Red Wings

The blog will be observing a day of silence for those brave men who lost their lives twenty years ago during Operation Red Wings.

Never forget them.

LT Michael P. Murphy

ST2 Matthew Axelson

GM2 Danny Dietz

FTC Jacques J. Fontan

RMCS Daniel R. Healy

LCDR Erik S. Kristensen

ET1 Jeffery A. Lucas

LT Michael M. McGreevy, Jr.

QM2 James E. Suh

HM1 Jeffrey S. Taylor

MM2 Shane E. Patton

SSG Shamus O. Goare

CWO3 Corey J. Goodnature

SGT Kip A. Jacoby

SFC Marcus V. Muralles

MSG James W. Ponder III

MAJ Stephen C. Reich

SFC Michael L. Russell

CWO4 Chris J. Scherkenbach

Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to the next generation, and their children to the next generation.  --Joel 1 : 3

So that we may never forget. 

When It Rains...

Sometimes there is an advantage to working in an unairconditioned factory...

I got home from work shortly after 2:00 PM, looking forward to having an actual weekend off -- one that won't cost me a vacation day, I mean.  I'd even thought about getting my new roto-tiller out and trying to stir up some dirt. 

But when I walked into the house, instead of the blast of ice cold air that normally greets me, "Dang, it's warm in here!" I exclaimed.  

I walked into the hall and checked the temperature on the thermostat, and it read 83°.  That's not good.  I went outside and checked the main unit outside and it wasn't doing anything.  I shut the power off at the breaker, then turned it back on....still nothing. 

You know, as much as we sometimes hate to spend money, ain't nothing going to stop us from getting that air conditioning fixed -- not the cost, nor an introvert's distaste of making phone calls.  Right away, I jumped onto Facebook into one of the local groups and searched for air conditioner repair recommendations. 

The first guy I called said he wouldn't be able to get to it until tomorrow, so back to the drawing board -- or message board, rather -- and called the next number.  He answered professionally and politely, "Dukes Heating and Air Conditioning"  instead of the "hullo" I get so many times. 

I explained my problem, and before I could even finish one episode of JAG, he and his son showed up and got me fixed right up.  It cost a pretty penny, but like I said, we don't play around with that air conditioning, especially not when we're under a heat dome. I may have to put off some of the other stuff I want to get done, but it's a small price to pay.  

So, the advantage I spoke of earlier is that even though the house got up to 85° before it was all said and done, I never even broke a sweat.  I'll tell you one thing, though.  I didn't want to eat anything hot, so I made me another 'mater sammich - - and just for something different, I put a little of my homemade pesto on it.  

A 'mater sammich is good, but a 'mater sammich with a dollop of pesto is absolutely out of this world. 

After they left, I waited a bit until it cooled off.  OK, I waited until after 8:00, but it didn't cool off that much.  Still, I got out and made the first pass over the garden spot with my new roto-tiller.  

I was a little concerned that it wouldn't be powerful enough to cut through that red clay, being electric and all instead of gas, but it absolutely was.  When I first cranked it up, it almost ran away with me, but I have lots of experience being a buffer jockey from when I was in the Navy, so I quickly got the hang of it. 

It's going to take several more passes before it's the way I want it, but at this point, I have all winter to get it right.  I don't plan on taking all winter, but the point is, there really isn't any rush to get it done.  I'd rather take my time and do it the way I want it than to feel like I have to hurry up and then not be satisfied with what I've done. 

I hope that made sense. It did in my head. 

Oh, and I've got to paint the fence before I put my raised beds in place, too.  

And finally, that's a hard no from me. 

Let's just say, there's a reason I turned it off after only two days. 

It's Official

They finally posted the weekend work schedule, and it's official.  The lines are going to be off.  Of course, the notice always says "Component Areas:  See Your Supervisor", but I'm pretty sure we'll be off, too.  At least, sub-brazing will, because our numbers are pretty good.   I know the fin press and autobrazer will be working, and probably sheet metal, too.  I guess Uncle Supervisor will tell us tomorrow. 

What I've heard is that they need to cut the water off to the back of the plant so they can run the plumbing for the new bathrooms they're building back there, but that's just rumor so take it for what it's worth. 

With that in mind, I went ahead and did my shopping today, so tomorrow I can come home and put my tiller together without having to worry about errands and such-like.  While I was there, I bought myself a new food processor.  

To be honest, this one wasn't my first choice.  I'd looked through the Walmart app and picked one out that was a three cup, but I couldn't find it anywhere.  The app said it was in stock, but I didn't even see a spot on the shelf for it, so I went to my second choice.  Eh, it's a bit bigger than I'd wanted, but it'll do. 

Now, the next time I want to make pesto, I'll be all set.  I just need a week or two for my basil to catch up. 

I also bought another skein of that Red Heart Bitty Stripes in the Crayon Box colorway, since I used most of the last one knitting the baby surprise jacket.  I won't post a photo.  If you want to see what it looks like, just scroll back a post or two. Though I'm tempted to knit another baby sweater, this one is intended for charity hats. 

On the other hand, maybe I will knit another baby sweater -- to have on hand for future great nieces and nephews, you know.  

OK, I'm back after a quick break.  I hadn't intended to put my tiller together until tomorrow, but wanted to check the packing list to make sure I had all the parts.  Once I got it all out of the box, it took only five minutes to put it together.  

And there it is. 

 

I won't try it out until tomorrow, because a) I've already taken my shower for the day, and b) it rained while I was putting it together.  Not a lot, but enough to make the dirt just a bit muddy.  Hopefully it'll be dry by tomorrow afternoon.  

And finally, I keep forgetting to tell you Stalker fired a second brazer last week, and he is plumb thrilled about it.  He's been walking around in a ...um...state of excitement...ever since.  So to speak.  Alas, that was before HRH left and The Warden announced he was leaving.  

Now Stalker seems nervous.  Without the buddy system protecting him, his job might be the next one on the chopping block.  

We can hope, at least. 

It’s Time!

It's 'mater sammich time!  

And yes, I did make and eat me a 'mater sammich, but I ate it so fast, I didn't take a picture of it.  I'm telling ya, it hits different when the 'mater is fresh off the vine, still warm from the sun. 

On a similar note, my new roto tiller arrived yesterday evening after I'd posted.  

They'd shipped through UPS, which always comes late.  Indeed, I was tapping my foot impatiently because I was ready to go to bed when it finally arrived at long last.  I'd intended to come home this afternoon and give it a try, but it's just too hot right now.   Twenty years ago it wouldn't have been a problem, but the older I get, the harder it is to handle the heat. 

How hot is it?  I opened the door to let the cat out, she yelled at me, and came back inside.  Whatever else she is, she's not stupid.  The downside to this is, she's now using her litter pan a whole lot more, which mans I need to scoop it a whole lot more.  

But I digress...

They're saying we might have this weekend off, and if we do I'll probably wait until late Friday evening or early Saturday morning to start tilling.  Of course, the landscaper still says he's coming back to finish up...but that shouldn't involve the garden spot, so it shouldn't interfere with what he needs to do. 

Speaking of work, in the morning meeting today, Group Leader Shark said it is confirmed that all those rumors from yesterday are true.  HRH is no longer with the company, and The Warden will be leaving next week.  I'm not sure what's going to happen, but the atmosphere sure seems lighter out there.  At least to me, it does.  

Let's just hope we get some decent leadership this time.  

Oh, and they gave us our raises today.  Well, they gave us the papers.  The actual raise goes into effect next Monday.  I was pleasantly surprised, because mine is usually around 2%-2.5%, but this time it was 4.2%.  That's a nice little chunk of change.  I guess they're finally figuring out that our wages will need to be more competitive if we're going to be able to keep employees from the other companies in the area -- especially after that new industrial park opens up in a couple of years. 

Apropos of nothing, one of the games I play on my phone keeps telling me to connect to the internet to enjoy a better game experience, 

 but they're not fooling me.  I know all that means is that they're going to bombard me with ads, ads, and more ads. 

I'll pass, thank you. 

Great Upheaval

There has been a great upheaval out at the plant.

But before I get into that, first I must needs catch you up.   If you'll recall, a few weeks ago I'd posted that the Human Resources Director From Hell had been fired.  Turns out, that was not the case after all.  About a week later, I saw her back at the plant.

"Is that HRH?" I asked Demi-god.  He said yeah, and that they hadn't fired her.  They'd just suspended her, and I was left wondering what on earth an HR director could do that warrants suspension.  I never did find out. 

Sometime later, on the day they announced that the security guards would be inspecting our lunches, one of the other brazers asked me, "Is HRH back?"  

"I don't know," I replied, because I hadn't seen her again since that one time.  Apparently she was.

That brings us to this morning. I'd walked over to ask a coworker about someone I hadn't seen in a while, and as we were chatting, she said, "They fired HRH this morning."

"Again?" I asked, and apparently they had, because I asked a few other people, and they said the same thing.  No one really knows why.  I asked Demi-god if he'd heard anything, because he usually knows being that his dad is a supervisor and his mother works in the front office.   This time, he didn't.  He told me his mom had sent HRH an e-mail yesterday and never got a response, but I'm not sure if that has anything to do with her being dismissed.  

I guess we'll find out eventually.  Or not.  They don't tell us anything out there. 

But wait, there's more!  

There is also the rumor going around that The Warden is leaving next week.  Again, nobody knows why.  Demi-god said that the higher ups told him he'd have to move to Dallas, because he couldn't run a plant while he was in the plant, but that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Every director of operations we've ever had has lived here and been physically present in the plant.  

I wondered if maybe he wanted to go back into the Army, myself.  Now that SecDef Hegseth -- say that three times fast-- is purging the military of wokeness and social justice and making it great again, lots of people are wanting to go back in.  Not to mention that all the branches are meeting their recruiting goals for the first time in a long, long time. 

But that's a different post for a different day.  

What I want to know is, once all the dust settles and we know what's what, can I have my insulated mug back?  

In knitting news, I finally got one arm of my great-nephew's sweater seamed. 

But just the one.  When I got finished, I said, "I need a break before I tackle the other sleeve."  And still it sits...

That baby's going to be here before I get it done if I don't get a move on.  

LOOK!!!!

I did it. I got outside yesterday evening and finished up the mowing and the weed whacking. I had to wait until 7:30 for the heat index to get back down into the double digits, so it was about 8:15 when I finished up.  It was then that I heard one of my neighbors start her lawnmower.  Can't say's I blame her for waiting until the sun went down.  It was hot out there.

By the time I was done, I was absolutely drenched in sweat, so I got some water and went back outside to sit in my chair for a while. 

A short while, because it didn't take long until the mosquitoes found me. Still, as I was sitting out there, I noticed how empty the sky looked without the neighbor's huge old tree there.  

I will miss the shade, but I'll have a much better view of the sunsets and stars.  

After all of that, I managed to sleep in until nearly 6:00 this morning.  It's going to kill me to have to start getting back up at 3:30 tomorrow.  When I went outside to water my porch plants, look at what I found!

One of my tomatoes is getting ripe!  

It won't be long now and I'll be having me my first 'mater sammich of the year.  I was just wondering, though, if I should thin this cluster or let them grow.  

This is the first time I've ever been successful at growing tomatoes, so I'm kind of winging it here.  Any tomato people out there who can give me advice, I'll sure welcome it. 

I've also got two more banana peppers coming on.

My mum is starting to bloom as well.  

It's got some stringy bits that I think I'll prune back as soon as the blooms die off. 

I know mums are typically associated with autumn --  likely because of the colors-- but the ones you buy in the garden centers have been forced.  Again, likely because of the colors.  They're so autumny, you know.  But all the ones I've managed to keep alive for more than one season have bloomed in June. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go find something to knit, since I've finished all of my baby sweaters.  Probably another hat.  I'm way behind on my charity knitting. 

Almost Done

I am almost done with the to do list I'd made for myself this weekend.  The only thing I have left is to try to mow the front yard, which I might do later today after it cools off some.  We have triple digit heat indices right now, so whether it cools off enough is iffy in itself.  If it doesn't cool off, I'll try to get it in the morning, even though the grass will still be wet with dew.  

Of course, all of this depends on if I can get the lawnmower started...

Other than the heat, it's been a beautiful, sunny day, and I started it off by going up into town to the Farmer's Market.  I didn't buy much, but I did get some of Mrs. Terry's cookies. 

If you are local, do go up to her booth when you get a chance.  She has all sorts of homemade stuff: jams, jellies, relishes, chow-chow, salsa, homemade vanilla extract, breads, cookies...And it's all so good. 

I also picked up this pepper onion relish from another vendor, just because it looks interesting. 

I might give it to the kids -- or I might put it into my chicken salad next time I make some.  I thought about stopping by the Lee Tartt Nature Preserve and walking some trails while I was up there, but didn't have the right shoes on for that, so I came on home.  

The major thing on my list for today was to get that last snake tank cleaned, and that's just what I did.  It wasn't too hard, since Sunny has always been my cleanest snake -- if such a thing is possible.  Onyx is the nastiest, as he's always dragging his bedding into his water, and sloshing water all over the tank, but Sunny's tank is so clean that I didn't have a problem using his old bedding to mulch my planters. 

Oh, don't freak out.  I picked the poop and pee out first.  

Besides, birds and bugs are pooping on outdoor plants all the time.  That's why we wash our stuff before we eat it. 

Oh, and did you know snake pee is solid?  It looks just like poop, but it's white.   There.  That is a thing you now know. 

Moving right along, I now have four relatively clean snake tanks, and four relatively happy snakes. 

The two on the right have white paper bedding, because it's cleaner than aspen shavings, being that paper is more absorbent.  That's what I'm going to use in Onyx's tank from now on, and probably Blaze's, since one pack has enough for both tanks. 

OK, enough about that.  

In other news, I managed to dig both of those big chunks of concrete out and add them to my stepping stone walkway.  

I'm still not sure where they came from.  When I had that whole sewer line replaced right after I moved into this house, the plumber had to break up my patio to do so.  He'd used some of the pieces to fill in the old septic tank that was there, and that's kind of what these look like, which begs the question:  why did the landscaper dig them out, if that is indeed what they are?  

And finally, the last thing on my agenda for the day was to finish knitting this blob, which I did while watching a Netflix documentary on the space shuttle Challenger disaster. 

You know, while I was knitting this, I kept wondering why this sweater is so popular.  I certainly wasn't enjoying knitting it.  I didn't figure I'd ever knit another one...but now that I'm done and have folded it up to see how it'll look once I've seamed the sleeves, I'm kinda proud of it. 

Maybe I'll knit another one after all.  Even though this thing isn't impressed.  

 Not at all...

I Did It!

I did it!  I actually slept past 3:30 this morning!  The cat actually let me!  

And I had the strangest dream.  I dreamed I was back in the Navy, in one of my schools.  We'd gone to lunch, and the place we went to took so long to bring us our food that we had to rush back to the base to be back in class on time.  As I was running into the building to go to class, I realized I didn't have my shoes and socks on.  

I ran back outside to see if they were still in my friend's truck, but he had already left, so I ran into the classroom knowing I'd get into trouble for being out of uniform, but I didn't know what else to do.  And I never even got to eat my lunch. 

Seriously, I slept until 5:00 then lay in bed another 30-ish minutes before the Incarnation of Evil came to yowl outside my bedroom door.  

I got up, fed her, then made myself a cup of coffee and sat savoring it and enjoying a quiet morning without having to rush off to work.  I didn't even turn on the TV until much later.  I just enjoyed the quiet. 

Sometime later, I went outside and did a little yard cleanup.  I don't know where that landscaper found his dirt guy -- that is, the guy he buys dirt from -- but he needs a new one.  The dirt he's put in my yard is full of all kinds of trash, from empty water bottles to broken bits of PVC sewer line, but mostly rocks.  Lots and lots of rocks. 

I've been trying to pick up the biggest ones, mostly so the lawnmower doesn't fling them into a window or something.  I've got the two little spots in the front yard mostly cleaned up, but I think I'm just going to have to live with all of these in the back.  The photo above was taken where my garden spot is going to be.  It's a good thing I'm planning on using raised beds, huh? 

A few days ago, right outside the back door, I found this bit of concrete sticking out. 

I managed to pull it up, but how do you spread a bunch of dirt and not even notice a huge chunk of concrete?  

And there were two of them, though I only took a photo of one.  I know one thing, I'm not going to be hiring this kid again.  He wasn't my first choice to begin with, but he is the only one who showed up. 

Anyway, I came back inside to cool off a bit -- we are under a heat advisory, you know -- and while doing so, I made the pesto.  I'm telling you, before I do this again, I really need to buy a food processor.  Come to think of it, I said that last time I made pesto, too.  I had to use my blender, and it just wasn't cutting it.  But we persevered and got her done, and the pesto tasted pretty good.  

This time, though, I had enough basil that I didn't have to use baby spinach to stretch it with, so that definitely made a difference.  Maybe next year, I'll plant the kind of basil you're supposed to use in pesto, instead of sweet basil.  We'll see. 

The recipe I used says pesto freezes well, so I laid some parchment paper on a cookie sheet and dolloped most of it out onto that, then froze it. Once it was good and solid, I put it into a freezer bag to save for later use.  I still have some in a container that I didn't freeze, to use right away.  

The only other major thing I did today was to mow the back yard, and again, the hardest part was getting the lawnmower to start.  I had given up and pushed the thing back into the shed-- threatening to throw the piece of garbage into the garbage -- when on a whim, I pulled the starter rope one last time.

And it caught...and started.  

I don't know what is doing that, because once it starts that first time, it starts again pretty easily.  But while I was fooling with it, I got the model number so I can buy that part I think will solve the problem.  

I only did the back yard, which desperately needed it, but it was too hot to do much more, and besides, there is still standing water in my front yard.  Still, the back yard looks so much better now.  I kid you not, in some spots the grass was nearly up to my waist.  The ruts left by the landscaper sure made things difficult, and there were some spots I couldn't get to at all with the mower.  

By the time I got done mowing, I was drenched in sweat, so I once again came inside to cool off, then tackled the weed eating -- which is so much easier with my new weed eater.   I got the spaces between the ruts as best I could, 

all along the fence line, 

and even cleaned up and weedeated around the chairs and fire pit.  

All on one battery, at that.  It looks so much better now!  I'm going to try to get to the front yard tomorrow evening if it's dry enough.  I think it might be, since the scattered showers have skipped all around us.  We'll just have to see. 

I eventually want to put a little patio under there, but that's going to have to wait until it cools off a bit.  Maybe in the fall.  Unless I hire someone to do it, but then there is that whole not showing up thing that's so prevalent in this town. 

And finally, just so this post isn't a total waste of your time, here is an early morning photo of my volunteer sunflower. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll go find something to eat with pesto...