Sunday, September 23, 2018

rain and mosquitos and a pleasant surprise


More rain yesterday evening and during the night, mosquitos still horrendous, but what a pleasant surprise this morning when I went out about 8:30 and it was 68˚ and not humid! Seems like the same thing happened last year on the day after the Autumnal Equinox. It won't last.

I finally cleared the weeds, johnson grass, and nut grass out of just one of the raised garden beds. It took me two days. The first day we'd had a couple of dry days in a row and it was overcast but so hot I got about half done before I thought I would pass out and then the sun broke through. Yesterday I got out there to get it finished before the rain came. It was getting darker and darker with thunder rumbling but I only had one corner to do to be finished when it started raining. The dog is in my face...'uh, mom, it's raining, let's go'. Determined to finish, me and the dog were soaked through by the time we made it back to the house. But I did finish and I bet I threw 100 grubs out of that 4' x 16' bed. Too bad there weren't any birds hanging around, it would have been a gorge fest. Today I cleaned out the smaller of the two other raised beds since it was overcast and still not bad out there. Just the big one to go but at least I can get started planting the fall garden after I level out the dirt and add some fertilizer.

Rocky showed up yesterday to try and make some progress on the house. Between the rain and his other job that keeps adding things on he can't seem to get more than a half day in. Most is done, just some trim and a few repairs in the back, a door, the decorative shutters, stuff like that. The niggling detail. I'm trying to wait until at least one side of the house is finished before posting a pic.

I started a new model I've been working on the last two days, the backside of a sunflower. Mostly for fun, because I felt like it while I'm waiting for molds.


I haven't been writing about the travesty we call our government though anyone who follows me on FB knows that my news feed is mostly outrage. Making lists of all the ways Trump and his Republican enablers in Congress are despicable human beings doesn't change anything and surely by now anyone whose eyes were capable of being opened can now see. I make phone calls and tweet to deaf ears. It's all down to the mid-terms now. If we don't take back Congress in November then everything we have fought for for the last 40 years will be gone. We've already lost so much from public lands to workplace protections to environmental protections, the rich are richer and the government is in the most debt ever and now we are about to have the Supreme Court transformed by a man who has committed sexual assault, has connections to shady big money, who has committed perjury, and who intends to overturn Roe vs Wade.

What is there to say? If we don't win in November, this country, the one we thought we lived in, will be gone. He'll have two more years to finish driving the nails in.





14 comments:

  1. You have voiced my concern, my angry and then my disappointment in the way things are. Yes, you are right, we all have to do our part to insure that the Orange Menace can be held at bay. Fingers crossed, Linda

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  2. Ellen, please tell me what became of the Book of Wren?
    Yes, all that's left is to vote. I'm doing mop up, post cards, but it's rote. At sign up the vote, I'm just a place holder; I don't have the balance or stamina to work the crowd.

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    1. it sold a while back. just thought I'd change up the pictures on the side bar some.

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  3. Oh, how I hope Cruz doesn't win. What a .....! It rained buckets this weekend, but it was good as we've been dry and hot. I can finally get out to weed the raised bed on the side of the house I never see. My eyes nearly popped out of my head when I saw it. I'm surprised the new neighbors didn't call code enforcement on me. The new mold looks beautiful. Can't wait to see the finished product.

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  4. I haven't had the motivation to get out there and do any garden prep. I just can't. I don't care at this point. It just seems like a spectacularly unpleasant form of suicide.

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  5. Good for you for pushing through and getting the job done in the pouring rain. I am putting off taking down my gardens. It is such a big job and I am not up to it yet, besides, it rains most days and the bugs are still biting. MaƱana is good enough for me.

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  6. I, too, have not been writing much about the clusterfuck that is washington on my blog, but it is right at the front on my brain always. I still cannot believe sometimes that what i am seeing with my own eyes is really happening. every day brings fresh outrages. i make calls and tweet into the void, and pray that come november, the blue wave actually happens, and that russia isn't too deep in our election systems to let the will of the people be expressed.

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  7. Oh, Lord, I just can't stand politics these days. I agree with everything you've said, as you know, but for my own sanity I just have to think about something else. I really try not to write about it all.

    I love the sunflower -- reminds me of the ones we got in our garden, that came up from birdseed. The only thing I'd worry about throwing all those grubs out of the bed is -- what were they destined to become? Some beetles and other insects start their lives as grubs. But then, I could see not wanting them to eat your plants. :)

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    1. I doubt I made a dent if the grub population. and I think they were june bugs.

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    2. Oh, June bugs! I haven't thought of those in years. There are billions of them all at once, if I remember right.

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  8. outrage, what to do?? I am at the point where shock has paralyzed me, Other worldly, unreal!
    Too bad about the fabulous grub opportunity going to waste. Where are the birds?

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    1. the birds fled Harvey and while some have returned, not in the numbers before. plus I haven't had my bird feeders out because...squirrels.

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  9. Good god, it sounds like hell! Too bad I can't lend you a couple of my hens to help you with your grub situation. They have plenty of time on their hands, given they are not laying eggs. Ingrates. I find our government is like a huge, bloody accident. You want to look away, but you are drawn to the horror. I'd like to take a giant shop vac to the lot of them.

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  10. It's not just your country, it's happening here, too.

    Even if we vote out the extreme right wing nuts come next election, they'll have put their hooks into our systems by then, education, culture, media, economics, police. . . plus generating a widespread distrust of science and the quick defamation tactics, all that stuff about fake news etc.
    We need to ask ourselves who's really behind it because those dumbwitted guys up front with their tiki torches etc. are just bit players.

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I opened my big mouth, now it's your turn.