Today’s post is inspired by Anna’s “I went for a walk in my neighborhood” posts.
I normally wait until right before Halloween to buy pumpkins for our front steps, with the hope that they’ll last until Thanksgiving. This is a fool’s errand, as it usually only takes my neighborhood squirrels about a week to figure out there are good eats on the front steps. I almost always get the pumpkins from Mt. Olivet near my house. The prices are in line with other pumpkin vendors and the money always goes to one of the youth groups.
This year YA went with me to choose the three pumpkins that would grace our front steps – normally she leaves this to me. While I always choose standard orange pumpkins, usually all about the same size, YA wanted a big pink variety this year. After she had decided on the big pink one, she let me choose the other two. I stuck with my orange tradition.
As other years, it took several days before I noticed the first teeth marks on the pink pumpkin. By Halloween, it had a good hole so I just turned that side to the back. As the days have gone by, more and more of the pumpkin has been eaten up – as of yesterday, it looks like a shallow bowl filled with seeds. I’m happy that critters get good meals out of the decorations – I hate to think of them just going into landfill somewhere.
What I don’t understand is why they are only eating the pink one? Is this a squirrel mania, like eating one course of your meal at a time? Will the pink one have to be completely gone before they start in on the orange ones?
A favorite book when our children were growing up was “Louhi, Witch of North Farm” by Toni de Gerez with illustrations by Barbara Cooney. It is a story taken from the Kalevala about Louhi stealing the sun and the moon and hiding them. The hero, Vainamoinen, eventually gets them back with the help of Seppo the smith.
A minor character in the book is Sit Behind the Stove, a character from Russian mythology, who lives in Louhi’s cottage. Husband sketched pictures of Sit Behind the Stove, which our children loved. I imagine Louhi’s kitchen looking like this:
I hadn’t thought about this until recently when Kyrill our Cesky Terrier found a small red ball in the yard and brought it in the house. It is an official Minnesota Twins T-Ball that he loves to chase. At times the ball seems to have a mind of its own, as it is ultrasensitive to even the smallest imperfections and dips in our laminate flooring in the dining room and living room. It gains momentum for movement with every dip in the floor and then rolls. Kyrill has learned that if he tosses it under the furniture it will eventually roll back to him. He watches intently to see where it might emerge, and then pounces on it.
The other day the ball rolled under the buffet in the dining room. When that happens, we usually have to retrieve it for him. After a minute or so, though, it magically rolled back out! It was rather unsettling, I admit, and I imagined that Sit Behind the Stove or perhaps a tomten must have tossed it back out.
Who or what are your favorite mythological characters?
Not much happening on the crop front this week, other than it was 17° one morning, and the weeds are finally dead. Still a few Boxelder bugs around.
I got everything put away that shouldn’t be frozen. Except for one hose that was kind of in an out-of-the-way location, and when I pulled it down the hill to let it drain, I had a flashback to how many times I did that when I was feeding and watering calves. Depending how much water they needed, sometimes I would just use 5-gallon buckets, and sometimes I would use the hose. When finished, I would pull the hose down this hill so it could drain as I coiled it back up and hung it on the inside door of the feed room. The door closed into the dairy barn and it was always warm in there in the winter time. In fact, we needed exhaust fans because it would get too humid from the cow’s breath. But we didn’t need heaters. I have mentioned before what a cozy place the barn could be on a winter night.
All that from draining a hose.
The college kids put on 12 performances of our play this week, two per day for elementary school kids plus two Saturday shows.
It was fun to have that energy back in the theater, fun to see the kids and hear their reactions: everything from being impressed with the stairway up to the second floor, the candy machines in the hallway, to the art departments drawings of bodies.
Wasn’t anything lewd, but they sure did gawk. I took to standing right there just ahead of the drawings, talking to the kids, and trying to keep them moving. As long as the line ahead of them didn’t get bogged down, it wasn’t a problem. Thursday morning, I noticed the art teacher changing the display. Just a routine change, not complaints or anything. 😊
I finally got back to working on my shed. I got some of the steel on the east wall, 10-foot-tall pieces below a beam. I hope to have a balcony on that end so there will be more steel above the beam. I cut a bunch of sheets at 5 foot and them on the north wall, Then I put a 2 x 6 on the wall above them so I have a place to hang tools if want, and then will have more steel above that. I also need the outside of my windows trimmed. I thought I had a guy that was going to do it, but he stopped returning my phone calls, so I’m doing it myself. I have a plan for some of it, and the rest I’m making it up as I go.
The other day, as I took daughter into town, we heard the song “Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas. I mentioned the band Boston, and wondered how many other band names there are based on places. Other than the Ozark Mountain Daredevils and Chicago, I didn’t come up with any. The next day she mentioned a song called “The Final Countdown” by the band Europe. I was impressed with her! She’s perfecting her sense of sarcasm too. We couldn’t be more proud.
The dogs are doing really well together. Luna doesn’t seem to like the snow or cold. Kelly sent me this picture with the caption, “Luna watching and waiting for the snow to melt”.
*Header photo from Gonda 14 at Mayo Clinic. On the horizon are two towers. They’re along our driveway.
When I was growing up my family and I used to drive around at the holidays to look at homes all decorated up with festive lights. But that was the only time of year that folks decorated outside. At Halloween, most folks put out jack-o-lanterns but usually just on Halloween or a couple of days beforehand. It just wasn’t a thing that people did.
Well, it’s a thing now!
YA and I spent a little time driving around on Saturday, looking at the fall colors and some of the fascinating displays in yards around South Minneapolis. Lots of ghosts hanging from trees, lots of skeletons lounging around on porches or adirondack chairs and, of course, pumpkins galore. We saw one house with their long windowbox filled with little bitty pumpkins and squash of all colors. We also saw a huge blow up arch that looked like a monster with outstretched arms that you had to walk through to get to the front door. Wondering if that will too scary for small kids on Halloween night.
There were two stand-outs of the afternoon. First was the class of skeletons, apparently waiting to have their school photo taken. Very creative and very funny. Also a LOT of work I bet. I kinda wish I lived across the street from this house so I could have watched as this scenario was set up.
The second photo YA snapped was such a mish-mash of stuff that we couldn’t resist. Little ghost lights along the sidewalk, a funny looking ghostbusters car (looks a bit like a VW Beetle), a dog with a pink hat, a minion, pumpkins, and over-sized skeleton and (my favorite) a dragon! We did see two other yards with this blow up dragon but this one won the prize for being part of such an eclectic collection.
I’ve never been big on decorations outside, although I will admit to a cornstalk along with my pumpkins this year, but I do enjoy looking at others’ displays. And I did look up the inflatable dragon online – not horribly expensive, but a bit much for someone who isn’t prone to overdoing décor outside.
Any Halloween/fall decorations (outside or inside) at your place?
My mom was diagnosed with Covid Sunday. Nothing serious, (well, for a 97 yr old, anything is serious) but she just had cold symptoms. I visited her Sunday afternoon to help with supper and see how she was doing. I used extra precautions. And by Thursday she was pretty much back to her normal.
Monday morning, we learned of the death of one of Kelly’s coworkers. A woman who was the party planner and team cheerleader at work, and usually Kelly’s confidant and meeting co-giggler and chief conspirator. “DD” had become a good friend of the family and she was the first to bring cookies and lemonade when I had shoulder surgery and back surgery. She’d been fighting cancer for 8 years and nothing was working. She started some last-ditch efforts this fall, while being told all the side effects, and the possibility of having about 6 months left. Her son is in 11th grade, and her plan was to be here through his graduation. And then, well, the plan changed. She’d been in the hospital for a few weeks and breathing had become an issue. Then she was diagnosed with Leukemia. She never could get a break. Kelly and I always said she just needed a ‘do over’. Her son is the young padawan who worked with me over the summers. There’s a lot of support and family around and we all hope he realizes that and overcomes all the forthcoming obstacles. Mom and son had talked about this possibility and things are set up well for him.
Tuesday evening, I tested positive for Covid. Made it through 3 years! Just cold symptoms; stuffy nose, a bit of a cough. Tired, with some body aches Wednesday. Right after I told Kelly I shouldn’t be running heavy machinery, I went out and used the tractor and loader and ripped out some stumps and moved some junk, leveled some gravel, and hauled more in, and scraped up some dirt and filled in a hole in the yard that had been there since July. Sometimes we just need to do it, right? It didn’t involve physical labor, and I needed a nap afterward. By Friday I’m feeling pretty good, still testing positive, and I can tell I have covid brain.
Wednesday, I got word of another death. A fellow theater technician in Rochester. Janet was a lighting designer and technical director at the civic theater for years. She had told me her cancer was back and she had started treatments. She said it was terminal, but she might last 10 years, and she laughed. Two weeks later, she had died. I don’t know details, but it’s another reminder we need to be grateful for each day.
Do the thing! Say I Love You! Make the call! Get past the bitterness!
DD and Janet were just such great people. And it sucks so much they’ve left us too early.
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Nothing harvested yet. I’ve said the soybeans should be OK. “There will at least be a crop there” is what I said last week. That’s still true, but they need to actually be harvested and sold before I can count them. Mine still have some green in them. While we had 27 degrees last week, that was only in the low spots and many plants and weeds are still green. And with the damp, cool weather we’re having, harvest of soybeans isn’t happening. According to the USDA production report and statistics, as of 10/15, 76% of soybeans had been harvested. About average. Soybeans are very susceptible to moisture, so these cool days makes them hard to get dry enough to combine, and the more we get into November, the more cool days we get. So, we keep our fingers crossed. The corn won’t be an issue getting harvested. Barring windstorms knock-on-wood. I’d like it before the ground freezes so I can do tillage work.
The puppy. We’ve named her Luna. She’s pretty much decided to stay here.
She’s very food oriented and will do anything we want if there’s a treat offered.
The last few days we haven’t had her on a leash. Humphrey has decided she’s not much of a threat. They don’t interact a lot, and he’s got his pillows, which she doesn’t use, and he just kind of accepts this is what it is now. We give him a lot of extra attention. Bailey and Luna play a lot together. I think Bailey is more annoyed that even Luna gets to go in the house! Luna doesn’t pay much attention to the chickens. She can run 25 MPH! We’re in the gator timing her. She’s crazy fast!
I’ve been working out in the shop the last few days getting the door put on the gator. It’s getting colder out, and we want doors. Our first gator had doors, but it was a lemon. This gator showed up without hard doors; it had the net half doors. I ordered the door kit, which showed up in a box 4’ wide and 6’ long on a pallet just as big. While I worked on them, the dogs either hung out inside with me or outside where Luna chewed up a bunch of sticks.
The gator turned over 100 miles. And at 17.7 hours, that’s only 5.6 MPH, which seems kinda slow. With Luna, I’m sure the average will creep up.
I’ve said before how I take the dogs outside before bed and I spend a few minutes out there watching the stars. My buddy Orion is back if I stay up late enough. Jupiter has been a bright light all year. I am grateful.
Of course there were clouds here on Saturday when the partial eclipse was gracing the late morning sky.
I got my fascination for astronomy from my dad. He loved following the space program and I remember when the Hubble started sending images back to Earth; he was enraptured. He sliced several photos out of Scientific American and kept them in a file in his living room drawer.
When I traveled to see the 2017 eclipse, I thought a lot about my dad. Of course, as much as he would have enjoyed the eclipse, I don’t think he would have enjoyed how I experienced it (cheap motel the night before, five hours waiting in a parking lot with other folks, huge traffic issues getting home). But it was fun to imagine sharing the observation with him, even when the clouds and rain meant there were only a few clear views that day.
For last weekend’s annular eclipse (when the moon is the farthest from Earth and you get a bright ring effect), we got only a partial eclipse here in the Twin Cities. Since I’m making a trek to Indianapolis next spring for that eclipse, I decided to stay home for this one and enjoy the partial. When the time came, I got my eclipse glasses and headed out onto the back stoop, which turned out to be a great vantage point. YA followed me out, laughing at how dorky I looked. She’s right; unless you’ve invested heavily, you’re stuck with rectangular cardboard frame glasses that resemble the cheap 3-D glasses you get at the movies. But then her curiosity got the better of her and soon she was standing out on the stoop with me, using another of my pairs of glasses (I have several). The clouds were moving in quickly but at the apogee of the eclipse, we did get several good views, a few seconds each.
A little later, she shared some websites she had been looking at which showed the eclipse from various locations in the west and southwest, where they could see the whole shebang. She’d been watching for over an hour! She says she doesn’t want to go with me to Indianapolis next year but I feel like at least for the day, I passed along a bit of my father’s interest in the heavens!
Our daughter has been very excited his past week to be playing with Legos. She is an adult. I had no idea there were Lego sets for grownups, but daughter found a store that sells them and has been assembling them as a relaxing hobby in the evenings. You can see one she put together in the header photo. Her most recent purchase is below. Lego has an entire line of kits for people 18 years or older.
She says there is a kit for a large replica of Rivendell from Lord of the Rings for $600. That one is out of her price range but it is tempting. I don’t know how she keeps her cats away from them but she says they leave the completed designs alone if she puts them on her bookshelf. I don’t remember having Legos as a child, but I liked building with wooden blocks and Tinker Toys.
What were your favorite building materials in childhood? What would you like to see Lego offer as a grownup project?
Husband has been the secretary on the board of directors for our local food pantry for the past three years. He has to type the minutes for the monthly meetings, a thankless task. His term is up this month. He typed his last minutes on Saturday.
Husband said he got the motivation for finishing the minutes by promising himself that he could bake some rye bread when he was done. He loves baking rye bread so much he considers it a treat. The bread was really good.
I had a dear friend who was a philosophy professor who would reward himself with a small glass of cognac and a good cigar after grading every twenty essays and papers. I always wondered if his grading of the first papers was somewhat different from the grading of the last papers. Freshman philosophy essays must have been pretty tedious to read year after year.
What motivates you to finish a tedious job? Ever had to write up meeting minutes? Did you ever take a philosophy class?
“Any idiot can face a crisis; it’s day-to-day living that wears you out.” – Anton Chekhov
Sometimes near the end of the day, Kelly and I hug, and sigh, and comment on the plain, old, day to day living. And then we go do something else that needs to be done for the day.
This weekend the Rochester Repertory Theater opens their 40th Season. There’s a celebration planned. Preparations for that have kept us busy for a while. Of course, there’s a committee and some people handled food, some set up lobby displays, Kelly found and organized old photos of shows and people. I mounted a TV in the lobby and some other misc things. It’s been really fun to go back through these old photos. I started at the Rep when I was 20. It was 1984. Of the four founders: Thom, Kim, and Michael had gone to college together. They brought in Jeanne, whom Michael knew, and the Rep was off and running. I came along shortly after that when I worked a show with Michael at another theater, and he invited me to help out at the Rep. Thom was one of my mentors. I learned a lot from him. Kim is the philosophical one. I learned a lot from him too.
Especially at that age! Do you remember all the stuff you did then? With the whole wide world open in front of you?? We did some crazy stuff. From the banner over Broadway, to the all night cast parties, to the floats in parades, and the acquisition of lumber. They are great memories.
We’ve all been there; young and broke and you did what you had to do to survive. It’s where I ‘courted’ Kelly. I had met her at the Rochester Civic Theater, but I got her to work on a show at the Rep. That way I knew where she’d be every night. (Another fun fact; the Rep was performing at the college that summer, in Hill Theater, where I now work. We joke we courted in the parking lot.)
But that fact we made it forty years. Wow. It wasn’t always easy, and there was talk of closing the doors a few times. Our Treasurer, Mark, had more than a few sleepless nights. It will be fun to catch up with people and visit with people we haven’t seen in 30 years. I was in some shows, as well as working backstage. When the guys gave me a key to the building, little did they know what they were getting in me. But I thought I was pretty hot stuff to get a key! I named calves after everyone. In those days before photoshop, I would make two copies and would cut out the calf photo and stick it on a photo of their theater office.
This was me in the show “Loot!”
Some of the neighbor’s cows came to visit one day. Our regular rental cows are about ready to go back home, so the guys are letting them come into the barn yard and will haul them out one of these days. So, when I saw a cow there, I wasn’t too surprised. But Kelly said it was an unusual coloring. It was an Oreo cow and I know we don’t have one of them in the pasture. Been a while since I had to chase a cow. At least it wasn’t midnight in a cornfield and chasing cows by sound. Been there done that and it’s a miserable experience. These two cows were already in the yard, so we just had to lock them in the pole barn, and call the neighbor, and he showed up with his trailer and one went in easy while the other one had to make 3 trips around the pen and scatter us a few times before she went in. I told them I didn’t miss chasing cows.
One morning as I made a sandwich for work, the bread drawer became too much even for me. I keep a supply of twist ties in there; never know when you might need one. But the crumbs, the excessive supply of twist ties (seriously, when’s the last time I used one??) and the package of tortilla shells that expired in June. Sigh. Cleaned it all out, vacuumed it, And, it made me happy. Sometimes we just hit our limit. Sometimes it’s the little things.
Picked up a stray dog for the township. She’s a sweetheart. I don’t know if we’re keeping her yet. Our existing dogs aren’t sure yet. Especially the chickens aren’t sure. No collar and haven’t found any missing dogs matching her description. I’ve told the deputies we have her. We’ll see. You’ll know if she’s still here next week.
Oh. The Farm update. A lot of neighbors are going on soybeans. Mine are still turning color and starting to lose some leaves. The rye is growing, along with the oats left in the field, (header photo) but at least it looks pretty good. The corn. It’s odd how there will be green plants right next to dried out plants. I’m not sure what’s up with that. Different maturity seed in the bag?
Fall is here. We’ll be completing the circle soon.
Over the weekend I was driving in the left lane on 66th when a white car pulled in front of me. I was started to grumble my usual sarcastic “Thanks for signaling” when I noticed the driver had his left arm sticking straight out of his window. After a bit I thought maybe he was signaling his turn but that seemed so ancient of a gesture that I was sure I was wrong. Then he signaled again with his arm when he moved over into the left-turn lane.
His brake lights were working fine so I don’t know if his turn lights don’t or if he just likes the breeze on his arm on a lovely day. What I do know is that using your arm for a turn signal, while it was taught routinely when I was a kid, is not taught now. YA had no idea what I was talking about when I asked her.
Do you have air-conditioning in your car? Or do you prefer opening the windows to get the breeze?
Trail Baboon 