cat, I would hide in the nearest cover, which was the plants–berry bushes, lilies, etc.–around the big rocks. I walked around the rocks several times, but didn’t see the porcupine. I didn’t want to get too close to the plants because I didn’t want to risk getting hurt. The porcupine could have been hiding in the bushes or it could have scurried off into the woods when I called Josette. It was so awesome seeing the porcupine. I’ve never seen one before–in the wild, I mean. I’ve probably seen them in zoos, but seeing one in the wild–on OUR property–is a totally different experience than seeing them in the zoo.
One day I would like to get some sort of outdoor cameras to capture the wildlife wandering through our property. I bet there are many critters that we never see because they are nocturnal or keep below the hill where we can’t see them from the house.
This morning when I took Hannah out, I noticed a strange-looking bug just to the left of the front door. It stayed there all day. I don’t know what it is, but it was very delicate looking and quite beautiful. There certainly are some interesting critters in the world.
Refreshing…
This morning was cool and I actually wore a sweater when I went out to do my morning chores. It did warm up later in the day, but it did not become hellishly hot like the last several days. Our bodies feel battered by the hot days.
I don’t know how people in the south survive. EJ and I discussed today how cold is much easier to deal with than heat. If it’s cold, we can wear more clothes, cover up with more blankets, build a fire, cuddle together for shared body heat, or kill a tauntaun like Han Solo did to keep Luke from freezing to death on Hoth. But there’s only so much a person can do to survive super hot days. Plus, if the power goes out, we can keep food cool in the winter but in the heat of summer there is no way to keep the food from spoiling. Yeah, I’ll take cold over hot any day.
The heat had so drained me that I was beginning to forget what it felt like to have energy. The cooler temps today revived us so we felt a bit more motivated. I watered my garden and fruit and evergreen trees this morning, then washed some clothes and hung them on the line.
I recently read an article about Swedish Death Cleaning. It sounds morbid, but it’s actually a concept of getting rid of things you never use so your spouse or children don’t have to struggle to get rid of them after you die. That sounds really good to me. I hate clutter. So today EJ and I found a few things to donate to Goodwill. We could have probably found more things, but we still feel tired from the effects of the heat wave.
We took Hannah with us when we went to Goodwill. Afterwards, we took a drive through the beautiful countryside. We drove past miles of orchards with trees bursting with cherries. We stopped at a boat launch and got out so Hannah could see the water. The lake was a beautiful color, very gorgeous, but Hannah kept urgently sniffing and trying to pull me back towards the parking lot. I thought she would be excited about the water. It was only when we were getting back in the Xterra that I saw that she had smelled a large cookie that someone had dropped. I swear that two-thirds of my walks with Hannah involve trying to keep her from eating things she shouldn’t. Not far from the boat launch, we saw a fox trotting across the road. Cool!
Yesterday I took a photo of the lilies by my enchanted sign. As we drove past it on our way up the driveway, I noticed that the lilies were all gone. The deer had eaten them all. I think that is very funny. We still have several dozen lilies blooming along the driveway–at least, they are there today. They might not be there tomorrow. They are beautiful while they last.
JJ has been looking for a new job, hoping to find one that pays more. He had an interview for a security position at the Hall of Justice but he turned it down when he learned he would only be working about 27 hours a week. He needs more hours. I was sort of bummed that he wouldn’t be working at the Hall of Justice because if JJ got the job, I was going to ask him to introduce me to Superman, Wonder Woman, and the others. Ok. So the Hall of Justice is actually the name of the courthouse in Traverse City. I think it’s a totally cool name, and I can’t help imagining superheroes hanging out there.
EJ and I finished our day by sitting out on the deck and watching the stars come out. We watched Monty the bat swooping overhead. Yes, we named the bat a while back. We like bats. They eat mosquitoes.
I think tomorrow is supposed to be hot again. Ugh. But at least we had today.
Heat Wave
I hope everyone in the USA had a wonderful Independence Day!
We had a quiet, uneventful holiday, which is just the way we like it. Both EJ and I are introverts who are re-energized by beauty, quiet, peace, nature, and animals. We don’t like crowds or drama.
JJ, his girlfriend, and her 3-year-old daughter stopped by for about an hour. They were going to eat with us, but apparently the day got away from them. They were very busy: JJ said that they went to a parade, swam in a river, and after visiting us were planning to go to his girlfriend’s Mom’s place, then visit a couple other people. JJ is completely different from we are. I think he is an extrovert who needs many people and much stimulation. After hearing about his day, I thought that, yeah, I’m really glad he is on his own now so we both can have the type of life we want.
Hannah Joy was happy to have visitors. We aren’t quite sure how she will act towards new people. She is lovable, but quite protective. We usually shut her in our bedroom if delivery or repair people come here because not everyone likes dogs and usually pitbulls/mixes aren’t given a second chance–so we want to protect Hannah. But since JJ’s girlfriend and her daughter will probably be repeat visitors, we wanted Hannah to meet them. She did very well, although she got super excited.
If it hadn’t been so terribly, terribly hot and humid, it would have been a perfect sort of day. It was about as uncomfortable as last weekend had been. We had all sorts of plans to work around the house this week and to maybe go rock hounding one day, but it’s been so hot and humid that our energy has drained away and we gotten little done. And our plans to get new flooring also morphed into needing to get our geo-thermal heating/cooling system repaired.
EJ and I discussed several times the possibility of buying a window air conditioner so we can alleviate our misery. EJ isn’t sleeping well at night or breathing well, and the smallest movement makes me sweat. The problem is that an AC would cost several hundred dollars and as soon as we get the geo-thermal heating/cool system fixed, it would be unnecessary. We were still seriously tempted to get the AC, but we decided to endure because we didn’t want to spend the extra money when we knew the repairs on the geo-thermal system would be expensive. So we melted in front of our fans and ate Moomer’s ice cream. We’ve been having basically one meal all week: hotdogs or hamburgers, potato salad, coleslaw, chips, watermelon, and Moomer’s because we didn’t feel hungry for anything too “heavy” and we didn’t want to heat up the kitchen/house by using the stove too much.
We got the estimates for the repairs to the geo-thermal system this morning. It’s kind of an “ouch” thing, but it pretty much will cost how much I guessed it would. I’m just glad it wasn’t as much as I was afraid it would be–my imagination kept pushing the numbers higher. EJ called the guy this morning to get things moving, because the sooner the repairs are made, the sooner we can have AC. It will make me feel better to have the geo-thermal system fixed because I imagine running out of propane in the winter and the trucks not being able to make it up the driveway to refill our tank.
There was a slight chance of rain yesterday, and we hopefully watched storms approaching on the weather radar on our computers. Our clouds got dark and thunder rumbled–but the storms veered off just a few miles away and we didn’t get any rain. Bummer. Our power flickered off and on a couple times. I said to EJ, “You know, the only thing worse than having no AC during a heat wave is have no power to run our fans.”
EJ read an article out loud to me this morning about a terrible heat wave in New England in early July 1911, and I realized it could be much worse. According to the New England Historical Society article, a terrible heat wave lasted for eleven days in 1911. At that time, ice and electric fans were luxuries and air conditioning was unknown. People fainted, many went insane and/or committed suicide, and thousands died because of the heat. People read newspapers each morning to find out how many had died overnight. Horses dropped dead in the streets. Tar bubbled up from streets. Boats oozed pitch and began to leak. Rail lines were bent by the heat and trains derailed. Trees dropped their leaves, grass turned to dust, and cows stopped giving milk. A police officer described nights during the heat wave as “the Big Wail” because exhausted mothers walked up and down the streets trying to comfort their crying babies. They feared putting their babies down to sleep because some never woke up. Thousands slept out on the streets or in the parks or on their roofs trying to find some relief. It’s an interesting article, and makes me very thankful that we aren’t experiencing such terrible conditions as they did. We have it easy.
After reading the article about the 1911 heat wave, I googled other historic events that happened in 1911. I read articles (and watched actual footage on Youtube) of “The Siege of Sidney Street” in London, the Krays, and the Ratcliffe Highway murders of 1811. I read about the terrible “Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire,” and about the destruction caused by the dam failure in Austin, Pennsylvania. I love following “rabbit trails” through history.
Hannah loved her broth-flavored ice bones. She chewed on them until they were gone.
There are several dozen lilies blooming along the driveway. There are more almost ready to bloom and lots of them that will never bloom because the deer ate them. They sure are pretty.
Mama Turkey brings her babies up the driveway every evening. I love watching them! They are out there as I write this post.
Tonight the temps are forecast to dip into the low 50s (F) and the high will be only 76 degrees. I’m hoping there won’t be so much humidity because that’s what really makes the heat unbearable!
Holes
Sunday evening we had a bit of a storm. It wasn’t that severe, but we did get a little bit of rain. It quickly moved on and left a beautiful double rainbow behind.
Monday was cooler than the previous two days had been. It was still hot, but the temps were in the mid-80s instead of close to 100 (F). We had a little more energy. We took Hannah with us to TSC to get poultry feed for the ducks and chickens and canned cat food for the cats. We stopped at the grocery store. EJ stayed in the car with Hannah while I went into the store to buy a couple things, including Moomer’s ice cream for a special treat. I chose Chocolate Almond Fudge for EJ, which he said was the best chocolate ice cream he has ever had. I chose Carrot Cake ice cream for me. I’ve had it before and it is one of my favorite flavors. Although, as EJ says, when it comes to Moomer’s ice cream there is no wrong answer. All flavors are delicious.
EJ called a septic tank place to come and clean out our septic tank. This will be the first time we’ve done it since we’ve moved here. We have no idea when it was last done. The septic is cleaned out with a large vacuum that sucks up the crap. The guy(s) will be here on Monday, which means I have to deal with them because EJ’s vacation will be over. In preparation for the guy(s) coming out, we had to dig out the septic tank lid so all they have to do is open it. We knew the general area where the septic tank is located, but not the exact spot, so we dug several holes in the back yard trying to find it. I said to EJ, “It’s too bad we don’t have long poles like they use after avalanches to find buried people/items.” When I was a kid, I read a book about a town that was buried in an avalance. EJ said that was a good idea so he went into the garage and found a long thin metal pole. We dug shallow holes in the sand and then he stuck the pole into the softer ground to see if it hit anything. We actually found the septic tank quite quickly after that, and we were able to find the lid. While EJ dug it out so it was completely uncovered, I filled in the other holes. EJ says that from now on it will be easier to locate the septic tank because we know where it is. EJ grew up in the country so he has experience with stuff like this, but until we moved to our Enchanted Forest, I’ve always lived in a town so things like septic tanks are completely new experiences for me. I was afraid it was going to be very, very expensive to get the septic tank pumped out, but it isn’t that bad. It’s always nice when something is LESS expensive than I expect. Usually it’s more.
EJ also called the heating guy yesterday to get moving on getting the compressor fixed. A guy came out and looked at our geo-thermal unit this morning and he said he’d have an estimate ready for us by Thursday. We have no idea what it will cost for the part and labor and only hope it’s not too awfully expensive. I don’t think we’d bother with the air conditioner if it wasn’t that the heating is also affected. The guy who came out today said he had been to our house before. He knows the previous owner, who now lives in Texas. I think it must be weird to see strangers living in a friend’s house. And the house itself looks different: We painted the walls of most of the rooms after we moved in (we just still need to paint the master bathroom) so the colors and our furniture is different from the previous owners’. The house would seem the same, but also different. Weird to think about.
Today was hotter than yesterday but not as hot as the weekend. The temperature was about 90. It was hot enough to make me sweat whenever I did anything, so I would do a task and then sit in front of the fan to cool off before going out to do another chore. I got most of the flower garden in front of the house weeded, did laundry and hung the clothes on the line, and I cleaned the house. EJ sat on the bed to talk to me while I folded clothes and put them away, and Hannah joined us. She and EJ had a bit of a cuddle. It was cute. Danny, our previous dog, was totally devoted to me. Hannah also is devoted to me, but she loves EJ too. I loved Danny’s single-heartedness, but I’m also glad that Hannah is willing to share us. When she plays “fetch” with us, she will bring her ball to me, and then to EJ, then to me, then to him.
Sometimes when EJ has days off, we go off and have adventures, but this week we mostly just want to get things done around the house. It’s very satisfying to check things off our list. Because of this week’s weather, we are not getting as much done as we had hoped–heat and humidity drains us of energy. Still, we are getting quite a few things done.
I made Hannah Joy another “ice bone.” I didn’t have a half-gallon milk carton so I used a paper cup. I filled it with water and put it in the freezer yesterday. Today I got it out and tore off the paper cup. Hannah loved it. I put it on a tray so it doesn’t get everything wet when it melts, but Hannah carries it off to a more desirable place where she can enjoy it in comfort. She growls at the cats if they get close, and I exclaim, “Hannah! The cats don’t want your ice!”
The Mama Turkey has been bringing her babies up near the driveway every day. They like to eat the grasshoppers. I’m glad because we have billions. Yesterday the Mama ate some of the berries from the bushes growing by the big rocks. I saw the family twice today. I’m not sure how many babies there are because they aren’t all in sight at the same time. I kind of don’t like to count them anyway because I know I will be sad if any go missing.
The lilies are blooming. Not that we get to enjoy many of them. We see a few here and there along the driveway but most of the time we find empty stalks where the deer have eaten the blooms. There are a lot of lilies in bloom near the big rocks. I think the deer must leave them along because the ones along the driveway are more accessible. Or maybe there are just so many lilies near the rocks that I don’t miss those they eat.
We can hear fireworks going off. EJ and I went outside to see if we could see any, but the trees block our view. Oh, well. Hannah barked a bit when she heard them, but she didn’t seem to be scared of them. Mostly she is just very protective. She notices every strange sound, every strange smell, every strange movement, and every stranger.
Hannah’s Ice Bone
We didn’t want to go outside in the brutal afternoon heat so EJ and I waited until about 7 p.m. yesterday evening before we walked Hannah–with Josette following–down the driveway to get the mail. On the way back to the house, I noticed a mullein plant drooping. It wasn’t that way earlier. As I shut the poultry up in the coop for the night I also noticed many of the plants in my garden looking wilted. They had looked fine in the morning. The heat was brutal to them. Although I usually just water the plants in the morning, when I saw how wilted everything was I watered last evening as well, including the poor wilted mullein.
Mullien is an interesting plant with a two-year growth cycle. It grows tall–up to 7 feet. Mullein can be used for cough, whooping cough, tuberculosis, bronchitis, hoarseness, pneumonia, earaches, colds, chills, flu, swine flu, fever, allergies, tonsillitis, and sore throat. Other uses include asthma, diarrhea, colic, gastrointestinal bleeding, migraines, joint pain, and gout. You can read more about it in this article titled “Herbs to Know: Mullein.”
The overnight low was about 80 degrees (Fahrenheit) last night. Ugh. It was very difficult to get comfortable, and neither EJ nor I slept well. I woke shortly after 6 a.m., took care of the pets and poultry, and watered the garden, the trees, and the poor mullein, which looked much better than yesterday. After everything was watered, I went back to bed for a little more sleep.
The Excessive Heat Warning continues today. There is a very strong breeze which helps make the heat somewhat bearable. We have all our fans going. Last night I put frozen liter bottles in the coop to cool the it for the ducks and chickens. This morning I put a half-gallon carton of water in the freezer intending to put it in the coop tonight. Hannah seemed irritably hot, so I decided to put the frozen carton in front of a fan. A fan blowing over ice can help cool the air. Hannah had other ideas–she stole the carton and began chewing on it. We were concerned that the plastic wouldn’t be good for her, so I cut open the jug and gave her the carton-shaped ice. She carried it around with her and gnawed on it like a bone. When the cats got too close to her ice, she growled them away. She sure is a funny dog. This video is of Hannah stealing the carton.
EJ decided to call a repair service to fix our central air condition. Our heating/cooling is geo-thermal, which means we get heat/cold drawn up from the earth. Propane is only our back up system. The repair guy says we need a new compressor–and that probably we were heating with propane all last winter instead of the geo-thermal system. It will be quite expensive to get a new compressor installed so we decided we will have to wait to get new flooring until next year. A disappointment, but heating/cooling is much more important. It’s probably best anyway because the flooring cost more than we expected and we would have had to pay part of it with our credit card. This way I can save all year and we can probably pay cash for the flooring next year. It’s going to be rather tough on EJ because the carpet is old and not good for his breathing…but, we can only do what we can do.
The repair guy said our best bet for cooling right now is to get a window air conditioner, which EJ hopes to do tomorrow–if the stores still have any in stock. I’m sure they are in high demand right now.
Storms are moving in. EJ is sitting on the porch watching the storm blow in and listening to his radio and he heard we could get about 70 mph winds with this storm. Great. First we bake in the sun, and then we get blown away by the wind! The good thing is that the storm should cool things off a little bit. Tonight and tomorrow is supposed to be a little cooler (65/82) but the the temps will climb near 90 again the next day. Ugh.
EJ called me outside for a moment before the storm arrived and I saw the Mama turkey and her babies walking up through the tall grass along the driveway. You can just barely see the babies. They are so cute!
Excessive Heat
Beginning on Friday and continuing at least through the weekend–although all this coming week the temps will be in the high 80s (F)–there are Excessive Heat Warnings issued for our area. In fact, I read in the news that this is the first time our local National Weather Service branch has ever issued an Excessive Heat Warning for Northern Michigan. As the woman at the bank who handled our mortgage told me when we first moved to Northern Michigan, Lake Michigan usually acts like an air conditioner that keeps the area cool. Apparently, Lake Michigan’s air conditioning is broke.
Friday morning arrived with a cool, refreshing breeze but knowing that scorching heat was going to follow, I got to work. I turned on the sprinklers to water the garden and the fruit trees and evergreen trees we’ve planted. I also made sure the birdbath was filled and the butterfly puddler was moistened for the critters. Later in the afternoon I turned on the sprinkler for the ducks and gave the chickens a treat of carrots frozen in ice.
I did laundry and hung the wet clothes outside on the line. I could have waited a few days, but EJ has next week off from work and I wanted to start the week off fresh. The clothes dried very quickly in the heat.
I boiled potatoes and our chickens’ eggs, cut up celery, and diced some green onions freshly picked from our garden for a large potato salad. I also shredded half a cabbage and some carrots for coleslaw. Potato salad and coleslaw are foods we can eat cold. I plan to spend as little time cooking in the kitchen as possible.
I walked down to get the mail. I found a bill from our previous propane company charging us a $75 rental fee since we hadn’t bought propane from them for a year. I called them up explaining that we had switched companies a year ago and had called them at that time to pick up their tank and they hadn’t done so…I was prepared to battle them about paying the bill, but the woman told me that they’d send someone to pick up the tank and to disregard the bill. EJ told me later that whenever he called that company, the woman was rude to him, which is one reason he switched companies.
I called Lowes about our flooring. The woman who had measured our flooring had said that they would contact us within 3-5 days with the estimated cost. That was 8 days ago. The man I talked to–the same one we discussed flooring with at the store–said he would look into it. He found our file and emailed me the estimate. It’s more than we had thought, but we are going to do it anyway. Carpeting is actually quite unsanitary, especially when there are a lot of pets in the home, and we are hoping that getting rid of it will help EJ breathe better.
About mid-afternoon, the heat slammed into me and drained all the energy from me. The slightest movement drenched me in sweat. I tried to move as little as possible. I didn’t get much done once the heat hit. The only thing that made the heat survivable was the strong breeze outside–and the multiple fans in our house. Our house is heated by a geo-thermal system that brings up heat and cool air from the earth. (Propane is a backup system that kicks in if the temp goes below 20 Fahrenheit degrees.) Our heater works fine, but the AC quit working last summer. Since we have a huge ToDo list of more pressing projects, and since usually the outside temperature isn’t unbearably hot, getting the AC fixed hasn’t been high on the priority list. EJ has been watching Youtube videos to learn how to fix the AC. With our type of system, it might be a simple fix. However, it was even too hot to work on the air conditioner.
This morning when I went outside to do my chores, the humid heat slammed into me–and it’s only going to get worse later on. People always act as if northern winters are unendurable, insufferable ordeals, but I seriously don’t know how people in the South survive summers. Winters are much easier to deal with. There are many ways to get warmer if a person is cold–put on another blanket, warmer clothing, even heated hand-warmers or a hot cup of coffee to hold and sip. In the Southern heat, a person can stay cool if he stays inside air conditioned buildings, but outside there are only so many things he can take off before he gets arrested. Basically, it seems to me that Southerns are held hostage in their homes by the heat more than Northerners are by the cold. I remember a few years ago we attended EJ’s nephew’s wedding in Tennessee. Whenever we left the air-conditioned hotel, it felt as if we were walking into an oven–or Hell. I could hardly breathe. There is a town in Michigan called “Hell.” Let me tell you, Hell (Michigan) is much cooler than the South. It even freezes over. LOL. Paradise is also in Michigan–in the beautiful Upper Peninsula. I have been to Paradise, but never to Hell.
Ok, I’m beginning to ramble a bit….I imagine that Southerners have techniques to handle heat just as we do to handle cold/snow, but I’ll take cold over hot any day. I suspect that I have snowman DNA because I quickly melt in the heat.
There is still a breeze today, but the morning started out hotter and more humid than yesterday. Ugh. I got the sprinklers running for the gardens and trees, I filled the birdbath, puddler, and saucers for the wildlife, and I gave the ducks and chickens have cool treats later of fruits and veggies frozen in ice water for them to peck at. I gave Hannah some ice cubes to eat. EJ said he read that the heat index (what the temp feels like) is 108 (F) today.
A couple of days ago someone posted in a local resale group on Facebook that he was looking for old mowers. After double-checking with EJ, I told him that he could have our two old ones. He came today and picked them up. He fixes them up and donates them to military veterans who are struggling. EJ talked to the guy for quite a while outside. He said he seemed like a really nice guy. We were glad to help out.
Tomorrow is also supposed to be very hot. I hope it is not this hot all week!
The Bumblebee and Me
I am so freakin’ gonna die this weekend! I can barely tolerate temperatures in the high 70s. I don’t know how I will endure temperatures that feel like they are close to 100.
Because it’s going to be so scorching hot this weekend, I’ve been trying to get as many chores done as I can. As soon as EJ left for work, I started mowing the lawn to take advantage of the morning coolness. Today’s high temperature is forecasted to reach 84, which is still very hot, just not hellishly hot. I had to take several breaks to cool down in front of the fan.
I got the sprinklers going as soon as I mowed the area around the fruit trees. Then every time I took a break, I moved the sprinklers.
After I finished mowing and watering the garden and trees, I took a shower. Usually I take a shower as soon as EJ leaves for work, but I wanted to wait until after I had mowed because I knew that I’d be feeling hot and sweaty and grimy afterwards, and a shower would feel refreshing. After my shower, I sat in my chair and let my hair dry while I debated with myself about whether I wanted to go get groceries today or wait until tomorrow. I decided to get groceries today so I drove to the store, did my shopping, drove home, lugged all the bags into the house, and put everything away. Then I had a lunch of watermelon and pretzels, which isn’t the healthiest lunch, but I was tired, it was already 3 p.m., and supper wasn’t too far in the future.
After lunch, I washed a bunch of eggs and got them boiling and then made egg salad for sandwiches after I went out and gathered duck and chicken eggs. EJ has all next week off from work (yay!), and it’s the holiday weekend, and with the weather so hot, I’m preparing a bunch of easy to make picnic-type meals so I won’t have to do much cooking. Heating up the kitchen on hot days such as we are expecting would be torture.
After much thought, I decided on a location for my magic food dehydrator. I’m putting it on the counter to the left of the sink and dish drainer. There’s just enough room there, and it won’t be in the way of food preparation. Also, there’s an outlet behind it. I don’t know why appliances are designed with such short power cords. It’s crazy. Anyway, I’m very eager to begin using the dehydrator, but they tend to heat up the house so I will wait for some cooler days.
Speaking about the food dehydrator, later yesterday afternoon after I had rested from my ordeal of getting the food dehydrator up the driveway and into the house, I went out to the kitchen to examine it more closely. EJ had wanted metal racks because plastic is unhealthy–and I read reviews from people of plastic trays melting in some of the dehydrators. Well, we had the metal racks all right, but I couldn’t find any control panel. I felt quite disappointed because I had specifically wanted to have temperature controls and a timer. I’ve never had those features before and it seemed to me that they would help me dry herbs at the correct temp and time. I looked the machine over repeatedly and, nope, no control panel. Since it was a Magic Mill brand, I wondered if I needed to say a magic word such as “Abracadabra”–or “Speak Friend and enter” in the elvish tongue like Gandalf had to do to enter the mines of Moria. I don’t know the language of the Elves so that would be a problem. But then I happened to see a faint + and – sign on the top edge of the dehydrator. With rising hope, I plugged the dehydrator into a nearby outlet. And “ABRACADABRA!” a control panel magically lit up at the top edge of the machine. I was utterly enchanted!
Yesterday afternoon I rescued a bumblebee, which is only right since I was responsible for its near-death experience. Here’s what happened:
When I took Hannah outside yesterday afternoon, I happened to notice that the sand in my butterfly puddler was dry so when I took her back into the house, I filled up an empty milk jug with water and moistened the sand in the puddler so the butterflies could drink safely.
Next I checked the water level in the blue plant saucer, which I put on one of the big rocks. I felt sad when I saw a bumblebee lifelessly floating in the water. Obviously, I should have put rocks in the saucer so tiny creatures wouldn’t drown, but I was primarily intending the saucer to be a birdbath or drinking water for larger critters. Too prevent future deaths, I grabbed a few rocks to put in the saucer, and I used one of them to lift the dead bumblebee out of the water because, well, who wants to drink from water with dead things floating in it? As I lifted the bumblebee out, it moved weakly. It was ALIVE! I carefully put the small rock down on the big rock so the bumblebee could dry out in the sun. He was in pretty bad shape and I didn’t know if he would pull through.
I checked on the bumblebee a couple of times over the next few hours. It remained on the rock. Sometimes I wasn’t sure it was even alive but then I’d see a small movement, a leg or antenna waving weakly. I whimsically imagined myself giving the bumblebee mouth-to-mouth respiration as I shouted, “Breathe, dammit! Breathe!” I don’t actually swear, but you’ll have to forgive me because in my mind I heard Dr. Leonard McCoy from the U.S.S. Enterprise fiercely shout those words as he worked on a wounded alien.
The last time I checked on the bumblebee, I thought for sure it was dead. But Josette joined me, as she always does when I’m outside, and she jumped up on the big rock to examine the bumblebee. The bumblebee found the strength to rear back, fists clenched like a prize-fighter, to defend itself from her. I quickly picked up Josette and carried her to the porch, away from the bumblebee, because being almost drowned and then eaten by a cat is just too tragic an ending. When I went out a while later to check on the bumblebee, the rock was empty. I didn’t see any cats near the big rock after I carried Josette away so I’m sure they didn’t get it. I choose to believe that it had recovered and flown away.
It’s probably silly to care so much about the bumblebee, except that I was sad when I thought it was drowned in the water I had set out, and I was thrilled when I saw it was still alive, and my compassion grew from there. Also, I admired its strong will to live and got caught up in its battle to survive. There are some insects that I loathe–like spiders, and ticks, and mosquitoes–and I usually don’t hesitate to kill them. There are some creepy crawlies that I am rather fond of, such as bees, crickets, and butterflies. I confess that when I was a child, I never wanted to be a ballerina, or astronaut, or anything like that. Instead, I always wanted the ability to talk to and understand the animals like Dr. Doolittle. There is something magical about living in an Enchanted Forest and having close encounters with wildlife. It’s not the same as living in a town.
Later I was chatting with JJ on Facebook and I told him that I had rescued a bumblebee. “Do you know what this means?” I asked. “It means that sometime in the future I will find myself in a dire situation and the bumblebee will save me.” That’s how it works in enchanted forests in fairy tales and fables.
Did you know there are many legends in many cultures about bees? Well, not bumblebees, but honey bees? You can search for legends or myths about honeybees on Google. One legend is that a beekeeper must treat his (or her) bees as members of the family. The bees should be informed of all family happenings, from births to deaths and events in-between, especially weddings. Beekeepers also needed calm voices, as the bees did not take harsh words lightly. Either offense could result in the hives not producing honey all the way to leaving their beekeeper. Their leaving was considered very dangerous, as owners who lost their bees were surely doomed to die!
The Delivery
It obviously rained overnight although there was only a light rain falling when I woke up this morning. That soon ended as well, although the day continued to have dark gray clouds and a feeling of dampness in the air. As usual, I stumbled half asleep through my morning chores and then settled into my chair with a steaming cup of coffee. I don’t fully wake until I’ve had two or three cups of coffee.
After EJ left, I did some laundry. I’m trying to do laundry only on Fridays–except for a load of towels midweek–but he asked me to wash his work caps so today became my laundry day. I didn’t try the clothes on the line because, the weather being what it is and all, I didn’t think the clothes would dry. I also didn’t want to have to quickly bring the clothes in if it started to rain again, although the chances of that are slim–or so says the National Weather Service.
Today was the day I expected my new dehydrator to be delivered by UPS. I like to track the packages as they move across the country, and I have text notifications sent to my phone to alert me when packages are delivered. It’s a good thing I do because the UPS man did not bring the dehydrator up to the house. Instead, he left it in The Magic Box. The Magic Box is a large wooden box at the bottom of our driveway. We have been told that the previous owner of our house built it to store his garbage in, safe from bears, until garbage pick up day, but we use it for postal and delivery people to leave our packages in during the winter months when they refuse to attempt driving up our driveway. I have named this box The Magic Box because sometimes packages magically appear in it. Usually the delivery people bring our packages up to the house in the summer months, but this summer they haven’t been, which means when I get an alert, I quickly go down the driveway to retrieve our packages. I don’t like to leave them in The Magic Box too long because I don’t want them to get stolen or anything.
When I received the text notification that my package was in The Magic Box, I hurried down the hill to get it. I contemplated taking Hannah with me, but decided it might be too awkward to carry the dehydrator and handle her. I contemplated driving the Xterra down to transport the dehydrator back up the driveway, but I thought, “How heavy can it be?” Our previous dehydrators, which died last year, were quite light. They were just cheap ones that we found at thrift shops. So I just walked down the driveway without Hannah or the Xterra.
The box the dehydrator was in was so large that the lid of The Magic Box couldn’t close. The box was so heavy that I had difficulty pulling it out, especially since it was wedged tightly in The Magic Box. I finally had to get inside The Magic Box myself in order to lift the dehydrator box straight up and out and onto the ground. I climbed out of The Magic Box and put a second small package on top of the dehydrator box. Stage 1 completed.
Next I had to get the dehydrator up the hill. I took a deep breath and lifted the box by its packing straps. It was heavy. I walked forward a couple steps and then had to put the box down. Another deep breath and I lifted the box again and moved forward a couple steps. At this rate, it would take me until winter to get it up the hill and into the house. I suppose then I could always slide it on the slippery snow…but I didn’t want to wait that long. I finally left the box partially hidden in the long grass at the side of the driveway and walked up the hill to the Xterra. I drove the Xterra down, turned around in our Vacation Neighbor’s driveway, and pulled up by the box. With great effort I lifted the box, heaved it (gently) into the back of the Xterra, and drove back up the hill. Stage 2 completed.
I huffed and puffed and heaved the box into the house. Hannah watched me through the window with great interest and curiosity. She probably thought, “What craziness is Mama doing now?” Do you ever wonder what our pets think of the things we do? I finally got the large box into the kitchen. Then I had to unpack it. Hannah tried to help. I strongly suspect that she believes every package that arrives is a gift for her. Not this time, dear.
I used an old pair of scissors that we use to cut open everything and slit the packing tap and opened the shipping box. I then had to wrestle the box that the dehydrator is packaged in out. I finally got the box out of the box, and then wrestled the dehydrator out and heaved it (again gently) onto the kitchen table. Whoa….it is big. It is almost as large as the table. I wiped down the ten racks as the booklet instructs and slid them into the dehydrator. I am all set to go now!
This is an awesome machine! Since I often refer to our property as our Enchanted Forest, I find it totally appropriate that the name of the dehydrator is “Magic Mill.” I mean, of course an Enchanted Forest would have a magic mill. It really couldn’t have any other kind.
I was tired and sweaty from all the heaving, and pulling, and opening, so I sat in my chair to recover. However, Hannah decided that she wanted to go outside. She doesn’t take “no” for an answer, and she will grumble, growl, put her nose in my face, and nudge my computer aside until I take her out. With a sigh, I got up, put her harness and leash on, and off we went. I took a long my camera so I could take a simple picture of The Magic Box for this blog post. Part way down the hill, however, the Hannah and I and the turkey family surprised each other. The Mama turkey squawked a command and all the babies flew up to the trees for safety while the Mama scolded us from the ground. I had my camera in my hand, but the sight of the babies flying up in formation like the Air Force Thunderbirds was so magical that I just stood there enthralled, camera forgotten. Once in the trees, the babies were very difficult to see–and the Mama was alarmed and Hannah was trying to pull me over to her–but I did manage to get one photo:
I’m actually very glad that the turkey babies can fly to safety. I have been very worried that Madeline, our sweet serial killer cat, would get to them. I’m reassured now that they are not quite as vulnerable as I feared.
I pulled Hannah back up the driveway so the turkey family could get over their fright. I didn’t get a photo of The Magic Box, but I decided to just use the one I took after I wrestled the dehydrator out of it.
JJ stopped by for a few minutes. He works so many hours that we rarely see him but we do talk on the phone occasionally and chat on Facebook. Jared gave me a Richard Castle book based on the TV series “Castle” that he had found at a used book store. He also hunted down Luke, our Sith Lord cat, which is actually JJ’s cat, only he can’t have him in his apartment so he gives him lovings when he visits. JJ couldn’t find Luke at first, but finally located him under the bed in the guest room.
EJ probably would get home super late today because he might help dismantled some kitchen cabinets at his company at the end of his work day–no doubt, from their break room.
Chocolate Mint Tea
During the week, I always get up at 6 a.m. when EJ needs to get up to get ready for work. Often he wakes up before his alarm goes off so he gets up, drinks coffee, and opens all the windows so the morning coolness can cool down the house. This morning when I got up, I walked into the living room and exclaimed, “Brrrr! It’s actually almost cold this morning.” I didn’t realize exactly how cold until I saw this weather map. I wore a thicker hoodie when I went out to do my chores this morning. I tried to keep the windows open–I really did–because the meteorologists predict that temps will reach a high of 79 today and then a cool house will feel refreshing. But as EJ was preparing to leave the house, I began closing some of the windows. EJ laughed. I absolutely love cool temperatures, but the 30s and 40s is just a wee bit too cool in the house.
EJ has said that these cool mornings reminds him of mornings at his grandparents’ house when he was a kid. His grandparents lived in this area, and sometimes EJ’s family would travel north from mid-Michigan during the summer to visit them. He and his eight siblings would “camp out” in sleeping bags in the living room, and EJ says that he always woke slightly cold from the chilly mornings. My family also often came up to this area for summer vacations. We would stay at campgrounds in either a tent (when we were younger) or in the camper (when we were older). Hmmm. I wonder if EJ and I ever unknowingly crossed paths when we were children? My family also woke to cool mornings. My Mom would make coffee on the camp stove before starting breakfast. The smell of coffee brewing on a chilly morning is an aromatic memory.
I ran out of hot coffee too soon this morning so I went out to the garden and picked some mint to make myself a cup of hot mint tea to warm myself. This year I am growing Apple Mint and Chocolate Mint. Both choices were appealing, but I finally snipped off a few leaves of Chocolate Mint. I took the leaves into the house, crushed them, and put them in my tea spoon, which I stirred in a cup of hot water. Then I took a sip. Oh, my goodness! Hot Chocolate Mint tea is heavenly on a chilly summer morning.
Last year my food dehydrators died. I don’t have the knowledge or place to hang herbs so they can dry naturally, so EJ and I decided to get a new food dehydrator from Amazon. I use fresh herbs from the garden in the summer, but a lot of our herbs will go to waste if I can’t dry them for winter’s use. I really would love hot Chocolate or Apple Mint tea in winter. I let EJ choose the dehydrator because there were too many choices and I couldn’t make up my mind about which was best. He chose one with ten steel trays, a timer, and temperature control. It is scheduled to arrive tomorrow! Whoo hoo!
The grass is getting longer so I will need to mow it this week. I’ve been trying to figure out the best day. I like to mow it at the end of the week if possible so it looks nice on the weekend. It is supposed to get scorching hot on Friday, which means I have to mow before then so I don’t die of heat stroke. It is supposed to rain tonight through Wednesday, so those days are out. That leaves Thursday. I will mow as early in the day as possible while it’s still cooler.
When I walked Hannah down the driveway to get the mail earlier today, I spotted a different kind of butterfly on the milkweed. I love milkweed. I think the flowers smell like a spice–almost like cloves. They make a wonderful butterfly garden! I tried to identify the butterfly I saw yesterday with my Butterflies of Michigan book. My closest guess is that it was some kind of Fritillary but I have no idea which one. There were about a dozen types of Fritillary butterflies in the book and all of them closely resembled the one I saw. But I’m sure that this butterfly that I saw today is an Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.
Hannah has a few bad habits. One is chasing cats. She gets along fine with Little Bear, Kee-Kee, and Josette because they do not run when she approaches. Luke, whom I accuse of turning to the Dark Side and becoming a Sith Lord, hisses, growls, and swats Hannah whenever she is near, so Hannah retaliates by lunging at him and snarling. She doesn’t hurt Luke, but she looks and sounds fierce. Timmy is sweet but he is a runner and Hannah chases him whenever she sees him. Timmy spends a lot of time on the beds or in the master bathroom in an attempt to escape Hannah’s notice. We scold Hannah when she chases the cats because we don’t ever want her to think it’s acceptable behavior. Our scolding doesn’t stop her because Hannah is very stubborn and doesn’t give up her vices easily.
Hannah also loves to eat paper, especially paper towels. She knows it’s wrong. She won’t touch a paper towel if she knows I’m watching her. She waits until no one is around and then grabs it if has fallen to the floor or is in reach on a table. Sometimes I have caught Hannah beginning to eat a paper towel, and I have scolded her and tried to pull it out of her mouth. But Hannah stubbornly clenches her teeth and won’t let go so at best I am able to salvage a portion of the paper towel. Often, Hannah poops out paper towels…but I won’t go into that.
I have been finding our toilet paper unrolled a little from the holder in the bathroom, and torn at the ends. Since Timmy spends so much time in the bathroom, he was my prime suspect–even though we have never had a cat who unrolled toilet paper until recently. I need to apologize to Timmy. Last night I walked into the bathroom and found Hannah on the floor in front of the toilet paper holder slurping down toilet paper as if it were noodles. She must have thought she had died and gone to Heaven when she discovered the endless rolls of toilet paper! I should have suspected her all along. It will be a battle to break this bad habit of hers. So far, she is winning. I don’t know if we have been able to help her overcome any of her vices. Hannah is such a stubborn girl, but she is also funny, playful, loving, protective, and a complete joy to have around.
Speaking of bad behavior…I became aware of a situation in which a guy accused officers of racism and of religious persecution when they were called in when a store wanted him escorted off their property and banned from returning. Later, the guy tried to get the officers fired for misconduct. (I later learned they were cleared.) This guy claimed in a video that he was “only trying to tell the store clerk about his Jesus.” He was “Jesus this” and “Jesus that” and “No weapon formed against me will prosper,” and all sorts of religious-speak. He never mentioned that he had shouted obscenities at the clerk for almost a half hour after she asked him to stop. I watched the video and the officers were calm and polite. They were being neither racist nor persecuting him for his faith. Here’s a hint: No one likes to be abused–verbally or any other type–and you aren’t suffering discrimination or religious persecution if you are receiving consequences for your horribly bad behavior. Does the guy really think he was a “witness for Christ” when he shouted obscenities at the clerk or insulted the officers and tried to get them fired? It’s more probable that he drove them away from ever being receptive to the true Jesus. And if a person cries “racism” whenever someone disagrees with him or resists their abuse behavior, they cause people to become deaf to accounts of true racism.
I will try to calm down and breathe. But this sort of abusive fake religious person really upsets me. I think they are the worst sort of people because they misrepresent the true Messiah and turn people from Him. Here’s an idea: If you want to be a “true witness for Christ,” maybe you ought to treat other people with respect, consideration, and kindness. Don’t be deceitful. Don’t be abusive. Don’t swear at people. Don’t falsely accuse them. Don’t try to get them fired for politely doing their jobs. Grrrr. And please, people, be careful who you support on social media. Everyone on his FB page were supporting his “stand for Christ.” Not everyone is honest and you don’t always know the whole story.
I Love To Go A Gardening 