Snow Thank you

Looks like all those years of Oklahomans praying for a white Christmas finally paid off.  We ended up with over 14 inches, according to the Official Report, but it had to be real hard to count because the dadgum wind blew so hard that we really got everything from bare spots to six foot drifts. Not us personally, but throughout the state. The official count came from the airport, which is about eight miles east of us. Out here at the True Light Carrot Patch I'd say that between the bare spots and the drifts, we probably averaged two to four inches.

I know a snow like this is common enough in the upper regions, y'all, but it is an all time record breaker for Oklahoma. Hot potatoes!

BTW, WeatherBoy (or WeatherGirl) is the name I give, individually and collectively, to our television meteorologists because they always look young, fresh-scrubbed and  Sunday-best. Children grown tall, telling the weather.

We got the porch cleaned off, and the sunny part of the sidewalk at the barn. The shady parts are too icy to clear yet. I think it's supposed to get about 35 degrees today, so maybe....

We traditionally have a Big Family Doin' at my parents on Christmas Eve. This tradition within my family started when I was a child. My mother and aunt's families liked to meet on Christmas day as so many do, and Grandmother liked to have everyone together, so the sensible solution was to have a big dinner on Christmas Eve. We'd all eat and open presents. The grown-ups would always reserve a few for Christmas morning as well, and of course there's always a few packages from Santa Clause.

When Grandmother passed on my own mother picked up the Christmas Hostess baton, because she really likes to have everyone together, too. Unfortunately, this blizzard kept people in. I did not even go outside on the 24th.

We cleared the porch and sidewalk on Christmas Day, and just before dark decided to brave the elements to see if we could find anyplace open where we might sit down to hot food that someone else cooked. We ended up over at the Flying J truckstop restaurant and had whatever we wanted from their buffet. They had one, count 'em one, waitress, who had probably been there for a very long time, but she was still friendly and got us all fixed up. We got home without incident, although there are certainly a few patches of pretty scary road out there.

Steve gave me the gift today of taking our laundry in to wash today and found our local Mustang laundry closed. There was a sign on the door saying, "Closed Christmas Day," but this is the 26th now, so I hope she's okay. She comes over from El Reno (about ten miles west of us) to open the place up every day, and they had some pretty dramatic multi-car pileups out that way, so  I suspect she may be unable to get through. I hope she's okay. Having found the Mustang laundry closed, he ventured up into Yukon to our second choice in laundromats.

Grandmother always said, "If you're going to say anything, say something nice," so I'll have to think of something nice to say about that laundromat - oh, yeah, here's one - their washers and dryers were in good working order the last time I was there. Anyway, it took him over an hour to make a twelve minute drive because it's still pretty awful out there everywhere except right out on the Interstate highways. He got stuck in the slush somewhere along the way but a Good Samaritan helped get him unstuck.

This all reminds me that another thing to appreciate from our time in Cooperstown is  experiential reality in the Importance of Clearing Snow Accumulation. I catch myself thinking they'd have this cleared by now in Otsego County, and then I remind myself that I'm certainly free to go back there if I wish. I think I'll stay put, though. Hopefully this weather event will be enough to satisfy most of those Snow Pray-ers for a good long time!

A Beautiful Asset to the Community

Steve found the bell the other day and I hung it in the Sweetgum tree in front of the house. That bell is made of sheet metal, iron, I think. The clapper is a wooden disk, and the triangle you see hanging below is the handle of the clapper.  

   

A three-sided bell, the wind catches the clapper and makes it ring lovely sounds in three tones.

Steve picked it up at the Festival of the Arts way back in the seventies when tthat event was still held in front of what was then known as the Civic Center in Oklahoma City.

Steve said Sid and Michi would be excited to see and hear this bell because it hung in the back yard of the house of their youth. When we lived here before we hung it from a Pecan tree out where the barn now stands. It went to Cooperstown with us, where we hung it from a Maple tree behind that house, and now it's back here at the True Light Carrot Patch, hanging in the Sweetgum tree.

Perhaps interesting only to me, the Sweetgum from which the bell hangs came forth as a volunteer seedling. It was a skinny little four or five inch diameter tree the first time we moved here in 1995. The Maple tree from which it hung in Cooperstown I suspect also started out as a vounteer seedling and was also about four or five inches in diameter when we first moved there. When we left Cooperstown to return here that Maple had grown to twelve or thirteen inches in diameter and this Sweetgum, now a good fourteen inches in diameter.

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I went out to haul the trash dumpsters to the curb this morning, this being trash day at my address. Neither of them were quite full, so I spent about forty five minutes out at the edge of our woods pulling trash out of the sticks and leaves to fill the dumpsters. I swear, it looks like several successive families, rather than pack and move, simply hauled their stuff out to the woods and dumped it. Either that, or they abandoned their stuff and the people who came in after them hauled it to the woods. I am still just blown away that people would do such a thing.

There now stands a Mulberry tree out in the yard that, when we first moved here in 1995, was a volunteer in the fence row. We cleaned and cleared and cleared and cleaned, put in a garden and a garlic patch and a chicken house and cleaned and cleared some  more. We kept the field on this five acres mowed, along with the yard and the right of way along 59th street. Had the place looking pretty nice! Then we moved away...

When we returned after the seven years in Cooperstown, much of what we had cleared had been reclaimed by nature and overrun with human debris. We've been cleaning and clearing as we go, but our first priority is to get the house finished, and then we can focus even more on the landscaping. It already looks a hundred times better now than when when we first returned, and will only get better as we work on it.

Everyone raves about what we have done and are doing here! The week doesn't go by that someone doesn't stop by to admire our progress and express their gratitude that we're cleaning up, renovating, and making it better.

Everyone is most supportive and happy we're here except one particular city official from Mustang.  This is a surprise to me. I should think the City of Mustang would be as happy as our neighbors are to see what we are doing here in cleaning up, making improvements and restoring the property as a beautiful asset to the community. I would certainly think that the City of Mustang would be pleased to think that the owner of this land might be interested in developing a portion of it into another nice residential neighborhood here in Mustang. Unfortunately, in spite of all the kudos, encouragement and support we get from everyone else, the actions and attitudes of this one city official indicate to me that the City of Mustang is not interested in seeing this thirty-plus acre corner developed after all.

On the bright side, this particular city official seems to be fairly ambitious. Who knows, maybe we'll all get lucky and she'll get a better job somewhere else. Hopefully whoever gets her job after she's gone will easier to work with. In the meantime, this land is perfectly happy to keep on being the farmland it's been for as long as men have owned it, and that's okay with me, too.

Progress on the Barn

Here's our new barn. They got it from a stack of materials to this configuration in about a week or so, plus or minus. Today another crew is evening and smoothing the dirt inside in prep for the concrete pour, which should take place in the morning. That'll be good, to get the concrete poured before the rains come on Sunday (or Saturday night).

I knew the dimensions we were looking to cover, and I was all over the site after Steve staked it out, and when the dirt man came in and built the pad up for the building, but it wasn't really until they started getting the walls up until I could see how big this thing really is! "This thing is huge, baby," to quote Tiny Elvis. Or Billy Fucillo. It's a big mammer-jammer.

Anyway, today's crew is leveling and smoothing the ground, and adding sand - three truck loads so far - and, as I Said, we expect to pour cement tomorrow!

Our Morton man, Charles, was out here most of the morning, overseeing and fining up the details, and he asked me, "How would you feel about pouring tomorrow? Would that be okay?"

"Would that be okay? Oh, I don't know, let me check my appointment book - YEAH!"

Steve says, "Hey Now!"

So they're getting the ground ready.

Hot Potatoes!

Leaning Toward Vegetarianism?

I wouldn't go so far as to call my household Vegetarian, but I have been interested in studying that way since my dad turned me onto a book, The RAVE Diet. This stands for No Refined foods, No Animal products, No Vegetable oils, No Exceptions, basically recommending a fat-free vegan lifestyle. I was so impressed by what I saw that I ordered my own copy of the book (which is currently packed safely away in storage :\ ) and it came with the DVD featuring interviews and testimonials from former omnivores-now-fat-free-vegans telling about their health problems, and how those problems improved or resolved when they changed what they ate.

We've all heard that "meat contains complete protein." This book and its DVD say True, but the body, in processing what you feed it, actually has to break those proteins down and then reconstruct them according to its needs. You can save it the trouble (and improve your health) by taking your protein in the components available from plant sources. A combination of legumes and grains, such as the traditional beans and rice, or beans and corn, offers the protein building blocks the body needs to assemble the complete protein it needs, and as a bonus, includes plenty of fiber as well, something animal proteins cannot offer. Makes sense to me.

It has been and is a challenging path to follow, having been raised as an omnivore and living in a predominantly omnivorous culture.

Unfortunately, two of my beloved relatives have developed cases of gout whose excruciating gouty attacks are  precipitated by meaty meals - a heartbreaking circumstance for any meat lover, to be sure.

So I have taken the opportunity to lean a little more deeply into the fat-free-vegan/RAVE way, recommending meatless options and cooking meatless meals. As I say, I wouldn't go so far as to call our household vegetarian, but we are taking things one meal at a time.

If this has piqued your curiosity, if maybe you're interested in taking an anonymous stroll around the vegetarian block, check out the Fat Free Vegan website. I'm so impressed with it that I have a shortcut link to it right on my desktop. Very helpful in planning meatless dishes and meals. Check it out, and thanks for reading!

Monday, Rain, Fireflies, Junebugs and Roses

Is it still Monday?

We got some rain Saturday - mostly a Cooperstown kind of rain, gentle and straight down, as compared to the hard, sideways rain we so often get here in Oklahoma. We'd been out  somewhere and were back home, powering down for the night. I was getting reports ready and printing forms for the next day's meeting, when Steve called to me, "Hey, Vicki, you gotta come see this!"

I followed his voice to find him out on the deck under the awning.

"There, under the long trailer," he said, pointing. "Under the tarp."

It took a few seconds, but then I began to see flickering and blinking lights. They looked like tiny blinking LED lamps. I rubbed my eyes and cleaned my glasses, and the lights were still there. Fireflies had taken shelter from the rain under cover of an old-fashioned oiled-canvas tarp we had laid over the wood that was stored on Dad's long flat trailer. Sheltered under their own makeshift awning with plenty of Firefly business to conduct, there they were, blinking away. What a happy thing to see! I'm sorry I wasn't able to get a suitable picture of this to post, but hopefully you've already conjured one in your mind.

Makes me happy every time I see fireflies, and a little bit sad that there don't seem to be as many these summers as I remember having seen in my youth. I plan to study in the next season or so, how to attract, encourage, and support fireflies. I would sure rather have fireflies than June bugs!

When we moved here the first time, about fourteen or fifteen years ago, I moved a Queen Elizabeth Rose bush out here with us and planted it under the yard light. The Queen Elizabeth bears large, lush blossoms in a beautiful shade of medium-deep pink and have a wonderful fragrance. We always liked to say of that Queen Elizabeth Rose that she had petals the size of bed sheets and thorns the size of rhinoceros horns. A substantial and imposing rosebush, the Queen Elizabeth. I wanted to take her with us to Cooperstown when we moved up there, but I had no room to pack one more thing. I blessed her with love and left her behind.

On more than one return visit to Oklahoma I wanted like anything to come out here and dig up the Queen Elizabeth to take to Cooperstown with me, but that never worked out for one reason or another. One of the things I looked forward to on our return was seeing and nurturing the Queen Elizabeth Rose bush again.

I guess I must have also planted another rose bush under the light too. So in love with the Queen Elizabeth, I'm embarrassed to say I don't remember this other bush's name, but it produces smallish red and white variegated blooms. The coloring reminds me of peppermint candy. Unfortunately, the Queen Elizabeth is gone, and no trace of her to be found. I do have my eyes peeled for another one. 

This Peppermint Rose bush, though. She's about four feet tall now. She lives under the yard light, as I said, and this summer the ding-dang June bugs ate every leaf on that bush! Ate her right down to sticks!  I thought sure she was dead, and wonder if that must have been what happened to my Queen Elizabeth, only after she was gone down to dead, thorny sticks, someone pulled her out of the ground.  

I was sad to see what had happened to the Peppermint Rose, and vowed to plant roses again, somewhere away from the yard light. Then I noticed she was putting forth new growth! I love the way roses' new growth leaves are tinged in red. Soon she was completely reclothed in the red leaves of new growth, and as those leaves began to turn green, here came a couple dozen buds and she bloomed again! 

Part of my future plans for this place create a dedicated rose garden. I was surprised to hear someone say roses are "hard to grow." I have never had any difficulty keeping roses. They take some time and attention - the successful rose gardener becomes acquainted with their needs and sees to those needs - it is not that difficult. Or maybe I have a gift for roses. Maybe they like me.

Whatever.

Anyway, yes, I guess it is still Monday. Been a long, busy day. I'm going to don my jammies and settle in for the night. Thanks for reading.

Live Well and Be Happy,
Vicki in Mustang

Zone 7

The Bandit

A few weeks ago Steve went to make himself a peanut butter sandwich and couldn't find the bread.

"It should be right here," I said, looking on the middle shelf of the stainless steel wire shelves, but it was not there. We both looked all over for it. Zippo. Then I remembered having seen something out of place in the yard.

The masons had started work on our chimney. They came with a huge (special-built) fifth wheel trailer bearing scaffolding, wheelbarrows, the brick, of course, about a million five-gallon buckets, and many assorted tools. It was in the midst of all that working-mess that I had seen something that didn't quite belong.

I went outside and looked, and sure enough, it was the plastic bag that used to house the bread we were looking for. It was torn (as well as empty) and we suspected a stray dog. We figured this was why both cats had crowded into bed with me the night before.

We have made it a point since we've been here to put any and all food trash in the big dumpster anyway, an idea reinforced when the bread disappeared. After that happened we took to setting anything we thought might be attractive in that way to a foraging critter way up high.

Next thing was I couldn't find was a bag of home-grown vine-ripened tomatoes that I had harvested, which I had set up on a shelf about waist high. We figured that must've been an omniverous raccoon. Grrr.

Then one night we'd been some-I-don't-remember-where and got home after dark. When we came in I noticed that a stack of paper plates and the plastic forks and spoons on the floor. These had been on top of the water cooler, about six feet up. The loaf of bread that had been with them was gone, along with a banana. With all that had also been a plastic clamshell box of oatmeal raisin cookies, which was laying on the floor. Hmph. Had to be a raccoon. Only thing we couldn't figure out was why the little booger didn't take the cookies. Maybe our return home interrupted the burglary?

I took me a flashlight right out to the toolshed right then and got the havahart trap. Our dilema in setting that trap is making it attractive to our intinded "prey," yet it be something that our own cats will leave alone. We decided to set this one with rest of the cookies.

We didn't miss the coffee canister until the next morning.

Yes, whatever climbed up, knocked our paper plates and plastic ware off the top of the water cooler and took another loaf of bread and a banana had carried off our coffee canister!

Certain this must be a raccoon (and trying to imagine what in heaven's name a raccoon wants with a canister of coffee) I searched the brush behind the house. Sure enough, there was our red plastic Folgers coffee canister at the base of a sweetgum tree. I surveyed the setting pretty thoroughly for any presence of poison ivy and made my way through the brush and retrieved the coffee. The only damage was a small series of pinhole tooth marks in the lid. Either he couldn't get the lid off, or maybe after he poked the holes in it decided it didn't smell as good as he thought it would. We got our coffee back though.

I checked the trap and something got the cookies without springing the trap. Just a few little crumbs left that had fallen through the cage bars was all that was left. I left the trap where it was because I planned to bait it again.

Night before last a noise awoke me. I cicn't know what noise it was that woke me, but upon awakening I heard a rythmic metalic tapping sound, like someone was fiddling with something downstairs. I grabbed a flashlight and went downstairs, cats at my heels.

Couldn't see anything untowards, and tried to triangulate in on where the sound was coming from, but sound carries differently in this A-frame. I intuitioned that perhaps something was fooling with the havahart trap. I shone the flashlight over that way, and guess what? There he was, the masked bandit raccoon. He had gone in there to try to dig those cookie crumbs out from under and between the cage grid and got himself good and trapped. I slept very well the rest of the night!

Next morning Steve moved him across the yard where he would be out of the way and in the shade, and I called Animal Control. Our New Hero and Favorite Animal Control Officer Kim came out and said, "Yes, we do have a relocation program," and took the raccoon away. When she brought our cage back she said, "I opened that door and he ran like a bandit!"

...Like the bandit he is! ..Steal my coffee... I don't think so!

August Already!

I cannot believe it's been a month and a half since I last posted! We have been busy, busy, busy, though. The house is coming along, the garden is coming along, complications arise and are ironed out, dealt with, or worked around.

Grandmother accused me (probably more than once) of telling everything I know, but some things I will wait to report to the Whole Wide World until the fat lady sings, as they say. In some cases, for similar reasons a pitcher doesn't talk about a no-hitter-in-progress, in other cases - ah - more along the lines of the fifth amendment.

Here's what I can tell you.

It's August and, Baby, it's HOT. I checked the weather earlier this week and the five day forecast said Sunny and Hundred degree high temps for each day of the forecast.

The masons, Tom and his son Tommy, have built us a beautiful chimney (pictures later).

The garden is exploding, along with the population of cowpea aphids (accursed vermin!) and some creepy black bugs with pointed butts and orange or red markings that make them look scary that are eating my tomato leaves, beet greens and swiss chard leaves down to the ribs. I thought they were blister bugs, but they might be something else. I despise the ugly things, though, and smash them every chance I get.

Progress continues on our house. Steve has accomplished an unbelievable amount of work almost entirely by himself, but we are far from done. Plans are in the works to get him some help so we can get enclosed before cold weather arrives in Central Oklahoma. Yes, all my northern friends, I know - after having lived seven years in central New York, "cold" is a relative term, but something resembling winter will visit us in a few months and we need to be ready, so we are working on getting some help and a way to pay them.

My online venues' hearts are still beating, but their pulses are a little weaker than I prefer. The host for my main store, EightSusquehanna.com, migrated to a new server, which will be great once I learn all the new tricks. I think everyone can find it okay, but some things behind the scenes have changed, so I have more things to learn. My eBay store sells well enough that my inventory there is getting pretty skinny. I hope to make a couple days in the near future to evaluate and restock both inventories.

We brought the cats, Muffin and Cookie, out here a couple weeks ago and both their countenances improved immediately. Seems like they remember the place and are happy to be here. They spend their days who-knows-where and materialize at the sound of my voice in conversation or at the far end of the garden where the Catnip grows, or at dusk when we feed and retire for the night. The Mighty Muffin has become our Brave Protector, warding off would-be trespassers of the feline persuasion. What a guy, that Muffin!

Unfortunately, before he came out here we were graced by the darting presence of a painfully skinny, pregnant, half-grown kitty. Believing her to be the last of the strays the former tenant left behind, I attempted to seduce her into captivity with the idea of turning her over to Animal Control. A smart one, she was, and would not be tricked into any box or cage. She finally allowed herself to be petted if one had food and I took the opportunity to pick her up. Big mistake. She turned into a little tornado of a cat, all claws and teeth. She had her teeth in the heel of my left hand when I dropped her into a pet carrier, much less graciously than I had intended. Now we await the results of rabies testing. Kids, when your parents and teachers say, "Never touch a wild animal or any animal you don't know," they are not kidding, so pay attention.

What else? I go into town about every other day and wash the laundry and bring it back out here to the place and hang it on the line. In this heat it dries almost before I'm done hanging it! It's a practical and somewhat romantic throwback to my youth when it was common to see clothes hanging on a line to dry. I'm having the time of my life.

I'm learning about the plants that grow here, and about the symbiosis and pattern of life here. For instance, we have many plants here whose presence is indicative of acid soil. We had blossom end rot in some (but not all) of our tomatoes, which is indicative of low calcium in the soil, which is another symptom of acid soil. But we have "high" levels of calcium in our well water - so what happens is that the acid soil causes the calcium to wash out of the soil and into the water table. I figured that out all by myself.

Some mornings before light we can look outside and see deer in the yard. In the dark of dawn or dusk we are likely to see rabbits, who are probably the little dickenses who are eating my tomatoes before I get to them.

Priorities have not yet lent themselves to figuring out how to get television out here since all the stations have now gone digital, but we sure do get that Sirius Radio signal! We like the Deep Tracks station (Sirius 16) quite a bit. Jethro Tull, Little Feat, Leon Russell, to name only three of hundreds. It's great!

This has been something of a stream-of-consciousness post. The longer I sit at the keyboard, the more things I think of to tell you, but we'll leave some for next time. This post is long enough. Thanks for reading!

Tino's Cold Cheese Pizza

When we lived in Cooperstown there was a little pizzaria, Tino's, on Chestnut Street. Tino had a fairly typical menu for such a restaurant and would do slices for lunch. One of his menu items was Cold Cheese Pizza and all his menus bore the phrase, "Home of the Cold Cheese." Best I could determine, he was talking about cold cheese on a pizza.

Cold cheese on a pizza? Why? I didn't get it. It sounded gross.

My friends, co-workers, husband and I, as well as most visitors we entertained, enjoyed Tino's slices for lunch and whole pizzas for dinner and other occasions. We came to be such regulars that when Tino would see our shadow cross the door, he would himself call out our order, and it would be ready by the time we got to the counter. We ate a lot of Tino's.

Then came Jason. Jason Schiellack, then Manager of Membership (now promoted to Director of Membership) at the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, hails from Wisconsin. Everyone liked to rib him about being a "cheesehead" but he really is himself one cheese lovin' dude. It didn't take Jason long at all to sample that cold cheese pizza. Jason is the one who successfully introduced me to it. I must say I was hesitant to try this strange arrangement of cold cheese on a pizza, but from the "The First One is Free, Kid," Department, I was hooked from the first time I tried it.

The next time I went in, I asked Tino, "What's the story on that cold cheese pizza?"

Tino explained that when they had a pizza shop in Oneonta (a college town) they'd get these big rushes of diners, say, at lunch time or when classes or an entertainment event would let out. They'd be overrun with a shop full of hungry college age kids ordering slices! Slices! Slices! and they'd be back there slingin' pizzas as fast as they could. They'd pull those bubbling hot pizzas out of the oven and slice 'em up, but they were way too hot to eat - loosen the skin right off the roof of your mouth (Ouch!) - until someone had the ingenious idea of throwing a handful of cold shredded mozzarella cheese on top of those extraordinarily hot slices to keep from injuring thier avid, loyal, ravenous and impatient customers. Soon people began asking for slices that way. A cult of pizza was born.

When my sister, who has never been to Cooperstown or Oneonta, learned that I love cold cheese pizza, her response was same as mine had been in the beginning - "Cold cheese on a pizza? Why? I don't get it. Sounds gross!"

Unfortunately, any explanation I can offer in black words on white ground can not possibly come anywhere near doing it justice, but try to think of the most excellent thin crust cheese pizza you can imagine, piping hot - the way the crust bends down when you try to pick it up, so hot the topping almost slides off, melting - with a handful of shredded Mozzarella cheese thrown on top as it goes on the plate. Be assured, the juxtaposition of cold cheese on hot pizza is a delightful surprise. If you ever have the chance, try one. It'll change your life. Trust me.

We still get the weekly Cooperstown newspaper, The Freeman's Journal. Comes in the mail every week, right as rain. It's fun to keep up with the goings on in the village where we spent the last seven years of our lives. We always liked to say the village is so small, everyone takes turns being on the front page of The Freeman's Journal. It's real home towny. I saw in the FJ recently that someone bought Tino's.

That is happy and sad news to me. Happy if it was what Tino wanted, happy for him and his if he came out well on the sale. Sad to think Tino's won't be there any more. The new guys might even still call it Tino's if they paid him enough for such a priviledge, but it sure won't really be Tino's if Tino isn't there.

I am familiar with the other restaurant owned and operated by the people who bought Tino's. I certainly wish them the best, but I have to say, they're no Tino by a long shot. Not even close. So I guess we'll see. On the other hand I don't suppose I really need to trouble my pretty little head about it because I don't live there anymore!

Tino, wherever you're going and whatever you do, I bid you a fond farewell and wish you Health, Happiness and Prosperity. I thank you for having opened up a shop in Cooperstown, for your friendship, and for the exquisite experience of Cold Cheese Pizza. Cheers, buddy.

Garden Update and Field Pea Lore

I am sorry to say that I have slacked way off blog entries since I got Facebook, so to try to make up for it a little bit, I'm posting this entry with an updated photo of my garden, which is fairly exploding out of the ground.

We have already enjoyed a jalapeno pepper bigger than my whole thumb, a Roma tomato bigger than any I've ever seen in a grocery store (and way tastier), a few little golf-ball sized onions (because I just couldn't wait), several yellow squash, which are surprisingly sweet, and two hefty servings of green beans, yum! But wait, there's more - today I saw a bright yellow spot in one of the rows and wondered how a dandelion grew there so quickly, but it was my first Marigold blossom of the season. Good Morning Merry Sunshine!

In this photo, on the left is the tomato row; in the middle, there, is a row of Georgia Sweet onions, and that row on the right, toward the front are the yellow squash, and behind them you can see some neat trellises I made for cucumbers, cantaloupe (also known as muskmelon), and watermelon. On the crossways rows in the foreground, the little sprouts you see marching across the image from right to left are pink-eye purple-hulls, a variety of what are commonly called field peas. The Pink-eye purple-hulls are close cousins to black-eyed peas, which you may have heard of.

Black eyed peas are significantly involved in a particular southern tradition of eating black eyed peas on January first for good luck and prosperity in the coming year. Grandma Susie introduced this tradition to me many years ago. You can have 'em any way you wish - with or without greens, cornbread, any variety of pork - the black-eyed peas themselves are the thing.

This tradition evolved, as Grandma Susie explained to me, from the point that black eyed peas and all their little cousins are humble food, inexpensive and easy to prepare and, as you can see, one can even grow them in the home garden. As a bonus to all that, they're also quite tasty. It follows that if one were to start the new year with such humble fare, things could only get better. Steve and I have become almost superstitious in our observance of this tradition - January first must not pass without our having some black-eyed peas, even if we have to get them out of a can from the grocery store!

I could grow black eyed peas, and probably will, but I so love the pink-eye purple-hulls. I was introduced to pink-eye purple-hulls by a woman named Mildred Wallace, mother of my dear friend Sue Mitchell. My children and I went to visit Sue at Mildred's house in Arkansas one summer back in the eighties. Mildred was a pip! She nearly always had a "chaw of terbacky" in her cheek. Mildred grew a thick stand of pink-eye purple-hulls every summer. She ate many of them fresh and home-canned the rest, had enough to keep herself well stocked and send home with her loved ones. They weren't quite ready to harvest when we were there that summer, so we had some of the last of the home-canned from the season before - delicious. I also learned from Mildred that summer how to make biscuits. Yeah, biscuits! Tender, flaky biscuits, the kind you love with breakfast. I'll tell you about Mildred's biscuits in another post because this one is about "eye beans."

Black eyed peas are a pristine creamy white with a distinct black eye. They cook up from dried relatively quickly and are tasty. You can embellish the flavor with various seasonings, maybe a joint of ham if you're so inclined, or just enjoy them pretty much the way they come. They are definitely black and white. Once I've actually grown some, I can tell you more about their habit, their pods, and so forth.

Pink-eye purple-hulls are exactly that. One of the fun things about shelling them is that the pods will stain your fingers purple. One of the not-so-fun things about shelling them is the same thing - they will stain your fingers, and it is persistent. Doesn't wash out easily. The beans or peas, whichever one might wish to call them, are a little more pale mauvish in color, with a deeper, sort of a dusty plum colored eye. As I mentioned before, they are tasty prepared from fresh, they home-can well, or cook up from dried relatively quickly, like their black-eyed cousins. My affection for this legume interferes with any objectivity I might have, so I can't really say between black eyes and pink eyes which one has the better flavor. They're just tasty.

Time marches on and both Sue and her mother Mildred have gone on to the Big Acreage in the Sky. I have no doubt whatsoever that Mildred is in charge of a thick stand of the Heavenly equivalent of Pink-eye Purple-hulls, and that Sue is pointing out to newly arrived angels, "Well, there's a real good example of a pair of wings, right there on your shoulders." I learned a lot from those two women, individually and collectively, miss them both, and think of them often. My old friend Pappy Hines would say "They're not dead as long as we're alive to remember them," and to that I offer Cheers to Sue, Mildred and Pappy.

Y'all go grow yourselves some pink-eye purple-hulls!

Poison Ivy

I learned something new and interesting today!

Someone on one of my gardening groups posted that Poison Ivy is a sign that the soil is acid, and recommended I test and lime as needed. She also pointed out that Poison Ivy grows slowly and recommended planting something faster growing in its place to displace it, and made a couple of specific suggestions that speak directly to our need.

We have quite a bit of Poison Ivy on our place, more in the woods and under trees, but it has pretty severely encroached "our" space while we were away these seven years. I have become quite expert at recognizing it and knew you really just had to pull it out, but hadn't given much thought to planting other things in its place.

Here in Oklahoma and points south grows a grass we call Bermuda grass. It prefers long hours of sunlight and propagates readily by seed and eagerly by rhizomes. Bermuda grass is tolerant of difficult conditions and is beautiful and green, making it very popular for lawns. It is also invasive and persistent, should you ever happen to want to clear a piece of ground and plant anything else where Bermuda grass is or has been. If you run a tiller through it, any little quarter inch piece of rhizome left in or on the ground will sprout into - you guessed it - MORE Bermuda grass! Till a piece of Bermuda grass up into a hundred little pieces and you'll get a hundred new plants.

This has also been my experience with Poison Ivy.

So, yep, I put on my makeshift, hillbilly hazmat suit and layers of disposable gloves up to here, pull every strand of hair back slick and tight under a hat or in a bandanna so it won't waft about to tickle and and make me want to touch my face, and set to work, pulling up endless networks of ropes and cables of Poison Ivy vines and roots. Quite a sight, I'm sure. Fortunately it comes up fairly easily.

I do not put the evil strands in my compost, because its poison is like alien space acid in its insidious persistence and I do not want to put it back in my garden in the form of compost on food I eat or feed to my loved ones, completely aside from the chance of moving orphaned pieces of Poison Ivy to a new, more fertile environment with its propagates-from-any-little-scrap-of-root ability.

Don't burn it either, because Poison Ivy's eternal molecules of poison attach themselves to particles of smoke and ash, and Heaven Forbid you should breathe any of it. Bad, bad, bad. No, when I pull Poison Ivy I put it in trash bags, tie 'em up tight, and place them in the trash can for the City of Mustang to carry off to do whatever it is they do with the garbage they pick up from us. Thank you City of Mustang!

So - I am extremely pleased to learn this about Poison Ivy, that it's an indicator of acidity in the soil, and am also grateful for the suggestions and tips on things to plant in its place.

My Chicken House

My dear husband built me a chicken house ten years ago. It's a wood-frame building set on a concrete curb-like footer.

We got some perfectly good surplus windows for little-a-nothing, and a couple of doors the same way.

We designed sort of a vestibule/storage area just inside the exterior door, where we keep the feed and whatnot. The second, inner door lets you into the Inner Sanctum where the chickens live. We did purchase a set of nesting boxes with hinged roosts with little sliding doors on the backs so we can gather eggs without having to go into the chicken house, and he built "low" (about a foot off the floor) and "high" (about waist high) roosts out of 2x2's, along three sides of the inside of the chicken house.

It has a wood floor, covered with a linoleum-type flooring (probably vinyl or whatever they're making that stuff out of these days), which we got as a remnant. When we have chickens, we layer the floor with four to six inches of wood chips for chicken litter. We have traditionally purchased said wood chips from a local farm supply outfit. Now that Steve is doing more carpentry, he makes plenty of sawdust but I'd want to sift the fine dusty stuff out of it if we were going to try to put any of that on the hen house floor. Nobody, including my chickens, needs to be inhaling wood dust.

There is a little slider door that you can open and close with a rope on a pulley, that opens out into a fenced, covered yard area so the chickens can go outside, see the sunshine and feel the wind, and still be in a protected environment. It's like a porch except that it's bare ground out there. We call it the chicken yard.

The fence around the chicken yard has a gate-like door that we can open to let the chickens out to free-range for the day, if we wish. Unfortunate experience has taught us to let them out when we are going to be around to monitor things. We used to let them out in the morning before we went to work in the city, but there's a lot can happen when you're gone eleven, twelve hours a day. We changed to leaving them penned up if we're going to be gone and only letting them out when we're there.

On the other side of the chicken house from the little yard door, is another little door that we use for clean out. This one is just a little door on hinges that locks with a bolt-latch. We like to do a thorough clean out about twice a year - all the old, used litter goes out, sweep the floor, maybe scrub any crusty places with a stiff bristle broom. That flooring could also be mopped and disinfected if it seemed necessary. We would then put the chicken litter in the compost heap.

I posted a current pic. It looks a bit overgrown right now, but we've been away these seven years and it's surrounded with chest-high weeds and poison ivy. Someone has had a dog or dogs in there, so there is a little chew damage, some dig-out places, and a couple of the roosts are broken, but it all appears to be relatively easy to repair. We just have to get the human house habitable before we can start on the chicken house.

I'll post again when there's some progress to show.

Gardening Notes

We pull our rows up in ridges so the plantings are raised. Not a raised bed, but raised rows. Here's a picture of this year's garden so far, with a picturesque backdrop of trees.

We have an assortment of tomatoes, peppers, a row each of Georgia sweet and Texas 1015 (sweet) onions, some cukes, a watermelon, a cantaloupe, some okra, green beans, beets and carrots in the raised rows in addition to the corn circles.

We also have some garlic (not shown in this photo). I'll relate The Legend of The Garlic (with picture!) in a separate post in the near future.

By the way, in case you're interested, the trees shown include Black Walnut, Pecan, Hackberry, Elm, Honey Locust, and an olive relative I call "Sweetbush" because of the way it smells when it blooms in the spring. Downright intoxicating, the Sweetbush.

Elsewhere on the acreage live Juniper, Cottonwood, Mulberry, Willow, Cypress, Sweetgum, Oak and Pine trees. Possibly also a Redbud, the Oklahoma State tree, which I planted over ten years ago, but have not yet found.

Seven Circles of Corn

Someone on one of my gardening groups had posted a question about something called Corn Circles. I had never heard of this before and googled the term. Only found one article that mentioned the topic in a few sentances, in the middle of the article.

The article I found referred to corn circles or corn basins. The concept is that you raise a crater-like ring 18 to 36 inches across and plant the corn in the ridge of the ring.

It mentioned planting the "Three Sisters" - corn, beans and squash. The corn supports the beans, the beans feed the corn, and the squash provides ground cover to serve as a living mulch which keeps the moisture in the ground. The basin collects water when it rains or when you water.

You may know that corn needs to be planted somewhat en masse so the stalks can pollinate each other. In traditional row planting, the recommendation is usually to plant at least four rows to accomplish this. The premise with corn circles or corn basins, though, is that the circular configuration in an 18 to 36 inch circle provides the necessary proximity to achieve pollination.

So - I decided to give corn circles a try!

I created seven circles with 13 to 17 plantings each. I planted the corn with peas instead of beans and only planted one squash per circle since the squash spreads out so vigorously.

I will post updates and progress notes about this as summer progresses.

Vermiculture!

GUESS WHAT?! Today I found my old original worm bin! I can't believe it's still there!

It is a plastic under-bed type plastic storage box that I had drilled holes in the bottom for drainage and around along the sides under the rim for ventilation. I place either nylon screening or some of that garden mulch fabric against the holes to help keep my little darlings from escaping through the holes.

I'd kept it out back under some trees where it had shade during the day to help keep it cool enough to keep from baking my little wormies, and close enough to the house to make it easy to carry kitchen scraps out to the bin.

One of our cats, Cookie (aka "The Mistress of Stealth"), liked to perch on a limb, we're guessing to watch for any small critters that may have been interested in the worm bin.

Scared Steve out of ten years' growth one evening about dusk when he was out there piddling around and saw this pair of eyes about waist high. We had seen larger wild cats before, like a bobcat as big as a medium sized dog, so his first thought was what does that pair of eyes belong to and how big must it be if its head is at waist height? But it was just Cookie, perched on a tree limb, watching the worm bin.

If you're interested in or curious about keeping earthworms, check out the The Worm Bin. It's a Yahoo Group all about earthworms, castings, and wormbins.

Abandoned

We recently moved back to - well, are in the process of moving back to- an old family place, which has been rented out to various different people over the last seven years.

The most recent renter may be a few marbles short of a bag. He left the most incredible mess I have ever seen in my life, I kid you not.

The #@^&@*# also left his cats behind.

I know he knows he left them - we talked to him on Sunday on his cell phone. He said he'd be finished moving on Monday and told us where he would leave the key for us to pick up on Tuesday. It appears that the last thing he did before he left for the last time was to bring in a twenty five pound bag of cat food, lay it on the floor and cut it open so the kitties would be well fed until we arrived, and left the front window open about ten inches so the kitties could come and go at will.

Two of the cats were at least acquainted with people and were clearly lonely for human companionship. One would come right up to us, talking, rubbing against our legs. The other one was slightly less friendly but not unfriendly - was a little more cautious, but was talkative and almost approachable.

The third one was talkative, but would not let anyone near him/her. He/she would talk to us, but if we talked back, he/she would give us that "Oh, no you don't!" look and run away.

Given that my own cats are aging, and judging by the MESS this guy left (I am not kidding, I have NEVER seen anything like it), even though I saw evidence of things like flea treatment, litter buckets, and cat food, I could not say with any certainty that these kitties have ever had any veterinary attention, in terms of being current with shots and whatnot. In addition, there is that whole thing of the cats using the entire house as a catbox. These factors, plus more I haven't mentioned, led me to the decision to call Animal Control.

Fortunately, the woman in charge of Animal Control in Mustang has a good working relationship with the local vets and tries very hard to find homes for animals that come under her care.

She came out and easily caught the two "people cats," who are now in quarantine at the shelter as I write. They really tugged at my heartstrings, these two, but I have no doubt that they are quite adoptable and will find good homes as soon as it is feasible to release them.

We made a plan about the third kitty and set about, then, to clean the place up. We also have some serious renovation to do there, and once we got all the garbage cleaned out, we began demolition on the parts that have to be rebuilt and replaced, noise of which has further convinced the third kitty not to come near any of us.

So we took up the food for twenty four hours, then set a live trap with food and water in it and were immediately successful in capturing the third kitty, who now awaits transport to the shelter first thing in the morning.

However - now that the house is empty, we have discovered TWO MORE kitties that we hadn't seen before! They were hiding under the dumpster (crying) when we finished work today. I don't know how successful we will be at capturing them since they might associate "food" with "cage," but if they're hungry enough a cage with food in it might be attractive to the poor little things. Since we never saw these last two until we got the house empty, it makes me wonder if there are yet more kitties. These wild ones are the ones whose outcome I worry about. If they can get their shots and be neutered or spayed they could make decent barn cats. They certainly aren't interested in being people kitties right now, that's for sure.

Since all these kitties have had free run of the house for who knows how long, and have done their business in every nook and cranny, it seriously smells like urine and poo in there, even with all the furniture, carpet and trash out of the house. Steve found a super concentrated odor eliminator on the Internet, which we have ordered. It should arrive sometime next week. I'll be sure to post an entry on its efficacy.

Meanwhile, my kitties Muffin and Cookie are sequestered here at our little one bedroom extended stay apartment...where they LOVE it! Nice and cool, all they have to do is sleep all day,thank you very much, and eat once in a while, and if they feel like it, allow us to brush them - the life of Riley, as my mother would say.

April 22, 2009

Earth Day,
Earth Day,
Oklahoma's Birthday!

Tuesday April 21, 2009

This mini suite we're in here at the residential hotel has a main living area with a television and a kitchenette, a good-sized bathroom and a bedroom. Like a teen-inesy apartment. Carpet everywhere except in the bathroom, so that is where the catbox is.

Muffin totally loves being this close to "Mom" all the time, but I am also seeing that I may be able to socialize Cookie a little more in this small space. She still spends most of her time hiding under the bed, but she is coming out a little more - every once in a while I enjoy the pleasant surprise of velvet against my ankles, and even more rarely she will join me on the bed at night or let me pull her into my lap for an ever-so-brief love-fest.

There is a lot of debate among cat owners as to whether cats should ever be let outside or not, but I do let mine out under certain conditions...one being that I can get them back in at night! So over the years we have formed the practice of taking up the food dishes in the morning and feeding in the evening so I can get everybody to come when I call. With a cat who may or may not answer when you call, feeding time can be an excellent motivator. Another plus for me with once-a-day feeding is that I can see who is eating what (yes, I watch them eat).

We started this feeding-at-night thing when we first lived on the acreage, and then more consciously when we lived in Cooperstown - if one, some or all the cats happen to go outside during the day, it's my way of making sure they all come in at night. Believe it or not, even in Cooperstown there are scary, dangerous things about at night - raccoons, skunks, dogs, foxes, and the like. In the hills around the village they also have bears, but those guys rarely enter the village. (Notice I did NOT say they "never" enter the village!)

At the acreage in Oklahoma, we have all that, plus owls, coyotes and bobcats, so while I occasionally let my creatures out to enjoy the day with me, I'm nearly anal about making sure everyone is securely inside come nightfall. To this day, wherever I am, if I awaken in the night to the sound of coyotes I sit bolt upright in a panic until I have taken a mental roll call of all my pets.

This tiny room at the residential hotel is showing itself to be a good way for Cookie and I to rebond, which will be good when it's time for the cats to go to the acreage.

The former renter is all moved out, so we're going out there today to evaluate, to triage what needs to be done, and to work in the garden. Overalls, work gloves, notebook, camera, ice chest and sack lunches; I'm just sorry the cats don't get to go yet. Big job ahead, I know that, but I so love that place.

The day awaits!

Renay and the Chicken Car

We pulled off the highway in Doolittle Missouri for gas and a bite to eat, saw this Chicken Car and had to have our pictures made with it. Here's Renay!

'Nay and I luv chickens!

The Trip Down

We closed on the sale of our house on Wednesday April 9, picked up the money Thursday morning, and hit the bricks before noon in a caravan of three.

Steve drove a 22 foot Penske truck, our dear friend Renay drove a 12 footer, and I drove Sunshine the Bright Yellow Van, pulling a white 15 foot trailer.

There's a story on the trucks.

Okay, I'll tell you.

First, we were supposed to close in late May. I looked forward to being able to go through everything, having a yard sale, making several trips to the dump. We reserved a 26 foot truck to move all our stuff.

Then, around the middle of March the buyers notified us that they had secured a really really really good deal on a mortgage, but they had to close within 30 days to get that good deal. This pushed the closing date into the time range of April 7-17 instead of May 27.

Yikes! Just like that, our prep was shaved by a hefty seven weeks, from ten weeks to three - no time for sorting, definitely no time for a yard sale - just instant decisions to "pack" or "toss."

Let me pause to relay two important things we have learned from previous moves:

1. Sure, you can get a lot of stuff in great big giant boxes, but who has to carry those boxes, and how far? and what happens to the stuff in those boxes when someone drops one because they're too big and awkward or too heavy to carry, or what if the box falls apart because it's got more stuff in it than it can old? Not-too-big boxes are better.

2. Liquor store boxes are a great size in general, big enough to hold a good amount, not too big (as per item#1), but they're not of a uniform size. Short, medium and tall, liquor store boxes come in a whole mixy mess of sizes. Fine if you're moving in your car and a couple dozen pickup truck loads - not so great if you have a big truck to fill and need to do the whole move in one trip. Many boxes the same size are better.

So I ordered 150 file-size "banker" style boxes with lids, 75 longer boxes of the same type, and 50 18x18x12 boxes for things that wouldn't fit in either of the other two size boxes. I ordered these boxes from Uline, by the way, if you should ever find yourself in such a position. They were GREAT, Uline was. If you ever need a bunch of boxes of a uniform size, check them out. Check them out anyway. They have lots of cool stuff and are a very professionally run company. Uline.

My precious daughter Misty and our dear friend Renay came over every day for two weeks, taking time off from work, recruiting other family members and mutual friends to come help, and they were absolute life savers in helping us get packed. No way in God's Green Earth I could have gotten all that done in the time allotted once the closing date was accelerated. Another dear friend of ours, Keith, came on several successive days as well and helped us get packed boxes and furniture downstairs and then helped Steve get the truck loaded.

Trucks.

Trucks, multiple.

We had reserved a 26 foot truck, the biggest you can get without hiring a semi. We went to pick this big truck up, and a couple miles from the rental place Steve became concerned that there was a pretty scary problem with the front end. What a drag it would be to be, oh, miles from nowhere and have the front end fall out from under the big truck, so Steve took it back to the rental place.

They got him fixed up with another 26 footer, and he was about halfway home with that one when the engine light came on. Again, looking at a trip of over 1600 miles - what a drag it would be to have the engine blow, oh, say, in the middle of rush-hour traffic in some hurry-up impatient road-rage city between Cooperstown and Oklahoma City. Such places do exist, you know. No, really. So Steve took that one back, too.

Unfortunately, they did not have another 26 footer. Best they could do was the 22 footer, so that's what he came home with.

4 feet , the difference between 26 feet and 22 feet, doesn't seem like that much, but when you consider the width and the height of the box, we're talking somewhere over 400 cubic feet. That space can hold a lot of boxes.

Steve loaded that 22 foot truck and when it was full we still had a lot of stuff left to load. There certainly hadn't been time to go through everything when we were trying to get it all done in that abreviated time frame, and there was no time to go back through anything, either, now. Criminy, what to do? Leave it all? But I had packed the less-essential things first, saving the things I need most and use most often to pack last. There was not anything not yet on the truck that I could comfortably say I could do without.

After some stewing and fretting, we decided to see if we could get someone to drive a third truck for us, and Steve called Penske and cut a deal with them for a 12 footer.

Our first ask was for our brother-in-law David Bradford, but he was not available on such short notice. Steve and I wracked our brains as to who might be willing, able, and have the time on immediate notice to drive that third truck for us. Between Steve, me, and Renay, I think we, the three of us, know just about everyone in Otsego County, and in talking to Renay, she said she would like to drive that truck! She consulted her family, cleared her schedule for about a week and voila! We were all set! Saved our beans again, Renay did. Go Baby!

So here we are in Oklahoma City.

As I write, we are all set to go out to the acreage tomorrow to see what all needs to be done to clean things up. It looks like someone who has lived there at some time in the last seven years must have collected junk to recycle, and didn't make it to the recycle station with quite a bit of the material. Garage door panels, old appliances, beer cans... Anyway, we're going to go triage and evaluate what is there and what needs to be repaired, replaced, etc.

I thought we would live the rest of our days in Cooperstown, and I love and miss my friends in Otsego County (thank God for phones and emails!), but I must say, I am glad to be back, and am seriously looking forward to getting a garden in. Probably too late in the season to start chickens this year, especially with everything else that must need to be done out there, but chickens next spring for sure. I'll keep you posted.

We Have Returned to OZ

Back in Oklahoma.

The house on our acreage in Mustang has been rented to several different people over the last seven years, the most recent of whom is in the process of moving out now. He'll be out by the 20th. Now, thinking too much again, I wonder if that means he'll be gone by the end of the 19th, or will it be the 20th? Just to be safe, I believe our plan is to show up on the 21st ready to get some things done. In the meantime, we are trying to keep our hands and minds busy until then.

We have taken temporary lodging in a place called Candlewood Suites, a residential hotel.

The FAA (that's Federal Aviation Administration) has a training center in Oklahoma City, so people come from all over the country (and maybe beyond?) to attend training at FAA here in Oklahoma City. Rather than haggle with uber-expensive nightly rate hotels or long-term apartment lease requirements and whatnot, a lot of those folks stay at places like this.

It's sort of like a cross between a hotel and an apartment. Our unit has a kitchenette with a little two-burner stove, microwave (unfortunately no conventional oven, so no fresh-baked bread for a while), a decent sized 'fridge, a dishwasher, garbage disposal, a little coffeemaker (YEAH!) and two televisions - one in the living room and one in the bedroom. They allow pets, thank goodness, so Muffin and Cookie are here with us.

We expect to be here from one to three months (or longer if required) while we whip the A-frame into shape.

We've been out to the property a few times to look around, see how things are, see if we might run into the soon-to-be-former resident. We haven't met him yet.

I, Mrs. Bright-Side, am happy to report that:
* The chicken house is intact and will only require some cleaning up and a little repair.
* Apparently no one ever harvested the garlic we planted the October before we moved to Cooperstown and it has naturalized! Garlic where we planted it and beyond! So with no effort on our part, we will get to harvest garlic this summer!

On the other hand, a LOT of work will be required to bring the rest of the place up to snuff.

We'll have to bring in a load of gravel to fill in the driveway. It looks like heavy vehicles have driven over it and it is deeply rutted right now.

When we left seven years ago, some agency (I'm not sure if it was City of Mustang, Canadian County, or State of Oklahoma) had come through and cleared back from the road and cleaned out the drainage ditch. I thought they were going to put the fence back in (which they may have done) but there is no fence there now.

The house is an A-Frame, covered with cedar shake shingles. Shingles are warped and loose all over the building and completely missing along the bottom. The apex of the roof has come dismantled, unmanufactured, and without even seeing inside yet, I am as sure as I am sitting here that it leaks in the rain. We'll know more once we can get inside.

After having lived in a big house full of hardwood floors the last seven years in Cooperstown, I had already decided we would pull up the carpet in there and put down actual or facsimile of hardwood flooring.

You try to screen your residents, but people with secrets to hide ... Anyway, one of the renters SOLD the 12x24 metal building we had out there as an out-building! We see that the iron gate that used to be on the front door and one of the front windows are missing as well, we suspect cashed in as scrap metal. Turns out that guy was a fugitive, a wanted man. Apparently the government figured out where he was and he skipped. His day will come.

The central heat and air unit is missing. There are sections of garage doors all over the place, too, out by the sheds and over in the woods. The little shed buildings that we'd used to keep our tools and smaller equipment and where our first chicken house was, are now full of garbage, as if some of the renters had declined to contract with the city of Mustang for garbage pickup. Appliances all the heck over the place... I do know the current/soon-to-be-former resident has had burn-pits out there - one right outside the back door, next to the house with the cedar shake shingles - that was a disaster waiting to happen! He has since moved the burn pit away from the house, but we prefer to avoid burn pits ourselves as the fire danger is way too high.

Anyway, come Tuesday morning we will be out there in our overalls, boots and heavy gloves to triage the situation and fomulate a plan of action. I'll post pictures when I have some to post.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Yesterday I got a birthday card from my parents.

On the cover it said,"I asked the wise man on the mountain the secret of a long life. As my Birthday gift to you, I'd like to pass along his infinite words of wisdom..." with a cartoon of a typical wise man of the mountain - long gray beard, purple robes, sitting in a lotus position.
You open it up and it has the picture of the wise man on the mountain with a big grin on his face, holding a book that says on the front, Words of Wisdom. You open that book and it says, "Keep breathing as long as possible!"

That is so totally something my dad would say!

How Did Your Pets Get Their Names?

Our dear old yellow and white cat Muffin was, has always been, and still is "just as sweet as a little sugar muffin."

Cookie got her name because the name Muffin was already taken.

Mimosa (who passed away a few days before this last Christmas) - I know y'all think she was named after the mixed drink called a Mimosa, but we lived on Oklahoma when she was born and there grow leguminous trees called Mimosa trees. They are fast growing and have an exotic look about them (as Mimosa did, come to think of it) and bloom out with countless flowers that look something like pom-poms or those big fluffy cosmetic blush brushes, and those flowers smell so sweet I can't even tell you. I'm sure the drink Mimosa was named after those flowers and so was our sweet little Mimosa kitty.

I had a female cat once, named Ramon. Yes I know it's a boy's name, but I'd heard a song on Prairie Home Companion one time a hundred or so years ago,
"Black, black, black is the color of my cat Ramon,
My new white couch is his home...."
sung to the tune of "Black Black Black is the color of my true love's hair." It was so cute that I said right then if I ever got another black cat I would name it Ramon, and I did, even though she was a girl. Could've named her Ramona, but Ramona is a different character all together. Ramon was definitely Ramon. If she'd been Ramona, that is what I would have named her, but.... Maybe I'll name the next qat Ramona (after Ramona Quimby - you Beverly Cleary fans will understand)

Before Ramon I had a black and white Maine Coon Cat named Valentino. Goodness gracious he was pretty. Long haired, black with a white ruff, looked like he was wearing a tuxedo. Nicknamed "Dinks," he was an escape artist who loved to chase birds and just such a bird led him into the path of an oncoming car, breaking all our hearts, may he rest in peace.

Way before that, my first cat (in my adulthood) was a one of those grey and black tabby cats named Casey after a book I'd read called "Casey" about a horse who was infatuated with cats and wanted to be a cat, but since he couldn't be a cat, he took the name Casey, which stood for K.C., which stood for Kitty Cat. My Casey was a pill. Loved to tear around (wherever we lived), climbed curtains and furniture, liked to perch on top of an open door, if you can picture that. Would fetch those cellophane wrapped cigarette packs if you wadded one into a ball and threw it. He would go get them and bring them back as long as you'd throw them. Loved that crinkly sound they made. I haven't thought of that n years, Casey playing fetch.

When Casey got old we got another black and grey tabby cat who resembled Casey (although they were actually quite different) and we named that one "Eikon" (pronounced "Icon") which means "image" since he so resembled or was, as they say in the south, "the spittin' image" of Casey. we called him Ikie for a nickname.

There was a sweet little grey kitty just the color and shading of a soft graphite pencil drawing. We tried to name her Graphite, but my daughter always called her Grake Itty (for "Gray Kitty")

Oh, when I was a toddler, we had a gray and black tabby named Butch. Butch the Cat. Dear old long-suffering Butch - I dressed him up in doll clothes, tried to roll him around in a doll stroller. I really was afraid for Butch because it was plain that he, being a striped cat, was a baby tiger and everybody knows that tigers grow very large and become dangerous and you can't keep grown tigers at home. I fretted mightily, at the tender age of three, that he would grow up and we would have to get rid of him and I hoped upon hope that the zoo would take him. I don't know how Butch got his name.

Bart the Wonder Dog came with his name - at least the "Bart" part.

Benny was named after Benny and the Jets.

Arrow was named partly for the Nilsson song and mostly for the white arrow that ran from the top of his forehead to the tip of his nose. Arrow might or might not come when you called him, but he would always if you called Mom. That dude sure loved his Mom (that would be me.) We had Arrow when Isabella was little and she called him Dojjy Ayo - Dojjy for doggy and Ayo for Arrow, so cute.

Lots more to tell about all these guys, but this is all for now.

Publish Post

Gateway to Oz

I had posted my introductory entry to the Yahoo group on Organic Gardening and another member of that group, Jeff FaithWalker, replied saying, "So God is delivering you out of the Hands of us Yankees and sending you to the gateway to Oz is He.......... .hmmmm verrrrrrrrrrry interesting!"

Gateway to Oz - what a great turn of phrase! The idea made me remember the carrots we planted the day of the May 3 Tornadoes:

Some of the best carrots I ever ate were planted on May 3, 1999, a day of a seemingly neverending series of tornadoes.

We had worked a little ash from the woodstove into the row and planted as the darkening sky boiled up from the west. You can keep a garden alive with the water hose, but to really grow, rain is best, so I knew that these carrots having their first watering by rain, I knew that would be good, as long as they didn't wash out. I kept my eye on the sky as the thunder began to rumble and as soon as we got the seeds in the ground I left my dear husband outside to finish putting up the tools and get things closed up and I went inside to look at the weather radar on the TV, see just what was coming, and how soon. Yikes, what a wild ride we had for the rest of the afternoon and most of the night! A whole 'nother story about all that, for sure. But the carrots did great, yes they did. Best carrots I ever ate.

Gardening

I've been interested in growing things my whole life. I remember at the age of four how dismayed I was when my grandparents took out the flower garden next to the house and concreted that space to keep water from seeping into their basement and it always dismays me to hear of someone dismissively removing trees and shrubs simply because they're tired of them.

Several years ago I was fortunate enough to live on an acreage in Central Oklahoma where I had some chickens, a good sized garden with plenty of vegetables and a smaller (but still sizable) garden where we rotated garlic and tomatoes. I made flower jellies from Honey Locust and Dandelion flowers, which I could only do because I knew they had not been chemically treated. Then, seven years ago we moved to a small village in Central New York.

Up here it's two or three zones colder than where I grew up and while I love the cool green summers in Central New York, I haven't quite gotten the knack of growing my familiars in this short, cool growing season. Also, here in the village, my so-called garden is more postage-stamp sized than the all-the-room-you-want garden I had in Oklahoma. I have been able to grow horseradish, chives, mint, lemon balm, parsley, basil, a little bit of garlic - I had a pair of blueberry bushes, too, but we had some work done on the house and I haven't seen the blueberry bushes since the heavy equipment left. As I write, the yard and my tiny rectangle of garden are firmly covered with twelve to eighteen inches of snow.

I thought we'd spend the rest of our lives here, but as it happens, fortune has favored us in that someone has bought our house and we're moving back to Zone 7, to the very acreage we left when we moved up here. I am ecstatic!

I've already researched late season plantings and average frost dates and see that, getting back there in late May or even early June, I can still get several late season plantings going as soon as we get back and be eating some of our own food again by winter.

Onward and upward!

The Legend of Muffin

Late one summer there appeared on the front step of the doctor's office were I worked, a yellow and white kitten who rubbed himself up against the leg of everyone who walked in or out of the building that day. All morning long I heard people talk about that sweet little yellow and white kitty in the entry way.

After we got done with our office patients, the doctor went to surgery and I had lunch, I said, "Okay, I have to see this cat everyone is gong on about," and went to the front door. Sure enough he purred and rubbed himself against my legs too. Purred like a big ol' truck engine, he did. What a sweetheart. I became infatuated with him immediately, smitten by this kitten. I called my husband and told him about this sweet little kitty who had come to the clinic looking for a soft touch, I mean a home, and could I bring him home for an interview. After a little discussion my husband Steve agreed so I took this kitten home with me. Doggoned if he didn't kill a mouse the first night he was there, securing his place in our household.

But what to name him?

We brainstormed a few monikers. In that process I said, "He's just as sweet as a little sugar muffin, isn't he?" As soon as the words were out of my mouth I knew - "That's it! Let's call him Muffin!"

And so it is - Muffin, because he was and still just as sweet as a little sugar muffin. Well, a big sugar muffin now. Great big sugar muffin. He's my love kitty. Muffin.

About a year later Cookie came to us, but that's another story.