This Summer has been one of the wettest on record here in western ND. Our veggie garden and flower beds are looking great. The trees are also looking quite happy.
We have a couple of hazelnut trees at the northwest corner of the house.
They are loaded with at the nuts, so that the thin branches are drooping lower and lower as the nuts get bigger and heavier.
We have never actually harvested any of the nuts because they disappear before we can pick them. I always notice an increased presence of sq6uirrels as the nuts ripen every year. I have seen squirrels with clusters of nuts in their mouths running along the top of our our neighbor’s fence as a bluejay shrieked “Thief!” in the way blujays do. I have never, ever, though, seen a squirrel in the hazel trees. The nuts are all at the outer ends of very thin branches. The nuts get removed right from the tree. Although the branches are sagging with the weight of the nuts, the lowest ones are still a good 3 feet off the ground and the ones at the top of the trees disappear, too. The only thing I can think is that the squirrels somehow crawl to the ends of these very thin branches, tear off the nuts, and leap to the ground. We find hoards of shells buried in the flowerbeds in the Spring. I think they really enjoy them.
Eight years ago, my new neighbors moved in. Two parents, one daughter; later a second daughter rounded out the family. Early on it was clear that Minnie (the older daughter) and I had a clear affinity for chalk. Often when Minnie was out doing chalk artwork on their driveway, I would go over for a bit and join in.
When my next birthday rolled around, Minnie and her folks came over and did chalkwork all over my front sidewalk. It was wonderful – lots of colors, flowers and rainbows. After that, every year, we would have a chalk party. A couple of other kids in the neighborhood joined in. I even found glitter chalk online to add to the festivities.
This summer, the family moved a few blocks away and while I briefly thought about asking if the girls wanted to come over, I let it go as they are so busy with camps until school starts. On Monday afternoon, YA texted me from downstairs (she was working from home and I was upstairs) that Marie (younger daughter) was at the door. I hurried down and found the whole family outside, working on a spectacular birthday chalk display, down the whole sidewalk, up and down some of the driveway, even on the steps up to the house.
There is a fun “dance zone”
An exhortation to sing
And the obligatory hopscotch
Marie and I did the hopscotch several times and after some more chat and hugs, they all headed home. That’s when I teared up a little – it was so special that they came over to do this for me. Hopefully this tradition can keep going for a few more years. I’m assuming that once Minnie and Marie hit their teenage years, coming over to do art on their “neighborhood gramma’s” sidewalk won’t be all that appealing!
When was the last time you jumped hopscotch? Any notable chalk artwork in your past?
I’ve been thinking about this term for a long time. What exactly is a lifetime? How good is any guarantee? And do I own any thing (product, device, appliance, clothing, etc.) that has been sold to me that came with a lifetime guarantee?
After all, a lifetime for a human can be less than a day to more than 120 years. Mosquitoes and many insects have lifetimes measured in days. Tortoises can outlive humans by a factor of 2, if the experts are to be believed. And Redwood and Sequoia trees live for four centuries or longer.
But let’s focus on human lifetime. Mine in particular. We bought the bathroom scale shown in the title photo from Brookstone at Southdale most likely, wayyyy back in the 1980s. It is battery operated, and I use it nearly every day to weigh myself. I’m weird that way. I think monitoring my weight daily helps me cut back on calories or exercise more to keep my weight roughly the same over the years. Not for everyone, but it works for me.
Lately, after easily 40 years of usage, the battery is showing signs of dying. I’m not positive, but I see larger than normal daily fluctuations in my weight. Normal is 1-2 pounds. Lately, I’ve seen several 3-5 lb. jumps or drops. I eat and exercise about the same amount every day other than an occasional restaurant or dessert pigout. So maybe the battery is at the end of its useful life.
I don’t even think Brookstone is around anymore, but if they were, and the battery died, would they honor their lifetime guarantee on this scale? Or did I miss the fine print in the sales literature saying something like “Lifetime guarantee or 40 years max, whichever comes first”?
No matter, the scale has been reliable and troublefree for decades, so if it dies, I’ll get a new scale that might be relatively cheaper because I won’t have to worry about getting a “long-term” lifetime guarantee. 20-30 years is about the best I can hope for.
MY QUESTION: Tell us about any products you’ve bought that came with a lifetime guarantee and have actually lasted far longer than you ever would have expected.
Last week was fraught with baking. On July 26 the peach man arrived. He is a guy from Mott, ND, about 50 miles to the southwest of us who spends his summers driving out to Washington and picking dark red and Ranier cherries, and Cling and Freestone peaches, and driving them back to towns in southeast Montana and southwest North Dakota. He sells them in the mall parking lot in our town. The Freestone peaches are the best. We bought half a crate of them. It was very important for my parents to get a crate of peaches in the late summer and gobble them as fast as we could. I continue the tradition.
The peaches went into paper grocery bags and ripened in three days, all at the same time. It was another mantra in my family that it was a sin to let food spoil, so I set to making peach crumble, peach upside-down cake, and a pasta salad with peach, corn and tomatoes. and we ate the rest on Grape Nuts and ice cream. Husband will eat the remaining four peaches on cottage cheese.
We only buy peaches from the guy from Mott. He will come around in a few weeks with cherries from the Flathead Lake area of Montana. We will get them, too. It is unfortunate that Mott has been known in the area for decades as “Mott, the spot that God forgot”. I have no idea why. I think a more apt description would be “Mott, the spot where fruit is hot”.
What were the important traditions you grew up with?What was the town you grew up in noted for?
I finished lighting the show in Chatfield last week, in time to fly out on Saturday with Kelly and our daughter. Kelly had a work conference and we got to travel along and amuse ourselves for a few days. I was under the impression that taxi drivers were always better than Uber / Lyft because they are more professional and know the roads better. But that plan falls apart if they’re all independent taxi’s and they all seem to need to enter the address in their phones anyway. And they tell me they’ve lived here multiple years, so it makes me wonder why they don’t know their way around yet? But whatever. Our first driver was crazy; drove like a maniac and told me he liked American women and big boobs! Second taxi was a nicer driver, but his car broke down and when daughter and I came out of the Butterfly Pavilion he was sitting right where he had left us. He called a friend of his to take us back to town. And the taxi back to the airport was a nice guy with sheet metal screws holding his car door together. Resourcefulness!
Daughter and I had a good time walking around downtown and there was lots to see. I took lots of photos of old buildings. The day we saw the butterflies, that only took an hour. We never got going too early in the day, because we were on vacation after all. I was surprised that I could out-walk daughter. It was as hot there as it was back in MN, but less humidity, so that was nice. I didn’t expect it to be that hot. I found it interesting so many restaurants and bars had wide open windows or garage doors and yet there was very few bugs. One bartender told us they really spray the place down at night, but she said there was less flies this year than usual.
On Wednesday Kelly gave a presentation on Laughter Yoga. I snuck in the back and watched. It was well received, the group liked it, and she had several good loud laughers, so that got the rest of the group going.
She picked up some swag for me with the catch phrase: “Wicked Smaht Pathologists” and a link to their group. It makes me laugh. If you need a pathologist, you’re gonna want one that’s Wicked Smaht.
We had a young lady staying at the house to deal with dogs overnight while we were gone, and some other friends that would take care of chickens and eggs and amuse the dogs during the day. They said, “Bailey and Humphrey make us want dogs. Luna reminds why we don’t have a dog.”
And on the way home, in the MSP airport, the gate agent was a girl I went to high school with and hadn’t seen in 40 years. We had a little reunion right there at the gate for 15 seconds. It was nice to see her again.
Last week as I was headed to Chatfield one night, I saw, walking on the side of the road, three nuns in full black habits with the veil and headpiece. I had to double take, and double take again. This was out in the country. A few days later, Facebook, of course, provided the answer. There is an old order Catholic Church in the area and they have been seen coming from there. Well that explains it. Sure did make me wonder though. And then, ten days later, I saw two more nuns in full habits. But that was outside a Catholic Church, and they were selling baked goods at a street fair. Although when I saw them, they were packing up. I saw them pulling the totes with the collapsible tents up the street. I hadn’t seen a nun in full habit for years and now here was twice!
You all had that big storm come through on Monday night with high winds… the oats got beat up. Yep, sure did. Maybe 50% of it down. We didn’t get any hail so nothing threshed out on the ground, it’s just broken off and lying down and it makes it more difficult to pick up for harvest.
The plan is to start harvesting Friday. Going to try taking it straight- meaning I don’t swath it and lay it in windrows first. A lot of guys do take it straight. When we have tried it in the past it didn’t work so well… we shall see. I have the swather ready just in case.
The soybeans are waist tall and looking good. At least some of them. They don’t all look this good, but some of them.
There’s a guy on YouTube goes by ‘Bushel Billy’, from the Ohio area and he was talking about a corn issue with a certain variety, in extreme weather conditions, having “tassel wrap” meaning the last leaf doesn’t unwrap from the tassel. So of course if the tassel can’t open up to shed pollen, it’s going to be tough to get all the kernels (silks) pollinated. It takes 90,000 kernels to make a bushel. Hence 90K pollen grains to 90K silks are needed. He pointed out how after pollination the silks turn brown and detach from the kernel after pollination. I didn’t know that and I had to check it out myself.
Notice how many silks are loose. Just a few on the tip still stuck.
HUH! Sweet corn would be so much easier if the silks would detach.
Husband and I find ourselves exhausted these days. We are sorting through our stuff, packing some and throwing some out. We also are at our jobs finishing the last of our professional work, keeping up the house and garden, and going through the work of selling one home and buying another. Husband commented that we are living in the past, present, and future all at once.
I have tried to imagine what it will be like once we move to our new community. I haven’t lived there for almost 50 years. There are still quite a few high school classmates and other people I know there, and I have been thinking how I want to reintegrate into the community. I think it would be a mistake to live in the past, as I am not the same person I was 50 years ago, and I doubt they are the same people they were. We integrated ourselves into our ND community 38 years ago by going to community events, joining a church, and through our jobs. I hope the we can have the same new beginning in our new home.
How have you integrated yourself into the communities you have lived in? How are you different now than you were 50 years ago?
The legend of King Arthur has always appealed to me. From an early age I loved the Prince Valiant comic strip (and Robert Wagner in the movie) and when Camelot came out in 1967 I managed to get my folks to take me a couple of times. I’ve read Mary Stewart’s Crystal Cave series more than once and while the 2011 series isn’t quite to my taste, I have watched it – Joseph Fiennes playing Merlin was fascinating.
Had I lived in the legend, I could not have been a good Guinevere or lady-in-waiting. Although I’m not crazy about the violence part, I would have loved to be a knight. Fancy armor, horses, swords, cool knight friends and quests.
I am all about quests. Set me a quest and I am all in. So when the Hennepin County Library debuted their passport this summer, I had to play. The passport is free for all who want to participate, with a page for each of the 41 libraries in the system. There is a photo of the library and short description and each library has their own passport stamp. There is also a few blank lines if you want to add any notes.
You know I had to make a spreadsheet of the libraries that I can sort by how far they from my house and their hours. Don’t want to show up at a library that isn’t open yet! And of course once I’ve visited a particular library, I can highlight it! Quests and spreadsheets – I’m in heaven.
It’s been a joy to visit the various libraries (I’m about half way through). They are each unique, with so many different programs. Language classes, Lego Labs, chess tournaments, jigsaw puzzles (yes, every time I found one in progress, I had to find a piece or two), even community seed libraries. And the artwork is wonderful. There must certainly at some kind of art curator on the library staff. Whoever it is has done a masterful job.
Wall in Children’s section of Champlin Library
There isn’t a timetable on my library quest, although I’d like to be done some time in September. Once it’s cooler, I have lots of indoor projects. Also, I like stretching it out a bit!
Any quests that you’ve enjoyed? Any you’re looking forward to?
Like many musical artists, Tom Lehrer was introduced to me on the LGMS. I loved his funny songs and they way he crafted them with language and great satire. This is probably my favorite:
Sadly, Tom passed away four days ago at the age of 97. He was born in New York City and began his musical studies when he was seven. He entered Harvard at the age of 15, studying mathematics as well as entertaining his fellow students with his comic songs. His mathematics career and his music career existed together for many years. His last performance was in 1972 and he taught until 2003.
Another of his most popular songs puts the table of elements to a Gilbert & Sullivan tune:
There haven’t been too many artists who can skewer the world quite the way he could. His voice will be missed.
Do you have a favorite Tom Lehrer song? Or another satirist?
As bunch of errands had me on the freeway yesterday. A little congestion slowed everybody down in time for me to look up and see this on the highway signage:
Keep your speed down
Wear your safety gear
Get home in one piece
It was more interesting than the usual signage and as it was three lines, I automatically starting counting the syllables, wondering if it was MNDots idea of highway haiku. Not haiku.
When I got home, I wondered if I could find any information online about the signage. I was surprised to find out that there is actually a program called “Message Monday” that encourages safe driving. You can even submit your own idea for a message on the website. Some of the messages are actually quite funny:
Fly under
The radar by
Obeying speed limit
Give blood
The right way
Not on the highway
Don we now our
Fastened seatbelt
Fa la la la la la
I’m not sure I want to increase my highway time on Mondays to see more of these messages, but I do find it intriguing that this program exists. Of course, if I submit something it will have to be
Speedy Gonzalez
You’re not. Please keep the pedal
Off of the metal
Imagine my surprise as I was heading out to run some errands and discovered the little robot vacuum at the back porch door.
As I carried it back into the house and hit the “dock” button so it would return home, I felt a little bad. Was I keeping it from its freedom? Had it been trying to escape from the onerous duty of trying to keep the fur and dust at bay in our house? Did it hear the clarion call of others of its kind? Was it a quashed robot uprising?
What do you think? Should I have given it its freedom?
Trail Baboon 