Top Oct. 26, 2003 ~ Oct 14, 2003 ~ Oct 13, 2003 ~ Oct 11, 2003 ~ Sept 1, 2003 ~ August 31, 2003 ~ August 28, 2003 ~ July 12, 2003 ~ July 10, 2003 ~ June 28, 2003 ~ June 22, 2003 ~ May 31, 2003 ~ May 24, 2003 ~ April 12, 2003 ~ March 21, 2003 ~ March 7, 2003 ~ February 26, 2003 ~ January 12, 2003
...to you, faithful readers. The holidays here have been crushingly normal. We've had no major bumps as we travel down the road towards 2004. DJ does well in school. He participated in wrestling this semester and again, we got to travel the countryside to lots of small towns and meet interesting people for the meets and tournaments. DJ took a bronze medal in his weight class at the Manhattan, KS tournament. The tournaments are all-day affairs and some of the intramural meets ran until 10 or 11 o'clock at night. We were tired parents....
Judi traveled a lot for fourth quarter, but hopefully the new year will see her more around the home front. She led her department to another record making, money making year. Can she continue the trend? Only time will tell...
I'm the same-old, same-old. Fartz around the yard, fartz around the house. Slowly clearing more brush from the woods and chopping wood. Enjoying the dogs, cats and getting ready to hunt squirrel as one of my gifts for the holidays was a .22. We spent Thanksgiving at our friend Bonnie's house. She also traveled a lot fourth quarter so I spent a lot of time at her house with her five cats. We had an ice storm followed by a light snow while she was away and her driveway almost killed me. It's very steep and on the north side of her house so the sun does not shine on it in the winter time. Normally not a problem if you are pulling into the garage, but if you are just parking outside, it can be treacherous. When I arrived I knew the driveway might be a problem, but the street was full so I had no choice but to pull up and park on "the hill." I walked across the ice to the snowy lawn and made my way to the porch on the landscaping as the sidewalk and stairs looked dangerous. No problem until I went to leave. The snow on my shoes made the ice on the driveway extra slippery and I went down like a sack of potatoes. No fool am I. I stayed on my hands and knees and skittered across the ice to the car and hoisted myself up inside. Now I have her spare garage door opener so I can just shoot up the drive into the garage. Speaking of garages, I had another graceful moment in our garage. I was oiling the chain on the automatic opener and thought if I hit the remote I could stand in one spot and just spray the chain as it spun past on the gear. This worked fine when I was at the top of the opener and the door was going down. Are you getting a picture of what happened next? Door is closed so I move the ladder down to the end by the door and climb up. I get my chain lube spray ready and hit the remote to open the door. Well duh...guess who happens to be in the way of the door going up??? Yeah, knocked me off the ladder and six feet across the floor. I imagine anyone watching would have gotten a good belly laugh. After I determined that nothing was broken I had a good laugh myself. You know, my grandmother used to climb on her roof to paint her chimney and she would fall off all the time. I am sensing that I just might be continuing and old family tradition here...
Anyway, back to Thanksgiving at Bonnie's house. Her step-mom, sister and sister-in-law came down from WI and she invited we three to join them for the holiday meal. We had a great time. Bonnie has been up to WI several times this year so she skipped Christmas and joined us at our house for the ritual of opening presents and turkey and all the trimmings. Bonnie brought us all some wonderful gifts. Even the doggies got snack treats and the cats got a new 3-level cat tree.
Not much else happening. We have a trip to Las Vegas coming up in early January. My mother was going to come and visit from California, but she has some health concerns right now and will be undergoing some tests to determine if there's something really bad going on or not. Send prayers her way, she could use them. Stop in next month to hear news of the Las Vegas trip. There are six of us going so it should be a blow out!
Top 
Well, not really. Faithful readers already know I’m a
political turncoat to my sexual orientation. This is just a further
manifestation of my right leanings. I don’t have a problem with guns, I have a
problem with the misuse of guns and until that stops, the good guys should have
every opportunity to blow away the bad guys with the same firepower they are
confronted with. Amen, pass the ammo.
So. My friend Merlene---who IS the NRA---invites me to this
Women’s Recreational Shoot at the firing range she belongs to. It’s all
about gun safety and hunting safety and big guns and killing stuff. Now there
were forty-two women attending this thing. You know that some of us had to have
been in some stage of PMS and here they are putting high-powered sniper rifles
in our little, bitty hands. If that didn’t scare the guys running this thing,
nothing will. My friend Bonnie and Merlene’s mom, Jan, rounded out our
foursome. Hey, we could have played sniper golf! We started out with a basic
lecture on gun safety and safety in the field along with the rules and regs for
the range. In spite of the fact that the rules were written by men, they made
sense so they weren’t hard to follow.
First stop was shotguns. Now I was pretty good back in the
city with a hip shot for home defense, but I suck in the field. Granted, it has
been 10 years since I had any firing-line time, but the shotgun was my weapon
and yeah, I know before I was only practicing to cut down someone fool enough to
break into my house and get cornered in a short hallway, but I could not hit
anything on the range. Five slowly lofting targets from right to left passed
before me unscathed. The nice fella that was instructing me was kind enough to
say that he couldn’t understand why two of my shots weren’t hits. I think he
was being generous. Ditto for three tries at the sweeping ground targets. The
ducks and rabbits in Kansas are in no danger from me. Bonnie is another story.
That girl has never fired a shotgun in her life and she hit six of eight
targets. Note to self---never piss Bonnie off…
Next we moved on to rifles.
We started on .22s, which are easy to handle and make a nice squirrel
gun. Note to self---I could pick off the bird-feeder raiding squirrels from my
deck with a nice .22. Next we all got to make like snipers with big guns that
had great scopes, which is good since my vision sucks more everyday. I wasn’t
comfortable with the position they had us sitting in to shoot, but I imagine not
too many hunters carry a concrete table and folding chair into the field with
them so this was not a “real-life” example of how-to. I did better here.
After it was explained that if these were our guns, we would be firing them and
then adjusting the sights to our personal shooting, I felt even better. All my
shots landed within an area the size of a fist, but about 2 inches low and 1
inch to the right of the bull’s-eye. Now I understand the law enforcement
video on sight alignment that my former employer markets to police training
academies.
Next we headed to lunch. The guys fixed up a real
hunting-in-the-field meal for us. BBQ burgers and dogs with kraut. Potato salad
and baked beans. I don’t think there were too many leftovers. This is where
the day was supposed to end, with food and door prize drawings, but since they
had 1/3 more ladies attending than they had planned, we all took more time than
they had allotted at each firing station. Those of us that didn’t have to be
somewhere else stayed to shoot at the position we hadn’t fired at yet, which
for my group was pistols. Here I really shined. We started with little CO2
practice guns and worked our way up to the big pistols. Several of the women,
heck, almost ALL the women brought their own guns. There were several shotguns
and a couple of rifles, but mostly handguns. Here I managed nice tight groups
over maybe a two inch spread. The CO2 gun was the most fun and they are really
cheap so I may have to get myself one. The guy who was instructing us talked
about how he takes his everywhere and practices any chance he gets, even in
hotel rooms. Said he wonders why the cleaning staff has never commented on the
little target and pellet containment system he sets up in his room. Duh! The
stars of the pistol range were Merlene and her mom. We called them the dead-eye
Davies Girls. They both ended up taking home targets signed by the range master.
The implication is that your shooting is so good you might want to frame this
and hang it on your wall.
Prolific this month, aren't I?
We have visitors on the deck off the dining room. I walked out one night at dusk
to have a smoke and a small rodent skittered off into the center of the old
barbed wire spool that we use as a table. We were both suitably startled. I
grabbed a flashlight and shone it down in one of the holes and not one, but two
pairs of beady black eyes stared up at the invading light.
Now y’all know how Miss Food Safety feels about rodents, especially rodents within 25 yards of the house. The only creatures less welcome on our doorstep than mice are snakes. So I moved the tin-cat mouse trap up on the deck right by the crack they slip through to get into the middle of the spool and hoped that the next morning I might have a couple of mice to release far, far away. No dice. The mice were not interested in the cold metal box when they had a nice wooden structure to set up housekeeping in.
So….the next day when my friend Bonnie was over, I asked her to help me move the spool off the deck out near the covered swing which is at the edge of the lawn bordering the woods. Peeked in with the old Maglite again and discovered why it was that I did not catch Miss Mouse in the trap. There were little, bitty baby mice in there and she wasn’t going to leave their side for anything. Fortunately for us, she didn’t try to abandon ship while we were manhandling this thing off the deck otherwise Bonnie and I would have pitched that spool a mile. Now that Miss Mouse has experienced the rodent equivalent of a 12.7 earthquake, I figured she would probably move her little brood off to someplace quieter and I’m sure she would have had it not been for the dogs. They heard the little, bitty babies crying and they would not leave that spool alone for nuthin’. When they started excavating huge holes around the perimeter, I had to blockade it with some cut branches to keep them from hitting China. Well that did it for Minnie. Once the dogs were in for the night she hauled it all way, including the fluff she had for the nest. I don’t know where they ended up, but chances are we’ll meet again one morning when I’m out checking the tin-cats.
The 5th annual Walloon Writer’s Retreat took place September 25th – 28th this year at Michigania, the U of M alumni retreat. I stayed offsite at The Walloon Lake Inn in the village. The rooms were comfortable, cozy, and the food in the restaurant downstairs was absolutely divine. I believe I will return in the same manner next year. It’s not that the food at Michigania wasn’t good, it was excellent, but I love my comforts and the cabins are definitely rustic at Michigania. I had the whole inn to myself so I could be as noisy or quiet as I chose to be.
It was wonderful to see how many people I remembered from last year. A couple of the more colorful characters were missing, but many of the people that stood out in my mind from last year returned. I was so grateful that Mary was there again this year. She had left early last year in poor health. She looked wonderful, healthy, and if the manuscript I saw is any indication, she’s had a very productive year. She bailed me when I locked the keys in the rental car. The rental company was no help getting anyone to come out to the middle of nowhere to unlock this car and she lent me her van so I could get back to my B & B and give AAA a try in the morning. I should have just gone straight to calling AAA first thing as the next morning they made it to my car and had it unlocked before I could drive from the Inn to Michigania.
I bought Joyce’s latest book, The Usual Rules and had it autographed; The Book of Ruth, by Jane Hamilton; and of course I had to get John Lamb’s CD, A Novel Day. John is the guy who puts together the writer’s retreat. He’s an author and a musician. The CD is a rocker and I enjoy it very much. He also does a retreat for songwriters.
I enjoyed a walk along the lakeside path by the Inn. It runs right through people’s yards along the shoreline and every house does something a little bit different with "their" section of the path. All they ask is that you keep to the path; don’t wander onto their docks or decks. It’s amazing that so many homeowners cooperate to keep it enjoyable rather than throw up fences and forbid you to cross their land. The shoreline is flat where the path begins in the village, but a couple of miles out, the shore is very steep and people have these little personal funiculars to take them from their houses on the bluff down to their docks and beaches. The houses range from rustic cabins to over-built moderns and here and there you can spot the house of someone who would probably rather have a fenced yard rather than strangers wandering past their porch everyday, but they are few and far between. There was one house where grandma came out to tell me about the rocks I was inspecting along their part of the path. They were painted with colorful scenes and fish and animals. She said her grandchildren paint rocks every summer and sell them along with lemonade at a stand they set up in the yard by the path. Farther down the path I would occasionally pass a house with one of the painted rocks displayed in the yard.
Another day, Mary and Lisa and I went up to Petoskey and Little Traverse Bay. Lake Michigan was beautiful. We stopped to shop at a shop with lots of bird feeders and handmade furniture and pottery. We spent some time at a park along the shore and finished off with a stop at a nursery to get bulbs to plant back home to remind us of our trip to the retreat. [Wamego happens to be famous for it’s Tulips. We have a big Tulip Festival every April so I brought back tulips to plant in the yard. And I need to get them in the ground this week otherwise they won’t bloom next spring.] It rained the entire time I was at Walloon. Light rain during the day, heavier at night. Just heavy enough to put you straight to sleep when your head hits the pillow and light enough during the day so that you could move about and not get soaked. I wrote my first ‘official’ poem, an ode to roadside service. Maybe next year when I return I will have a manuscript for Joyce to critique.
Dirty Secrets for a Saturday Afternoon
I have a foul dog. Don’t get me wrong. Since converting to being primarily a dog-person as opposed to a cat-person, the sun rises and sets on my Maverick---the smartest Border collie in Kansas. But she got her name for a reason. She’s headstrong and willful. Knows all her basic commands and will even obey them---in her own sweet friggin’ time. She will boldly go where no dog has gone before. Her favorite pastime is to run back and forth in the drainage tubes that run under the driveway (they let the stream pass unimpeded instead of having the stream wash out our driveway). The tubes are just big enough for her to stand upright in and she just thinks she’s the coolest thing when she’s spelunking. She has no fear of the local wildlife having two kills to her credit, a squirrel and a raccoon. She broke her leg last year chasing a squirrel and it only made her hate them more.
Today I was out playing with the video mode on my new digital camera. I was taking some shots of the dogs as they romped in the yard. Things were pretty peaceful until the wild turkeys came along. The grass in the field by the barns is pretty tall so none of us knew the turkeys were there and they couldn’t see us. That is until I tossed a ball into the field and Maverick went to retrieve it. Once the turkeys were discovered, both dogs gave chase and the turkeys did what turkeys do when they are under attack, they immediately dump everything from their bowels and take flight. Dallas the retriever, dumb but loyal, gives chase but Maverick is still as death and right before my very eyes she drops to the ground and begins that "Oh-happy-dog-I’ve-found-something-dead-to-roll-in" roll.
Now if your only experience with turkeys is a Butterball for the holidays, let me share something with you. Turkey poop is the most foul-smelling object on the planet earth. Skunk does not even come close to the nostril assaulting, acrid aroma of turkey poop that is now smeared on two thirds of a bushy Border collie. I have smelled this on her before. Only now do I discover the source of this odiferous aroma. Of course being Maverick, the commands STOP and COME are optional; to be heeded in her own time frame, not mine. So if I give my dog a Native American name, I guess it would have to be ‘Rolls in Turkey Turds’.
We lost a great talent this weekend with the death of Warren Zevon. I
guess if that doesn't make me quit smoking, nothing will. He was a quirky
song stylist and you either loved him or you hated him. Now I'm not a rabid
werewolfer, but I did enjoy his quick wit and I thought his writing quite
eloquent regardless of what topic he might choose. I've heard a song or
two from the final album, both likeable enough that I will plunk down my dollars
and buy it. You might do the same and help support the children and
grandchildren he left behind. To this day, I still recall all the words to
Werewolves of London and whenever I hear the song or think of it, I also recall
the pantomime performance my former husband used to do to the song and it makes
me smile. If you get a chance, be sure to catch the VH1 show, (Inside)Out that
documented the making of the final album. Yeah, he died a horrible death, but he
did it with wit, grace and to all appearances, great peace. I hope I can do the
same---without the horrible part, ya know? Yeah, yeah, quit smoking if I want
any chance of that happening.
Wondering about Laci Peterson's pets? Wonder no more.
Holy Pâté, Batman! Has anyone seen Jerry Lewis lately? Me thinks he's been eating too much rich French food...OK, that was rude and cruel. Sorry, I slipped. I'm sure his life has not been an easy one. I just hadn't watched the telethon in such a long time and that is not the Jerry Lewis I expected to see...
Rain. Rain, rain, rain, rain, rain. Did I mention the rain? Over 4 inches in the last two days. Slow, steady, saturating rain. It smells divine, sounds wonderful and if my plants could dance around the yard, I am sure they would. Even the birds sound happier. The level of the pond has gone up a full foot. Now you would think that sounds pretty good, but the fact is, we are over ten inches behind in rainfall for the season.
With Kansas' varied weather, there were places that got more rain and places that got less. Pray for the father who lost his wife and children when they were swept off the roadway. You know survivors' guilt will be his biggest foe. Pray for the young wife from Texas who lost her husband in the same spot. And never. NEVER. I repeat, NEVER, EVER DRIVE YOUR CAR INTO WATER THAT YOU DO NOT PERSONALLY KNOW THE DEPTH OF. These two tragedies happened on a busy turnpike so incidents like these can happen ANYWHERE.
Football season has started again and I have to admit, K-State is looking pretty darn good. So good that they built a new Super 8 Motel in sleepy little Wamego. Yeah, football season brings in that much business. I gotta find a hook...
Laci Peterson and her son Conner were laid to rest Friday, almost four months after their bodies were discovered and eight months after their disappearance on December 23, 2002. For some strange reason, her killer is still sucking air into his lungs...
Summer is spent with Autumn just around corner, but you wouldn't know it from the temperatures we are posting. So many consecutive days over 100 degrees gives us records for a hot spell if not for actually record temps. No measurable rain since the storms at the end of June leaves for parched lawns, shrubs, trees and the incredibly shrinking pond. I have never seen the pond this low. All the level gained in June is lost and getting lower. Soon it will be one big mud pit and then even that will dry up. The other night the weatherman said the NWS had set the beginning of our current drought at November of 2001. Now seriously, I don't remember packing any drought when we left California...
It's been a wonderful summer. Casey was a pleasure to have for a houseguest. He and DJ were occupied all the time and had many adventures. They went to World's of Fun, the amusement theme park in Kansas City and took in a very 'Kansas' attraction with Big Brutus, a humongous piece of earth moving equipment. There were also lot's of baseball games as DJ joined the baseball league in Saint George for the summer. We got to travel to lots of other small Kansas towns to see him play. Towns like Alma, Onaga, and Westmoreland. Our team did very well, taking first place in league play, but we were unable to sweep the tournament. In spite of that, a good time was had by all, new friends were made, and I even had to work the concession stand one night---I was the pretzel queen. DJ also switched band instruments so he went to summer band classes to learn enough about percussion to get him going next year.
We also had a visit from DJ's Grandpa Randy. Randy stuffed two of his kids, Jesus and AJ in a PT Cruiser and drove all the way from California to spend a little time with us. AJ talks a mile a minute and went to an auction with Judi where the only person speaking faster than him was the auctioneer. Jesus took on the task of putting up the basketball hoop that Judi bought at an auction---a true auction find. This thing must have a high retail value as it's a very snazzy, adjustable, full sized pole, hoop and backboard. DJ and I had rented a cement mixer the week before and set the base for the pole, now all we needed was some serious muscle to crank wrenches and tilt it up into place.
Now the houseguests are all gone, DJ has returned to school and I'm trying to reclaim my quiet day routines. Once the heat breaks and the snakes go back to wherever it is they go, I need to get out and take care of the ubiquitous brushy undergrowth in the woods. The area I cleared last spring still looks pretty good. Only 2.12 acres to go...
I have been doing some planting. We have a gap in our privacy in the front
yard. Now it's not really an issue right now because the barns are still
standing and no one has bought the lot that they sit upon, but one day someone
will. I'd like some trees and bushes to have a head start in preparation
for that day. So this is where we planted the pine tree that I spoke of
before and Walmart had some Hibiscus on sale so I bought two of them. They
have lovely yellow flowers with red centers and beautiful green foliage. I
had one in California that was 12 feet tall and 8 feet wide so I'm thinking this
will make a nice screen plant. I'm trying to select plants that don't lose
leaves to go in here since the space we have to plant in is only about 10 feet
wide between the edge of the driveway and the property line. Hopefully,
our winters here are mild enough that cold will not be a factor for the
hibiscus. I'm also trying to select well rooted plants so that those
dastardly moles won't damage them as they rummage for insects. This is not
one of the areas I patrol for moles and since this is next to where the
vegetable garden used to be, the soil is easily burrowed and there are a lot of
moles there.
I
also got a rose bush for Valentine's Day. It was winter here then so you
get a rose in a vase along with a certificate to the nursery to come and pick
your rose bush at a later date. I loved the new
Hot
Cocoa Rose that came out this year, but they didn't get a lot of those in so
I picked another rose of similar color and one that donates to charity
too. Allow me to present
Habitat
For Humanity as it grows by our front walk. The petals aren't as dark
as Hot Cocoa, but I'm happy with the color and the amount of blooms. It
seems to like the spot where it's planted.
We
have some pretty cool little pine trees here. They aren't as small as
bonsai, but they have that bonsai look to them. They are called Mugho
Pines. In spring they have a tendency to get these 
annoying
worms on them. If you don't notice them right away they will eat your tree
down to nothing. Last year our friend Rosalie spotted them and some
Diazanon took care of them. We were lucky this year and the dancing worms
skipped our trees. There are two of them flanking the front walkway.
One is about 3 feet tall, the other maybe a foot and a half.
We also have a plum tree that has an abundance of plums this year.
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Flashback: One of the commands Dallas learned in training was 'Watch Me'. The idea is that the dog does not look anywhere but at the command giver in anticipation of the next command. This photo was taken back then when we were practicing between classes. It's one of my favorites.
Can someone please explain these two products to me?
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We get lots of storms this time of year. Every once in a while I am lucky
enough to have my camera with me and I get some shots of the clouds. These
were just passing through and dropped none of their bounty upon us, but some of
their brethren did the next day. This shot was taken northbound on Duane's
main road into the Windmill Run development (of which to date he has sold a
grand total of zero lots).
Yesterday the sky darkened about 4:00 p.m. in prelude to deluge. It got so dark before the storm that the fireflies came out and I heard an owl hooting. The rain gauge says we got an inch from that storm but I think the wind was blowing too hard for us to get an accurate measurement since all the reports from our area listed twice that amount. Our roof leak appears to be completely fixed. We had a leak where the garage roof meets the kitchen/mud room and when it was windy with heavy rain, we would get a leak right in the doorway between the two rooms. Danker Roofing gave us a reasonable estimate for repair and the guys who did the work found a missing piece of flashing at the roof-wall junction right where we saw our leak. We've had two storms similar to the ones where we had leakage before the repair and not a drop in the house since. They also trimmed back the siding that butted up too close to the shingles and spread some sealer on a semi-rotted piece of siding. Good work guys. Next time we get the cedar siding treated, we'll replace the board since there are spares in the basement.
Today we planted a pine tree. DJ got a tree on the last day of school and it's been sitting forlornly on the deck in a bucket of sand waiting for a permanent home. With the passing of the cold front last night, the weather today is still hot, but without the humidity it's actually pleasant so I cleared some land and dug a hole. The soil there is great---it's where the previous owner had a vegetable garden---so I didn't have to add anything, just clear the grass and turn the soil.
We had a wonderful 4th of July. We got up early and went to the parade on Main Street in Wamego. Our little bitty town puts on a 2 hour parade! And everyone it town lines the streets to see it---that is everyone in town that's not in the parade There is a carnival in town for the 4th with a Ferris Wheel and a few other carny rides and the usual assortment of midway games and cotton candy. And personal fireworks here a LEGAL!!!! Later that night we ventured in to town again to see the fireworks at the city park. Over 30 minutes of non-stop pyrotechnics!!!!
With all the wonderful rain, the bugs are quite numerous. The fireflies are incredible this year, so like fairies flitting around the woods, at times it looks like there are lights strung in the trees. Unfortunately the mosquitoes are really bad this year too and they've decided they REALLY LIKE ME. I am being eaten alive. If it continues this way, I may have to quit smoking again.
Rain, rain,
rain. Rainy week for us in Wamego. One inch on Sunday. One
point five inches on Monday. Three freakish inches on Wednesday along with
reports in the northern part of the state of both volleyball sized and
cantaloupe sized hail. I have yet to see a picture of the alleged
hail. On Tuesday I thought we were going to lose the stream crossing of
our driveway. A big ditch crosses our driveway. The driveway spans
the ditch over two long steel tubes that are buried at stream level and supposed
to move the water along the ditch without washing our driveway away. I
noticed a four foot deep hole on the downstream side that the Sunday/Monday
rains carved out. I made about six trips from the roadside of Burr Oak
with loads of large stones and tossed them down in the hole to fill it---just in
time for the three inch downpour on Wednesday. Phew! The volume of
water we got in such a short space of time was really something to see.
Sunday/Monday brought the level of the pond up about a foot. Wednesday
added over a foot so it is now back at the level it was at when we first moved
here. Several years of drought has taken it's toll on the pond and the
surrounding woods, but nature is making up for it now. We have another
slow moving dumper headed our way right now so it will be interesting to see
what we awaken to tomorrow.
The fireflies are in full swing. I don't know why I love these little beetles so much. I love to sit on the deck with no lights on as they come out and flit hither and yon in search of, well, sex. It's like being surrounded by hundreds of Tinkerbell's. The boys spent a couple of nights out catching them and watching them blink inside the containers where they were confined until it was recommended that they be released to be caught another night.
There is an active bird's nest in the top of the propane tank. I check the level every month so that I can monitor use and figure out when best to get more delivered. It seems a good place to build a nest. Very sheltered and it stays warm inside the metal lid when the sun shines. There are four eggs in the nest and momma bird gets very vocal when we walk near the tank. It's really neat but it's also darned inconvenient for us humans who would like the eggs to hatch and move on before the next scheduled check. I keep listening for the sound of little peepers so I can get an idea of when they'll be moving on.
As
predicted right here folks, that murdering scumbag Scott Peterson has been
granted the first of many delays in the long road to justice for Laci and Conner
Peterson. This week a judge permitted the postponement of the preliminary
hearing until September 9th citing "unavailability of witnesses." The
bickering between the defense and prosecution attorneys that has simmered for
weeks erupted in allegations by the defense of violations of the gag order
barring all parties from media-izing the case. What do you think, that we
might get a conviction around the time that Conner would have had his eighth
birthday?
DJ's friend Casey has arrived for a month-long visit all the way from
California. They have managed to maintain a long-distance friendship since
our move and are thrilled to be reunited. He's had the nickel tour of St.
George, 
Wamego after dark, the new boat ramp on the Kansas River and his first
dirt bike riding lesson. DJ goes to summer school 4 days a week in the
morning hours which gives Casey some time to himself. They are having a
blast and the bonus is they are pretty much self-amusing. I really don't
have to do much at all. We've had heavy rain for the past two days, but
except for the occasional thud from the basement, I don't even know they are
here.
The rain is quite welcome to parched Pottawatomie County, Kansas. It would be nice if it would continue although the rate is somewhat higher than the ground can soak it up so there is a lot of run-off. Right now I am appreciating the run-off as it added a full foot to the pond last night, but once that reaches the right level, I kinda maybe like it to easy up on the volume.
I got my new 'squirrel proof' bird feeders and they work exactly as
advertised. My only disappointment with them is that the opening to reach
the seed is too small for the larger birds. I'm not sure if I should get a
longer screw that holds the two halves together (with a spring in between) or if
I should find a larger sphere to split and fabricate my own feeder. Or
maybe I could try another model of squirrel proof feeder. Each one seems
to cost a little more as they get more intricate. I'm thinking they have
a pretty good scam going here for us losers who want to feed the birds without
feeding the squirrels too. Hmmm. Maybe I should design my own.
It might involve a .22 caliber weapon...
The rare birds I mentioned earlier have decided to stick around. I've seen
the blue heron again so I thought I would post a picture of him. I've been
trying to find a high vantage point where I can spend some time with binoculars
watching the nest I saw built to see if it was his. I might be able to get
a good line of sight from the field to the west of us if there aren't a lot of
trees in the way.
My lower back went into spasm this past week so I haven't been real mobile but
hopefully I can check it out sometime this coming week. I also spotted the
Mountain bluebird again. He likes the sunflower seeds out back so maybe he
also has taken up residence in the neighborhood. Glad my cats are all
indoor cats! I'd hate to see him become someone's lunch.
Oooooh. Gotta write quick or we'll be in June and I'll have missed a month. Lots happening here. Our new bedroom furniture arrived. It looks even better in the house than it did in the store. It's massive, but so is the bedroom. Now I have room for all my clothes that belong in drawers instead of on hangars or hogging shelf space in the closet. The night stands are working out so well that I am re-thinking the future need for a bookcase style headboard. My new chaise for my loft/library/office also arrived at the same time. It matches with the new carpet perfectly and is a scrumptiously comfortable place to stretch out and read a book. All I need is the perfect reading lamp and I believe I've found it...in fact, I just popped over to HomeDecorators.com to order it. Late in the month my bookcases finally arrived. I've stocked the shelves with my 'not-yet-reads' and when time permits I will pull some old, beloved friends out of their boxes in the basement and we will be reunited. My library has been in boxes for over five years now. I am so excited!!!! I also picked up a cool basket at Pier One Imports to hold my magazines. With all this reading material, I'd say I'm ready for the crummiest weather Kansas can throw at me.
Maverick is still on the road to recovery. She still limps and may always limp, but the Vet thinks it's likely she'll recover completely. I can already see she is rebuilding muscle mass in the leg, but it's still skinnier than the unbroken one. Dallas is so thrilled to have her companion back in the pack. They are even starting to wrestle again, though I cringe when they do. Major over-protective mamma complex! Elmo looks like a basketball with legs so he is back on fatty cat food. He's decided the Science Diet Light is acceptable and didn't even attempt to boycott it for more than a morning. Quite a turnaround from November when he appeared to be at death's door. The Vet was please to hear he'd gained weight, but thinks we might have gone just a shade past healthy. I don't know how he can be that fat with the amount of running around these cats do. Struts get more comfortable with her role as former feral cat and hardly protests at all when we pick her up to cuddle. The true test will be in August when she is due for shots. Will she allow me to put her in the carrier? Darwin, who would barely utter an audible meow when we first brought her in has turned into quite the talker. We call her peeper because she walks around all day peeping this abbreviated meow. Sometimes we even wish she'd just shut up. I still dislike long-haired cats (due to the hairball factor) and she hates to be brushed, but I see that if I don't, she pukes.
The outdoor wildlife is in full swing now that we are on the downside of Spring and heading into Summer. The tree frogs make merry racket all night long. The squirrels that grew fat and complacent while Maverick was hobbled now tremble in fear at the jingle of dog tags. The raccoons are about, but stay by the pond to fish. No more cat food on the deck for them to raid with all the cats converted to house-cat status. We had two rare bird occurrences this month, a Mountain Bluebird and a Little Blue Heron. I believe the heron is building a nest in one of the tall trees by the driveway. I noticed evidence of a large bird nest being built earlier in the month and then one day last week, this beautiful blue bird sat on a log in the pond eating bugs and patiently waiting for a fish to get too close to him. I hope that was his nest I saw and that he built because he plans to stay. He was wonderful to watch.
We had our first brush with tornadoes this month. The second week of May there was more tornado activity in the Midwest than there has been in quite some time. I was getting ready to go to some poetry event at a local coffeehouse. The weather radio had been bleeping all afternoon so I had the TV on and I finally heard those fateful words, "If you live in Wamego, go to your basement now. The storm will arrive in your area in eight minutes." Sent the kids down, gathered all the animals that would allow themselves to be gathered and went down myself with the flashlight and the phone. Of course we couldn't stay away from the windows like we are supposed to, it was too fascinating to watch. Powerful winds bending trees more than I thought possible. Marble sized hail coupled with large raindrops that looked like they might hurt as much as the hail. Continuous thunder and lightning and 4/10 of an inch of rain---all in the space of twenty minutes. And then it was gone. There was a report of a tornado on the ground near Junction City (30 minutes west of us) but it did no damage, unlike some of the other tornados that week.
Along with many people, I was saddened by the events in the Laci
Peterson case. I had so hoped she and the baby would return alive and well, but
knew in my heart they were dead. I sincerely hope the Modesto police don't
f--- this one up. I can't think of enough bad things that should happen to
Scott Peterson.
The sad part is that if he is convicted and gets the death
penalty, he will probably spend more time alive behind bars appealing his
conviction before the sentence is
carried out than Laci spent breathing. Even sadder, as a death penalty
convict, he would be segregated from the general prison population for fear he
might really receive some justice. Saddest still---what if
he didn't do it and her killer is still walking the streets...not!
Maverick went free range today. We have to take her off the leash eventually and her leg appears healed enough that I only worry a little bit that she is going to re-injure it. I don't think I would survive another 6 weeks of her in a cast. She seems to know her limits and spends a little time limping around and then comes to lay on the deck and rest.
DJ & I are participating in a program called STARBASE. We go to the
Kansas National Guard airbase every Thursday for the next month and learn
science and conduct experiments and build our very own rockets to launch.
I have to keep him from writing 'this bomb's for you, Saddam' on the nose
cone. So far we've gone to two sessions and they have been a blast.
I don't remember school buses being this loud when I was a kid. Last week
we took a tour of the hangar where they work on the KC-135 cargo planes.
We also did experiments involving air and it's behavior. I learned why it
is that planes can fly. Never thought about the science involved in that.
We got new carpet on the second floor last week. It is beautiful. It was very stressful. We had to move everything from up stairs down to the main level. We had to completely empty the desks so they would be light enough to move around as they installed the carpet. Then it all had to go back up. My back still hurts, but I have to say it was worth it.
Last weekend my friend Bonnie and I headed up to Decorah, IA to see her sister run in a track meet. It's Amy's senior year so this was the last opportunity for us to see her compete before she graduates. It's a seven hour drive so we left about noon the day before the meet rather than get up and drive at three in the morning. Five hours into the drive we check in with her because we can see the weather in the direction we are traveling is deteriorating rapidly. The meet has been cancelled due to bad weather. It is snowing and sleeting up ahead and the roads are too treacherous for the team from Wisconsin to travel to Iowa. Luckily we had a back-up plan. We headed west from Des Moines to Omaha, Nebraska to go shopping. What the heck is there that we can't find back home? Nebraska Furniture Mart! Talk about sensory overload. We spent hours there and still didn't see the whole place. I picked out and purchased new furniture for the bedroom. It's not as nice as the first stuff I picked out from Oak and Elegance, but since it is a little less expensive, I was able to get more pieces so now I don't think I will have any less drawer space than I have now. I have been looking for a chaise lounge for the loft so I have someplace to curl up with a good book once I get my bookshelves and I found one that matches the new carpet perfectly. We also found really cool bookshelves at JC Penney so we ordered them and they should be here in May. The bedroom furniture and chaise come May 2nd. Now I have to get rid of the bedroom suite we have. So far we have run two ads with no takers. I think we will end up either having Purple Wave Auction sell it for us, or we will have a bonfire in the field by the barn! If you live in or know someone who lives near Manhattan, KS and you/they like black lacquer furniture, come buy it from me!!!!
They are burning pasture and woodland all around us. The smell of forest fire is constantly in the air and it creeps me out. I know it's normal here and I shouldn't be afraid, but I lived in fear of brush fires in California for too long for me to adjust to this 'fire-is-a-tool' concept overnight. Most of the time there is a light breeze so the smoke clears out quickly, but we've had a couple of days where it was still and the haze and odor just get downright foul. Twice this week I've had long pieces of black ash land on my clothes and I've gone into panic mode each time. What happens if one of these comes down and it's still hot and it sets the woods next to my house on fire? The weather has been beautiful, but until they are done with the burning, I can't open up the windows to take advantage of the nice breeze, it's just too smoky.
Maverick is
splint-free!!! We took an excursion to buy carpet last Wednesday and ended up
doing this, that and the other thing (one of which was a marvelous lunch at the Cracker
Barrel in Junction
City). We ended up being gone for four hours and returned to find that
The Divine Miss M had chewed the bottom inch off her bandage and splint.
Now we'd just had the darn thing x-rayed on Monday, so whatever the problem is
it hasn't been going on for long, but there is definitely something wrong.
Turns out she's just been so active that she's getting bedsores where the
pressure points are on the inside of the splint. Off with the wrappings
and home for twice daily soakings in Epsom
salts and as much confinement as possible since she really hasn't grown
enough bone back for the split to be off, but with the sores, we can't put the
splint back on. If we can just keep her calm for a couple of weeks, we
won't need to re-splint, but anyone who knows Mav knows she will probably get
too rough on it and then we will be back to square one. Perhaps we can
induce a coma for 8 weeks while this break heals????
Rain has
finally made it to our corner of Kansas. Over a 24 hour period we got 9/10
of an inch. It's nice that it was slow like that because they are drilling
a new water main along Burr Oak and they broke the drill bit in the bank between
our driveway and the road. It was about six feet underground from driveway
level which made it 12 feet down when you added in the hill it was under.
They had to excavate part of the hill and it's pretty steep there. The
problem would come if we get too much rain at one time and then all that dirt
they piled back up will come land-sliding across our drive in a mushy, sodden
mess. The equipment they brought in to do this naturally made a total mess
of the driveway what with the weight of it all chewing up the gravel so we did
get a new layer of gravel packed in on nearly half the length of the driveway
when all was said and done. Now we just hope the rain continues to come in
slow steady batches until all that dirt settles.
The trees are beginning to leaf out. The pond has thawed so the frogs are
returning from their slumber. Things are beginning to green up
again. The bulbs are sprouting with the crocus' the first to broadcast
their colors. The raccoons are making the rounds but with all the cats
indoors, there is no food on the deck to hold their attention so they must
settle for corn in the critter kitchen and fish in the pond. The opossum
is still lurking in the neighborhood, but appears to have lost interest in the
suet feeder. Either that or it's a new opossum that hasn't discovered it
yet. I've unwittingly created a hunting paradise for owls. The
cottontails love the corn too and can be seen at night cleaning up all the
leftovers from our fat, messy squirrels. During the day I can see the
evidence of owl predation in the bones the dogs unerringly find in our
travels. There is a pack of coyotes running the fields at night, lathering
the local farm dogs up into a frenzy. The blasted moles are at it full
bore---no pun intended. I will have to re-set my Julie .vs. the Moles
counter for the new season. I got 21 last year. Hopefully many of
them froze to death this past winter and I won't have to work so hard???
I am singing again---don't laugh...I can hear you laughing. My friend Al
plays the guitar and sings. He has a new jam partner, Jim, and now that
they have a groove going, they want to add a vocalist and apparently I am
it. We get together Friday nights to jam which makes it doubly hard for me
to do the Friday Photo, Friday Five and update this journal, but gosh my life is
full and I'm grateful for all of it. We do a lot of country and folk
songs. Their repertoire is heavy on the guy songs (although they love
Alison Krauss whom we are all going to see April 13th in Topeka) and mine is on
the girl songs, but we try for the upbeat, sing-a-long kind of stuff that does
well at BBQ's and parties. Never sang in front of people sober so this
will be a new experience for me.
I live in a small town. I live in a small town where...
~~~When you write a letter to the editor of the newspaper, they publish your home address along with your name at the end of the letter.
~~~When you are arrested for a crime and it gets written up in the newspaper, they publish your home address in the article.
~~~I go to the gas station to get gas. As I am filling the tank at the station---where you do not have to pay first---I reach into my pocket to see how much gas I can afford and discover I have left my money at home. I do not have any ID, nor credit cards. I immediately shut the pump off and approach the clerk to tell her what has happened. There is over 3 dollars on the pump that I cannot pay for. I promise to go home and return right away with money. She does not ask for identification, nor does she write down the license plate on my car. She merely says that her shift ends at three and can I please come before that so her cash drawer will balance.
~~~Every business you go to accepts personal checks...even McDonalds.
~~~This item is published in the paper one week:
Followed by this ad the following week:
...draw your own conclusions...
~~~I receive a postcard in the mail urging me to re-elect a politician to the local planning commission. It contains the candidate's cell phone number and her home phone number.
~~~I return a DVD two full rental periods late. I like to pay my late fees right when I return the late item. The computer shows I still have the DVD, but it lists no late fee due despite the fact that I have just that day received a letter asking if I've perhaps overlooked returning the movie. The manager says don't worry about it, if it ever does turn up as a late fee, they will forgive it since they are unable to produce it right now when I am ready to pay.
Note1---this is obviously not 'Block-head-buster' that I am dealing with here, it's Hastings and I am so glad it's not that other shitty company.
Note2---Hastings late return policy is that if you don't have it back by closing on day five, they simply consider the item re-rented for another five day period, unlike that other shitty video rental place.
~~~People wave when your cars pass in opposite directions on the gravel roads around our house---whether they know you or not.
~~~We have no local TV station in Manhattan. The big three networks are all out of Topeka, 45 miles away. The local ABC affiliate's newscast ratings were so low that they fired the entire news department and now no longer field a local news program. They kept the weather guy, after all, this is Kansas where the weather IS the news. He comes on a few times a day to tell you what's happening and what's going to happen. They do a touchy-feely program at 6 pm that they call Good News with Betty Lou Pardue. They ONLY report 'good news.'
~~~When someone from Kansas is on 'Who Wants To Be A Millionaire', it makes the six-o'clock news.
~~~Someone slides down the snowy hill on our gravel road and wipes out the mailboxes belonging to us and our neighbors across the road. Ours was completely knocked off it's square wooden post, the neighbors just spun around on the round metal post that supports theirs---pretty good design if you ask me. This 79 year-old man, my wonderful neighbor Darold, comes down to fix our mailbox, all by himself. Fortunately I was there to do the same thing and together we had it back together in under 10 minutes.
~~~When I arrange some type of service call and have to give directions, they invariably ask, "Is that near so-and-so's place?"
~~~Local college sports are such a priority, that games are televised, pre-empting prime time programming. In fact, this town eats, breathes and sleeps the K-State Wildcats. During football season, there is not a hotel room to be had when the games are at home and people car-pool in RV's to out-of-town games. Heck, a group where Judi works, charters planes to go see games!
This is poor little Maverick. The day after my birthday she slipped in the
backyard and broke a bone in her foot. She wears a splint while the bone
heals. So far it's been on for four weeks. At her check up earlier
this week, the x-ray shows the bone is healing, but she needs to wear the splint
at least another three weeks. She gets around pretty well, but it does
make her sort of clumsy so she goes out on a leash when she needs to go out to
prevent her from bounding off into the woods and breaking something else.
She's really been a trooper about it and gets lots of extra love and
attention. Dallas is really missing her playmate and doesn't understand
why Maverick has to be tethered to this person every time they go out.
Maverick is sick of the leash. She has started grabbing her end of it in
her mouth and trying to rip my end of it out of my hand. Meanwhile, the
squirrels have noticed that their sworn enemy no longer comes to chase them all
day long. They grow fat and slow. By the time Maverick's splint
comes off, they will be too fat to run away from her and then she will have her
revenge.
Other than that, it's been pretty quiet here. It's been bitterly cold with below average temperatures most days, but then we'll get some bizarre day where it gets up to 60. Our snow and precipitation is still well below normal but we've had two nice snowstorms in the past week. The first one dropped four inches and the one today dropped 2 inches. It is so incredibly pure and white...until it gets trounced on by animals, kids, and ME! It looks like a postcard for about 10 minutes, then it looks like this:
Wow. 2003. Birthdays coming up for Judi & I. Christmas was
wonderful. Now that we are done with our first year of being "house
poor" we splurged and filled the floor below the Christmas tree with
brightly wrapped packages of all shapes and sizes. I got books and new
dinnerware; auction treasures that included an exquisite set of crystal bud
vases, a Tiffany decanter with matching stemware and cross country skis.
DJ got an air hockey table, an electronic dartboard, an in-ground basketball set
up for the driveway, and, of course, the obligatory underwear. Judi got
the neatest crystal cube with Winnie the Pooh lasered in 3-D inside, her usual
Winnie the Pooh calendars, new floor mats for her Jimmy, a talking air pressure
gauge and a desk calendar of 365 uses for duct tape. We all got a whole
lotta other stuff, but I won't bore you with our season of excess any
longer. This years tree was larger than last year and just as
beautiful. Decorations around the house were pretty much the same as last
year which is why I didn't post any pictures of them this year. Still no
snow and it is so dry.
Brian and Al came and dropped my four trees near the house that have been dead
for over a year now. Just in time for wood burning season too! I
have spent the last 3 weeks cutting them up into the right length for
burning. Half of it is ready to go in the stoves as is, the rest needs to
be split. It splits better when it's really cold out so I'm hoping for a
few weeks of chilly so I can get that done
This past week we have had the unique experience of septic
problems. Erma Bombeck was wrong. The grass is not always greener
over the septic tank, however, it is always greener over the lateral
field---especially when that lateral field is flooded from the toilet that has
had a silent leak for the past 6 months. When I was cutting up the tree
out back last week, I noticed a "pungent" aroma that I attributed to
my being near Dallas' favorite pooping ground. WRONG!!!! A walk near
the deer feeder landed me up to my calves in marshy, smelly earth. Well
there is no natural spring there so it can only be sewage. Our first
"expert" diagnosed a failing lateral field that needed to be replaced
to the tune of $2500 dollars AND that it had an illegal modification to it that
was an indicator of past problems. The second "expert" disagreed
with the illegal modification part, but agreed that if the lateral
field is not handling our water usage the way it's supposed to, it is
probably at the end of its expected life span and he had about the same dollar
figure in mind for a replacement. He said we might be able to jump start
it again by pumping the septic tank and giving the field a couple of weeks of no
new input to dry out. We had the fella known in these parts as Shitty
Smitty come to pump out the septic tank and as the water level in the tank
dropped we could hear water dripping in. Ah ha! The field is not
failing, it's just flooded because the moron homeowner can't detect a leaking
toilet in her own house! So this week I learned how to dig a hole three
feet deep so they could get the lid off the septic tank to pump it out---saved
myself 25 bucks digging that hole myself---and then I learned how to buy a sump
pump and drop it down the inspection port on the lateral field and pump twelve
inches of water out of four hundred feet of piping. Took over an hour to
pump with a pump that moves 950 gph but with the tank being empty and the extra
water pumped out of the field, we should be in good shape. Hmmm, saw
trees, split wood, kill moles, dig holes, pump sewage. I do believe I have
earned the right to call myself a country girl...
|
Since 10/26/2003 |
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And
finches that don't know what's good for them. Never tease the
cat. That window screen is just not that strong.
Things
I've learned upon moving to Kansas...
