Lovely Veggies

It was sweet corn time this week and I went to my folks to get some corn to freeze. It was not a great year for corn with the sporadic rains not arriving at the best time. Still, I got plenty of corn to freeze.

Every year when I get corn my mom recalls my dad's mom at corn freezing time. Grandma would work away at shucking, silking, cutting and freezing corn and say, "What lovely corn!"

Before I left Mom asked if I wanted green beans. I told her I'd picked some up the day before at the farmer's market in Jeremy Freese's home town. She asked how the beans were and I said, "lovely".

"As lovely as these?" Mom asked as she showed me a 5 gallon bucket of huge green beans.

So compare:

I took some of Mom's beans and the day after I froze corn, I froze beans. Mom also cut a tomato off the vine for me to take home:

I tipped the scales some holding the measuring tape. The tomato weighed just under 3 pounds. But it really was 18 ⅝ inches around.

One of these days I need to make a trip out to my own tomatoes and do something with them. I love the abundance of fresh vegetables. I get tired quickly of putting food by.

I'm Alive!

Holy cow. My last post was July 22? Really? What can I say, I've been busy.

I was involved in a small town celebration (tiny K town) that was held the first Saturday in August. It was our 2nd annual and it was awesome. H came and ran the kid's games. There was softball for bigger "kids". The food was great. Weather wise, it was the best day Iowa has ever seen.

Preparations leading up to K Daze were brutal. And when it was over, I still had stuff to do. Stuff I haven't finished yet because.....

Then it was my birthday! And I did something I haven't done in a long, long time. I ran away from home leaving Captain Crab home alone to take care of the critters. I went to visit H in the big, bad Twin Cities. It was great to hang with her in her environment and spy on her neighbors when she was at work. H, I'm telling you, the nurse across the street IS having an affair with a married man.

We did some touristy stuff (I think it's obligatory) like visit Garrison Keillor's bookstore in downtown St. Paul and ride the light rail to downtown Minneapolis (along with the purple tide of Viking's fans on the way to a pre-season game).

I learned my way around her neighborhood and, most importantly, got over my fear of driving in Minneapolis. It was a wonderful vacation and I am so glad I went. Cities are nice to visit but I'm glad I'm home in the land of not having to drive 70 mph to keep from getting run over.

But now I'm behind in everything, it seems. I have still have work to do for K Daze, a client's website to update and a new client I really, really, REALLY need to make website headway on. And I am without my computer.

I took it in to my geek before I left for the cities to have it tuned up and more RAM installed. (Sorry, Mush, I know you are cringing but I am not that friggin smart!) It would be done by now had I not asked for more RAM, which comes from the RAM store in Timbuktu and is shipped to Iowa by camel.

Crab is gone and so I have access to a computer, but not my programs. I am so jonesing for my machine. It is all I can do to keep from installing Firefox on Crab's computer, installing programs that will suck up his hard drive and configuring it like mine. I am trying to be a good guest and leave things just as I found them, so I will refrain from fucking up his computer.

Storm

One night last week the radar told me a storm was very, very close to me. I went out to see for myself and discovered the radar was right.

I high tailed it back to the house and a few minutes later shot the rain from the shelter of the porch (Captain Crab's swallow nest in the corner).

It rained hard.

Hulles Lives

Once prolific blogger Hulles has been missing in action for some time. I feared for his life. But last Saturday I saw the living, breathing Hulles with my own eyes.

Hulles Lives

He promised to start writing again soon.

Family Jewels

My mother is a ruby and my aunt (her sister) is a pearl. Mom has honed her gardening skills to producing enough fruit and vegetables to feed half the county. Aunt Pearl has taken her little yard and turned it into a showcase of day lilies. Pearl has been sending me pictures of her flowers. Here are some of them. I didn't save all the pictures she sent me because, well, my computer is already filled with pictures.

Whazzup II

I'm still spinning my wheels and getting nowhere.

I went to a wedding last weekend. The setting for the reception was idyllic. The weather was perfect, though I am beginning to feel like a vampire who needs to hide from the sun. I am going to invest in some hats so I can take shade with me where ever I go.

In other news -- H is back! She said to tell my friends and this is the best way.

Busy With Stuff

I have been busy. I spin my wheels a lot. Sometimes I get somewhere, most times I don't.

Last weekend I was busy with taking pictures of a small town celebration for their website. After 2 days I had hundreds of photos that I had to sort through, optimize, build slide shows for and add to the website. The highlight of the two days was talking to these guys about Mush, who used to sing with the band before she moved back home to the left coast.

Jefferson County Green Band / Message for Mush

On Monday when I was still up to my elbows in trying to make crappy photos web worthy, I got a call that there was going to be an impromptu birthday gathering for my mom's birthday. I had to go and eat my favorite pizza.

Pizza

My mother has always had a garden. When they moved to the place they live now, she started having a really large garden. I tell her every year when she tries to give me food that I do not need that she should sell her stuff at the farmer's market. Oh, she couldn't charge people for food! She said that this year's garden was the best ever, though I have never, ever noticed a lack of produce or produce of sub-par quality. So before I went home to get back to work, I drove out to visit her "best garden ever".

Most things at Mom's start out in her little green house. Right now there are just giant tomato plants in there.

Tomatoes in the green house

Mom knows I love petunias. Last fall she harvested petunia seeds from a planter in town and this spring, started the little seeds in her green house. She gave me dozens of pretty petunias which are planted around my farm (getting lost in weeds now). She still has a few plants left.

Petunias

The sweet corn patch is smaller this year. I think my dad finally realized he did not need acres of sweet corn to fill his freezer. Part of the patch has rye in it this year as a cover crop. Dad wishes he had a little combine to harvest the rye instead of plowing it under.

Sweet Corn

Rye

Potatoes

On the other side of the house is the actual garden. I will let you stroll through it with this comment -- yes, celery. My mother is the only person I know who grows celery. This tastes nothing like the stuff in the store, this has flavor.

Celery

Peas

Cabbage

Onions

Carrots

NOT yams, sweet potatoes

Apples

Strawberries

Raspberries

Don't you wish you could munch your way through Mom's garden?

Different Perceptions

I was behind a woman in the grocery store today. When she got to the end of the aisle, she turned left and walked past an employee (an acquaintance) who was walking toward me.

For the short time I was behind this woman all I could think was, "How can a grown woman (near my age!) be so dog gone skinny?" After she had turned I realized she was talking on a cell phone. It took me a couple beats more to realize she was speaking Spanish.

She wasn't anorexic skinny, she was naturally skinny. With the tiniest waist I have ever seen on an adult. And she wasn't super short. It just boggled my mind.

So the woman made her turn, the employee/acquaintance was approaching me. I must have been wearing a perplexed look. He was wearing a similar look. Only as he passed me he muttered under his breath, "Dial 1 for English."

He was down the aisle before what he said to me registered. I guess I should have chased him down and given him an ass chewin'. Because we know each other we share the same opinion? Are opinions like this supported and encouraged by management? Does management approve of employees expressing socio/political opinions?

The woman was skinny. But I probably shouldn't express that opinion either, since it is based on jealousy.

Impromptu Birthday Party

Templeton Rye

Weather and Birds

The weather has been gorgeous. Temps in the low 80's, nice breezes, and except for the occasional thunderstorm squall, sunny. A real downside of the recent wet weather is that the mosquitoes are thriving. Just try to open the car door and get in without a cloud of mosquitoes getting in with you. It can't be done.

H sent me one of those helpful hint forwarded emails that said Listerine kills mosquitoes. The email also said that spraying Listerine around your deck leaves you free to enjoy the great outdoors. I wondered if the generic would have the same effect and H figured it would. So one day before I went out to feed my birds I splashed a little generic Listerine on my arms and face. It made me sticky and very, very attractive to the little bloodsuckers. I would like to know if anyone else has tried this. More than that, I want to know what really works besides Deep Woods Off.

So other than the mosquitoes, the weather has been wonderful. Farmers are back tending to their fields. Some of the field ponds have dried up and been replanted. Other field ponds look like they are here to stay:

Geese in a corn field.

I was running low on eggs so this morning went to Crazy Uncle Miltie's Chicken Farm for eggs. Milt wasn't home so I wandered around and talked to the birds. Milt has such happy chickens. Happy chickens lay the most wonderful eggs. I went to his egg room, put some eggs in a carton and left a note and some money.

Chickens

I used to have chickens. I miss them.

Sidebar Stalking

H called me a stalker recently. It made me a little sad, even if she was kidding.

The internet makes stalking easy. There are people whose blogs I read and at times I feel I have enough information about them to make their lives a living hell if I wanted to. But I don't. I love my internet friends, even if they don't know me.

I don't miss a thing that they reveal because I have their blogs loaded into my Google Reader. Goggle lets me know what's going on right away. One of my stalkees told me that using the reader was just plain lazy. There you go. I am too lazy to be a good stalker.

I can't stalk H anymore through her blog as she shut it down. She is still listed in the sidebar because I'm hoping she will come back.

Jeremy, who got me hooked on blogs in the first place, shut down his blog, too. He's collaborating with other professionals on a blog. While Jeremy pokes through once in a while, the blog is often technical to the point of being boring (for someone who is not so bright, like me). I still read it but it is not on the sidebar.

Today I added two of my "must reads". The first is "The Other Side of the Ocean". Nina is in France now and has been for a few weeks. When she is not working she is traveling somewhere, usually in Europe. She takes fabulous photos and she posts every day. It's enough to give you wanderlust.

The second is "Sociological Images". It's stuff that makes me think without hurting my stupid head too much. It's kind of like college without the classroom, tests or tuition. So thanks, Gwen, for the free education!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Yesterday was a muggy, muggy day. I tried to reclaim a patch of ground for garden but gave up. I managed to dig out enough muddy ground to plant some spinach, carrots and radishes that should have been planted a month ago. I came into the sweltering house, showered and dressed in minimal clothing to monitor the impending storms.

Crab mowed the lawn, showered and took off on one of his little journeys. I started working on food (mmmm....pea salad), played Facebook Scrabble with H, tried to watch a stupid movie and waited for the shit to hit the fan and cool off the damn house.

It did hit pretty good. I got phone calls. Crab wasn't coming home right now because it was raining too hard. My mom heard the name of the non-existent "town" where Crab and I live on the television. Evidently, a tornado had been heading here.

Really? For once I wasn't nervously pacing from window to window. I was just looking forward to the cool down after the rain.

Then several more phone calls from the K Town bar coalition asking me to come uptown. They had no electricity in K Town and life would not be complete without me there. So I went.

The new neighbors saw a tornado skipping down the K Town blacktop on their way to town. It had been very close to my house. K Town had been hit by lightning, knocking out the electricity. Basements were getting wet. I heard a generator running a sump pump.

The bar was stuffy and dark so we stood on the street and enjoyed the rainbow, taking pictures with our cell phones.

In front of the bar, snapping pics with cell phones

Over the old elevator

Look! The rainbow ends at Crab and pj's. Alas, there was no pot of gold when we got home.

They said the rainbow ended at Crab's and pj's. It didn't.

It rained and boomed all night. The fields are full of ponds. Rain is in the forecast all week long. I'm hoping my mom has her usual bountiful garden because we are going to starve if we have to depend on mine.

The house is down to 74 degrees, though!

Peach Iris

The peach iris are in their glory.

Peachy

Up Close

The dandelions are in their glory, too. Darn lawn.