Cop Car's Beat

Catching up

It's been a while since I've posted and I know that enquiring minds really want to know up to what this really old woman has been. Well...if you don't really care, you may be excused to find better use of your time. This is not required reading!

The yard work has been keeping me busy for the spring and early summer, this year. Which is usually the case. What makes it more interesting/harder work this year are the confluence of two happenings: 1) unavailability of quality mulch, and 2) weather that teeters between rainy and hotter/sunnier than hell. I cannot work in the sun or in the heat as I am prone to sun/heat stroke - or - at the very least, heat exhaustion. As I've written at Paying for my sins gives me exercise, my big challenge this year has been to rid us of the sumac that I was foolish enough to plant. It had thrived and, as previously stated, it will be at least a couple of years before I can declare victory. Defeat is unthinkable! Each week, our trash barrel has been completely stuffed with sumac roots that I've dug/pulled up for the past several weeks. The photos, below, show how the largest sumac planted areas look, today. The photos show the same area, but from nearly opposite viewpoints. Note, too, that I have taken out a couple of the small redbud trees and trimmed up the remaining ones.

While working in that area for a few minutes, this morning, I took the opportunity to transplant a small crepe myrtle bush (photo, below). I don't know whether the bush came up from seed (I find hundreds of seedlings all over the place) or from the roots of nearby old crepe myrtle bushes. As was the case for the small crepe myrtle bush that I planted in the same planting bed earlier this year (thought I had posted it but can't find the photo or posting) in either case I don't know the parent bush. It could be a dwarf cerise-colored crepe myrtle, a white full-sized crepe myrtle, or a more reddish pink full-sized crepe myrtle. (For photos of possible parent bushes, please see The past week or so at Casa CC - 7/27/2019.)

Most of my yard-work time during the past week has been spent de-weeding/grassing the planting areas that are farther from the street, but in the same stretch of yard. The next photo shows about one-third of the area in which I've been working. At the left side of the photo, within the area delimited by the steel posts (installed to keep Fred's occasional fence-fall from further damaging my plantings), one can see a multitude of crab grass plants awaiting my attention. I was working in that area, this morning, when it started raining. (It is a hot, muggy day and it is now (5pm) thundering out there.

Did I fail to mention that I showed more agility, this morning, than I would have laid claim to? I heard something crashing down and ran into the middle of our back yard where I knew I would be safe from falling trees/limbs. It was an unnecessary exercise as the branch from a huge walnut tree stayed on Fred's property, this time. He doesn't trim his trees (or anything else in his part of the woods) which leads to such dead falls. It was not a small limb! (I took a photo, but the bright sun made it impossible for me to see the viewfinder and the offending tree isn't in the photo!)

My mini meadow is coming along nicely this year. The next photo shows it in all its glory. Note the milkweeds - the seed pods of which deserved their own photo. I'll post the pod photo on the neighborhood website to see if anyone wants a pod or three.

I bury our green garbage. It enriches the clay of which our soil is comprised and reduces the strain on our city's sewage system. Our city requires that no garbage be placed in the trash bins. That is what garbage disposers are supposed to make unnecessary. Many of the buried treasures send up shoots - mostly from potatoes and melons. They have a tendency to try to escape their confines. The photos, below, show a couple of examples. In the first photo, a melon plant of some sort has shriveled up in the past day or two - maybe from too much water????

 

 

 

 

To round out the posting, here is a closeup of the little things that have been hanging from our small trees over the past week or two. I'm thinking they are army worms like the ones that destroyed much of our fescue lawns last summer. Kevin is supposed to be sending his lawn specialist out to tell me what we need to have done.

Paying for my sins gives me exercise

For the past several weeks I've made a concerted effort to get rid of the four sumac plants that I was foolish enough to have planted in Fall 2018. There are three segments of planting bed beside our driveway into which I had planted one sumac each. The fourth sumac was planted just outside our dining room windows, in the foundation planting area. I had had a sumac plant at our previous house, and we had one for the first few years that we lived here - neither of which had been a problem. In fact, each of them eventually died without sending out descendants. Little did I realize how different the experience would be with the four new plants. I soon learned that sumac plants send out a myriad of roots in all directions, interweaving as they go.  It will take a couple of years (at least) for me to totally eradicate the plants/roots since I don't believe in using poisons, but I'm working on it

Fortunately for me, most of the roots are not all that deep but they are so tangled and widespread that they are hard to dig/pull up. The weather that we've been having lately has made conditions nearly ideal for me to work on those roots. As I pull up the roots, by hand, I also turn over the soil. (A great tillage scheme were that what I was going for!) I'll show you the progress that I've made.

The first photo is from last Fall, showing all three of the plants/descendants along the driveway - numbered 1 through 3 (not readable unless enlarged), starting with the sumac closest to the street.

Today, the area that is nearest the street looks like this (below). Until I took the photo, I had thought that there were no above-ground indications of sumac ever having resided there. As the photo clearly shows, a sumac is coming up from a root that remains. (I'll get it out, tomorrow - I'm through working in the mud for the day.) As you might guess, the sumac loves to come up within a bunch of daylily (or the burning bush plants that are to the right, unseen in the photo) where it cannot easily be seen. It took me a long time to root out all of the little plants and the roots that had sent them up.

This morning, I finished up (for the moment) working on Area 2 (below). There are no above-ground indications of sumac presence. I can guarantee that such absence of indications won't last long. It took me but one week to reach this point. I've learned how to pull up plants and roots more efficiently - plus, the mud is soupier.

Having made such great progress in Area 2, I started on Area 3 this morning. Well...technically, I had cut a bunch of the above-ground stuff away, yesterday. I didn't work at it long, today, but worked the above-ground branches back-and-forth to loosen the main plant/roots up for better progress tomorrow.

I've not yet really worked on total removal of the sumac in front of the dining room - only trimmed off a branch that encroached on the sidewalk and a branch that brushed the windows and removed a couple of large roots that shot out from the plant's trunk and turned vertically downward along the foundation - which I found in pulling up multiple smaller sumac plants that were hiding among the non-sumac plants. The photo, below, shows the sumac last fall. I didn't bother to take a photo of it this morning.

BTW: See the bush that I had trimmed back to renew last fall - between the sumac and the small green bush at the bottom right corner of the photo? It gave me my comeuppance the other day when I was pulling up one of the large sumac roots that shot downward along the foundation at the house corner shown to the right in the photo. Over-winter, the trimmed bush died, so a bunch of dead, stubby branches remained. The root suddenly gave way as I was pulling it upward and outward - sitting me down, hard, on those dead, stubby branches. Ouch! I now have a hideous bruise on my left, upper thigh - too large to be covered by one of my hands. Fortunately for me, the dead, stubby branches mostly broke off at ground level rather than skewering me. You can bet that I removed the rest of those branches to prevent future such happenings!

ADDITION OF 6/11/2022 8:30AM

This (photo, below) is what I dug/pulled up this morning to remove that little green sprig that was showing above-ground yesterday. One can tell that I did not get it all. There are three reasons for that: 1) It is too hot for me to be working out there (and it is now in the sun), 2) I am dizzy this morning (blood pressure medication), and 3) It is a never-ending task. I could be removing roots to the end of the earth!

The cart (photo, below) is full of much of the roots/pieces that I had dug/pulled up yesterday. The rest were in the (larger) trash cart that had been emptied by the trash pickup people yesterday. (The green cart is not "one of theirs", so they won't pick it up. I'll transfer from our 50-year-old green cart into their blue cart once the muddy root clumps have had a chance to dry out. Right now, the cart is too heavy for me to lift to make the transfer - even after cutting up and transferring the lighter stuff that is on top.)

An aside on gardening tools

In order to make the photo of our dogwood bush, indeed, the last photo in my previous posting (above), I'm adding an "unintended" post with an aside on gardening tools. I wrote that I had placed gardening tools leaning against the house in order to allow the expected rain to clean them overnight. I just went out to take photos. The first photo shows those two tools: 1) a small spade of some sort that I cannot identify (having a really small blade, it belonged to Hunky Husband's mother, a tiny woman, who gave me a lot of her gardening tools when she and HH's dad moved into an apartment) and 2) my edger tool (intended for edging along walkways, drives, curbing, but which found use yesterday in prying the root clump out of the mud.)

While I was out taking the above photo, I thought that I should photograph a tool that I had been unable to find while Bogie was here trying to fluff up the old mulch before applying new mulch at the side of the house. I couldn't find it because it was hanging on the same hanger and hidden by the edging tool in the above photo. I don't recall what this tool is called, but the forked side of it is great for fluffing up old mulch.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All I had been able to find for her use was the potato hook that we had purchased in Seattle (1965) to hook rocks out of the lawn bed. (Oh! Now I must go photograph the potato hook!) Potato Hook (AKA weird rake) is shown, below.

We've yet to see the end....

By 3am, yesterday, the creek was up at the edge of the "good grass" lawn area of our back yard. Since the water can rise faster than I can cope, I immediately threw a bunch of stuff into my car's trunk, doffed my nightgown in favor of pants and shirt, and awoke Hunky Husband so that he could do the same. Pleasantly surprising me, HH grasped my message immediately and started throwing his stuff together. I no longer recall the blog friend or family member who came up with the reminder a few weeks ago, but they should be credited with my thinking to include HH's and my prescription medications. By 3:30am, we were ready for hasty departure should the water reach the house.

We each tried to grab a nap, but I knew that HH would neither hear if we had another spate of heavy rain nor hear a struggling sump pump, so I never did drop off. It wasn't until about 9am that it became obvious that the water had stopped advancing and had started to recede. At that point, I took a few photos. It was a struggle for me since I hadn't used the camera in my iPhone, before, and my camera was packed in the trunk of my car. Below are a few of the iPhone photos that I've been able to transfer as JPEG files. The biggest problem I had was that I had taken only a couple of still photos. Most of my output was video, which I then had to transform into stills. (I'm not good at this!)

The first photo shows the section of our yard (on the near side of the fence and its extension) that is actually the closest to a creek bank. The creek rather wraps around our back lot's boundary, our lot extending 300 feet from the street on the left (southeast) side and 200 feet from the street on the right (southwest) side.

The next photo is just to the left of the above photo. The water had come just a bit further inland - surrounding the right-most small tree in the foreground.

As can be gathered from the lines in the mowed grass of the photo, below, this photo is looking nearly straight out from the back sliding glass door.

The next photo shows the part of our lot that is farthest out, approached by the normal bounds of the creek. At its maximum encroachment, the water came nearly to the post that supports the bluebird nesting box (just to the right of the far end of the fence).

Did we immediately unpack my car and go to bed? No. We did not. We are forecasted to have rain during five of the next six days and during 8 of the next 10 days. We haven't experienced as much flooding (so far) as in the past, but the ground is absolutely soaked and there is much rain for us yet to get through. We did get a good night's sleep last night, my having achieved at least eight hours' worth.

Note: HH just came in from his first walk in several weeks. He had made three or four false starts (I believe that each time, he had forgotten how to operate his "running watch with GPS" and had to return to refresh his memory by reading his notes on its operation.) When he finally succeeded, he walked his "usual" two miles (excluding the 1/3 mile warmup and 1/3 mile cooldown) and averaged just over 11 minutes per mile for the two miles. He says that his heart is alright. Good for him. I would be happy to see him get back into his walking/running exercise groove.

Oh, what fun

Average annual precipitation for the Wichita area is 34.31", according to the National Weather Service.  We fell far below that average during the last several months of 2021 and the first few months of 2022. We are making up for it. So far, this month (May), we have received 7.6" of rain, according to our rain gage - although, one night the wind blew the gage over, so we may be missing a bit. Tonight (May 31), we've hit the jackpot. We have received two spates of heavy rain. I don't know how much rain has accumulated in our rain gage, but I do know that when I was preparing to retire for the night - just before toddling off to our bedroom - I realized that the sump pump had been activated for a long while, perhaps a minute or two. That is not good!

Anytime we receive more than 0.5" of rain, I expect our sump pump system (a main pump powered by house wiring and an auxiliary pump powered by a battery) to activate. Our sump hole, in our mechanical systems "room", has three 3- or 4-inch inlets from the tiling that is laid along our foundation (at the bottom?) It is always the same inlet that supplies the majority, if not all, of the water that is routed to the sump. From observation and experimentation, I know that that particular inlet services the foundation to one side of our front porch - a run of about 35'. Tonight, when I went downstairs to check out the sump pump, I found that one inlet to be releasing a torrent of water into the sump, much like a firehose. It was obvious that the input rate was higher than the output rate of the pump. The poor pump was losing ground. I gathered a couple of small saucepans from the kitchen and a couple of 3-gallon plastic buckets from the laundry room that is next door to the mechanical systems room and set to work baling. Almost immediately, the depth of water in the sump reached the level at which the auxiliary pump activated. Even with both pumps working, they would have lost ground without intervention.

Our Working Space at the Sump Pump Installation

Anyone familiar with sump pump systems knows that an alarm starts screeching when the auxiliary pump kicks in. It is shrill! Hunky Husband and I donned the earmuffs that we wear to protect our hearing when using noisy equipment in the yard (mowers/string trimmers/hedge trimmers/blowers) and set to work.

Sump Pump System Installation Layout

For the first 30 minutes, I baled (mostly with the 1-quart saucepan, its being difficult to dodge all of the inlet ducts, control lines, and such) while HH carried the filled buckets to the laundry sink for disposal of the water. I found it more convenient to catch the water as it spewed from the inlet duct than to try to dip water. At the 30-minute point, we traded off. Since HH found it best (for him) to kneel on his knees instead of doing as I had done (sit on my butt on a thick folding of drop cloth), that didn't last long - especially since most of his height is from his waist up. It was really hard on him. Worse, when he tried to stand, he had difficulty. He tried grabbing onto an exposed stud with one hand and onto the main vertical sewer line with his other - to no avail. I was able to get him to scoot over to the carpeted hallway outside the mechanical systems room which allowed us room for me to brace my feet and help pull him up to his feet - wobbly, but upright. We went back to his toting and my baling. Within another 15 or 20 minutes, the water inflow had slowed just enough to allow me and the auxiliary pump to turn the tide. Eventually, the main pump shut off. I was amazed that it hadn't overheated with its having been continuously activated for so long. Since then, the main pump has done its usual thing of activating for several seconds and shutting off for a minute or two, depending upon rain conditions. This experience makes me happy that we installed a new sump pump system in January 2020, as posted.

P.S. I just went out to check our rain gage: 3.92", for a total of 15.32" in May. While out, I could hear that the creek is out of its near bank, just downstream of us. I'm just wondering if this will be the rain that puts us to the point where water reaches our house. We are in uncharted territory.

A wonderful few days!

Pizza John's:

Our whole family was able to get together for a few days, last week. As we had done in 2019, we gathered at John's Pizza, our favorite local casual eating place. The only downside was that it had been but a couple of weeks since the female half of the founding couple had died. Our server was one of her granddaughters. We had a wonderful time there, then adjourned to our home - at which venue no one thought to take photos. 

From one end of the table, the first two photos feature Bogie (light grey tee) and clockwise around the table, Elder Brother (EB), WichiDude, Rachie, Dudette, Wonderful Granddaughter (WGD), Next Generation 1 (NG1), my empty chair, and Hunky Husband (HH).

The next photo, from the other end of the table, features Dudette (grey sweater), WGD, NG1, HH, Bogie, EB, WichiDude, and Rachie.

The third photo features WGD, NG1's empty chair, my empty chair, HH, Bogie, Next Generation 2 (NG2), EB, WichiDude, Rachie, and Dudette.

The next photo features NG1 (white tee), my empty chair, HH, Bogie, NG2, EB, & the shoulder of WGD.

P.S. While she was here, Bogie bought a couple of patchouli plants, asking that I mail them to her. The day after she left Kansas, I mailed the plants. The plants took less time to reach her home than it took Bogie - 26 hours vs 30 hours. The plants "looked pretty good" upon arrival.

P.P.S. Thank you, Liz, for giving me perspective. Had it not been for your posting of prices to send boxes to your family in Italy, I might have balked at spending 70 USD to send Bogie her patchouli plants that, as I recall, cost her less than 8 USD. (I'm taking it out of her inheritance. *laughing*)

Addition of 5/28/2022: More family photos supplied by Bogie (captioning by CC)

At home:

The next evening, after HH went to bed, Elder Brother (EB) and I sat up talking in my den. I took the opportunity to snap a few candid photos of him. Those are EB's favorite birding binoculars in his hands. From here, he drove to a couple of favorite birding places in Kansas from whence he proceeded to a couple more favorite birding places in Texas before heading home to Colorado. For a guy who suffered cardiac arrest in 2015 (he had a defibrillator implanted) and who is age 86 he tolerates long drives exceedingly well.

The three younger generations went out of their way to assure that EB, HH, and I did not over-extend ourselves. Bogie went so far as to pick up eight bags of mulch for me and prepare the area (pull weeds and fluff old mulch) before doing the mulch spreading.

Spring Photos 2022

All computer systems are GO. Computer Depot, from whom I've purchased a couple of laptop computers and who came to mind when I was faced with using our public library computers to download the tools that I needed, made short work of restoring Hunky Husband's and my computers. I finished setting up HH's computer before dinner last evening and finished setting up this computer about an hour ago. While I was at it, I upgraded HH's Windows to 11 (he had still been running 10) and made a boot thumb drive for this computer. I don't understand why it is made so difficult, but I spent hours (not exaggerating) going 'round and 'round trying to figure out how to download Windows 11 and the Office 2019 suites that had originally been installed on the machines.

HH's computer was down for only four days, but I grew exasperated with his asking me when he would get his computer back. Poor guy asked several times each waking hour. One reason I went ahead and installed Windows 11 on his computer was that I knew there was no way that I would get his desktop to "look" exactly as it had looked before, so took the plunge figuring that the differences between 10 and 11 would be no more bothersome to him. (It turned out that it was less bothersome to him than the fact that I couldn't figure out how to make the file icons on his desktop the same size that they previously had been!) HH saves all files to his desktop. I don't know why, but he likes it that way (I had a boss at Cessna who did the same thing.)

Turning to some of the pleasures of spring, I present some of the photos that I've taken this month - since the April Fool's Day joke that my computer played on me. The first photo shows the largest patch of Phlox among all that have grown up from the starts that Bogie sent me several years ago - from her home in New Hampshire. I don't know where the little pink tuft of Phlox originated, but they are surely also descended from Bogie's stock. Note the smaller patch of white phlox visible just left of center at the far side of the lilac-colored patch.

Late last spring, I had a new Oklahoma Red Bud tree planted away from Adam's newish fence, the protection of which had led to my having our largest, prettiest red bud removed the previous Autumn. The new tree isn't very large, but it produced beautiful blossoms this year.

While the red bud tree is in the back lawn, there is a Flowering Crabapple tree that was planted in the "deep back" of our lot - planted in May 2020. That tree, too, is small but beautiful.

In the above photo, note the bountiful crop of dandelions that has presented itself this spring. The following photo shows the wildflowers blooming in the "deep back". Note the two different shades of Prairie Violet blossoms (which show, much better, in the enlarged version). Pretty weeds are truly prolific this spring.

At the side of the driveway are a Texas White Bud tree planted in April, 2019, and a few volunteer Red Bud trees. They are looking truly fine.

Not looking so truly fine this year and nearing the end of its lifespan is our little North Star Cherry tree. Until now, it has provided copious numbers of cherries to some of our neighbors (and to our family). Last year, I had ordered and paid to have a new cherry tree planted elsewhere in our back yard. Alas, the weather did not cooperate. It stayed so rainy that we finally gave up. I've not been to the nursery, this year.

At the base of the poor, struggling cherry tree are bush cherries that were planted at the same time as the tree. They keep coming back after being severely pruned every few years. (The yellow-brown detritus is tree leaves entrapped among the bases of the bushes. I've removed many leaves, but don't have the patience to do a great job.)

I used to have a huge compost pile for leaves and cuttings. Over the years I found that I had tossed many hand, gardening tools out with the green stuff that I was adding to the pile. I rarely found those tools. In the past couple of years, I've discontinued that pile and taken out the trees near it. Every few months another hand tool emerges. I found this pair of inexpensive pruners three weeks ago. I didn't try to revive the poor things. 

It's found!

Someone from Eddy's Lincoln service shop will be picking up my car, tomorrow morning, to take it into Wichita for tire replacement. In preparation, I unloaded all of the "stuff" that I normally carry in my car - for two reasons: 1) They shouldn't have to be bothered with all of my junk, and 2) If I am missing something when the car is returned, I want to avoid any thinking on my part that "they" might be responsible for it. I lose stuff, all on my own, and don't need to be blaming anyone else. I started the cleanup in the trunk.

My normal complement of stuff in the trunk includes one fake leather tote (with jumper cables and windshield shade/cover), one duffle bag (with electric air pump, basic hand tools, and a good tire gage), one wool blanket, one terrycloth beach towel (full bed sized), and two bussing trays. I started by stacking the bussing trays, as they were nearest to me, and hauling the fake leather tote toward me and into the top bussing tray. The photo, below, is how the inside of my car's trunk looked.

Do you see what jumped out at me? I'll give you a close-up, below.

OMG - that's the top to one of our gasoline "cans" - missing since early November - My fun for the morning. My puzzlement over what happened to that cap has been settled. See? I lose stuff all on my own. No need to blame anyone else although I've always felt (and told my friends) that the sooner I accuse someone else of taking something from me, the sooner I shall find it. Finding the cap at this late date goes to show that it has been months since I've delved into the nether regions of my car's trunk - although the bussing trays have seen much use when I was picking up groceries, taking donations to Goodwill, or taking electronics to the e-cycle place. Obviously, I had done a poor job of looking for the cap in my car's trunk in the first place!

I can now put away/give away the new gasoline can that I bought as a replacement and not have to use pliers to unlock the pouring spout each time I wish to refuel the lawn mower from it. We're back to having two easy-to-use gasoline cans - a bit less safe, I know.

Partial Week in Review - February 2, 2022

Monday - Started off with a bang rattle

At about 11am, standing at the kitchen sink cleaning veggies, I heard the dishes in the cabinets rattle. The rattling pulsed for a total of about 22 seconds.

Other than the earthquake and a bit of cooking, my day was taken up finishing up the watering of trees and lawn (oh, and a bit of leaf raking). The weekend had provided us mild weather, allowing me to strike out against our drought conditions by watering newish trees and grass. I'm assuming that, although we have had temperatures in the single digits in November-January, the grass has not gone into dormancy since about 50% of it is still green. So far, the local water companies have not levied restrictions on water use, but we've had a total of less than 3/4-inch precipitation in the past three months, so I let established trees and plants fend for themselves.

Tuesday - Adventurous cooking

Tuesday is our preferred grocery pickup day. I had ordered two 1/2-gallon containers of milk and a 4-ounce bottle of vanilla extract to assure that we had sufficient ingredients for the snow ice cream I expected to enjoy. We were smack in the middle of the band of Kansas forecasted to receive 6-9 inches of snow, Wednesday and Thursday.

Among the items we brought home from the grocery store was a package of thick, boneless pork chops. I had really wanted lamb chops, but Dillons had none on hand and I didn't feel like making a run to Sig's butcher shop. I decided to try a new recipe (below) for making lamb chops, on the pork chops. (I don't recall the name of the source of the page shown. It was an unsolicited advertising publication.)

Girding my loins, I dived into making the chops for lunch. Immediately, I had to make a substitution - the only lemon on hand was not suitable and I didn't consider a lime to be a good substitute, so I used balsamic vinegar. Other than that, I followed the above recipe, using HH's 2019 Georges-Dubɶuf Beaujolais-Villages, his pre-dinner wine. It was a lovely meal, each chop complemented with a really small baked potato (with sour cream) and fresh cherry tomatoes.

ADDITION of a few hours later, because I forgot to include it the first time.

This is what the pork chops looked like while being cooked.

Wednesday - The white stuff came & Hair today, gone tomorrow

Snow: As usual, not being a good sleeper, I arose for a couple of hours in the early hours of Wednesday. It was snowing. It wasn't heavy, it wasn't blowing, it hadn't accumulated very much. By mid-morning, the wind had come up and although it didn't appear that we had received much snow, it had drifted a little. Our rain gage had trapped about four or five inches of snow. My attempt to take photos were met with a "Battery too low to take photos" message. The photos, below, were taken at about Noon. In the first photo, the rain gage is shown with the snow trapped inside. (I had removed the "funnel" and "measuring tube" to allow snow entry.) At 9pm, the depth of the snow in the rain gage was 8.5".

The second photo shows a pan of snow scooped up from the back porch for my Noon-time dish of ice cream. Each meal, that day, comprised a bowl of snow ice cream. Yum!

The snow was a skier's delight - dry powder. Fortunately, despite the wind, the snow is clean. It is late enough in the season that leaves and bits have already fallen from most trees. The snowfall was preceded by very light rain (think Seattle rain) for a few hours, knocking the dirt particles from the air and off of the trees. The snow kept well because the temperature was in the high teens (Fahrenheit).

Hair: (Important stuff - there will be a test - oh, yea.) The history of my life includes eras during which my hair was long, and eras during which it was short. Only because I could not maintain a schedule (from lack of proximity or lack of money) of having my hair cut often enough did I wander into a few weeks' time of wearing medium length hair - and during the two years that I lived in humid Florida. I wore long hair until age 14, short hair from then to age 31, long hair from then to age 57, short hair until COVID-19 made me too chicken to go to the hair cutting shop. It takes about one year for my hair to grow out so, now after two years in which to grow, my hair is long, again.

Early in the process of letting my hair grow out this time, and recalling that my Great-grandmother S wore her long hair up in a bun, I consulted Wonderful GrandDaughter (WGD) and Rachie. Being nurses, they have tended to wear their long tresses up in buns for the past several years. They are talented at making it look effortless, neat, and attractive. How did they do it? They told me. I practiced. I could never get the hang of it - until this past week. I got it! My bun looked effortless, neat, and mostly tidy. To memorialize the event and to be able to send them evidence of my feat (I cannot see them in person, after all), I had a passport-type photo taken at our local Walgreens (below). What an eye-opener. I shuddered looking at the too-honest photo. Obviously, WGD and Rachie looked wonderful in their buns because they are young and good-looking. Who would have thought?

I used the above photo to update the photo at the top of the blog page for a couple of days; but, Wednesday, I did something that I had not really been able to do, before. I took a selfie. It shows me with my hair down (below) and conforms more to the mental image I hold of myself. I may never be able to wear my hair "up", again!

Writing that last sentence reminded me that my mother had worn her hair in an "up-do" for some years in the 1940s and 1950s and that I had worn mine in an "up-do" on special occasions (photos of each, below). Had I remembered the photos of my own up-do in 1969, I might have been spared the trauma of going through my more recent up-do attempts. I must admit that the 1969 up-do had looked a lot better before the Kansas winds assaulted it.

  

                                                                                                                        December 1969

Week in review

The photo, below, hit my funny bone.

I know how Carlos feels. I vividly recall in the mid-1980s being plugged into a short-term (six week) assignment by my bosses at The Little Engineering Company for lack of availability of other, more qualified, people who had been identified in the proposal for doing the work. The first time this happened, I filled in for a PhD materials expert whose Special Access Clearance (SAC) was too slow in coming. As I already had two or three such clearances, my additional SAC was granted within hours of submitting my request. To this day, I don't know how badly I screwed up "my part" of the project or whether that project ever saw the light of day.

Another time I was a "plug-in", the guy who had been identified in the proposal just flat did not wish to spend a few weeks in Seattle. (We were never notified when proposal writers identified us as principal staff in a proposal and we were required to keep detailed resumѐs on file for their use. My own resumѐ ran eight or nine pages in those archives.)

This project was a somewhat better fit; but, the timeline for accomplishment was far short of allowing adequate time for developing a good product. In order to fulfil the job, I loaned my SOCAL apartment to a coworker, and lived in a motel in Seattle for six weeks. I chose to ride the bus while in Seattle rather than using a company or rental car. It was during that stint that I was notified of a pickup truck's having rammed into my house in Albuquerque. Ah...good old days! [BTW: The above photo was stolen from Oddball Observations where it had been posted in 2013 with the comment, "Don't blame me.  This is a food truck in Houston.  The picture was sent to me by a (to be kept anonymous) friend.  Thanks, Frank."]

Hunky Husband took his car into Wichita for its annual servicing. Why is this big news? Because I did not go with him to navigate. Fortunately, there are only three changes of street in the 15-mile drive from our house to Lexus of Wichita, and HH was confident that he could get there and back. (He did!) We celebrate small victories. 😊 It helps that the car dealership is a straight shot north from one of the local golf courses, Hidden Lakes, at which HH used to play.

Early in the week I worked up the green tomatoes that I had picked before our first hard freeze. Green tomato relish is a good substitute for sweet pickle relish when one wishes a piquant touch on hot dogs or Tex-Mex chili. As one can see in the above photo, some of the tomatoes had started to turn color (and I added a bit of orange bell pepper). In all, I worked up about two gallons, only jarring four half pints and one quart. Without lid flats, their still being unavailable in our area, I decided to freeze the relish. Our downstairs freezer is pretty well stuffed with normal frozen foods and the Tex-Mex chili and baked beans that are awaiting pickup by Elder Brother. Refrigeration would be sufficient, with the sugar and vinegar included in the relish; but, the downstairs refrigerator is still packed with ripe tomatoes and sweet banana peppers that I put up in 2020 - at which time we were already lacking lid flats.

As one might guess, much of my time has been spent in keeping the new grass hydrated. The front lawn doesn't take much work. Three or four placements of the sprinkler suffices. In back, it takes more effort. At any rate, today will find me watering all the little trees in the back and between our driveway and Fred's fence. I've been negligent and we have several projected nights in the 20s (Fahrenheit) coming up.