All posts by verily sherrilee

Directionally challenged, crafty, reading mother of young adult
2022, Mysteries, Technology, Travel, Uncategorized

Experiencing TSA

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Last week when we were coming back from St. Louis, we got shuffled into a TSA line where they are apparently testing new equipment.  No taking off our shoes, no pulling out our little baggies of liquid, no requests to dump water bottles. 

At first I thought this would be great but was very shortly disabused of that idea.  After your bags went through the scanner, anything that looked funny got shoved off to the side for additional scrutiny.  In the regular line this happens as well but since our line had been specifically told NOT to pull out anything including liquids or toss water bottles, it meant that more than half of the bags going through got held up.  Water bottles were opened and examined with some kind of test strips, bags were opened and rifled through; it was not a quick check. 

Neither YA nor I had anything unusual but we were behind a few people who did.  So we stood back and waited while watching everyone else’s problems pan out.  The family who went through right before we did were a hot mess.  Three kids, all under the age of five and already hot and tired after waiting in line.  Four adults – it was hard to tell who belong to whom but they were clearly all together.  Because they were told not to take things out of baggage, there was a plethora of sippy cups and water bottles.  Every bag was opened and pawed through (sorry, my bias is showing here).  Every sippy cup and bottle was opened and tested. 

As the kids started to melt down, one of the adults started to melt down as well.  She was angry – about everything.  When her anger did nothing to make the situation better, she got angrier.  Her voice got quite loud, she got in one TSA agent’s face.  The folks with her tried to calm her down, but she was having none of it.

I’ve never seen anything like this in person but it was amazing how fast other TSA agents were in coming to their co-worker’s defense.  And how MANY TSA agents came over.  I was extremely glad right then that TSA agents do not carry firearms or any other weapons but there were enough of them that could have taken this woman down with ease.  They did end up asking her and one of the other adults into a side hallway (six TSA agents for the two adults).  When they came back a few minutes later, the distraught woman seemed a little calmer and she didn’t say one more word.  I can only imagine what they said to her. 

I asked one of the agents who was standing behind us how long this new process/equipment had been in place.  He sighed and said “one week”.  I wished him luck.  Then our bags came through.  All they did was confirm our little baggies of liquid/cream which was easy because we both had them in side pockets of our bags; off we went, plenty of time to get to our gate despite the delay.

Have you ever been a test case for anything?

2022, animals, Art, Family, Uncategorized

Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright

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When we were working on Nonny’s library loan issue, YA discovered a shelf of jigsaw puzzles right next to the desk.  The St. Louis Library system loans out puzzles!  (I immediately chatted w/ someone at the Hennepin County Library to see if puzzles are in our system – sadly no.)  I love the idea of borrowing puzzles from the library.  I only like to do puzzles once so not only do I have to find another home for a finished puzzle, the cost starts to mount up.  YA and I could easily do a puzzle a week (except for the occasional killer puzzle like the polar bear last year). 

We looked through the puzzles and chose a tiger in repose in a jungle setting with lots of tropical flowers and a waterfall – and it was a glitter puzzle!  Since it was a rainy afternoon, YA and Nonny and I dived right in when we got back to the condo.

I learned puzzle-doing at Nonny’s knee so we do puzzles the same: edge pieces first and then tackling the inner part.  YA doesn’t care about getting the edges done first, so she just digs right in.  I tend to look for shapes that fit; YA looks for color/design.  Nonny and I worked on the border while YA started with the tropical flowers.

YA is intense when she is doing a puzzle.  She does NOT like to stop; we did the glitter tiger in 4 hours.  Nonny sat back and watched for awhile and when we got toward the end, I gave her one of the pieces so she could finish the puzzle.  She resisted at first, but then gave in.  A very satisfying afternoon.

Two of the friends that I usually swap puzzles with have moved so I think I need to start a new puzzle-sharing co-op or something!

Do you have a favorite tiger song or poem?

2022, books, Family, Technology, Uncategorized

Nonny & the Library

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The Nonny Reading Program has been going swimmingly.  Using the suggestions from you all, I’ve been sending her books and she’s been gobbling them up.

There are only two problems.  The first (and most important) is that she has a VERY small condo with almost no bookshelf space, so the books are starting to pile up.  Secondly, she’s starting to complain about how much money I’m spending and wants to pay for the books (this is SO not happening).

I solved the first problem when I suggested she donate the books to her church; they have quite a robust food shelf/donations program and I said they should start a little free library.  Her church-mates ate this up.

The second problem was a little stickier.  A lot of people who know both my parents think that I got my stubborn streak from my dad; this is absolutely not true.  When Nonny digs in her heels she is all but immovable.   We talked about the library (the closest branch is quite close to her place) but she said that whenever she goes, she can’t find the books she wants.

I know that technology could help her but unfortunately Nonny and Technology are not friends.  And they are not likely to become friends.  Ever.  I suggested that I request the books she wants via the computer and when they came available, I would get the email and I would let her know and she could go get them.  She said this was fine but she never gave me her library card number so I could get everything set up, despite my asking her repeatedly.  I was starting to think this was her passive/aggressive way to telling me she didn’t want to do this.

I tackled the dragon in her den when we were there last weekend.  I asked her directly if she really wanted to do this.  Turns out that the library card issue was just Nonny forgetting about it as soon as we got off the phone.  We drove up to the library, I explained my plan to the librarian and within minutes it was all set up.  I can access her account from here and let her know when the books come in.  Easy peasy. 

I’m all set now and will be requesting the first couple of books this week.   No new suggestions needed right now but if this system works out, I may need some soon!

Have you ever lost or destroyed (accidentally of course) a library book?

animals, Family, History, home, Mysteries, Nature

Cat Salvation

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I was thinking about Ben’s question about stepping up as I was doing errands yesterday morning.  My mom is also giving up some of the responsibilities that she’s been shouldering (some a little unwillingly) for quite some time.  It’s not going as easily as she would like.

When I drove back up into my driveway, the neighbor girls were eager to tell me that there was a cat out front.  The grandparents were visiting as well and it was clear that between the two girls, the two parents and the two grandparents there wouldn’t be anyone who did anything except report the existence of this cat.

So YA and I ventured out the front door to deal with the cat.  It was a big white cat w/ black and brown markings, very happy to come to me and get scritched and petted, purring quite loudly.  It allowed me to pick it up and that’s when YA said she thought it belonged to one of the houses across the street.  We took it over and talked to the owner through the door – apparently it’s an outdoor cat; there was food & water there on the front step.  When I put the cat down, it went for the food immediately so we headed home.

This isn’t the first time I’ve been elected as official “animal wrangler” in the neighborhood.  I’ve been called to deal with bats twice.  Once an obviously pet rabbit was found in a yard and I got a call; signs up at the vet and around the neighborhood didn’t result in owners coming forward but luckily we found a good home pretty quickly.  I’ve rescued four dogs who have been loose on the street (all four had tags so got home to their owners).  And for several years there was an escape artist two doors down (Duffer) that everyone was afraid of except me, so I had to drag him home repeatedly. 

I’m not sure why I somehow have been designated the animal problem solver but it seems my lot in life.

Have you ever been involved in a rescue mission?

2022, animals, Business, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Weather

Progressing

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The weekend Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

I feel like I’ve been busy lately. Nothing important, just… day to day living.

Crops are coming along. I talked with the co-op about spraying fungicide on the soybeans.  I’ve never done it before, but I know some of the neighbors have and they report a good return. It will cost $33/acre to do it. $20 for the actual ground application and $13 for the chemical. Plus, some beans knocked down in the process. If beans are selling at $15 / bushel this fall, I will need the fungicide to increase yield by 2 or 3 bushels / acre to justify the cost. The neighbors have seen 10-15 bushel / acre increase over not treated so we’ll see how that goes. Curiously, aerial application is only $15/ acre! I’ve got too many trees, too many neighboring houses, and too small of fields to use that, but I was really surprised it’s cheaper. I supposed they can cover a greater area faster. It always comes back to efficiency doesn’t it?

My corn will be tasseling any day now. I’ve seen some of the neighbor’s corn already tasseling. Just depends on those GDU. (1559 to date. +110)  Once the tassel is fully emerged, the plant is at full height. Silks will appear in a couple more days and then one or two weeks of pollination begins. There are so many critical things in any plant’s development but getting all that pollen from the tassels to the silks is a big one. The kernel won’t develop if the silk attached to it doesn’t get pollinated. Hard rains, hail, or storms can mess all that up.

And with the heat, some of the corn is curling up to protect it self. This is a rocky area, so the roots are shallow. Notice how the leaves have curled up?

And the oats is turning color, it just needs to keep standing, no wind storms, and hopefully this hot weather doesn’t boil all the milk out of the heads. It should be ready to cut in a couple weeks. Then get it harvested and the straw baled. I only planted 10 acres this year; less than half of normal because I was expecting the knee replacement this summer.

The straw delivery trip to the boonies of Winona last week was a great drive. 119 miles, took a few hours, saw lots of countryside with very little traffic, met a woman named Sunshine, had lunch in a bar in Witoka where my chicken sandwich was actually two chicken strips placed inside the bun. And there was enough lettuce on it to choke a horse and more fries than two of us could possibly eat. We even found the back way into Farmers Park: A minimum maintenance road that was pretty awesome and I’m glad we had the truck. It was washed out and rough with not one, but TWO single lane bridges.

I mentioned taking two hens to a friend. The next day I had a record 22 eggs! We wondered if the other chickens felt threatened and that they better step up production?? But no, couple days later there was only 8 eggs, then back to the usual 15 or 16. Production varies like that.

The little chicks are blending right in.  Here’s some chicken photos including Rooster 3 minus a tail. Not sure what happen there.

That duck in the brush pile ran down to get something to eat one night and that was the opportunity we needed. The pile was burned. The duck was very put out for a couple hours. Sorry. It’s just the way it is.

My brother helped me get the brush mower hooked up and I’ve been mowing weeds in pastures and waterways. Of course I always have my tractor buddy with me. The corn is a tall as the tractor.

If it’s just grass, I’ll leave it standing, no reason to cut it. But there are a lot of thistles, wild parsnip, ragweed, stinging nettles, burdocks, and stuff that needs to be controlled. I’ll spend a few days yet mowing.

My nephew just retired after 25 years in the Air Force. He had the rank of Colonel and was a Base Commander in the St. Louis area. He had a big ceremony last week and some of the family went down. He’s a big nerd and they celebrated that by having several Star Wars characters there in costume. Unfortunately, Covid hit the gathering too.

Read an article about Ukraine; they are big producers of wheat and corn. But with the war, shipping has been an issue so their storage facilities (the ones that haven’t been damaged) are still full of last year’s crops and there’s no room to store this years crop. So they can sell it at a loss just to move it and get the storage facilities empty, but then they don’t have the income to support the families and communities either. Not to mention a shortage of food coming up. And as the war moved on from some of these areas, they needed ‘sappers’ to clear mines and other munitions from the fields, then they had to drag rockets and war detritus from their fields. Not something I have ever imagined doing, thankfully.

Padawan has been trimming weeds, and mowing grass, and he learned the basics on using a chainsaw.

EVER FELT PRESSURE TO STEP UP? WHAT ARE YOU SPIFFING UP LATELY?

2022, Automotive, education, Family, Mysteries, Uncategorized

Park It!

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It’s been a parking lot few days for me.

There is a strip mall near Nonny’s place that we visited more than once (Panera, post office, UPS store, Walgreens and Starbucks – we had a lot of errands to run).  It is very poorly designed, with parking spaces laid out every which way and with some one-way arrows that everybody ignores.

YA’s game of choice on her iPad this weekend was Parking Jam – in which you have to get all the cars out of a parking lot without jumping any berms to crashing into other vehicles. 

Then when I ran out to get a few things this morning before work, I drove by the backside of the Hub parking lot.  If you have ever seen the backside of the Hub parking lot, you’ll know that it is just wasted real estate.  All the entrances to the mall are on the other side and no one parks in the back – not even employees.  But this morning I noticed that in the last week they have re-painted all the parking lines back there.  What a complete waste of paint and time!

I mentioned to YA when I got home that clearly parking lot design must be a completely neglected part of architecture school – they can’t teach this and have so many folks be so bad at it?  Or can they?

Were you a good student at school?

2022, Art, Fantasy, Nature, Uncategorized

Under the Sea

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“Life is so much better when you learn to have just a little bit of fun, or a lot bit of fun, because we all believe in magic at some point,” Maui says. “A lot of times, life can get pretty dull and boring. So why not just enjoy every aspect of it that you can?”

These words were spoken by Merman Maui.  Maui is part of a growing group of folks worldwide who have taken to the water as merfolk.  It’s called “mermaiding” and there are competitions, including a World Championship.  Even the scuba diving industry (PADI, SSI and NAUI) have gotten on board and now all offer mermaid courses.

A quick internet search comes up with dozens of sites that sell mermaid tails, from very inexpensive ($20) to a site which is so expensive that you have to email them for pricing (some second hand tails on their site are listed around $2,000). 

Merfolk report that they enjoy the feeling of refuge in the water, the quiet and even peace.  “When you put your mermaid tail on at the beach or pool, you become a superstar” says one mermaid who performs and teaches.

I tried often to do the mermaid kick as a child but definitely never mastered it.  Maybe if I had an actual mermaid tail and fins I would do better!

What magical creature would you like to exist? Or to be?

2022, Business, education, Food, History, Mysteries, Travel

Where in the World is VS?

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It’s been awhile…… here are some clues.

The Botanical Garden, which opened to visitors here in 1859, is the oldest public garden in the US and among the top three public gardens in the world.

The first US kindergarten was started here in 1873 by Susan Blow.  (You can still see her original class room!)

The Eads Bridge, completed here in 1874, was the first arched steel truss bridge in the world. The bridge continues to carry automobiles, pedestrians, cyclists and light rail trains!

Several new foods were popularized here in 1904: the hot dog, the ice cream cone and iced tea.

Famous folks from here:  Maya Angelou, Yogi Berra, Daniel Boone, William Burroughs, Vincent Price, Stan Musial, Marlin Perkins.

What do you think?

2022, animals, Family, Farming Update, gardening, Health, Nature, Weather

This and That

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This weekend’s Farm Report comes to us from Ben.

Two weeks plus post-surgery and putting socks on is still kind of a process. Picking black raspberries was harder than I expected, too. But I’m getting there.

Last Monday the two corners of CRP got planted to a ‘pheasant habitat’ blend of wildflowers and grasses. And we got three loads of crushed rock delivered for the farmyard. One dumped in a pile for use as needed and the other two spread on the road.

We have a brush pile of sticks collected from the yard since December, and we’ve been meaning to burn it all spring. Several times Kelly has said “This would be a good night to burn the brush pile” and then we fall asleep on the couch.

But the other night we were out there ready to do it! Aaaand there’s a duck nesting under it. Sigh.

A few years ago, we started a pile of sticks on fire and there was a good blaze going before a chicken came running out from under it. So, we look before we light it now. The duck only has three eggs… not sure they’re even fertilized. But the fire is still on hold.

I’m delivering straw this weekend with my friend Paul, and we’re going out in the middle of nowhere. It’s a Winona Address…and it’s a great drive on lonely gravel roads and hills and valleys and S-turns and I have a printed map because there is no cell phone reception down in there. I love going there.

Crops are looking good. Two weeks ago, I had a photo of Kelly on July 4 and the corn was up to her waist. In 10 days, it’s doubled in height.

Soybeans are up to her knees.

I’ve talked about 15” rows vs. 30” rows and how we like the crops to canopy to help prevent weeds growing. Compare these photos: first is the neighbors 30” rows and second is my 15” rows.

Growing degree units are 1384, 94 above normal for my area. The hot weather coming helps, but the plant actually shuts down above 86 degrees, so we don’t actually gain GDU’s after that.

See this corn plant growing in the middle of the soybeans.

That’s called ‘volunteer corn’ and it can be a problem in soybeans. Because we use crop rotation, usually a bean field this year was corn last year. If a storm or disease knocked down the stalk of corn, depending how much it’s fallen over, it can make picking it up at harvest that much harder. A lot of ears may fall to the ground and grow voluntarily in the field next year. Hence the term, volunteer corn. It doesn’t generally reach maturity with full ears, but depending on the amount, it’s competing with the soybean crop and it can be a problem at harvest.

Kelly let the little chicks out to run at large. Padawan and I took down the fence and they’re enjoying all the room. Of course, a new pecking order will need to be established eventually between the old hens and the new ones.

A friend of mine in town had given me some chickens a few years ago and was ready for more, so I took two of the laying hens and one of the younger chicks to her. At her place, the two laying hens went to her outdoor run and settled right in. The younger one made a break for it. Out the coop door, through the garden (The entire backyard is garden) into her garage, out the big door, across the street, and under the neighbor’s car. Two adults and my young Padawan in pursuit. Padawan really does not have much interest in the chickens, so the last thing he wanted to do was chase this one up the street. Eventually, the young chick reversed its course: back into the garage, back into the garden, in and around all the plants, and eventually, got stuck in a narrow spot between a retaining wall and a fence.  Was captured, and returned to its new home. I really wanted a photo of all this, but I had left my phone in the truck. Use your imagination. Remember, the backyard is all garden so they’re dodging all that too. It was as funny as you imagine.

USE YOUR IMAGINATION AND GO OFF THE BEATEN TRACK. SAY WHAT YOU WANT HERE.

2022, Family, gardening, home, Kids, Mysteries, Nature, Technology, Weather

It’s Not Nice to Fool Mother Nature

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Mother Nature is just messing with me. 

With my front and back yards full of flowers, I do need to think about water during the summer months, especially if there are going to be so many 90+ degree days.  I watch the weather forecasts like a hawk to try to determine if Mother Nature is going to gift me with any free precipitation.  If it’s going to rain, I really don’t to pay the City of Minneapolis for extra water.

It seems that almost every forecast of rain the past month has been a chimera – it shows as 50% or 60% and the radar shows the dark green riding right over my location – then nothing!   Or else it does a very insulting sprinkle for 3 minutes.  Last night I had the sprinkler on in front and when I went to water my baskets in the back, YA gave me grief.  She said “it’s going to rain… it’s 80%”.  I continued along, watering all the baskets and the bales while she made fun of me.  As I finished up, it started to lightly sprinkle.  She smirked as I came in the back.  Then 5 minutes later I smirked when it hadn’t even rained long enough to wet a tissue. 

I know weather is capricious but I would have thought that by now, forecasters could get a better grasp on this.  I’ve said many times that if I were to look for another job, it would be as a weather forecaster.  Then I could get a big salary to be on tv and the fact that I was wrong half of the time wouldn’t count against me on my annual review!

I guess for the rest of the summer, I’ll just assume there will be no rain, unless I wake up to it in the morning!

How much do YOU believe in weather forecasting?