Category Archives: Family

Family, gardening, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Making Friends

23 Comments

The wooden frame in the header photo is one of three that Husband and I constructed on Sunday.  They will have poultry netting stapled to them and then will be connected  to posts in the garden and will serve as pea fences.  They are 12 X 5 feet and we constructed them with cedar slats, bolts, washers, and nuts. I got a new Dewalt battery operated drill out of the deal.

It took us somewhat longer to construct them than we anticipated, as we had the invaluable help of a 4 year old boy and his 6 year old sister, our next door neighbors.  (Their dad was constructing wooden planters in his garage, and I think he was glad the kids were with us.) They find whatever we do to be absolutely fascinating, and they were so excited to help us. They fitted the bolts with washers, put the bolts through the holes, waited impatiently as Husband and I fitted the slats together, and then they secured the bolts with another washer and nuts.  It took some patience on our part to make our instructions clear and wait while those little fingers got everything connected and screwed down, but they were having so much fun!

The 4 year old is quite a conversationalist, and asked lots of questions about all sorts of things, each question beginning “Mrs. Dr. Boomgaarden, what is . . . .?”  His sister assured me that they would help us when ever we needed them, and would we be home working outside tomorrow, and then her brother cemented our friendship by asking when we were going to have a sleepover at our house?   He seemed to think that it was a very reasonable thing to do. I told him we couldn’t because Husband snored and no one would be able to sleep, but I was very touched.  We must be friends!

Tell about some of your friends and what makes them special.  Who were your favorite adults when you were a child?

Family, Food, gardening, home, Nature, Travel, Uncategorized

Whew!

33 Comments

We were asked to go fishing on Lake Sakakawea on Saturday with a colleague and his sweetie.  He is in his 70’s, still works at my agency as a psychologist, and loves to fish. He has a rather nice boat, about 20 feet long,  with a live well, windshield, and comfortable seating.  It had been a couple of years since we had gone fishing with him, and he was excited to spend some time with us. He has been working from home since the virus struck, and has felt rather isolated.  It is a two hour drive up to the lake on oilfield highways, and we planned to leave about 6:00 am. We were in charge of the lunch, and I had prepared Baboon Joanne’s Southwest Salad, rhubarb muffins, banana bread, and ham and beef sandwiches.

At 5:00 AM, our friend phoned and said he was in too much pain from bone spurs in his neck, and he had to cancel the trip. I felt sorry for him,  but I was so happy we didn’t have to go. I don’t like boats, I especially don’t like boats on big lakes, and I find fishing unutterably boring. Husband likes to fish, and I didn’t want to disappoint him or our friend, so I was prepared to go along and do my best to have a good time.  I may not have had any siblings, but I don’t want to act like the stereotypical spoiled only child. (Only children aren’t any more spoiled and self centered than any other children, as a rule, but we have to combat these inaccurate stereotypes.)

We spent the day in the garden Saturday and got a lot of things done around the house. We had lots of good food already prepared.  It was a good day.

When have you been relieved lately?  What do you put up with out of love and affection?

Family, home, Nature, Weather

Dressed For The Occasion

23 Comments

Last summer, we had some torrential rains, and our downspouts were clogged with leaves. The water poured over the side of the rain gutter on the southeast corner of the house and made its way into an egress window and damaged the drywall and carpet in a basement bedroom. We made certain that the downspouts were clear after that, and I checked as recently as last month and they seemed clear.

On Saturday night, we had a thunderstorm and sure enough, the water was again pouring over the rain gutter on the southeast side of the house, so I alerted husband to come and get the ladder and the nifty, ratcheted downspout cleaner and help avert a disaster. Before he would go out, though, he insisted on finding and donning a certain 40 year old jean jacket. He says it is good for keeping the rain off.  So are his other coats, but no, it had to be this one.  I was frantic, and he wanted to be dressed for success! We cleared out the gutter in time. I suppose I should be grateful he risked life and limb on a metal ladder on the roof when it was raining and lightening, but honestly!

What article of  clothing has or had special significance for you? Averted any disasters lately?

Family, Fantasy, holidays, Uncategorized

Memorial Day Birthday

31 Comments

Photo credit: Justin Casey

My sister is grumpy today. 

For the first twelve years of her life, her birthday was a holiday.  No school or parents working on her day.  Her day.  Then in 1971, Memorial Day became one of the “Monday holidays” which means that her birthday only lands on a holiday every seven or eight years.  This year, when it falls almost a full week before her birthday, is one that she particularly dislikes.  Even after five decades, she still takes this personally.

It never bothered me as a kid that she had her birthday on a holiday.  My folks didn’t actually make a bigger deal about it because of the holiday and I still got to go to the pool (in Missouri, the public pools

usually opened on Memorial Day).  I still got the dinner of my choice and a birthday cake with lots of frosting.  All good, even with no holiday in sight.

My birthday is in August.  There are only two months during the year that don’t have big, recognized holidays in them.  August is one of them.  June is the other, but I always thought June redeemed itself by having the end of school.  And, of course, since I moved to Minnesota, I have always counted the State Fair as a holiday, thereby making August one of the best holiday months.

Even though we won’t be having the Great Minnesota Get Together this year, I don’t hold August responsible for that.  But my sister probably would.

If you could move your birthday to a holiday, which holiday would you choose?  And why?

animals, Family, Fifty Words, Health, Kids, News, Stories, Uncategorized, Words

Where in the World is VS?

41 Comments

William and Kate say the kids are out of control.  Kurt and Goldie are fighting in public and have called off the wedding.  Mutant wasps have arrived in the country via Washington – the same as Covid-19.  Hillary has just six months to live.  Ted Cruz’s father linked to JFK assassination.

Where was I?

animals, education, Family, gardening, Kids, Nature, Uncategorized, Weather

I Know What I Know

40 Comments

Yesterday I added my eggshells to my bales.  I use a high nitrogen fertilizer on the bales and somewhere in the past I must have seen something (probably on the internet) that suggested added calcium in the form of eggshells to counteract that.  While I was setting the crushed eggshells around each plant, some of them were blowing away in the stiff wind.  This made me think about my friend, LeAnne.  I’ve known LeAnne for over 30 years and from the beginning I’ve known that she believes that if you get wind in your ears, you’ll get sick. I’ve never even tried to talk her out of this belief, because you can tell that she’s not willing to believe anything else.  In fact, just last week, she mentioned how she had felt bad all day because the day before she had been gardening and it had been quite windy.

As I stood there in the wind, watching some of the eggshells blow away, I realized that I am the same as LeAnne.  I know what I know and it’s not just about adding eggshells to my bales.   Snakes.  I didn’t want YA to have an irrational fear so whenever we were around snakes (zoo, children’s museum, etc.) I made it a point to “pet the snake” in her presence.  So my brain KNOWS that snakes are dry, but my brain also knows that they are slimy.  Airplanes.  I travel for a living; I’ve been on plenty of planes.  I have even researched lift and airplane engineering.  But I still know in my heart of hearts that on every single take-off, when the plane tilts for lift off, the tail of the plane is going to scrap the runway.  The fact that this has never happened, not even once, makes no difference. I know what I know.

Do you “know” something, despite evidence to the contrary?

Family, Gatherings, Health, The Future, Uncategorized

Darla Buys a Funeral Plot

50 Comments

My next door office mate, Darla, is just a joy. I have written about her  several times, and she never ceases to amaze and delight. She  monitors the services and care that Developmentally and Intellectually disabled individuals on her case load receive, and makes sure they are being treated appropriately. She has some fairly serious health complications of her own, yet is a fireball of energy with an infectious giggle and a wicked sense of humor.  Her latest quest, started, I suppose by the COVID-19 pandemic, is to have all her own end of life decisions and plans completed, and that means buying a funeral plot. Morbid, I admit, but the way she goes about these things is so refreshing and life-affirming.

Darla decided that she wanted to be cremated, and then buried in a plot near New Hradek, the small Czech community where her husband’s family has a farm, 5 miles north of our town.  She is from a German-Russian/German-Hungarian community 10 miles to the East, and has no intention of being buried in the Gladstone Cemetery.  Her parents are buried there, and she initially  thought she could save a lot of money if she and her husband were buried in the same plot, as all of them would be cremated. “How many urns can you fit in a plot?” she asked a local funeral director.  “They don’t take up that much space”.  He just rolled his eyes at her.  (They are old friends). She  got somewhat fanciful, and suggested that she and all of her seven brothers and their spouses could also be cremated and buried with their parents in the same plot, stacked like eggs in a double layer crate with the same sort of packaging between the urns.   None of her siblings thought that was a very good idea, so she returned to the New Hradek plan, and is waiting for the very elderly manager of the cemetery there to get back to her.  It is taking him a while.  “I just hope he didn’t wake up dead !” she said to me the other day.

Darla has a very specific directive for her husband if she goes first. He is to rent a coffin long enough so that all her DD clients can view her body and see and understand that she is really gone.  Then they can cremate her. I can hardly wait to hear how this all turns out.

What are your plans for eternity?  Got any good funeral stories?

Art, Family, home, Kids, pets, Stories

Sewing in Place

65 Comments

Last month I informed YA that she couldn’t go with me to Cub if she didn’t wear a mask.  At that point I had been making due with bandanas and hair binders, but that apparently offended her sense of style.  She eventually decided that my Hawaiian-designed bandana would be OK.

After we got home from the store she informed me that she was going to MAKE her own mask.  When she came into my studio to get the sewing machine, I was a little surprised, since I knew full well that she didn’t know how to use it.  As she got the machine onto her desk, I realized exactly how much she didn’t know when she called me to show her how to turn it on.  I was expecting to spend the next hour explaining everything to her, but she preferred YouTube to my homeschooling.   There were only a couple of times that she needed me to fix the bobbins and then the tension.  She used an old t-shirt for the mask material and then scavenged the elastic from a pair of old gym shorts.  Here is the result (which she did actually wear once):

But it turns out that she likes knowing how to use the sewing machine.  Since then she has repaired a pair of pants and she made a “doughnut” for Nimue so the kitty wouldn’t have to have a stiff plastic cone after the surgery.  Although the doughnut looks good, Nimue figured out how to get her head loose in about 15 seconds. Now there is talk about other sewing projects this summer!

Have you ever sewn anything for yourself?

books, Family, Food, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Garlic Bonanza

36 Comments

Well, if there is no job to go to, no socializing to get on with, weather too cold for comfortable gardening, what’s left?  Reading and cooking.  Cooking it is!

My next-door neighbor, Rita, texted me last week to know if I needed any garlic.  When I said I could always find a use for garlic, she said that was a good thing.  She’d ordered garlic as part of her online grocery shopping and instead of one head of garlic, she got one POUND of garlic.  I was thinking she would bring me one head, but she brought me THREE!  Here’s the first thing I did:

Garlic & Cheese Roll Up Bread

1 container/portion of pre-made pizza dough
6 big cloves of garlic
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
3 slices provolone cheese (or any cheese you have on hand)
2 Tbsp grated parmesan (optional)

  • Chop or mince the garlic
  • Sauté in butter and olive oil until golden brown
  • Roll out the pizza dough – I rolled mine to about 12” x 8”
  • Brush the garlic/butter/oil all over the dough
  • Layout the cheese on top of the garlic
  • Sprinkle with parmesan

Roll up! (I made little slits in mine and rubbed a bit of olive oil on it)

  • Bake in 400 F degree oven for about 20 minutes (watch the bottom so it doesn’t burn).

Enjoy!  (But take the photo before you and YA eat most of it!!!)

What would YOU do with extra garlic (or what is your favorite garlic dish?

Business, Family, gardening, Nature, Seasons, Uncategorized

Mulch Madness

59 Comments

My mother did some gardening, but not a lot – the occasional rose bush but it was never a grand passion.  She never asked me to help with anything in the yard, not even raking in the fall.  None of my grandparents had the gardening bug either, so I’m not sure where I got the flower fever.

My plan of more flowers/less grass has pretty much come to fruition – there is hardly any grass left in the front.  Although the more flowers/less grass situation does come with an unforeseen circumstance – mulch!  We use a lot.

And in the more interesting turn of events, YA has made it clear that SHE is in charge of the mulch.  She has opinions about what kind is best (cypress), how many bags at a time I should get (definitely 6), where it goes in the yard and who should be putting it down where (I get the boulevard, she gets everywhere else).  This year she put down some of that black tarp on the northern side of the front yard and covered it with mulch as well.

Now we’re waiting for mulch to be re-stocked at the nursery – they were out yesterday morning – the latest repercussion of shelter-in-place – lots more folks are gardening!

Any gardening surprises for you this year?