I got a surprising phone call this morning.

So I am out in the garden picking radishes (those Rat Tail radishes really do put out in the summer heat, record heat and I just canned 14 jars of pickled radishes) when Morg hollers out the door that I have a phone call. I thought "Who the heck would be calling *me* on a Sunday morning?" When I get to the phone and say "Hello." I hear "TJ?" I used to go by TJ but it has been a long time and as I was running though my mind who would be calling me that name, I came up with *one* person just as she identifies herself. Yep it was her. It was quite a surprise and we were on the phone somewhere around two hours talking and still didn't finish catching up but we had to hang up.

I am thrilled she called and I've really needed a friend recently just to talk about the ups and downs of life. The  email "support group" I used to use let me down real bad a few months back. I had been growing away from them for a bit, maybe less growing and more depression had to do with that since my sabbatical, now that I recall, took place during and after cancer treatment. But then I started interacting more and things seemed to be fine with the group. The group owner's wife  had a heart attack and he understandably was away from the list for a short time and people quit posting. I wrote a post that he would not want that and to keep the posts coming so at the time I was being quite active in the group. About 3 weeks later I made a post  and wrote about finding out my favorite aunt was dying. Since the list owner's wife was in the process of dying herself I harbor no ill feeling toward him whatsoever for missing the post, I know he would have said something. (I think he is the only one that reads my blogs and is hearing this stuff for the first time, but he has probably been wondering anyway why I have disappeared from the list.) But not one person made a comment, not one "I'm sorry" or "What a drag" or "Damn that sucks," nothing. I realized I had not really felt "supported" by the group at all since I had been back, it was friendly but…  I sort of have had a hard time even reading the posts anymore and have not posted. A support group isn't any good if there is no support for one anymore. A lot of the people had changed, maybe I was just too odd for an odd bunch.

So, having an old friend look me up was really nice. She and I had been through many things, good and bad, together. We knew each other since I lived in Bailey CO. I don't remember the exact year but it was around 1989 or 1990. We still have more catching up to do.

Trouble Ahead

 For a while now we have had only one vehicle, an extended cab pick-up truck; the kind with a small back seat. That was fine when the kids were small AND we had another vehicle for most trips. The truck is not the best in gas mileage and the main purpose for it was to haul hay and be a second vehicle when needed. There was another vehicle that got better mileage and had more room inside for passengers--it had a good payload too for those big store trips; but that poor vehicle was used heavily and eventually became non-usable. So, we were stuck with the truck as the only transportation. It is hard to go to the store when it is raining (not that it has rained here any time recently this year). The ride is rough (I do not know if I need to take a pain pill just because of the truck ride or if any vehicle ride hurts as I haven't been in any other vehicle since my surgery was kind of fresh). The kids have gotten a lot bigger too. But we have been managing.

Well, Ron was doing some maintenance on the truck on Monday. He discovered that a noise he thought was caused by one of the running boards was, in fact, was being caused by a broken frame. That is bad, very bad.

I have been trying to figure out how to afford the tires we needed for it.

I have no clue as to how to afford a new vehicle all together. I have been trying to figure that one out for over two years because of the whole "truck is too small for us all (etc.)" situation.

Now it is even worse because the new vehicle has to be able to move hay as the current truck is useless for that now. It is not safe to drive, really. We have a neighbor that has heavy-duty welding stuff and will be able to weld the frame to make it safe as a light -duty truck, hopefully today (Tuesday) but we have yet to talk to him.

We were in need of a second vehicle, now what? I am panicking a little..

What a Busy Few Weeks

Oh goodness I am exhausted. My two stepdaughters decided to come out for a visit from Colorado with their kids, as it turned out it was only two out of the three grandkids that came though; it still doubled the house population. The planning stage was confusing, back and forth on when and how long, etc. One of the kids is autistic also. We are no strangers to autism here as my eldest (Ron's third) child, Tink, is autistic. But autism is as individual as each unique person. And he used to have a tendency to dump things out, like shampoo, medicine, cereal, etc. and our house was not set up well for him. We had almost all of our meds and bathroom stuff in boxes in the kitchen because we needed to redo the hallway outside the bathroom. To say it had been going slow is an understatement, I had been waiting for Ron to finish something before moving on to painting and he was apparently waiting for me to paint before he finished doing the door to the tub works. But the hall had to get done before they got here for safety and space reasons. I went ahead and painted but I still think it should have been done the other way around, as it is something didn't get caulked that should have and now I am not sure it can be because we hung a set of shelves in the spot and it leaves that spot with only a fingers width to get to the gap between the wall and the door frame for about half of it. And the other half will really show up when caulked if I don't go back and repaint that area. Anyway, the floor also was needing tiled. We have had the tile for a while, and the paint, so at this point no money was needed to do it. Then I noticed that where the hall floor met the bathroom was not equal, the hall had a dip right there that at its worst point was about a half inch. So we had to get some  floor leveling stuff and it had to go on in a few layers because of the depth of it. The put the whole thing behind a little bit and they final date of them showing up was still not decided. But I got it done and the floor tiled. Oh, and I forgot to mention that the white paint turned out to be a light gray. I was concerned about that because this hallway is dark, it just swallowed light, but luckily it would not clash with the medium gray that I was planning on painting the trim work. The paint was also a semi-gloss (planned) whereas the old paint was a flat, semi-gloss reflects (and cleans) better than flat paint and brightened up the hall more than I expected especially with a darker color than I had wanted. Then adding a light colored tile to the floor--my golly we can see in the hallway now! Now for the fun part. The date had been decided and we still had a few days but the free-standing cabinets we had in the kitchen needed to be emptied of food and other kitchen stuff and moved to the hall and filled with bathroom stuff. Of course this still leaves the kitchen a flippin' mess and after quite a few years of trying to explain to Ron the free-form box shelves I wanted in there I gave up and defaulted to regular shelves--which we didn't have. We bought the shelf brackets and got those hung and Ron fetched some shelving wood from the neighbor and got some shelves put up, not all. We are running out of time before thy get here at this point but we still could get almost all of it done--but the kids left a day early. So, when they got here there was still food in boxes on the floor. Oddly, we still had more kitchen floor than we have had in a while. We got a couple more shelves up on their second or third day here and we are down to just two boxes on the floor but the renovations pretty much came to a standstill as our house population doubled. The hallway looks great though.

So the kids were here for eight days, eight hectic days, from Thursday to Thursday. It was a good visit though. And the one grandkid doesn't dump things so much anymore, thank goodness.  We went into town on Friday evening to watch the annual firework show, the kids were all excited, Tink just *loves* fireworks. We got there a bit early so we could get a good spot and the kids could use the playground, both boys are eleven. About ten  to fifteen minutes before the show was probably going to start it was announced that it was cancelled due to the drought conditions. It made sense but I really think they could have cancelled it earlier in the day, we were not the only ones out there and inconvenienced. We stopped by the fireworks tent in town and bought some of our own to set off to alleviate the kids tension. We did our annual show on Wednesday, the actual holiday and the night before they left. Some neighbors showed up to join the fun. For the first time we accidently set a couple of fires with them. We were prepared, even with no drought we keep a bucket of water to douse used sparklers and Roman Candles, and we have the hose nearby and ready. One of the fires might have happened even in a normal year, the one that set it off had sort of blown up, well, that is a bit strong but misfired would be too mild of a description. Ron got his hand a little burnt, nothing serious. We also went to Baker Creek Seed's Bakersville in Mansfield. It is a old timey village. Ron took Morg and the non-autistic grandson out shooting; Morg has been shooting off and on for a bit now but the grandkid had never fired a gun before. They all had fun but Ron was real happy he got to take the kid out the very first time. I was up until 3-3:30 every morning talking to the girls, they would sleep in and I had to get up for chores.

The heat for the last few weeks has been unbelievable. We have been breaking records left and right, including the hottest day of June since record keeping began. The weird part is that the humidity has been low, very low. The weather folks have been calling it a "saving grace" but I really think we would be better off with a tad higher humidity. When each breath robs one of vital moisture and after ten minutes outside, in the shade even, one needs to drink a pint of water just to replace what you exhaled, it is too damned dry.  This is the Ozarks and we have been real close to single digit humidity. And breezes do no good to help cool because the sweat  dries too fast to get the body wet to catch it. Between a sauna and a dehydrator, I prefer the sauna.

The good news is that we are expecting a cool-down and some rain after today (another record breaker but there is moisture in the air).

I write this in MS OneNote and the paste it to the Blogger site. As I was getting ready to post it I go to the Blogger Dashboard and get a warning that Blogger does not support my browser anymore, I use Firefox, and I should switch to the Google Chrome because not all features will work otherwise. Screw you Google I dislike Chrome and you are getting more and more domineering.

My 'puters return

My computer fan had been struggling and making noise and I knew I needed to replace it--it was too far gone for just a cleaning to be right. We had recently got Morg's back after some work (it had lost its ability to charge) and the guy did the work well for a reasonable price. I am a little uncomfortable getting into this little netbook because my eyes are just not working well and I had/have many other things on my plate to do so I decided to have this same guy do the fan. Ron had been dealing with him so I told him to call the guy and find out how long it will take to replace the fan. I should have been much more specific but it was more of a reminder as we had covered it once before. I have been babying it to keep it from getting too hot for about two months and didn't want to be without it for any length of time--I thought when I was told a couple of days to replace the fan that meant I would have it back in a couple of days. He did not have the fan in and *that* is what I wanted Ron to get the guy to do, order in the fan then have us drop off the 'puter.  I think maybe Ron gave the guy the idea my 'puter was the same as Morg's (he has fans for that model)  but I have an earlier model and it is not the same; he didn't have a fan for mine. But after the phone call, Ron said he was to take it in that evening and it would be a couple days. I asked if he had the fan already and Ron told me had had lots of fans. A couple hours after the 'puter was dropped off, Ron was still in town, the guy calls and tells me that he cleaned the fan up but the bearings were shot. Heck, I knew that without taking the thing apart--it can't run with hair and dust wrapped around it for long without tearing up the bearings and it ran long. He said he had to order in the fan and so it would take a few more days. That was what I was trying to avoid. He offered to let us take the 'puter back and he would call. But I had no way to get hold of Ron in town and it was Thursday so the next time anyone would be heading that way  would be Saturday and then when he got the fan it (on Monday or Tuesday) we would have to just run it right back to him, making a special trip to do so. I was a tad irked because this was the very thing I wanted to avoid, him having the 'puter during fan shipping time, but saw no point in that. Well, a week and a half later, the fan he ordered with a rush shipping never came; he ordered another and it hadn't come in yet. I told Ron get my 'puter. Aside from the internet, I use MS OneNote for a few things including my garden map--and I need that so I am not lost; at this time of year it is too easy to confuse melon with cucumber, some plants are new to me and I am not so familiar with the look of it, and until there is fruit there is no easy way to tell variety; row markers/garden tags always seem to fade. The garden maps, or should I say maps, have been wonderful. We have two fenced gardens plus three unfenced and they spread out a ways. Living in a holler we need to take advantage of full sun where we have it, even if it is only a small spot of it.  And then there *is* the internet part of it. Granted, I have not been overly active but I do have email (I still haven't caught up on)  ad some other things I don't like letting go for more than a couple /few days at a time. And, we use Google voice a lot to save money on long distance. Considering that we can't even call the police or fire dept. as a local call and sometimes a call needs made when the 'puter isn't on, I will not cancel our long distance service but since about the only local calls are pretty much our next door neighbors, the bills can add up. Morg has it  on her computer but it is an imposition to be hitting her up all the time to call up folks. I am glad my 'puter is home, I wish it had a new fan.

I wanted to write about the movie we saw today but I think I ought to let my machine cool a bit first.

A Funny Letter

I first saw this around eight years or so ago, I am thinking one of my sisters sent it to me. My husband just found it again and I have to share (and not lose it again).

Letter from a farm kid

AT SAN DIEGO MARINE CORPS RECRUIT DEPOT

Dear Ma and Pa:

I am well. Hope you are.

Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before maybe all of the places are filled. I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m., but am getting so I like to sleep late.

Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing. Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water.

Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, and stuff, but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food. But tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by two city boys that live on coffee. Their food plus yours holds you till noon, when you get fed again.

It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much. We go on "route" marches, which the Platoon Sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it is not my place to tell him different. A "route march" is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks. The country is nice, but awful flat.

The Sergeant is like a schoolteacher. He nags some. The Capt. is like the school board. Majors and Colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none.

This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting. I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move. And it ain't shooting at you, like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in little metal boxes.

Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home.

I'm about the best they got in this except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake. He joined up the same time as me. But I'm only5'6" and 130 pounds and he's 6'8" and weighs near 300 pounds dry.

Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.

Your loving daughter,

Gail Ann

Pasted from <http://gobobpipe.com/funniesAndFollies_farmKidLetter.html>

Gee, More About the Weather (and the garden)

We have been short of rain, or any kind of precipitation this year, and I wrote about the 1/9 inch we got last week. Well the night before last we got a 1/2 inch and then last night we got another 1 1/2 inches of rain. AND we are expecting more tonight. Woo Hoo! It has been coming down so most of it is soaking in rather than running off so that is double the good news.

We, like much of the country, have been running on the warm side of normal but we get a couple days here that will be in the upper 60;s. Of course, we just got the pool set up and the kids got in it today for the first time and now we get a couple days too cool to swim. We often have the pool set up by the end of April but it didn’t get done that early this year. Brianna hasn’t been hassling us this year and I was focusing on the garden.

Speaking of the garden, those Rat's Tail radishes are producing like mad now. I have refrigerator pickled some and they are good that way too; which is good because they are prolific enough that we are not eating them all while fresh. They haven't minded the record breaking heat at all that I can tell. These are supposed to have been very popular a couple hundred years ago and are heirloom veggies that I highly recommend. I got seeds at www.rareseeds.com at a place I have been getting seeds from for years called Baker Creek; it is a  great place for open pollinated seeds ( NO GM FOODS!).

The other new things we are trying this year are purple tomatillos, a new cucumber called Dragon's Egg (we have been growing a Lemon Cuke), and a or the Burr Gherkin, a cucumber relative that people buy as little sweet pickles, and a tomato called Violet Jasper. We have a tomato that we love called Fox Cherry but we want to be sure we have the best for here and we can grow two kinds and still keep the seeds true. We can't get big tomatoes to ripen and the Fox Cherry is BIG for a cherry tomato, about the size of most whole peeled tomatoes in cans, and they ripen. The Violet Jasper is supposed to be about the same size so we are trying them.

It was too hot for peas this year.

Besides the radishes, we have had a couple of summer squash--which is new too come to think of it. It is called Table Dainty and is a striped oval thing. It is pretty good but I have yet to decide whether I like it better than the Lemon Squash that we usually do. We have had problems in the past couple/few years with those; the plants not producing well before they die off usually by squash bug infestation of that wilty thing caused by cucumber beetles. They used to do better before we lost them. I wish I could figure out what to do with the squash bug thing, we have been battling them for too long and the problem is not getting better. It is tempting to go for the non-organic methods but  I am still holding out...

Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self.

Cyril Connolly

Dark Shadows

My family and I went to see the movie "Dark Shadows" on Sunday. I have been meaning to write about it since but every time I get ready to write my husband starts talking to me and then I get to tired--I am trying to ignore him now (not really). I am not sure how I feel about the movie. If I had no knowledge of the original "Dark Shadows" soap opera I would probably have really liked it. Depp seemed to feel comfortable with the part and was entertaining. I am trying to think of how to describe it without giving away anything….I could start with the year of Barnabas being freed from his chained coffin. The soap started in 1966 and ended in 1971, Barnabas came into the series about six months in, so that would be 1967 that he makes his appearance. The movie takes place in 1972. This is insignificant, really, but I am curious as to why if they were going to change the time that they chose 1972-- just slightly more modern than the soap but not fully modern. And, in the soap the Collins were not as well-to-do as they had been in the past but they were still doing just fine compared to the average townsfolk. In the movie, the Collins were on hard times. And in the movie, Elizabeth, the current family matriarch, is aware right away that Barnabas is a vampire--that does not follow the soap either. Certain main characters were missing in the movie, or combined, two characters into one. Dr. Hoffman wasn't already there when Barnabas comes to stay in the soap like she is in the movie. And the introduction of the werewolf was, um, weird. In the soap that person was not a werewolf. Also, it seemed as though something pertinent to the werewolf situation had been cut out of an earlier part of the movie; I base this on a comment made when the werewolf shows up. But there was little point in having the werewolf in the movie at all. And there was no time travel in the movie. I remember watching "Dark Shadows" as a little kid, it was creepy, this movie was set up to be humorous.

The ending was set up for a sequel; I would watch it.

We have been watching the old soap on DVD, that is why I am sure about how things started in the show. I was way too you young when it started. And while I remember various scenes I do not recall story lines or how it ended.  So watching it this way is kind of fun. It is going a bit slower than I anticipated though; we have to find the money for the DVDs and the time for all of us to sit in front of the TV for a bit.

I mentioned I do not recall how the soap ended, I do remember not being able to watch it in those final months because I was foolish and I remember being chastised by my sister for causing us to not be able to watch it. There was this one scene that scared me and so I left the TV room and told my mom when she asked what was wrong that "Dark Shadows" had scared me. My mom didn't watch it with my sister and I and she knew little about it, I guess, and she didn't know that it usually didn't scare me like that. We couldn't watch it anymore. My sister was pissed. I shouldn't have told Mom about it. Can't go back and undo it though.

I did watch the revival series in the 90's. I do not remember much of it, it didn't last long. I do not recall it being bad though.

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards.

Robert Heinlein