Stuff

I said I wasn't going to sit around on my day off watching TV all day.  I said I was going to get stuff done.  And I did get stuff done.  Some stuff, that is.  The first stuff I got done was to take the Incarnation of Evil in to the vet for her shots and stuff.  

She did not like that, and she let everyone in that vet's office know just how much she didn't like it.  I almost felt sorry for the poor vet when the cat started hissing at her.  I told the vet that it was the cat's previous owner who'd named her Cutie, and I'd taken her in after he had died.  I left her name the same on her vet records, because I figured it'd be easier like that.  The vet said, "I've found that these animals named things like Cutie, Precious, Sweetie and the like are absolute monsters.  It's the ones named Killer and stuff that are the real sweethearts."  

Anyway, the cat is updated for the next year, and the vet escaped any bodily injury.  Me, on the other hand, I got bitten while trying to stuff the aforementioned Incarnation of Evil back into the cat carrier.  By the cat, not the vet.  Just wanted to make that clear.

I thought about going out to the lake and walking after I took the cat home, but by then, it was already starting to get hot, so I just piddled around the house and yard a bit.  I had a bit of a disappointment when I discovered another of my banana pepper plants had died. 

I don't get it.  It was fine yesterday, and this morning it was suddenly dead.  I went ahead and harvested all the peppers from it, and got a good deal of them. 

Then I pulled the whole plant up, just in case there is any disease it might be spreading.  My first thought was root knot nematodes, but I didn't see any sign of that.  The root ball looked perfectly healthy.  The only thing I saw on the entire plant was a bit of what looked like mold right at the base of the stem where it meets the soil.  I'd seen the same thing on that first one which had died, too, but at the time I didn't think anything of it.  After seeing it on this second plant, maybe there is something to it after all. 

My second thought was that there was something on the cardboard I'd used to mulch, but they were all Amazon boxes.  They are printed with soy based ink, and even the tape is all natural and 100% recyclable, so they should be fine to use in the garden in that aspect.  The only other thing I could think was that maybe some of the cardboard had shifted over time --I'd made sure that they weren't touching the stems when I put them down, but maybe they'd moved and were trapping moisture at the base of the stem causing mold to grow and somehow damage the plant.  I don't know, but I went back out and made sure there was plenty of space around the remaining plants in that bed. 

For good measure, I also checked the plants in the newest bed and pulled all the mulch away from those stems, too. 

I hope that helps.  I'd planned on trying to overwinter my pepper plants, but if they keep on dying, I won't be able to.  I do know one thing, though, next year I definitely need to rig up some sort of shade cloth for my garden area.  Also, I had a clever idea for my drip system -- not the soaker hose, but the bottles.  I'd been using 1 liter water bottles, like the one in the photo above.  This morning, I emptied out one of my coffee creamer bottles and thought, "Hmmm, these have a flip top.  That would make them so much easier to fill than having to unscrew that top."  So I washed the first one out, and will save those from here on out.  

Now that the pumpkin spice creamer is out, I ought to have plenty of them.  😊

It looks like I'll need them, because all of these storms that have rolled through have completely missed my part of the county.  State.  Country.  It's so dry, my grass is brown and crunchy and even the weeds are dying.  If we don't get some rain soon, I'm going to run out of the rain water I've collected for my Venus Fly Trap.  Speaking of, I do want to eventually get some gutters installed with a couple of rain barrel collection systems.  That ought to help a bit with my water bill. 

Let's wrap this segment up with a bit of good news, I haven't found any more hornworms in the last two days, so maybe I got them all.  

In other news, you would be proud of me.  Why?  I made another phone call!  Yep, I called the eye doctor and made an appointment.   She said the first available appointment is Friday, October 9, which works out perfectly because I already have that day off.  Better yet, I was able to finally mark something off of my list. 

Alas, I had to add calling the electrician, so I'm still at 8, but I'm counting it as progress. 

Better yet, I might finally be able to see again.  

And finally, a bit of humor to top off this Friday. 

IYKYK

I Forgot

I forgot to mention yesterday that when I was doing my deep dive into my deep freeze, I found nearly an entire sweet potato pie that I'd cut up and frozen right after Thanksgiving last year.  I'd put it into the bottom of the deep freeze before the ice storm and completely forgot it was even there. 

I'd been doing so well with my blood sugar here lately, I decided to thaw a slice and eat.  It was a tiny bit freezer burned on the crust, but the filling tasted fine.  Also, when you put a pie into the freezer, the crust tends to turn soggy.  Honestly, I'd intended to have it eaten up within a few weeks, until the ice storm threw my entire life out of whack.  Well, I suppose I should blame my memory for forgetting what all I had put into the aforementioned deep freeze.  And the ice storm didn't quite throw my entire life out of whack, but that's more exciting than to say it mildly inconvenienced me for a few days. 

Now for a bit of good news, they're saying we may get a break from this heat by next week, and by "break from this heat"  I mean they're predicting the lower 90s instead of the lower 100s.  My air conditioner will be glad of that! 

So will my electric bill.  By the way, the power stayed on all day at work.  Bummer.  I heard someone at work say that the reason the power went out is because someone hit a light pole, which is highly plausible.  People were saying that there was a large part of town that was without power, not just the plant.  I don't know about that, because it was the Tallahatchie Valley EPA, and I'm on Entergy.  

I know a lot of folks complain about Entergy, but back during that ice storm I keep bringing up, they had all of their customers' power back on long before either Tallahatchie Valley or Delta Electric did.  I've never had any complaints about them, me.  

By the way, they're saying this winter could be even worse than last winter thanks to the so called Super El Nino.  I guess that's why the ice storm has been so much on my mind here lately.  And I guess I really ought to get an electrician out here to check that breaker and replace it if necessary, just in case I need to use the generator again.   Oh, and last winter was actually pretty mild except for that whole ice...storm...thing...

Cold and sleet I can deal with.  Just not ice.  I'd have said snow, but we so seldom get it here.  Everywhere around us could be getting snow, and all we get is sleet.  I'm telling you one thing, you can not make snow ice cream out of sleet.  It won't work.  Trust me on this one. 

Be that as it may, except for that pesky breaker, I'm all ready for a cold and snowy -- or sleety, rather-- winter.  I've got plenty of firewood, plenty of power banks, and this year, I have a woobie.  

A good woobie will solve a world of problems. 

That Was Exciting

There I was at work, just a working away shortly after lunch.  I'd just completed an order and had put it over where we put our completed work, and the lights went out.  The machines turned off, and everything suddenly got dark and silent.  

Naturally, I did what any red blooded person living in the 21st century would do.  I pulled out my phone, turned the flashlight on, and made my way safely back to my brazing stand.   Shortly after that, Group Leader Shark called, "Everyone come over here!" indicating the area where we have our morning meetings.  Before we even all got there, she came back and said, "Everyone go to the front break room!"  

I'm thinking, "Why?  It's dark in there, too."  But who am I to question the wisdom of management decision?  So we all tromped up to the main breakroom and sat in the dark for about 5 minutes.  By and by, I heard someone say a transformer had blown, and shortly afterwards, I heard Cuz come across the radio and say, "Let's ease everyone on out of here."  

Everyone started leaving, only some of us had to go back to our work areas to get our stuff.  As I was walking down the aisle, I heard the assembly line production manager say, "I told them to bring their stuff!"  Except that the component production manager didn't...so we had to go back and get it all.  Fortunately, since there isn't a second shift right now, all I had to do was grab my bag and my cooler, and could leave everything else set up. 

Knowing me, I'm going to forget and tomorrow morning I'll be like, "Who left my stand a mess?"  

But wait, there's more!  Once we got outside, because the power was out, they couldn't get the exit gate to the employee parking lot open, so everyone was having to go out of the entrance, which is only one lane wide.  They finally did, but it took a minute.  By then, most everyone had already left, so getting out was a breeze. 

On a completely unrelated note, I grabbed these screenshots off of Google Earth a few days ago.  Back in the day, the plant had a line of trees out front.  

I'm not completely sure what kind they were, but they've been there for as long as I can remember -- 

probably since the plant opened back in 1996.  Well, so many of them got badly damaged during the ice storm back in January that they decided to cut them all down.  The first morning I was driving to work after that I almost turned into the front office parking lot because I didn't know where I was.  Funny how we get so used to the little cues that when they are gone, we are thrown completely out of whack.  

Speaking of the ice storm, I was in my deep freeze Sunday looking for something I had put down in the very bottom, hoping it would stay frozen when the power went out.  It did, and I found it exactly where I had put it.  While I was in there, I also found some fish filets and said to myself, "Self, you're growing all of these herbs.  You need to start cooking with them!"  

Yesterday, I did just that.  I got two of those filets out and sauteed them in butter with some of my fresh lemon balm and French Tarragon to season it with.  It was pretty good.  I think next time, I'll add more Tarragon.  I hadn't planned on re-planting that, but now that I've tasted it, I'm changing those plans.  I didn't realize how good it tasted, because I'd never used it.  I'd just dried it and gave it to Cody and Brennan.  Like I said, I need to start cooking with my own herbs more.  

On a more disappointing note, I took down some of my dried cayenne peppers out to grind them into powder and found that most of them had molded on the inside.   I think out of the two strings I'd previously hung, I got maybe 6 or 7 good peppers.  I threw the rest into the compost, then took the two remaining strings and cut the stems off of the peppers so that air can get to the insides of them.  Maybe that will help.  

I'm really wanting to invest in a food dehydrator, though.  You can get a decent one for not too much money, and if my seemingly immortal snakes ever go to that great herpetarium in the sky, I plan on turning that room into a seed starting, herb processing,  all kinds of gardening stuff room.  What I really want to do is to get the shop re-built and more outlets added so I can start using it for more than just storage.  I suppose getting the roof replaced would be the first step.  I wonder how much that would cost...

More bad news, I've had an infestation of tomato hornworms, and they've just about cleaned out a couple of my plants.  Of leaves, I mean.  I should have had sense when I found that first one to look for more.  I've killed probably ten of the little buggers, but left all of the ones with the parasitic wasp larvae alone.  I didn't find any more hornworms this afternoon when I checked, so maybe I've gotten them all.  

Remember Supervisor Greenjeans who used to work out at the plant?  He always grows a huge garden every year.  His father still works out there and we got to chatting the other day.  Daddy Greenjeans told me that it's been so hot and dry this summer that Supervisor Greenjeans just plowed the whole garden under until next year.  

And finally, instead of coming home and being productive with my extra hour and a half off, I came home instead and watched another of my shark week shows that I hadn't gotten around to and knit a bit. 

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Dakota

Pattern: Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5mm

It's too hot to do anything else.  But take heart fellow Southerners.  September is only 10 days away!  

It'll still be hot, but at least it won't be August any more. 

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

Garden Journal

What good is it to have a day off when you wake up at 4:00 AM anyway?  Yep, bright and early was the word for me.  They say you're supposed to wake up at the same time every day anyway, even on your day off, and after some 25-ish years of this, it would seem I have no choice in the matter.  My body does what it wants to.  The bright side is, when I get a few days off in a row, I eventually shift to a more normal sleep schedule.  

The down side to that is, when I have to go back to work, it's so hard to go back to getting up as early as I have to.

Enough about that...and I won't tell you how hot it is outside...but I'm sure you already know.  It is August after all.  But we're halfway through and relief is on the horizon.  I spent the hot part of the day finishing my latest sailor hat. 

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Songbird Stripe

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5mm

Then I cast on a new one.

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Dakota

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5 mm

Before it got too hot, I decided it was time to put a second tier on my tomato cages, so that's just what I did. 

At first, I was only going to raise the cages on the two largest tomatoes, but then I said, "Since you have the stuff out here anyway, might as well do them all."  And that's just what I did.  These cages were a bit pricy, but I like that you can keep building them higher as you need to.  The older ones I had only go so high, and the taller tomatoes are drooping over.  

Another thing I did was to really whack my basil back pretty hard.  It has opened up that whole bed to much better air flow.  And look at this!  I found blooms on my new batch of tomatoes!   

Well, on one of the plants, at least.  Hopefully, the others will follow suit soon.  As soon as it cools down a bit -- like maybe late next month-- I'll be ready to make that tomato soup.  I boiled down a chicken carcass this morning to get some homemade broth.  Not stock.  Just broth.  

While I was out in my garden, I found this:

Ewww, what is that thing?  It is a tomato hornworm with parasitic wasp larvae feeding off of it.  When they have those on them, it's best to leave them there so the wasps can hatch, or mature, or whatever it's called when they move from larva to adults.  I believe the name of the wasp is the braconid wasp, but I've only ever heard them called parasitic wasps.  Either way, they're a good thing to have in your garden. 

Once I was done with all of that, I recorded another garden journal, which you can watch on YouTube if you're so inclined:  Garden Journal.  I've decided I need to come up with a catch phrase, like some of the other YouTubers have.  Like, Ben at GrowVeg says, "I'll catch you next time."  And Kevin at Epic Gardening says, "Keep on growing."  And The Millennial Gardener says, "What's growing on?"  Maybe I could just say, "Laters!"  like I do on my blog.  That's a British expression that I picked up watching so many BBC shows, by the way.  It's not original to me or anything.  Ah, well, I'll think of something. 

The last thing I did before retreating into the air conditioning was to take photos of my new bluebonnets that are coming up. 

I've got seedlings coming up all over, and they've got to be from last year's plants, because I haven't planted any yet this year.  I'll wait until the middle of next month, then plant some in the bare spots, once I know how many volunteers I'm going to have.  

I've got weeds in that bed, but I'm kind of afraid to pull them up right now, because I don't want to pull my bluebonnets up with them.  

Eh, maybe first frost will kill the weeds off.  

And finally, I'm sure you will all be pleased to know that my wasp stings are much better now. 

They still pop up with an itch from time to time, but nowhere near as bad as they were.  One silver lining of the August heat and drought is that I won't need to mow again for quite some time. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go grab a quick shower before the ball game comes on.  

Laters

 

A Great Upheaval

It was 100° when I got home this afternoon.  Actual temp.  In the shade.  I don't even want to know what the heat index was, or what it was in the bald sun.  I waited until around 6:30 to go out and water, and it was hot then, too.  It is now 7:30 as I type this and it is still 93° out there.  

Funny thing, I've seen videos from British people talking about Americans couldn't handle a UK heat wave -- you know, when it gets up to the unbearable temps of 85°.  In one video I watched, they were discussing how they deal with the heat, since they're too morally superior to buy air conditioners.  One lady was talking about how she slept under a wet sheet.  I don't care how hot it gets, there is no way I'm going to do that.   Ugh, how slimy that would feel!  She also said she paints her windows with yogurt. 

Seriously?  I thought it was a freak thing, but then I saw a video from Ben at GrowVeg mentioning the same thing.  Painting your windows with yogurt is apparently a real thing in the UK.  Why?  What is it going to do except sour and stink?  If you want to block the sunlight, put up some drapes or something.  

If you can stand a bit of salty language -- quite a bit, in fact -- The Fat Electrician recently did a video on the greatest invention of the 20th century, air conditioning.   

Now for a bit of good news, the little tomato that was nearly eaten to death has really picked up. 

It's still quite a bit smaller than the others, but at least it's growing again.  Aaaand, I've got a few volunteers coming up in my zinnia bed. 

Alas, one of them will need to be thinned, but I'm going to give them a couple more weeks before I do that.  

By the way, Walmart has their bags of bark mulch on clearance for $2.  I might just go up there tomorrow and get a few bags for next year. 

In work news, apparently there is going to be a great upheaval at the plant.  I'd been hearing whispers in the wind for quite some time now about how they want to put the plant back to the way it was before that one plant manager messed everything up.  

For those of you who don't work there, back around 7-8 years ago, they decided to split up the plant, and put the component area in the front, and move the assembly area to what was once the warehouse.  I won't go into the gory details, but things haven't been the same since.  There isn't any flow to production, and it's much harder to get our parts out.  They've been talking about putting it back ever since, and now it looks like they're actually going to get started doing that very thing. 

This morning at the meeting, Group Leader Shark told us to take everything out of our lockers, because they were going to get rid of them.  I'm not too happy about that.  Without lockers, we don't have a secure place to store our tools.  Right now it's not too much of an issue, but it will be once second shift starts back up -- whenever that happens to be.  Our options then will be to leave everything out and hope it doesn't get stolen, or lug our tools back and forth through the metal detectors every morning and evening.  

Then they're going to tear down the wall between the front and back part of the plant.  That's why they are doing those weeklong shutdowns instead of putting us on four day weeks.  Supposedly, they're going to move the brazers again, too, and bring two of the assembly lines back up to the front.  I mean, they're not going to do that all in one week, but that's the plan.  

For now at least, the brazers will still be in our own area, but one of the quality guys told me he wants to put us back on the assembly lines.  He said, "When y'all were on the line, you could braze 700-800 headers a day and still have time to walk around and help out on the line!"  And I said, "I want some of whatever it is you've been smoking!"  Then I sniffed him to see if he smelled like skunk...

Anyway, every brazer I've talked to says they do not want to go back onto the lines, because those group leaders treated us like we were nothing more than built in floaters.  My last assembly line group leader once told me she'd never allow both brazers to be on our stands at the same time because she "couldn't afford to pull two people off the line like that."  The one I had before that used to put me onto the line, then come yell at me on the line because they'd run out of headers.  Well, DUH.  What did you think would happen?  I think if they do try to put us back on the lines, I'm going to go ahead and retire from out there.  

And finally, I asked Grok to make me a meme of this quote by Sir Francis Bacon, and this is what he came up with.

Then I asked Gemini the same thing, and somehow he changed fear to fart and gave me this:

Not sure what he was thinking....

Fall Shutdown

Be proud of me.  Be very proud.

Why?  Because I made a phone call.  Yes, yes I did.  I called the vet and got the cat's appointment made for her annual vaccines and checkup.   I didn't make myself an eye appointment, though.  Two phone calls in one day is a bit more than I can handle...

By the way, I have no idea when my air conditioner finally shut off last night.  All I know is it was after I'd gone to bed.  This morning, I got up and bumped the thermostat up to 77°, and left my window unit on all day to help take the strain off.  I get concerned, because my central unit is old.  It was already old when I bought the house 11 years ago, and I have no idea when it was initially installed.  I want to get a newer, more energy efficient, non smart unit eventually, but that's going to have to wait for a while. 

Funny thing, I had to do a load of laundry when I got home, because this morning I put on my last clean pair of socks. It's so hot outside, I think they dried faster on the clothes horse than they would have if I'd put them into the dryer.  I still need to call an electrician, but honestly, I'm not in any hurry to do that.  Maybe when it starts getting cold, I will, but for now....In a way, it's more convenient to hang dry my clothes.  I say this because I don't have to wait until the clothes finish drying to move the load from the washer and start a new one.   Plus, I love the smell of clothes dried out in the fresh air. 

Unless it's raining and I have to dry them in the spare bedroom.  But even that isn't that big of a deal. 

I had a supervisor, and she approves. 

In other news, they released the fall shutdown schedule today. 

Instead of putting us on 4 day weeks, they decided to shut the plant down for the whole week of Labor Day, then again the whole week of inventory.  It actually adds up to fewer days off this way, because we'd only be working three days during inventory week and four days during Labor Day week anyway.  

Oh, and we also get the entire week of Thanksgiving off, but then, that's not that unusual.  

What is also not unusual is people freaking out about it, and me saying, "Y'all stop acting like you've never worked here before!"  I swan, it's like they completely forgot we got Thanksgiving week off last year, and in 2023, and in 2022...you get the idea.  One of the brazers asked if I was going to change my vacation, and I said, "Nope."  

This is why I work all of the overtime when it's there, so I'll have that little cushion in my savings account for these fall shutdowns.  

Us old school folks have been through this before.  We'll be OK. 

Not As Bad

Well, here you go.  For those of you on the morbid side, here is a photo of some of my wasp stings.  

I can assure you, they are not nearly as bad as they look.  The stings themselves have healed for the most part.  What you are seeing is the bruising I left when I scratched the mess out of them.  Oh, but you're not supposed to scratch these things, you say.

Hey, if you can ..not scratch...you're a better person than I am, Gunga Din.  

You know what is as bad as it looks?  The heat.  

According to my thermometer, when I got home from work it was 99° in the shade.  I don't even want to know what the heat index is, and it doesn't look like there's going to be any relief in the foreseeable future, either.  My poor air conditioner hasn't shut off at all this afternoon.  It probably won't until after the sun sets.  

Needless to say, I didn't do much outside at all.  I checked the plants, filled the bird bath and hummingbird feeder, then ran back inside.  I didn't even start the soaker hose until 6:00 PM.  I let it run for 30-ish minutes then watered the other beds by hand.  I found a few cayenne peppers ready to cut, 

and by the time I got done with all of that, I was absolutely drenched in sweat.  

I took a quick shower, and spent the rest of the day knitting.  

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Songbird Stripe

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5mm

Oh, and I did make some chicken salad and put some of the banana peppers I picked yesterday into it.  One thing I didn't get done was to make the cat's vet appointment.  I followed the link in the email but it said their online booking service is down.  But by that time, it was too late to call. 

I guess I'll try again tomorrow. 

Last Week

This is it.  This is the week!  

It's my last full work week of this year.  Provided we work Friday, that is.  I'm not sure that's even going to happen what with work being so slow right now.  They even sent some of the lines home early, and it's only Monday, so I can't even guess what's going to go on the rest of the week.  They've also shut second shift down completely for the foreseeable future.  They didn't have much of one to begin with, but starting today, they moved them all to day shift.  I don't know if they laid anyone off, though.  

All that to say, this is my last full work week of the year!  My vacation Fridays start next week, August 21.  Woo Hoo!  Maybe this year, I'll finally get some of the stuff on my to-do list done.  Sigh, if only it didn't require making phone calls.  

You know, I've never liked the telephone, but it seems the older I get, the harder it is to pick up a phone and make a call.  I don't know why.  Maybe I'm just getting grumpier as I age.  Whatever...

In other news, my new harvest basket arrived today, and boy is it nice. 

I can understand why my friend recommended it to me.   I couldn't wait to go outside and harvest something.  All that was ready were a few more banana peppers and some cayenne peppers, but I harvested them, by golly. 

I didn't stay out long, because it was 95° in the shade.  

While I was outside, I noticed something had torn up my little makeshift wasp trap.  

My guess is a raccoon or a possum, or maybe even that stray tom cat that keeps jumping on the Incarnation of Evil.  No matter.  I took the stake and poked around in the wasp hole, but didn't see any activity, so maybe that vinegar trick worked.  The website said they don't like the smell, so they abandon the nest.  Whatever.  I'm just glad they're gone. 

By the way, my stings have mostly healed up, only now I'm waiting for the bruises to heal.  You know, the bruises I gave myself from scratching...

Also by the way, I moved my little fairy garden over to an empty bed when I mulched the zinnias yesterday. 

Eventually, it's going to have a permanent spot, but for now, it'll be fine right there.  

Last Batch

Yes, folks!  I finally did it.  I got up and made the last batch of pepper jelly this morning. 

This time, I got the ol' food processor out and really chopped them peppers up.  Then, when I was ladling the jelly into the jars, I made sure to keep stirring it, so the peppers would be evenly distributed amongst them.  I think it worked out much better this time, even though there is one jar that all the peppers seem to be floating at the top.  Oh well, it'll still taste good. 

Once that was done, I cleaned up my kitchen and put all of my canning supplies into the spare room for the time being.  I don't really see any more canning being done this year, since I don't have that much left in the garden.  

On a similar note, after the sun dipped behind the trees last evening, I raked up all my grass clippings and put them into the empty 4 x 4' bed. 

As you can see, I got a good little pile of hay there.  I just hope I waited long enough for all of that grass to drop its seeds, or I'm going to be driving myself crazy weeding next year.  Heh...

This afternoon, I braved the heat and mulched all of my 4' x 4' beds -- even the ones with the older plants. 

Heck, I had plenty of clippings for them, plus the zinnia bed, and I've still got some left over.  That only took about 15 minutes, but I was drenched when I was done, so I came inside and took a shower and that's it for my outside business for today. 

Oh, and I should probably tell you, I went ahead and ordered that quick disconnect set from Amazon.  

That's what I went outside to do in the first place, to hook that up.  As luck would have it, these are also interchangeable with one of the sets I'd bought at Walmart.  You know, the ones that weren't interchangeable with each other...go figure.  Anyway, it'll be nice not to have to constantly unscrewing my hose when I want to switch it from one bed to another.  

That being done, I spent the rest of the afternoon watching TV and knitting. 

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Songbird Stripe

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5mm

I like the colors, but this yarn feels more like Red Heart than Hobby Lobby.  Oh well, I don't suppose it matters.  I'd love to use nicer yarns, but these hats have to stand up to an industrial washer on those ships.  I mean, I doubt they get washed all that much, but still...it would break my heart if one of the hats I gave to a sailor fell apart the first time it got washed. 

Speaking of TV, I'm still watching old Emergency! reruns, and I've noticed that almost everything those firemen do on that show would be major OSHA violations these days.  Like climbing up stuff without safety harnesses, for example.  

When I was outside raking up my grass clippings, I happened to see a hornet hovering around the old nest.  Apparently, I hadn't killed them all.  One website said to pour vinegar down the hole, because they don't like the smell of it.  I did that, then rigged up a makeshift trap from an old water bottle. 

I baited it with peach juice and some of the cat's wet food.  She always leaves a few pieces of it in the bowl, so I scraped it off into the trap.  I figure once that sun hits it, it'll rot and stink and the hornets will love it.  

This morning, I went out and tied it to an extra tomato stake so it wouldn't tip over in the wind.  

I didn't see any more hornets, and it hasn't caught any, so maybe they've moved on.  But I'll leave the trap there for a bit anyway.  

And finally, I'm struggling a bit with my piano playing here lately.  I've been working through the Alfred's level 3, and it's got a lot more advanced theory in this one.  Since I'll probably be mostly playing Christmas carols and hymns, I doubt I'll need any of that, but I want to work through it anyway.  At least skim through it, even if I don't understand it all. 

I don't know.  I guess I'm burned out about a lot of things right now.  Even blogging.  I'd said way back when I started this blog that I didn't want it to be nothing but a laundry list of everything I'd done that day, but it seems that's exactly what it turned in to.   But then, 20 years ago, people where still basically decent human beings and could discuss differences without death threats.  

And I just don't want to deal with the nastiness that is out there these days.  

In fact, I think I'll go listen to some sea chanties.  

Laters...

Finally Made It

Yes, folks, you would be proud of me.  I finally made it to the Farmer's Market this morning.  Once I got out of my own head and got over the idea that I needed to be there right when it opened, it wasn't too much trouble to get myself dressed and down to the square.  I still got there pretty early, though.  Just not right at the crack of dawn early.  

Since I knew I was going to go walk the Bottomland Trail when I left, I decided to treat myself to some cookies.  I got a red velvet and a chocolate chip cookie from Diamond's Sweet Treats. 

And of course, I had to get some of Mrs. Terry's old fashioned tea cakes.  

The last thing I picked up was a jar of Mrs. Terry's salsa for Brennan.  

She told me that was the best salsa she'd ever had, so I get her at least one jar every year.   I might even research salsa recipes over the winter and try to make some of my own next year.  

Once I'd finished my shopping, I drove down to the Lee Tartt Nature Preserve and walked the Bottomland Trail -- realizing shortly into my walk that I had forgotten to put on bug spray.  I guess I'm going to have to start keeping an emergency can of bug spray in my car -- right next to my emergency deodorant. 

It's such a nice walk, and I'll enjoy it more once the weather cools off a bit.  This morning, it wasn't that hot, but the humidity was so high my glasses kept fogging up.  And the deer flies!  Oh, the deer flies were thick out there and followed me all the way down to the Chronolog stand. 

I took my photo and uploaded it to the timelapse, which you can see below.  The last two photos are mine. 

Then, I hightailed it out of there and back into my air conditioning.  Which I didn't stay in long, because my other main project for the day was to get the yard mowed.  

It looks much better now, and on the bright side, I'll have lots of lovely grass clippings to mulch my garden beds with.  On the not so bright side, I found a ground hornet's nest...the hard way.   For what it's worth, Raid Ant & Roach killer works on those little devils, too.  

Just to be on the safe side, as soon as I realized I was being stung, I came inside and slathered Ivarest all over the sting sites.  Then I changed from shorts into jeans to continue mowing...and the buggers started stinging my arms!  Persistent little cusses they are.  Fortunately, I have this habit of tossing my old protective arm sleeves that we're required to wear at work into the back seat of my car.  And even more fortunately, I have this habit of saying I'm going to clean out the back seat of my car, but not actually doing it.  I put on a pair of those, and finished mowing in peace, after I'd absolutely soaked the bed with that Raid spray.  

Oh, and for those of you wondering what Ivarest is, it's Benadryl ointment and calamine lotion mixed together in one handy tube.  I get it at Walmart, but I imagine any place with those types of things would carry it.  After giving it a few hours to clear my system, I took a Claritin just in case.  I've never had an anaphylactic reaction to anything, but why take chances?  

By the time I was done mowing, I was absolutely soaking wet with sweat, even after taking copious breaks to cool off, but this thing had to jump up into my lap anyway.

 Then she had the nerve to get mad because she couldn't find a dry spot on me to snuggle in to.   And on that note, I was done with being outside for the day.  I spent the rest of my Saturday watching TV and finishing up this hat.

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Day Dreamery

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5 mm

I guess that's about it for today.  I think I'll find some more yarn and cast on a new hat.  

Laters.

It's Been A Minute

Let's see, what's been going on since I last wrote?  Not much.  Work, sleep, knit, more work.   Monday, we walked in and there was once again a pile of poop in the floor.  I saw it this time, and it was definitely animal -- most likely a cat.  This morning, when I drove into the parking lot, I saw the likely poopitrator.  

Get it?  Poop -itrator...OK, I'll stop now.  It was one of the stray cats that hangs out around the plant.  This one was a gray tabby which looked an awful lot like the kitten I caught back in June.  Enough to make me wonder if it was the kitten's father.  I mean...probably so.  

By the way, we are working tomorrow.  Someone told me that they only let us off last Friday because it was the first day of school.  Maybe, but if they did, that would be the first time in the 32 summers I've worked there that this has happened.  Work is really slow right now, so I think it's day by day thing.  They've been letting lines go home early every day this week.  Yesterday, they even let some of the brazers go.  Not me.  She didn't even ask me.  I guess she knew I wouldn't go, especially if I have work to do.  

Want to hear something funny? Monday, I think it was, I came home and kicked my shoes off.  I promise you they landed just like this. 

Even funnier, I didn't notice until I was getting ready for bed and went to move them out of the middle of the floor.    

Speaking of bed, I haven't been sleeping well lately.  Part of it is that I'm still trying to go to bed at 7:00m forgetting that can now sleep two hours later in the morning.  Yeah, 4:30 is still early, but not as bad as 2:30.  

In other news, I was watching a gardening video on YouTube and the guy, Kevin from Epic Gardening,  said something to the effect of this is the time of year he gets a little burned out from gardening.  Granted, he's got a much bigger garden than I have, but I do feel him.  I wouldn't say I'm burned out really, but there really isn't a lot to do this time of year.   I know there are things you can plant in August -- that was the whole point of his video -- but I don't have room for them right now.  Maybe by next year, when I have all of my beds situated and ready -- well, all of the ones I have, that is -- I can plan better.  I'm just kind of winging it for now.  

On a similar note, our brief brush with coolness has moved on and we are back into the mid 90s.  But then, it is August after all.  All that heat is good for one thing, sitting inside and knitting while watching TV. 

Yarn:  Hobby Lobby I Love This Yarn

Colorway:  Day Dreamery

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5 mm

The knitting goes so much faster when you have nice yarn to work with and a good show to watch.  

On that note, football is back!  OK, it's just pre-season, but it's still football!!