I keep on truckin'

Yes indeed!

My business as a copyeditor depends entirely on my ability to use my computer and access the Internet. Everything I do is on the computer. I use the computer to edit the manuscripts I receive by e-mail or download from an FTP site. I send them back the same way.

A few years back when this area was hit by a terrible ice storm and some sections of Springfield were without power for weeks, it occurred to Richard that if we didn't have a way to keep our computers running if the power went out, I would effectively be out of business, and so would he, for that matter, until the power came back on. And he had the brilliant idea that we had better get a generator, just in case. I agreed with him, although at the time it did seem like a rather expensive item for "just in case."

It took us almost a year to get the generator, however, because Harbor Freight, the store in Springfield that sells them, could not keep them stocked fast enough to keep up with the demand. But eventually Richard was able to buy the generator and he brought it home. He built a cart for the beast and put wheels on it, and rigged it so he could maneuver it around. And then it came to pass that the "just in case" time arrived when we least expected it.

Hurricane Ike wasn't content to wreak havoc in Texas, the storm rampaged up through Arkansas and into Missouri, and at about 5:30 a.m. on Sunday, our power went off.

Normally, our electric cooperative is able to restore power within a few hours. The longest we have ever been without power is 8 hours I think. This time the power did not come on right away. And it continued not to come on. In fact, it didn't come on until Tuesday at about 7 p.m, about 60 hours later.

If we had not had the generator, I would not have been able to turn on my computer and access my e-mail, I would not have known that I was being offered a new journal, and I would not have responded, and someone else would have gotten the job.
The generator certainly saved my bacon.

The main casualties in the storm were beautiful big old trees that came down all over town. Our son's friend Tim was hired to cup a tree that had blown over in someone's yard, and our son went with him help. As they worked on it, they discovered it was hollow. There weren't any bees around, but there was a old beehive in it that still had honey in the comb.

Our son brought a piece of it home so we could see it, and he left it out on the porch.
The next morning it was swarming with yellowjackets, bees....
hornets, and bumblebees, all after the honey. The large black one on the right is a bald-faced hornet; an insect that is best left alone. The one on the left and slightly below it is a bumblebee.

Walking down the porch steps was a bit nervewracking with all the stingers buzzing about, so when the sun went down, Richard moved it off the porch and under a tree. Much safer that way. Interesting how nature is so good at recycling. Nothing goes to waste.

A failure to communicate

A sorry tale to tell.

A woman at our church has three sons. At the end of last summer, at just about this time, the middle son got married to his high school girlfriend very quickly, with maybe 2 weeks' notice (yes, she was). They wanted to know if I would play the piano at the wedding. I frantically searched for some easy versions of traditional wedding music and started practicing, but I realized there was no way I could become proficient enough to play for the wedding. We had a CD of wedding music on hand, so I rigged up the church PA system to a CD player and used that instead.

In the meantime, the younger son decided he was going to get married in October to his girlfriend (no, she wasn't), and they asked me if I would play for their wedding. I said yes because I knew I would have enough time to practice. And I commenced practicing.

It came to pass that the younger son and his girlfriend had a big fight. He "showed her" and joined the Marines, who wasted no time in whisking him off to Camp Pendleton. I heaved a big sigh of relief that the wedding was called off, and I quit practicing. They actually did get married when he came on leave, but they did it at the courthouse and no piano playing was involved.

Now for the hard part. At some point during this period of time, I apparently was approached by the oldest son and his girlfriend, Amber, who asked me if I would play for their wedding. They hadn't set the date yet. I apparently said yes.

I used the word "apparently" because I totally forgot the conversation. By and by they did set the date for their wedding, which was last Saturday. But no more was said to me about playing the piano, no discussion about what music she might want, nothing. We did not plan to go to the wedding because it was 70 miles away and we had not gotten a written or verbal invitation. Friday night while we were eating dinner, the phone rings and it is the son's mother, who is calling from the wedding rehearsal.

"Are you coming to the wedding tomorrow because Amber says you are supposed to play the piano."

I just about died. I felt terrible, but I had to tell her that I didn't remember having the conversation with Amber and that no, we weren't planning to come because we had not been invited. "Well, I put an invitation up on the bulletin board at church," she says. Only I never look at the bulletin board so I didn't see it. I suggested she go to Walmart and try to find a CD of wedding music. Richard went up to the church later to turn on the AC and he says he didn't see an invitation.

At any rate, our pastor performed the ceremony and said it was a wedding without music. The bride walked down the aisle in silence instead of to "Here Comes the Bride..."

Something usually always goes wrong at a wedding. If I were an insurance adjuster trying to assign blame for this accident, I'd have to say I am not sure who was more at fault for this major thing going wrong: me for forgetting, or her for not following up.

I cook food and count the calories

I have more enough magnets to handle the things that I might want to stick on the refrigerator door. Often some of the magnets have nothing to hold up; that is, until I start cooking. Then I have to try to calculate how many calories are in a serving of whatever I am making, and little slips of paper with numbers start finding their way onto the refrigerator. This is the only way I can keep them safe from being tossed in the trash when a certain person I live with starts to clean up.

The church potluck rolls around once a month, and I have a hard time figuring out what to make. Last month I made lasagna, which was very good. They ate it. I think there was one serving left in the pan. The month before that, I made enchiladas. They were horrible, which I didn’t realize until much too late. The tortillas were mushy, and it almost makes me gag thinking about it now. And then there is the embarrassment of trying to feed something truly awful to my friends. I divided what was left (nearly all of it) in smaller containers and froze it to eat later, which did not improve anything. None of us wanted to eat it. I really hate wasting food, but I eventually dumped it on the compost heap. It is not for no reason that cooking for people makes me nervous.

So, for this month’s fellowship meal last week I took an assortment of things.
About a half a can of tomatoes and chili peppers was left over from what I had used to make some spicy soup the day before, so Richard opened a can of corn and combined them.

Sicilian eggplant relish.

Linguini and white clam sauce.

Red Thai curry (okay, it isn’t very red, but I did use red Thai curry paste).

Confetti grain pilaf.

And then comes the tedium of trying to figure out how many calories each of these contains. Everything that goes into the recipe must be weighed and the calories calculated for that amount by looking it up in the book or getting it off the label if it comes from a package or can. That will be a topic for another time, because we have found that one can’t trust the calorie counts on the labels. The food manufacturers lie and mislead. I did say that was a topic for another time. Moving right along. Once the whole recipe has been cooked, I have to figure out how I am going to determine the serving size – either by weight or volume.
So, the Thai curry was 91 calories for a 1/2-cup serving. Richard was sitting next to me at the meal, and he took a bite of it, leaned his head on my shoulder, and said, “Oh my, this is good.” Other people liked it too. Only one serving was left in the dish I brought home.
The linguini and clam sauce was 42 calories per ounce. Our son commented how much he liked it after he had gone back for another helping. Other people liked it too, and only about one serving left.
.
The pilaf was 19.75 calorie per ounce. Nobody ate it, because in the confusion of getting the food to the church on Sunday morning, I forgot the pilaf. I ate it for lunch all week with melted grated cheese on top.

I lost the slip of paper for the Sicilian eggplant relish, but it was about 45 calories for a 1/2-cup serving. I guess they did not like the way it looked, because they didn't eat too much of it. But it really tasted good. Even Richard said so, and if he likes it, it is good.

What started the whole calorie-counting regimen was the sorry state we were in 2 years ago, which is when this picture was taken while we were on vacation in California. As soon as we returned home, I started on the long journey to loose weight and Richard joined me a month later. I keep this picture on the refrigerator, with the pig magnet, to remind myself why I am going to all the trouble of calorie counting--and believe me, it can get really tiresome--and what I will look like again if I don’t do it.

As you can see, I am not a skilled food photographer. This woman takes beautiful pictures of food. Google found her blog for me when I was hunting for a way to cook peppers and fish, and she had a recipe.

There is one more important thing on my refrigerator. I look at it a lot.

And as a final note, I am firmly in the camp with April Showers regarding the evils of high-fructose corn syrup: None of the ingredients in these recipes contained high-fructose corn syrup.

I go to a garage sale and don't fall down

Yes indeed. My first garage sale since the accident in June, when I fell and fractured a pelvic bone before I barely had a chance to look at the first table of stuff.

I am drawn to blue pottery like a moth to a flame; so naturally, this little gem had to come home with me.

I am a firm believer in putting things to work, even pretty things. So, if it can have a useful function in this house, then it does. In this case the little blue bottle is going to become the container for the Herbes de Provence, which I will sprinkle on the squash when I cook it tonight. As usual when I attempt anything in the kitchen, I make a mess while I try to fill it.

Now, the old canning jar can go back in the cupboard in the pantry, and instead of looking at it, I can appreciate the beauty of this little bottle sitting on top of the spice rack and get some use out of it as well.

Good fences make good neighbors...

It was late last winter when I first met the wife of the couple who bought the house next to the microwave tower. This fence separates their property from the church yard. They are probably our closest neighbors on this side of the highway as the crow...
err... vulture flies.
No.... no.... turn to your right... you're headed in the wrong direction. Uhhh... on second thought, let's don't follow the vultures. At least 5 more vultures showed up, and they all swirled around for a few minutes. I couldn't get myself arranged fast enough to take a photo of them all before they floated away off over the woods in a large swirl.
And there would be the straight flight path from the microwave tower to the telephone pole by our back porch. At any rate, moving right along. Our son found their dog's collar in the cleared area (well, it used to be the cleared area) under the power lines that are strung across our field, also visible in the above photo. The dog had likely gotten caught on some brush, jerked to free itself, and the collar broke. The tag announced that this was Blackie, an appropriate name for a black Lab. I called the phone number that was engraved on the tag and Blackie's person, a woman in her 70s (I'm guessing), came and picked it up. She seemed nice, and I thought I should try to get to know her better. But I didn't follow through with that. I did get to know Blackie a bit better, however. He chased my car down the road one day not too long after he got his collar back.

The man came into the church a couple of weeks ago during Sunday school and said he was planning on redoing the fence line. He wondered if we (the church) would mind if he cleared the trees and brush away from the fence? We (the church) said we didn't mind. Well, I minded, but I didn't say anything.

Richard and I didn't realize that they also own the land that borders our field. Most of the fence was either on the ground or sagging badly because of rotted fence posts, so he hired some guys to put in a new fence. For about 2 weeks off and on, there was a lot of ...
rummmmmm.... RUMMMMMM.... rummmmmmmm... RUUMMMMMM from the chain saws... and clanging.... and banging as they drove the metal posts.

And then once that commotion died down, we got to smell lots of smoke as large piles of downed trees and brush were being burned...

and burned.

And a few days ago she knocked on our door and said she was very sorry, but the guys who set the fence discovered they had made a mistake. She said her husband had called out a surveyor to confirm the property line and they were 13 feet across the line on our land. So, they redid the fence, and more banging and clanging commenced. Had they not told us, we probably never would have realized the mistake, at least until we went to sell the land.
Our pond is somewhere on the other side of those trees. And I was wondering if they had done something to it.

We were now rather anxious to see the fence line, so Richard fought his way through the brush to the bridge over the wet weather creek, but was stopped by the poison ivy, which he is horribly allergic too. Yep, there is a bridge there, and if you click on the photo to enlarge it, you'll see it.And the other path I used to take to get to the pond when our son was younger (note the rusting hulk of our old satellite dish) is impassable without some serious trailblazing activities.

However, yesterday morning I put our son to work clearing the brush and lo and behold, a bridge.

Once the poison ivy dies back, maybe we can fire up the gasoline-powered brush cutter and get out to the pond and see for ourselves. I remain curious to see whether our new neighbors are going to ask us to pay for half the cost of putting up the fence.

He goes walking, and I take pictures (or try to)

Richard began exercising 2 years ago when we decided to lose weight. At first, he just walked a mile, but then he decided to increase that to 2 miles, and he even plotted out a 3-mile walk. Before I got hurt, I walked with him on the days I didn’t go to the aerobics class at the YMCA.
All walks begin at home. Here he is heading out on the 1.95-mile walk, carrying his water bottle and the little thingy he listens to music on. I will soon leap in the car in the background and drive to the half-way point.
The driveway has certain distractions. One never knows what one might see. A turtle. A rabbit. A snake. A couple of days ago we saw two fawns that still had their spots.
Stopping a minute to smell the flowers....
Ummmm... perhaps just looking is a better idea. These are a magnet for bees and butterflies.
This is the channel where the wet weather spring flows when it rains. After a hard rain it will overflow the driveway and create a river...
...that flows down the driveway and around the corner. And since water doesn't normally flow up hill, it cuts across the driveway, here to left, and then joins the other watersheds from this area that are part of the Eleven Point River system. A lot of water flows across our land after a hard rain.
And at the side of the driveway is a wild plum tree. This is the first time I have ever noticed fruit on it. I guess the seed got washed here once upon a time during a flood, and it took root.
One heads on up the driveway in the cool shade toward the road...

and then emerges onto the harsh reality of Willow Road. This is the street where we live. We are the only house on the street. The green lawn on the right belongs to the church. One of the town water towers, which is a beautiful shade of teal or maybe cerulean, looms in the distance. Something of a landmark when we give directions.
Richard walks the line. Our nearest neighbor used to be an old couple with a small farm. Where he is walking was probably their living room. Now, aside from the church, only other address on the road belongs to a tire shop at the corner with Highway 76.

And here is a perfect circle of green stuff in the road. Immediately after this road was completed, somebody came along and took core samples in various spots. Most of the round holes were patched, but not this one. It gradually filled with silt, and stuff started growing. It never gets very high, I guess because it gets run over periodically, but it flourishes nevertheless. It reminds me in a strange sort of way of a Chia Pet.
The journey continues across Highway 76 onto Bolerjack Road, where it passes a small farm that sits down in a hollow.
The man who owns it is the minister of the Church of Christ. He donated part of his land to build a new church, which was completed a couple of years ago. Here we make a right turn and walk the driveway of the church, which passes his pasture and makes a loop through the parking lot. We like walking by this place, because they have things to see. He is a horse trader, so a variety of horses, mules, and donkeys come and go.
He also has a few cattle. Some cows, a bull, a steer.
And calves.



I thought I was taking a picture of this calf, but instead I flicked the wrong switch on the camera and I took a video instead. (click on the link if you really want to see the baby cow but the embedded video doesn't appear in your browser). What I did not take a picture of is what we thought was a dead calf. It was on the ground. It did not look like it was breathing. It was not moving or twitching. We stood and watched it for a while. We were sure it was dead.

Which brings me to this sorry excuse for a picture (I am still trying to figure out how to use the camera). This will probably be the last picture of Richard that appears here for a while. He does not like to have his picture taken. Not at all. And he has been a good sport about it, but yesterday when I wanted to take yet another picture of him doing something, he told me, “You have enough pictures of me on your blog.” A wise woman knows when to back off. He thought it might be a good idea to walk down to the farmer’s house to tell them about the calf. The blurry dog next to him is Molly. When we walk by the house, she often will come charging up the hill, barking ferociously. And it does give one pause for thought when a ferociously barking German shepherd comes running up a hill as one passes by. However, I have seen enough of Dog Whisperer to know that she really doesn’t mean it, and indeed, she is a pussy cat. At any rate, the calf was not dead. It was just asleep.

I am looking forward to resuming walking with my sweetie. Maybe in a couple of weeks, Lord willing and the creek don't rise.

Angels of Mercy

The day after I got hurt, Lynn came to our house and offered the use of a wheelchair they no longer needed. It was such a blessing. It was custom designed to fit Judy, and thus it was narrow enough to fit through all the narrow doors in our house.

But now it is time to give the chair back, which we did after church on Sunday.

Judy has muscular dystrophy. When she was 20 years old, they told her she would be dead by 30. She proved them wrong, she will soon be 50 years old.

The disease has taken a slow, inexorable toll on her body. Now she can use one arm well, has partial use of the other arm, and can move her head and shoulders. She requires a permanent respirator to breathe, which is powered by a battery and sits on the back of her motorized wheelchair .

It is not a simple matter for them to just run out to the car when they want to someplace...

but they have equipped themselves...
and manage quite well.