Out Of The Blue

 I had a former coworker contact me a couple of days ago completely out of the blue.  

We'd been friends back when he worked out at the plant, but had mostly lost touch when he quit out there and moved out of town.  We were friends on the Book Of Faces, but he hardly ever posted.  Well, he messaged me and told me he was thinking about moving back so he could help take care of his dad and was considering trying to get back on at the plant. 

I had to be honest with him, and told him I would not recommend that place to anyone.  It's gotten so much worse out there since he left.  He replied that he'd heard that from other sources, and thanked me for confirming.  I suggested a couple of other facilities in the area that pay much more and treat their employees so much better, and if I weren't so close to retirement, I'd put in at one of them my own self. 

It's a shame when your work place is so bad you warn people against applying there. 

We chatted a bit more and he was impressed that I still had Slider.  He's the one who gave him to me all those years ago.  He said, "I knew you'd take good care of her."  TBH, I don't know if Slider is a him or a her, but I've always said him and I'm not going to stop now.  Probably because my coworker called him him when he gave him to me.  Maybe he forgot.  It's been 19 years after all...

Speaking of work, I had to turn my alarm back on this morning and it made me want to throw up.  I woke up at 4:00 and made myself stay awake to try to get back into the swing of getting up at 2:30, and boy was I not happy about it.  In fact, I felt so sick about it I didn't really do anything today but watch cheesy Christmas movies, both Hallmark and Great American Family.  

While I was doing that, I played around with AI a bit trying to come up with an autumn picture to use as a thumbnail.  I put the same prompt in:  Create an image of autumn scenery, and this is what they gave me.  

ChatGPT: 

Grok:  

Gemini:  

I think Gemini won this round.  I'd like to be walking down that road myself.  I wish I weren't so exhausted when I got off work.  If I weren't, I'd go walking every day.  As it is, I come home and pretty much collapse.  

In garden news, I forgot to show you this yesterday.  Look, one of my garlics is coming up!  

This is the only one so far, but I'm not panicking.  Garlic really needs a good cold spell to start growing.  Lots of sites recommend putting it into the refrigerator before planting it, which I wish I would have known ahead of time.  Oh well, it'll get cold soon enough.  

I did go out and cut all the green cayenne peppers I could find, but I didn't string them to dry.  I just put them into a Ziploc bag and put them into the freezer.   I also cut a bit more French tarragon and hung it to dry.  That'll probably be all I harvest from the garden for this year, except for the tomatoes, of course.  

And finally, remember how I said I was going to eat up all these canned goods?  

I've made a pretty good start of it.  I ate the corned beef hash for breakfast this morning, and ate the Sweet Sue chicken and dumplings yesterday.  I've used the cream of chicken soup in my squash casserole, and made chicken salad from both of those cans of chicken.  

In an eerie no-such-thing-as-a-coincidence coincidence, a recipe for salmon patties -- sometimes called salmon croquettes-- popped up in my FB feed.  I think I'll make those one day this week.  Then I'll make tuna salad out of the two cans of tuna.  I don't even know why I bought the stuff.  I don't like tuna.  But it's there and we don't waste food.  

In fact, I think I'll go right now and open up that big can of pear halves and make pear salads with them.  I haven't had a pear salad in ages.  

Laters.

Finally Fall

It is finally Fall, folks.  For reals.  We've passed meteorological fall, traditional fall, the autumnal equinox, the Harvest Moon rises tonight, candy corn is in the stores, football is on the TV, and it was in the 60s when I got up this morning.  In fact, it felt so much like fall that I finally put out my fall decorations. 

I won't show you a bunch of photos because I always put everything in the same place.  It looks the same as it did last year.  Mostly.  This year, I left this painting where it is. 

For those of you who don't know, there was a teacher at my elementary school named Mrs. Matthews.  I never had her as a teacher, but she also went to the church I started going to after I graduated.  When she retired from teaching, she took up painting as a hobby.  Before she passed away, she gave this painting to my cousin with the specific instruction that it was to come to me.   

Normally, I take it down and put this wreath there, 

but for some reason, this year I just didn't want to.  I couldn't stand the idea of putting it away for three months out of the year.  So I didn't.  

Before I did all of that, I recorded a new garden vlog, which if you're so inclined you can watch here:  Garden Vlog.  

Once I'd finished and got that to uploading, I washed and strung the peppers I'd harvested, which I didn't take a photo of, but you can see them in the vlog.  Then I ground up some of the cayenne peppers I'd already dried.  I got enough to completely fill one jar and start a second. 

I'll most likely be able to fill that second jar, because I've got plenty of peppers already drying and plenty more still on the plants.

In fact, the plants have done so well in these beds - - much better than the ones I'd put into the other bed, I might put whichever peppers I grow next year into them as well.  I don't know if I'll plant more cayennes, though.  I'm thinking I might do chili or tabasco peppers next time around.  Or maybe jalapeños.  Or maybe some of each.  I don't know.  I'll have to ask Cody which ones he wants me to grow.  He's the cook in the family.  

In football news, Navy played yesterday -- on Friday.  I don't like that.  Friday is for high school.  Saturday is for college and Sunday is for NFL.  All that to say, I finished my latest sailor hat while watching them play.  

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Rainbow Galaxy

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5 mm

That's the last of the Hobby Lobby yarn.  Now I'm back to using Red Heart, at least until I can get back up to Batesville.  Maybe I'll go up there next weekend. 

Or maybe not.  I don't know.  

We'll see. 

Relief Is In Sight!

Look what I found!  

Do you know what that is????  It's a spider lily!  The first harbinger of Fall!  Oh, it's still hot outside and will be for several days yet, but spider lilies mean relief is in sight.  I'm so ready for it, too.  

It's hitting differently this year, because I want to be outside working in my garden when I've usually been content to sit inside watching TV and knitting.  It's just frustrating that the heat is keeping me from doing what I want to.  

Speaking of, I cast on a new sailor hat. 

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Day Dreamery

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5 mm

I'm thinking about casting something on with some of that fun fur I found in the shed yesterday, but don't know what.  All I've ever made with it has been scarves.  I'm open to ideas. 

I'm going to have to take it easy the next few days, so I'll have plenty of time to knit.  I've spent too much time here lately digging and lifting and doing heavy work.  This morning, the plan was to dig down to my native soil in the spot I'm going to put my hot compost bin. 

I'd tried to do that yesterday, but the ground was too hard, and so it was again today.  I got my hose and soaked it a bit, but it was still too hard to dig by hand, so I got out the old roto-tiller and put it to work.

It was tough even for that thing.  At first, it just bounced off the dirt, but I persisted and finally got the clay dug out.   Mostly down to the native soil and fairly level. 

Once that was done, I drilled holes in the bottom of the garbage can I'd bought so earthworms and microbes can find their way in.  The video I'd watched said to put seven, but my can was a bit flimsy, so I only put five. 

I was afraid if I put too many, the bottom wouldn't hold up.  Eh, it was a cheap can, but it'll do for now.  

Next step was to seed the bin with compost from one of my other piles, which should have enough microbes to get it started.  

What with it being so dry here lately and all, I have to give my compost a good watering when I'm watering the beds so it won't die, so I did that before I put the lid on it.   

Before I put the roto-tiller up, I started trying to level the spot I want to put my three round beds into. 

Again, the poor tiller just bounced off that hard, dry ground.  I got that spot a little bit leveled, but I'm going to have to wait until it's rained a bit before I continue.  This is pretty much where I plan on putting these three beds.  It's almost level but not like I want it. 

I've mentioned before that I want at least a two bay compost system, preferably three.  But two will do for now.  Last night, as I was laying in bed, I said to myself, "Self, you've got those two big green bins out in the shed that you were going to throw away.  You can use those."  

That's exactly what I did.  I'd already cleaned one out last year and used it to store old potting soil in, which I've used all of that up since then.  I got that one first and drilled holes in the bottom of it. 

Then I moved the compost pile that was on the ground into that one, and set the other bin -- after I'd drilled holes in it as well- next to it. 

That will be for fresh stuff, and after about six months to a year, it'll be broken down enough to move into the second bin.  But I expect you don't want to hear all of that.  The last thing I did was to cover the bins to keep the critters, mainly my cat, out of my compost.  

She seems to think my compost pile is her own personal litter box.  But I did drill holes in the lid so oxygen could get into the bins.  

Soon, I'll go out and chop down my old tomato and pepper plants, but I got one last good banana pepper harvest before that happens. 

I'm not sure what I'm going to do with these.  I bought some more canning jars, so I'll probably make pickled peppers out of them.  Those have much more usefulness than pepper jelly, but I do want to make some more of that, too.  I'll use some of my frozen peppers for that.  

At this point, I've got so many banana peppers, I might not even plant any next year.  That will free up at least one bed for something else.  I'm leaning towards yellow squash and sweet potatoes. 

And finally, I'm almost ready to call the clean up man.  Not mentally, mind you.  But the shed is just about where I want it to be.  Another day or two and it will be ready.  

Now I'll just have to get myself ready.  That's the hard part...
 

Happy Fall, Y'all!

Did you know that there are actually three first days of Fall?  It's true.  Let me explain. 

The one most people know about is Astronomical Fall, which is based on the Autumnal Equinox.  This year, that day is September 22.  

There is another one that isn't as well known as it is mostly observed in the weather geek community.  That is Meteorological Fall, which starts on September 1.  Also known as today. 

But there is another one that almost nobody knows about:  Traditional Fall.  What is traditional Fall?  Well, since Labor Day traditionally marks the end of summer, then logically the day after that would be the traditional first day of fall.  See what I did there?  

Fall lovers rejoice!  We get to celebrate three times a year, so let me be the...dozenth or so to say: 

Happy first day of Fall!  

Even though it's still 100° out there...

(Not my photo.  I copped it from the internet.)

Rough Day

Following a largely sleepless night last night, today was a rough day all around.  It seems like all the parts I got were bad -- not bad enough to get re-cut, but just bad enough to make my job a struggle.  All day long.  I told my coworker, "I'm not going to be able to move my hands tomorrow!" after I saw her over at her stand shaking her own hands.  

Beats the heck out of me.  Group Leader Shark stands up every day in our morning meeting and says to do our first piece inspections, but apparently the ones who do adapter tubes don't seem to think she's talking to them.  Especially that one... as soon as we see that one clock number on the parts ticket, we know right away those parts are going to be wrong. 

As much as we complain, they won't do anything about it.  Well, nothing but blame the brazers for being too slow.  On the other hand, if they employees won't take pride in doing a good job, there really isn't that much anyone can do about it.  It's not like GLS can stand over each of them all day.  Not that she would, anyway.

Even so, I think next time I get some parts that are as far off as the ones I had today, I'm going to take them to Inspector Gadget and say, "YOU go explain to [Forrestina Gumpette] what a 90° bend is!"

As if that weren't enough, my nose picked today to ooze.  All day long.  Man, I got so tired of it, I told my coworker I was going to come home and cut my nose off, so if you see me walking around tomorrow with no nose, you'll know why. 

On a similar note, I spent the entire day trying to psych myself up to call another tree company, but before the work day even ended, I felt my resolve weakening, and you guessed it.  I didn't make the call.  I don't understand why this is so difficult.  I mean, I'm an introvert and we hate the telephone anyway, but it still shouldn't be this hard to pick up the phone and call someone.  

Oh, and in fairness, I went to the 811 website to request a scan, but it said not to do it more than 10 days ahead of time, so I just left it for now.  Because I still have to call the surveyor, then decide if I'm going to use the same fencing company, and I'll probably have to hire someone to grind the stumps in the fence line -- and that brings us back to making phone calls and one of those will have to be to a tree service.  

Sigh...

To lighten things up a bit, here is a pretty picture I lifted from the interwebs.  I'd give due credit if I knew who took it.  

And finally, today is September 17, and we all know what that means.  At least, my readers do!  It's Constitution Day.  In honor of that, here is a classic Schoolhouse Rock.  

By the way, to this day, I cannot recite the Preamble without singing it.  And in the spirit of it being Constitution Day, I signed up for PragerU's course on understanding the Constitution, so I'm going to get off of here, take a quick shower, then do lesson 1. 

Laters. 

For The Haters

This is for all you haters out there.  

For everyone saying Fall doesn't start until September 22nd.  For all of you saying to put the pumpkin spice down and the decorations back into the closet.  

Nature says you're wrong, Karen!  I've got spider lilies blooming.  It's Fall!  

Not only that, it was a brisk 58° when I got up this morning -- just right for a hot cup of coffee and a blanket on my lap as I sat in my chair savoring the morning, knowing I had another full day of football to look forward to.  

I thought briefly about putting a little fire in the fire pit and sitting outside for a while, but didn't.  The storm that came through yesterday morning blew the cover off and all the wood that was still inside was soaking wet.  I didn't figure it would light, and didn't want to struggle with it, so I'll give it a few more days to dry out.  

I also thought about getting my fake fireplace heater out, but it wasn't really cold enough for that and it didn't occur to me until just now that I could turn the fire lights on without turning the heat on.  Oh well...the air conditioner is running now and I don't think I could handle that dichotomy. 

That's almost as unsettling as seeing Micah Parsons in a Green Bay uniform.  But let's not talk about that.  Let's talk about something much more pleasant.  

Knitting!  

The latest hat is coming along nicely, but I think I'm going to have to make the orange stripe a bit wider than I'd originally intended. 

I'm not sure I'll have enough of the green -- yes, that is green, not gray despite what your monitor might tell you-- to finish if I don't.  Heh, I might have to make a tiny bit of orange at the very top.  We'll see how it goes. 

By the way, I lied to you yesterday when I showed you that photo and said it's all the worsted weight I have left.  I forgot I had all of this in a project bag.  

 I can get quite a few more hats done before I need to buy more.  

Good thing football season has started.  I'll have plenty of time to sit and knit.  Which is what I'm going to go do right now.  

Laters.  

I Labored

I labored today, which is appropriate what with it being Labor Day and all.  

But first, let me just say I hate waiting on people.  Today was the day the scrap metal people were supposed to show up, but as of this writing there has been no sign of them.  Basically, I've been waiting all day, but I decided -- knowing how people can be -- that I was going to carry on with my plans as normal, and if they catch me with frizzy hair and no bra, then so be it.  However, I didn't drag out the roto-tiller, because I didn't want to be covered in mud if they should happen to come. 

And what exactly did I carry on with?  I've been making a start on cleaning out my shed.  That's why I have all this scrap metal in the first place, because the shed tends to be where I stuff junk to deal with later.  There really isn't all that much in it, but it's so unorganized and haphazard, I can hardly get into the aforementioned shed. There is a guy here who does that type of cleanup, and he's on the list of people I need to contact, but as I said yesterday, I can't multitask.  

I also made a start in putting out my Fall decorations, which means I hung one wreath.   

I'll get it all done eventually, right now I'm just not feeling it.  By the way, I only put this photo first because many of you won't click on a link if the thumbnail is ....a box of dirt. 

Women's size 9 croc knockoff included for scale.  

And where did all of that dirt come from?  Well, I'll tell you.  In cleaning out the shed, I found so many pots -- plant pots I mean -- that were cracked or otherwise unusable.  I rounded up all of those pots, plus several that were still in good shape, and dumped all of the potting soil into this box.  This is where my sifter things came in handy, because most of them had rocks in the bottom for drainage.  

I don't know if putting rocks in pots is strictly necessary, but my mother always did it, so I did it, too.  But then, my mother had such a black thumb she couldn't grow mold on month old spaghetti, so I might not do it in the future.   On the other hand, once I get my raised bed garden set up, I probably won't have too many plants in pots anyway.  I may give the other ones away, provided people actually show up to get them.  

Speaking of, I got the side pieces of one of my raised beds and laid them out beside the fence, just to see how it would fit.  

It looks like I'll be able to get three beds across that length of fence, once I get them all in place.  Well, bought first, then put into place.  I still need to level that spot out a bit more before I start putting beds together and all, which I would have done this morning, but....  

Did I mention I hate waiting for people?  Oh, and I have two stadium seats that have been waiting for ten days for someone to come pick them up, and I know by this time she's not coming, but I don't want to advertise them again because of the constant no-shows.  

But I digress....

Look what else I found when I was cleaning?  It's an old water bowl from one of the snake tanks.  

I filled it and put it beside the house for now, but it will eventually go into one of my raised beds, as will these:

One is an aquarium ornament cave, and the other came out of a snake tank.  I'm hoping they will attract toads to my garden, which will help keep the slugs down.  Eh, now that I look at it, I might not leave the aquarium ornament in my bed, though.  It's not quite the right look.  I'll figure it out when I start getting stuff in place. 

Another thing I found was some old garden edging, which I need for another project.  I noticed that the ground my birdbath is sitting on isn't quite level, so the birdbath leans a bit.  I'm going to take some of my red clay and level a spot for it.  I wanted to make a ring out of something, to contain the dirt.  

This old plastic edging proved to be just the trick.  Probably one afternoon this week, I'll move the birdbath, sift some rocks out of the dirt and fill the ring up.  

Speaking of sifting dirt, I finally finished filling in the first of the tire tracks the landscammer left,  

and started on the second.  

And I filled in the giant ruts left by the dump truck.  

Those will probably need some topping off before it's all said and done, but at least the lawnmower won't fall into giant holes next time I mow -- which I thought about doing today, but just didn't want to.  I'll have to mow at least one more time before it's all over, but the grass has already slowed down growing.  

By the time I was done with all of that, I was hot and sweaty, so I sat outside in the shade for a while, but had to come inside because of the unwanted attention of a very persistent fly.  I spent the rest of the afternoon watching Lost In Austen on Prime Video and knitting on the hat.  

And finally, just in case you're interested, here are all the people I need to contact.  

Is it any wonder I'm overwhelmed?  

Well, all good things must come to an end, and that includes my extra long weekend.  Yes, it's back to work tomorrow, and moreover, we're back to going in at 5:00 AM, so I guess this is good night for now.  

Except I'm not going to bed right now.  I'm just finishing up this blog post.  I'm going to finish watching this show and knit some more on the hat.  

Later, taters.

Beautiful

The spider lilies are in full bloom, and I wish you could see them in person, because this photo simply doesn't do them justice.  

Those yellow butterflies love them, and I wish I could have gotten a photo of one.  They're kind of quick, though.   I did manage to take a few artsy-fartsy photos, and these two were my favorite.

It was kind of hard, because the sun is so bright, I can't really see my phone screen, but I think they turned out OK.  Still no yellow butterflies, though. 

While I was out there, I took another photo of that wire imbedded in the tree trunk.  My lovely markings indicate where the outer edges of the trunk were.  There's just a little bit left showing.  For perspective, when the tree was first cut down, the trunk was 3' across. 

The wire appears to be right in the center.  I wonder how long it had to have been there for that much of the tree to grow up around it, and why was it put there in the first place?  That's a story I wish I could hear. 

In other news, there has also, there has been knitting.  

It's weird, though.  I've used this yarn before, but the last time it didn't stripe like this.  I wonder if they changed the way they dyed it since I bought the last few skeins.   I cast on another hat last night, but there was a knot in the yarn, so it's going to pool a bit differently.  Oh, well, that's what you get when you buy cheap yarn.  I mean, I like it, but it's cheap.  

And finally, if you missed yesterday's post, this is why. 

Please someone tell me, what was deceptive or misleading about Fall decorations and my herb gardens?  I very strongly suggest that if you want to keep reading my blog, you bookmark the site and come here directly, because I'm getting tired of this nonsense.  If it happens again, I won't be linking to Facebook any more.  You will be able to fine me here at Blogspot, on X, and if I start getting enough traffic, I'll post my links to Substack as well.  The post is still here on the blog, though, if you want to go back and read it. 

 Oh, one more thing before I go.  Yesterday was a good day for football.  Texas won decidedly in Arch Manning's first start.  He made some freshman mistakes, but that's why they wanted him to play in the first place -- to get real game experience, and to give Quin Ewers another week to recover.  

LSU won, but I didn't really pay that much attention to that game because Navy was playing at the same time.  Yes, that Navy.  THE Navy who upset the Memphis Tigers!  

More importantly, if they play like they did yesterday, Army doesn't stand a chance. 

Go Navy!  Beat Army!

Finally Fall

And the long, hot miserable summer finally comes to an end this weekend.  Tomorrow morning at 7:43 AM CDT to be precise.  Of course, it's been meteorological fall for three weeks now, but let's not quibble over details.   The point is, it's finally Fall!  Except that it's still hot, at least for the next few days.  By Wednesday, it'll drop into the lower 80s, and I can't wait!  

With that in mind, I started putting out a few of my fall decorations.  

I won't show you all of them, because they're the same every year.  Mostly.  I did do something a little different here, because last year, I had a turkey wall plaque hanging in this corner.  

I felt like it made that corner just a little too cluttered, so this year, I put it out in the car port by my back door -- which is not the door shown here. 

 That is the old door into my laundry room.  Sometime before I bought the house, someone added a door from the kitchen into the aforementioned laundry room, so this one doesn't get used any more.  In fact, if I ever get to the point I can get my house completely remodeled, I've been considering having it removed completely and that space bricked up -- provided they can find matching bricks, of course. 

OK, moving right along.  Some good news and some bad news.  The good news is that these bricks seemed to have worked, because this bed was undisturbed this morning. 

The bad news is, the other raised bed was all dug up.  Sigh...I guess I'll have to put some bricks in it for the time being.  Next year, I want to get some of that stiff plastic screen and cut holes in it just big enough for the plants to grow up through.  

On the other hand, after a few moments of research, I found out that squirrels -- and indeed most rodents-- are repelled by peppermint oil.  I don't have any on hand, but I do have a peppermint plant.  I went outside and cut a few springs of it, then crushed the leaves just a bit and scattered them around the bed.  If it works, I may be able to do away with the bricks.  

Hmmm, I wonder if I can drop some down the chipmunk holes and run them off, too...

On a similar note, I got out early this morning and started digging up some of the day lilies.  I recorded a short video about it....

And finally, I started taste testing my new coffee this morning.  Since I'm not one of those people who can drink it all day and still fall asleep at night, I only tried three of the new flavors:  maple walnut, caramel brownie, and Frosty's mint chip.  They were all pretty good, but my favorite of these three was the caramel brownie.  

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get this published because LSU and Navy both play here in about 15 minutes.  I'll need the computer to watch one of those games, so I'll check you later. 

Geaux, and Anchors Aweigh!

P.S.  Just so's you'll know, I do read all comments you leave on my posts, whether you do so here on Blogger or on Facebook.  I may not respond to them all, because I'm an introvert.  I need time to absorb and process, then I figure it's been too long to reply, so I don't.  But I do read and appreciate every one of them.