short stories, part whatever and more Oct. skies

Steve of Shadows and Light wrote that the parakeets that come to his bird feeder are molting, losing old feathers and growing new ones, as all birds do. It made me think of trees which also ‘molt’, losing old leaves and growing new ones. And then of humans who do not molt though hair and skin cells are constantly shed and replaced. Which got me to thinking about hair and how long an individual hair lives since some women who have never cut their hair from birth have extremely long hair. So I looked it up. A human hair lives and grows on average 2 - 7 years before the resting phase and finally shedding and can reach a maximum length of 3’ - 6’ or about half as long as the person is tall depending on the individual, genetics, breakage, and relative health of the hair. There are exceptions of course as there are in all things, some women have/had hair down to their ankles which must be a nightmare to wash.

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Last Friday was Paisleigh’s 4th birthday and her party was Saturday afternoon. The child has a playground in her backyard. For her 2nd birthday she got a full size trampoline, 3rd birthday a bouncy castle and a play set that consists of a strap anchored between trees with a swing, hoops, ladder, and some other stuff I can’t recall descending from it. This birthday she got a treehouse with two slides (fast and slow), a climbing wall (about 5’ at a slant), and a zip line. At 4 Paisleigh already knows the proper response to any present she opens whether she fully understands what it is or not. She gasps with delight. Unless it’s the third gift of clothes clothes, oh, another shirt though she did like the new jacket that is so heavy it might get cold enough this winter for her wear it a day or two.

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If you’ve been reading me for a while you may remember the dust up with the then new neighbor, the gun nut with his chickens who would shoot at stray and neighbors' dogs who came into his yard chasing his chickens, chickens he made no effort to contain and let go into neighboring yards. One day he shot at the neighbor's dog in its own yard because it had been in his yard and the bullet whizzed by that neighbor. Big confrontation and the chicken man finally put a fence around the property. Well he died of a heart attack about five years ago, the chickens all finally died or were killed by other critters. Last year the widow got more chickens and although the property is still fenced there is a low spot where three or four of them get out under the fence every day and they strut around in the ditch and in other neighbor’s yards and she makes no effort to prevent it. I’ve chased them out of my yard. Second part of this, another neighbor who generally has a big dog or two who are well behaved and stay in their yard, had surgery on his neck that didn’t go as well as hoped and is undergoing PT in Sugar Land during the week so no one is home and the scraggly male big dog and two puppies there currently are roamers. Yesterday they knocked over my neighbor on the east side’s trash can and spread trash around and this morning when that neighbor was mowing his yard the dog trotted down the street with something big and brown in it’s mouth followed by the two puppies. I hollered at my neighbor, what did he have in his mouth? A chicken. Life in the country.

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Another interesting article from Nautilus…an interview with author Kieran Fox, a neuroscientist, of a book about Albert Einstein, I Am A Part Of Infinity, The Spiritual Journey Of Albert Einstein, and worth the read. A few quotes from the interview/book:  

“Reading Kant, I began to suspect everything I was taught,” Einstein said. “I no longer believed in the known God of the Bible, but rather in the mysterious God expressed in nature.”

“Not long after, in his early 20s, while Einstein was putting together the ideas that would revolutionize the physics of space, time, and matter…he kept exploring this other conception of the divine. He read the philosophical reflections of Arthur Schopenhauer, who saw that the radical religious ideas of thinkers…that nature and God are somehow One—mirrored similar notions in the oldest sacred Indian scriptures.” 

“At age 51…he explained his own contact with the divine. “I will call it the cosmic religious sense.”” and nine years later “Life and death flow into one, and there is neither evolution or destiny; only being.” 

“How can this cosmic religious experience be communicated man to man, if it cannot lead to a definite conception of God or to a theology? It seems to me that the most important function of art and of science is to arouse and keep alive this feeling in those who are receptive.” 

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More October skies, 7th - 12th.

a busy day and a mystery

yesterday’s sky

Tuesdays and Thursdays are my busiest days. This was my day yesterday…got up, fed the cat, took my meds, checked my email, did my yoga, read blogs, fixed breakfast, cleaned up after breakfast, took the dog outside while I emptied the kitchen scrap container on the compost pile, picked up some small branches, pulled up a cabbage, took a box to the post office, did the week’s grocery shopping, put away said groceries and then it was time for lunch, after lunch walked the dog who wanted a long walk, fed the kittens, browsed social media, fed the dog, started preparing dinner, sat down for 20 minutes, finished fixing dinner, cleaned up after dinner, took my meds, closed up the garage, let the dog out one more time, cleaned the cat litter box, brushed my teeth, and finally sat down for what remained of the day before I went to bed at 10.

We watched the first two episodes of the streaming show Mr. and Mrs. Smith (don’t remember which service it’s on). It is completely different from the movie of the same title and we’re not really sure if we’re going to watch more of it.

Yesterday when I was out in the yard I found this peculiar thing laying on the ground right in the middle of one of the pathways around the magnolia tree, which is about 8’ from the corner of the attached garage, clean as a whistle and with the filament intact. 

Where the fuck did this come from and how did it even get here? Granted it was very windy Monday but I can’t imagine how the wind could have blown it from wherever to where I found it. I did an image search and it’s a mini light bulb (obviously), 1 3/8” tall, +/- 12v +/- 5w used in automotive, sewing machines, vacuums, etc. I have never seen a lightbulb like this before. Checked both vehicles but nothing missing. I don’t have a light on my vacuum cleaner and the one in my sewing machine is much larger. Ah, the mysteries of the universe.

A friend of my daughter’s sent her a free box from HelloFresh, one of those outfits that send you all the ingredients for a meal and all you have to do is cook it. The free box contains three meals for two people. In order to get your free box you have to register and when you register you have the option of sending a free box (free except for $4.99 shipping charge) to someone else and she sent one to me. So yesterday, I registered and Marc and I selected our three meals due to arrive Saturday. Nowhere on the site while you are signing up for the free box did it say that this service would automatically send another box every week (you are able to pick different meals) for a total of $70 a week unless you went online and canceled (or if it did, I didn’t see it). The follow up welcome email had a little asterisk and at the bottom explained this part of the service. $70 a week for three meals for two people is nearly 75% of my weekly grocery bill so I’ll be canceling after we receive our box. If we’re going to spend that much per meal (and quite a few of the meals had additional charges so the price per meal increased sometimes by a little and sometimes by a lot) we’d rather go to a restaurant where we won’t have to cook it or clean up after it.

There’s been a huge flock of starlings in the neighborhood all week and they are loud. I’m in the house and I can hear them.

This afternoon when I go over to feed the kittens, the little gray tabby is getting scooped up to pet and cuddle and then shoved in the cat carrier and taken to the vet where he will be neutered tomorrow. I’m only going to do one every few weeks to give myself time to re-earn their trust. I think they might be a little wary after this afternoon.

Ten petal anemone are in full bloom

even the occasional pink and purple version.

a glorious weekend

I was very busy this weekend and got a lot accomplished. What's different from my weeks and months of ennui you might ask? The weather! The glorious days of dry air and low temps and mid 50s at night and the quilt is back on the bed. It's in the mid-60s right now at almost 10 AM. It's been so nice to be able to spend all day outside and have the doors and windows open to air out the house. Over Saturday and Sunday I went to Tractor's Supply and got dog food, bird seed, gas for the trimmer, and finally, rubber boots that I have been needing for years. I cleaned and refilled the hummingbird feeders, I mowed the little backyard, I picked up handful after handful of pecans which is like being on an Easter egg hunt in this big yard when they first start falling, I picked up more fallen tree debris and hauled it over to the burn pile, I pruned the water sprouts off the crepe myrtles, I cut dead wood out of a big althea and the indigoferra, I put some plants I've had all summer in the pots on the deck as intended, I repotted a house plant, I torched the burn pile. 

    

I used the leaf blower to clear the deck, garage, and barn of leaves; I planted the carrot, lettuce, and mustard green seeds. And today I used the trimmer to clean up around everything after Marc mowed. I didn't quite finish but the rest will have to wait 'til tomorrow. Now it's time for lunch then after, finish this post, walk the dog, and this evening I'm leading the yoga class because Abby has a thing with her teenage daughter right when class starts.

And now some pictures of what's responded to the rain last week and the cool temperatures over the weekend. 

Friday morning the green beans looked like this.

24 hours later they looked like this. You could almost see them grow.

The white phillipine lily is blooming

as are the two small chinese fringe flower trees in the front.

The husks on the green pecans are starting to split. I've plucked a few that were low enough for me to reach.

The four-o-clocks are vibrant.

And the sky was full of wisp this evening.

rain! well, sort of, and other activities

It's Friday and the weather app on my phone still claims there is an 88% chance of rain today. Empty promises. It's raining somewhere I guess, just not here. We've had two little showers since yesterday, maybe a 1/4” total. Just enough to make it humid but at least it hasn't hit the 90s yet.

The new hose I got for the front isn't long enough. I need at least 20 more feet so Wednesday I decided to do a single repair on one of the hoses I replaced but hadn't got rid of yet and to connect it to the new one. After a frustrating half hour I gave up (no need to go into the details, suffice to say it was being an asshole) and now my old hose isn't just old but also useless as well since it's in two pieces.

Thursday morning's sky on my way to SHARE.

It was a food delivery day from the Food Bank in Victoria. Jan had ordered three boxes of sausage that they had on the list. When we opened the first box, this is what we saw...

small loose sausages; beef and pork brats with cheese fully cooked and frozen, not the separately packaged sausages that Jan thought she was ordering. We can't give those out because they are not prepackaged and we don't have the facility required by the state to package them ourselves. So in between filling food orders we filled zip lock bags with the sausages from one box for the volunteers to take home or give away. The other two boxes she took to two religious organizations that have residents while they recover from the bad choices they've made in their lives.

We also got not one but two of the giant cartons of watermelons and so we also took a lot of those home to share with friends and neighbors since in this hot weather there's no guarantee they will still be good a week later.

On Friday after two nights of not sleeping well because the dog was in panic mode from the thunder that did not bring us any rain, I was sleepy. I should go take a nap but I probably won't.

Actually I did lay down to take a nap and just as I was about relaxed enough to drift off my phone rang. It was Rocky. When I took him some watermelons and sausages on my way home from SHARE I asked if he could help me get rid of some old appliances. You might remember when Marc was in the hospital the water heater crapped out on me and the old one has been in the garage all this time. And then soon after he got out of the hospital we bought a new washer and dryer. The old washer was so old replacement parts weren't always available when it needed repair and the dryer just as old. The washer still worked but it wasn't really doing a great job and then the dryer quit in protest. I'd been availing myself of my sister's dryer. Anyway, the old washer and dryer have been sitting outside in front of the overhead garage door we rarely open ever since because we were too cheap to pay $40 each to have them hauled away when the new ones were delivered plus there are two metal junk yards here in town one of which is at the end of the road our street ends at and we have a truck and a trailer. But the truck is always full of downed branches waiting to be taken across the street to the burn pile and always has a dead battery. So a couple of weeks ago Marc got the battery charged, emptied the truck, got it inspected, and was going to get a new battery so we could finally load up the old appliances when a pulley fell off the engine. So back to Rocky. I've got a guy he said. I'll call him cause I've got some metal trash for him to haul away too. And so they showed up yesterday and those old appliances were finally hauled away.

All in all, over two days, we got about 5/8” of rain while areas north and east got pounded. Still some storm activity out there so we could get more today but probably not. So this morning I picked up the piles of dead zinnias and ginger and hauled all that over to the burn pile in the garden cart and then picked up a cart's load of fallen sticks and branches but did not haul that over yet as I was sweating by then, not that hot out but very humid, though I'm going to have to throw a strap around that mountain of sticks before I do.

Later I got out there with my little mini battery operated chainsaw to cut up five large branches into more manageable size since the truck is out of commission and I have only the garden cart to trundle stuff over to the burn pile. Then I went to the very back corner of the property and just started cutting away at the ropes of wild grape vines that are trying to take over the big cedar tree and the dead raintree and from there into one of my pecan trees which Will. Not. Happen.

just a day, same as the other days

Wednesday evening was week three of the current cardio drumming class and it is still so much fun. Only two more weeks left. This was the sky returning home Wednesday evening.

Judging by the number of juvenile cardinals I'm seeing at the bird feeder I'd say this was an excellent year for cardinals.

My gallery called yesterday to invite me to send a piece for their annual anniversary show, 50 of their favorite artists, one piece each. You might remember she called me last year in March about this show because she wanted a box and to give me plenty of time to make it. That was the coral reef box I worked on all last year, well, 4 1/2 months. Anyway, I had to tell her that I have not so much as set foot in the studio since finishing the box and it was just too hot in the studio now to even attempt working over there. You're not retired are you!? I told her that was a question I had been pondering this year but that no I didn't think so, not yet. I don't want you to retire she tells me. So while I have two older pieces I've never sent and am sending her the pics, I may not be represented this year. Which is fine. My interest in the glass art community has waned significantly.

I do have two pieces I've started on the wax models for, if they haven't melted into a puddle by now, though I have abandoned the idea of remaking the luna moth piece and completely abandoned making the comet moth piece. And I have a major piece I want to do comprised of three separate parts for the wall but even if the air conditioner could keep the studio room cool the cold work part and the kiln is in the un-air conditioned part of the shop and I bet it's well over 110 in there without the kiln being on. And then there's the no water part which I haven't addressed yet and don't plan on until working outside isn't an immediate threat of heat stroke. Hell, it's so hot I don't even want to walk across the street much less open up the shop.

I'm still spending my days watering, making sure the bird feeder and bird baths are full, playing games on my phone, reading a bit, streaming shows, currently The Bear which is about a young up and coming chef, Carmen, working in an upscale NY restaurant when his brother commits suicide and he returns home to take over the family sandwich shop to try and save it and make it into something better. Doesn't sound all that interesting does it but it's really good. Two seasons and we're about halfway through season one. What I am still not doing is anything creative. Well, I've been here before and it will pass.

I've mentioned I've been putting raw peanuts in the shell out for the squirrels to help keep them out of our pecans which have suffered another less severe attack. A while back I noticed three little plants in a different part of the little backyard that I had never seen before and didn't know what they were but decided to let them grow until they revealed themselves (not great pictures, a little out of focus).

I happened to notice the other day that one of them had little yellow pea shaped flowers.

I finally looked it up today and I'm growing peanuts! Those squirrels are planting them for future reserves I guess.

And this, Mexican bird of paradise, one of the few things that does not mind the heat and lack of rain.

blue skies, rain of a different sort, and other changes

Three days in a row of sunny skies so of course they predicted rain for last night and today. If it rained last night it was very light, either that or a really heavy dew this morning. It's completely overcast, warm, and humid. Yesterday I used my little leaf blower to clear out the barn and clear the little patio outside the back door of all the leaves covering it, and by little I mean 9' wide by 6' deep where I laid down concrete squares. This morning it looked like this.

The big tallow in the little backyard did a major leaf drop last night and they are still drifting down. That cold spell triggered something because the maple, ginkgoes, and pecans are also raining leaves today. So it is raining, just a different kind.

Sunday I worked on two tasks, cleaning out the gutter across the front of the house over the deck 

and worked on clearing more vines. The gutter across the deck is problematic. It's not draining completely to the downspout at the end so water sits in the gutter and drips through a seam that is not sealed completely leaving a big wet spot on the deck which if left undealt with will eventually rot the wood in that spot. And during this hard rain while the rest of the gutter across the front of the house was doing its job, the section over the deck was pouring over like a waterfall. When I got the ladder out and took the screens off I found that it was full of dirt, so I cleaned that all out which is when I realized that it wasn't draining to the downspout. So now the end has to be lowered a bit so gravity can do its job. I do need to clean out the rest of the gutter to the other end but I need a taller ladder for that.

Here's my progress Sunday on the vines. I got the other short side of sheet metal out, spread out some of the mound of dirt on the right, and cleared all the vines up to the edge of the large metal raised bed.

before

after

My yoga class on Mondays and Wednesdays is coming to an end I think. Abby has been teaching for 10 years and she's more than a little burnt out coupled with she's been going through some rough personal stuff this year. There were no classes the last two weeks due to weather and the holiday and she was only going to hold class last night if I was going to come. Attendance has been low for months now and I told her there was no reason to hold the class just for me. I suggested she take the month off and reconsider after New Years. So that's where it stands now. Fortunately for the month of December, one of the attendees decided to get certified through her job in the school district, some program they offered, and is holding yoga class on Tuesday evenings and Thursday mornings. I won't go to the morning class as I go in the evening at Hesed House and also this way Abby can be in a class instead of leading it which she sorely needs at this point.

Here's my little winter garden. I thought I planted four cauliflower and five broccoli plants. I know the four are cauliflower because I bought those at the feed store. The broccoli my neighbor gave me and some cabbage that he had grown from seed. I thought I planted just the broccoli but judging by the shape of the leaves I think what I have is two broccoli and three cabbage. Time will tell I guess.

rain and more rain and more...oh wait, what is that ball of fire up there

fall asters growing around the culvert under my driveway

Wednesday we had a rare thing around here lately, a warm clear blue sky day. Then it rained that night and Thursday predicted to have showers all day as well as the next two days but at least it's warming up. No more nights in the 40s, days in the 50s if we're lucky. At least for the next ten days which is as far as the weather app goes.

Thursday we got 3” of hard rain while I prepared the dressing, flooding the yard and filling the ditch. Fortunately it had stopped raining by the time we were ready to leave to go over to Sarah's house; dressing, butternut/cranberry casserole, and cranberry sauce in hand. We had a pleasant time, the five of us and an older widow ('older' she says, the woman is only 3 years older than me) who lives across the road from Sarah and Mike who Mike has adopted, and I did not take a single picture.

And apparently, because we did not get enough rain Thursday or the days and days of rain preceding Thursday, it rained again on Friday, a hard rain. I know we needed rain, begged for it all summer, but really, the powers that be can turn the fucking faucet off now! The ground is totally saturated. The fallow field at the end of the street looked like a shallow lake. So another rainy day, we streamed Andor, a Star Wars spin off, on Disney. The entire 1^st season is available and we're 5 episodes in. This one is really good. Not all of them are, we watched the first episode of Obi Wan Kenobi and never went back.

The rain did stop for a while but then it thunder stormed all night Friday night, bands of hard rain sweeping through. Saturday morning the rain gauge measured a little over 2 1/2”, less than I expected from the sound of the rain during the night. The good news is that all this rain is over having moved through Friday night when they expected it to still be here Saturday. Instead we got a much awaited and longed for blue sky day, not too cold, not too warm.

So I meant to post this yesterday. But after writing I had to go run an early errand and then I got the last of the frit in jars and boxed up that I'm sending my friend in Canada. Back when I was much more productive and producing a lot of the small pate de verre pieces I would buy 5 pounds of every color. Well it turned out I never used some of that frit because the colors were so dense that in a casting they just looked black. I gave a lot of it away to my friend Gene who does fusing so when Bullseye announced a price increase coming up I offered the rest of the frit I don't ever use or won't ever use up to my friend in Canada because not only is the glass frit getting quite expensive, she has to pay high shipping costs to Canada. And then we watched a few more episodes of Andor.

It's supposed to get up in the low 70s today and dry so I'll be spending it outside for the most part, still have vines to cut back and the gutter over the deck needs to be cleaned out.

I'll end with a picture of Cat who likes to play in the bathtub while I brush my teeth at night.

results of one kind and another

Well, it wasn't as good as we would like and needed but not as bad as it could have been as democrats had the best showing of any incumbent party that holds the presidency at the mid-terms in 40 years. Gerrymandered Texas, Georgia, and Florida kept their horrible republican governors (what the fuck is wrong with people?) while democrat governors held their own. Control of the Senate and House is still undetermined through some very tight races with votes still being counted and likely run-offs (Warnock and Walker for one, once again, what the fuck is wrong with people that Walker wasn't soundly defeated). It's possible democrats could keep both but likely, so 'they' say, they will lose the House which means no more progress on Biden's agenda. Hopefully, if republicans take the House and they start all those ridiculous investigations they will prove, once again, that they have no intention of actually governing but rather engaging in vindictiveness and it sickens me that McCarthy and Marge Greene (who was unfortunately re-elected but it looks like Boebert, at least, is losing) could be the leading republicans in the House. Not sure what it will mean for the J6 committee especially since both Cheney and Kinzinger are out. If democrats at least keep the Senate, they will continue to approve Biden's appointees/judges and keep whatever horrid bills the House comes up with in check. If democrats lose both, well, Biden still has veto power. In local races, democrats did well, retaining and gaining some seats, though some losses, so, so much for republicans' much ballyhooed red wave, even Trump's chosen candidates did not do well. Hopefully this will be the death knell for his grip on the republican party though I don't expect the GOP to finally find it's integrity even if they do sideline him since they will continue on their MAGAt path.

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Here's a reminder of the last progress picture I posted of clearing out the overgrown garden beds taken last Friday.

And Saturday's progress. I got all but one section of the small white raised bed out and worked toward the small sheet metal bed.

I also got the bougainvillea in the ground.

I did not work on that project on Sunday, giving myself a little break, but I did get compost and fertilizer turned into the dirt and got my pansies in. Turns out I didn't have enough, need 1 1/2 more 6-packs.

Also got the little violas in a pot on the deck.

Back on the big project, this is Monday's progress. Got the last section of white raised bed out and one short and one long side of the smaller metal raised bed. I may have to put further work on this on hold til it gets a little cooler as I was overheated by the time I quit after about an hour. Got back to the house, splashed cold water on my face and neck, stripped naked and stood under the fan on high until I dried off enough to put on some clothes but still had to stand under the fan a while longer. Just would not stop sweating.

The sky Monday evening on my way to yoga class in El Campo, taken through my dirty front windshield.

Last week my night blooming cereus bloomed again! I've kind of lost count but this is the 5^th or 6^th bloom cycle this year. There were just 7 instead of the 20+/- it had been putting out but the flowers were huge! And because it bloomed Friday night when that little front came in they were still mostly open Saturday morning.

food prep, dramatic skies, and flowers

Wednesday...I guess our spate of pleasant weather is over for now, at least until the next front comes in. I did two things outside, trundled the garden cart over to the burn pile and emptied it and then picked up the piles of pruning from Monday, tossed them in the truck and then on the burnpile and I am hot and sweaty. Checked the weather app on my phone...89˚ feels like 99˚ and high humidity. Maybe I'll just sit in the house and read all day. Or I could vacuum the floors if I get too antsy (I didn't). Another front is supposed to come in Sunday for a week or so in the 70˚s with one night in the 40˚s!

Thursday was SHARE day and a food delivery day and just plain busy. Not so busy the baskets that I refill stacked up but as soon as I was finishing one up they would drop another, all morning long.

Well, this little bird feeder is not working out even with the perches I added. I noticed that the birds were not showing up so I went out and looked and the only thing in the little trough was millet, the sunflower seeds jammed up because the slot at the bottom that feeds the seed into the little trough is not open enough. I shifted the plexiglas sides up and taped them so hopefully the sunflower seeds will fall out but obviously this little feeder is not meant for large seed. I'll have to get a bigger one.

Yesterday evening my neighbor brought me six ears of sweet corn from her husband's brother's garden. I was glad to get them because we'd already eaten the corn she brought me earlier in the spring. So today I shucked it, blanched it, cut it off the cob, vacuum sealed it and put it in the freezer. I was glad to see this little guy as I was shucking the ears, it tells me the corn is safe to eat.

All six ears had a little damage at the top with three still having a little worm. I used to get my corn from a farmer who came to the market every spring. I asked him if it was sweet corn hybrid or GMO. Hybrid, he said, if a worm won't eat it neither will I. That's pretty much my position too.

While I was at it I divided up the family size package of mushroom ravioli into five portions that I bought Tuesday and vacuum sealed and froze those as well. Makes for 5 easy meals when neither of us really feels like cooking.

There was some rain around us Thursday but not on us. The sky was pretty dramatic though with towering puffy clouds and darker ones. (The first picture is through the windshield of my car so the color is off.)

This is from Wednesday I think, the fallow field at the end of my street.

The confederate roses are blooming prettily. One of mine opens light pink and darkens to dark pink by the end of the day and the other, the flowers open white and turn pink as the day progresses.

By end of day it was completely pink.

And the orange cosmos is starting to put on its display with monarch.

Well, dinner is on me tonight (Friday) so I'd best walk the dog and get in there.

Tonight's sky.