Cop Car's Beat

Summary of the week - July 23

SATURDAY, July 17

Edging of street curb

I finished manually edging the street curb, this morning. The photos show the edged curb and the last load of sod that I removed in the edging process.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SUNDAY, July 18

Flowers for free

On the 11th, Bogie posted More Rain!, including photos of a few flowers that were blooming without her having planted them. She reminded me of a mystery plant that came up under a small mulberry tree that I had saved when having the trees surrounding it removed. I finally thought to take a photo, today. If you can identify the flower, please do so in a comment. I'm calling it a "wild tiger lily" because I don't know what else to call it. For the past three years, I've watched us (carelessly) mow down a couple of irises that I had laid at the base of the tree; thus, I've no idea how long this lily has been there. It has an interesting leaf habit that climbs the blossom stem. The third photo, below, shows what remains of the iris plants for comparison of the leaf configuration to that of the lily. The iris hasn't bloomed for having been mowed down so many times and I no longer recall what sort of iris it is - if I ever knew. I may have picked it up out of my trash heap of irises that were discarded when we sodded along what is now our neighbor's fence line.

 

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

 

Milkweed

While showing Hunky Husband the free lilies, I took him by my miniature meadow in order to check out the milkweed plants. They are doing well. There was a caterpillar on one of the plants (and a nibbled leaf edge); but, as I read online, "That ain't no Monarch!"

 

 

Addition of 7/19/2021: No caterpillar, no cocoon, no chrysalis, no further nibbling of leaves. Perhaps a bluebird ate the caterpillar.

 

MONDAY, July 19

 

Tomato harvest

After giving our four Ninebark bushes a haircut this morning, I harvested tomatoes. The bowl on the left contains tomatoes from a couple of volunteer vines that came up between the garage and the crepe myrtle bushes, this spring, while the bowl on the right contains tomatoes off of a Jet Star vine that I bought and planted. Because of the wonky weather that we had in March-May, our purchased vines had no ripe tomatoes for July 4th - which is the rule of thumb for gauging success of growing tomatoes, around here. The Jet Star and one of the larger tomato varieties ripened up one or two fruits - one week later.

 

For a while, the volunteer tomato plants out-produced our purchased plants. There is still one purchased plant that hasn't set on fruit but has abundant blossoms. (I picked some of the tomatoes a bit under-ripe so as not to give our expected high temperatures this afternoon, and the critters, a chance to spoil them. The temperatures are to crescendo to about 106 degrees Fahrenheit within the next two weeks, making our temperatures more in keeping with expectations for July.)

 

 

Update of 7/24/2021: The one vine that I wrote had not yet set fruit is the Bella Roma and closer inspection, this morning, showed  one walnut-sized and two marble-sized green fruit have actually set on.

 

Tuesday, July 20

 

By 7:15am, I had taken my walk and bought groceries. By 8am, a batch of chocolate chip/pecan cookies had been baked - made necessary by HH's having finished off the sandwich cookies that he likes and by the little WalMart's not having any for sale, this morning.

 

Thursday, July 22

 

Fortunately, I accomplished all necessary outdoor activities before 9am, today - my walk, some yard work, and a quick trip to the little WalMart to purchase more wide-mouth jar flats (for jars of chili that I had ready to put up in jars for Elder Brother). The trip to WalMart was a bust. They had nothing but jars left for sale in the canning supplies area. It seems that canning supplies are in short supply due to COVID-19 shutdowns.

 

I had to re-use some of the flats that I had on hand. I've historically re-used flats when the food is for Hunky Husband and me; because, except for the rare jar of jam, I keep such canned goods in the downstairs refrigerator or freezer. I like to use new flats when someone else is getting the canned goods - even when, as for the chili, the person will similarly store the jars in the cold. EB may choose not to take the chili if that is his preference; but, with careful packing, he should be able to get them to his home at a low enough temperature. I did assure that each jar actually sealed. *ping*

 

The photo, below, shows a loose set of wide-mouth flat and ring, one pint of the chili, and one unopened box of standard-mouth flats. The standard-mouth flats will probably still be in the cabinet when I die. I pretty much have used the wide-mouth jars since an epiphany many years ago in which I realized it is easier for one with tremors to hit a larger target. (My circular error probable, CEP, isn't that small.)

 

 

The reason I was glad to get outdoor activities accomplished early was that the authorities started issuing air quality advisories (stay indoors) at about 10am. The smoke from the wildfires in Northern California wasn't pea soup thick; but, it has been hazy out there.

 

A piece about canning jar flat shortage, Where have all the canning lids gone?, was posted last August. I hadn't noticed, before, because I had plenty of the flats on hand until now. (I've used at least three dozen new flats since August.)

Residential electrical service entrance

Earlier this month, a comment string on the posting, More from News for Nerds - Heat pumps, led to another posting, Determining electrical service requirements - for the non-professional, with an abundance of comments. I do not intend to extend (I like that phrase; ) the discussion in this posting, but merely wish to provide a place to document some of the information and sources that I ran across during the earlier exchange. In no particular order, I include the following items.

City of Derby, Kansas, Underground Wiring in Residential Subdivisions 

I've made previous mention of utility supply lines of various sorts' being delivered to our homes by underground installations, and below is an excerpt pertaining to electrical and telephone service supply from our city's Subdivision Regulation, Article 7 Installation of Required Improvements (Download Article 7__201304041240165680).

Overhead Power Line Service

If the electrical service is delivered via overhead power lines, as has been the case in about half of the homes in which I've lived, the electrical service entrance is through the roof or through an exterior wall - above grade. 

The graphics, below, are from a simplified presentation at Electrical Academia, and illustrate some of the routing and terminology having to do with conducting overhead power line electrical service into a residential dwelling. The graphic on the left shows a "mast service drop"; on the right, a "clevis service drop".

 

 

 

 

 

Dealing with restoration of electrical service following damage due to a disaster

It is a sticky wicket, figuring out whom to call when disaster strikes a home, damaging the electrical service entrance. During my volunteer disaster relief work, in coordinating with governmental agencies, I have been party to several conversations concerning what various levels of government can/cannot do, what utility companies can/cannot do, and the responsibility of the home owner (who may engage a qualified electrician) in restoring electrical service following a disaster. It got very frustrating for the stressed home owners.

The following table of responsibility is from Basics of Residential Electric Service Drops (thespruce.com). 

How [sic - should be Who] Is Responsible For Fixing the Service Drop?
	Power Company	Qualified Electrician
Overhead wires running from pole to house	X
Service bracket attaching service wires to house	X
Electric meter	X
Weather head that attaches to service cable		X
Service cable from weather head to meter box, then to service panel (circuit breakers)		X
Meter socket		X

Summary of the week - July 16

Inside Work

This week, I was able to finish cleaning the second one-third of our built-in china cabinet (in-progress photo, below).

Notice the rope hanging at the right-hand edge of the above photo. It is one support of the three-tiered macramé/glass table that has hung in the corner of the dining room for the past 10 years or so. It had previously hung in the living room in the corner next to the piano; but, during the early years in this house, I had discovered that when I watered the over-wintering house plants that were on that table, the water found a way to drip into the carpeting. It's much easier to clean the mess off of vinyl roll goods floor covering.

Cecil ("our" handyman) un-hung that table (and the table in the opposite front corner of the room) to give us more space in the dining room. We do not frequently have enough family over to require extending the dining table to it's full length with leaves (I gave up being the primary entertainer in our family when I was in my late 70s); but, when we need to seat 10 people, accommodations will be more comfortable. Below are photos of the two vacant corners. (The first photo includes the collapsed table below where it had hung.) BTW: Each of the macramé tables, purchased at an artworks shop in Old Town Albuquerque in the 1980s, hung from a healthy chain and hooks driven into the beam that shows at the top of the second photo.

 

Cecil teased me about the size/strength of the hardware that I used, and for my having used two hooks from which to hang each table. You will note in the photo, below, that I had spray painted the parts to make them blend with the walls (off-white chain) and beam (chocolate brown hooks). I still felt competent to teeter at the top of an 8-foot step ladder in those days. I let Cecil do it, this time.

Cecil's primary purpose of being here was to repair one of the bi-fold doors on the guest bedroom closet. The door had come off its pivots the last time Elder Brother visited us. Since EB is even more anal retentive than is Hunky Husband, it really bothered him that the door "broke" on him - despite my assuring him that the door had been giving me troubles for several years (that bedroom was mine until I moved to the basement.) The pivot point on the bottom had actually been pushed up inside the hollow door. Cecil took the door home with him to see what approach(es) he could come up with and returned it two days later - with, in his words, Plan A. So far, we haven't had to go to Plan B as the door, after Cecil put much elbow grease into adjusting the hardware properly, seems to be working well. (The cranky door is the one on the left in the photo, below.) 

Outside Work

A couple of months ago, one of my postings included a photo a a new string trimmer that I had bought. Since then, I've casually mentioned edging the front sidewalk, the driveway, the street curbing, and our patio. It wasn't until a few days ago that HH pointed out to me that, despite my efforts, the edging of the street curbing did not look all that great. Casting a critical eye on it, I had to agree. Thus, this week, I dug out my manual edger, my Weasel Edge-Chopper, and have been working at establishing neat edgings that I shall then maintain using the string trimmer.

The photo, below, shows a section of the street curb edging. The dark area next to the grass is where the grass had grown out over the concrete - that I had failed to note in edging with the trimmer. I removed about 40 feet of 4-inch-wide sod from along the curbing. I've not quite finished all of the manual edging, but the bit of street curbing that is left to be done has grass that has only overgrown the concrete by about one inch.

While pulling weeds in front, I noted that the one ice plant that has thrived for the past few years is in full bloom (below). The 1/2-inch of rain that we received yesterday made the weeds grow by about six inches in all directions.

When I stepped outside to work, this morning, I was greeted by an unusual sight - an Annual Cicada that had just emerged from its shell. It is on a dill weed that is growing in the rose garden.

Added about 24 hours later - in response to Stu's having asked about the size of cicadas. The photo, below, is out of focus, but will give the idea of size on this particular cicada. I'm judging this cicada's length, nose-to-wingtip, to be about three inches - perhaps a little larger than "normal" in my experience. More information may be found at Common cicadas of Kansas, but in my limited browsing, I didn't see mention of sizes of the numerous varieties listed/shown. BTW: There are nearly 200 varieties (species & sub-species) in North America and over 3,000 world-wide.

Wikipedia notes that "The adult insect, known as an imago, is 2 to 5 cm (1 to 2 in) in total length in most species. The largest, the empress cicada (Megapomponia imperatoria), has a head-body length around 7 cm (2.8 in), and its wingspan is 18–20 cm (7–8 in).^[7][23]"

Summary of the week - 7/10/2021

Monday, July 5, 2021

Today would be a quiet day at home for us were it not for our having several neighbors who didn't satisfy their tastes for noise and explosions in the past few days. Today is the last day to, legally, set off fireworks. It's too bad that most of our neighbors don't seem to realize that setting off fireworks in the street is not legal. (The retired USAF colonel up the street grumbles about this.) Most of the neighbors are pretty good about cleaning up the next day; but, they aren't really meticulous. Starting Thursday (to give time for all embers to die out), my walks will include picking up much trash from expended fireworks.

BTW: Hunky Husband says that the "retired USAF colonel", Mike, hasn't really retired, at all - that he is still looking after "his troops". Mike stops in every couple of weeks, if he and I haven't recently seen one another while out walking, to make sure that we are doing all right. Mike is a bundle of energy, taking on jobs that might come around. He was scheduled to go work in Texas for a few months, a year ago, when COVID-19 put the Kibosh on it.

Tuesday, July 6, 2021

Hunky Husband had another session with his audiologist today. IMHO, it is unfortunate that he let Dr Combs talk him into going back to manual control of his hearing aids; but, perhaps he will do better this time. (Dr C didn't recall that HH had had manual control for his first week with the hearing aids and that he didn't do well with it.)

This being grocery shopping day, we stopped to buy groceries on our way home from Wichita. Of course, I had decided against taking my want list with us, thinking that HH wouldn't feel like making the stop. He fooled me! We purchased about half of the items on my list, the only important omission's being block chili. I bought three pounds of ground beef at our local meat market the other day, planning to make chili for freezing to send home with Elder Brother the next time he visits us. He brought me the empty jars, last trip.

Wednesday, July 7, 2021

I had my annual eye exam. Everything is looking good, according to Dr Agpoon.

HH mowed the front and back lawns. It has been a challenge for him to get the mowing done during the past few weeks - working around the bouts of rain. In the month of June, we surpassed the "normal" rainfall total by a bit over 0.50". As frequently as it seemed to rain, I was surprised that the excess wasn't greater. Of course, they had just updated "normal" to include statistics from 1990-2020 this past month. Previous "normal" had been based on 1980-2010.

Thursday, July 8, 2021

Walked for 45 minutes, this morning, and gathered half of a grocery bag full of leavings from fireworks. The rest of the bag was filled, mostly, by bits and pieces of marker flags that had been installed along the semi-major artery up the street from us when optical cable was being installed (again?!) and shredded by the mowers of the lawn service that cares for our Home Owner Association's common areas. I did not pull up any of the flags that had not been shredded - just picked up the pieces. Surprisingly (to me) was that the actual markers on the route of the optical cable were paper rather than the plastic used by other utilities along that route. Well done!

Washed all of the dishes from one-third of our china cabinet (above). This is an annual event that I hate, but which must be done. I haven't yet worked up the energy to replace items into the top two (cleaned) shelves, having used too much energy pulling weeds and mowing the "deep back" part of our back yard. (It got done, eventually.)

Every once-in-a-while I am surprised by something that HH does remember or that he does not remember. Today, it was not. He told me that he was taking one of his clean hand towels to the basement with him - that he intended to treat his scalp with his special shampoo. I let him know that there was already a towel for him to use, on the towel bar at the sink next to the clothes washing machine. Regardless, he took the clean hand towel downstairs with him. A minute later, he returned with the towel, exclaiming "I just found a towel bar I didn't know it was there!" Never mind that he has routinely used a black hand towel (photo, below - not HH's shampoo shown) that always hangs on that bar - whenever he washes his hands while doing laundry, or after he works out in his weights room.

HH had surprised me the other day by, without a word, replenishing the supply of paper napkins that we keep in a holder (that Bogie made in a high school course) on the breakfast table. Prior to that day, for several months, I had had to ask that he perform the tasking - and tell him where we keep the supply of paper napkins. That was a does surprise.

Summary of the week

The ears have it - 6/14/2021

Hunky Husband had an appointment with the audiologist. The upshot of the appointment was that he chose to have Dr Combs set his hearing aids on "fully automatic". Trying to make adjustments was not working out for him. No more than HH currently wears the hearing aids, it isn't that big a deal. I must say, though, that I'm enjoying that HH is now (mostly) wearing his hearing aids when he watches TV in the evening. (Not so, during the day; but, one thing at a time!)

At times, HH's TV has been set to such a loud volume that, even though my den door is closed, I cannot hear my own TV over his. Note that, in the photo above, the charger sits on a note that I had written HH a couple of weeks ago to remind him to keep the lid open while charging his hearing aid batteries. Dr Combs recommended this as a means to check that everything is proceeding normally with the charging - by observing the blinking green light on each unit, during charging, or a steady green light when fully charged.

Note to Bogie: I showed your dad the hearing aid controls information in the format that you suggested (which reorganized the information and added the bit of info about the beeping that I had previously omitted) the other day. He didn't recognize the difference. He kept saying that it was the same information as on the previous table. It was mooted by his going to the "fully automatic" mode, anyway; but, I appreciated your input. Thanks for taking the time and making the effort.

Outlook and my teeth - 6/16/2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I was not too pleased upon learning that, seemingly, a recent update to Outlook has changed how it operates a bit. Just how, I've not determined. The effect is that I missed my dental appointment on the 15th and had to re-schedule for the 16th.

My usual practice is to set up important appointments in the Outlook Calendar with first notification occurring 18 hours prior to the appointment so that I am reminded the evening before the appointment. The first notification that I received of the dental appointment on the 15th was when I came in (hot & grimy) from doing yard work and was notified that my appointment was past due. Picking up my phone to call the dental office, I noted that they had left me a voicemail about my not being there.

In setting up my appointment for the 16th, I was doubly positive to set first notification for 18 hours prior to the appointment. However, as had occurred on the previous entry, the default of 15 minutes was actually set on the appointment. Of course, with the kerfuffle, I did make it to the appointment on the 16th. I saw the dental hygienist (Lacey, who cleaned my pearly whites), the owner of the practice (Dr Carol Ysidro, who said she just wanted to see me because it had been at least a year since we last spoke), and Dr Omar (Dr Omar Barakeh who adjusted a few of my teeth to improve my bite). My teeth have been shifting a bit since Dr Omar installed the permanent bridge.

The lawn and my "miniature meadow" (mm) - 6/18/2021

Edward, of TenderCare Lawn and Landscape, came by this afternoon to check out our irrigation system. This is a mid-season service that the company offers. Having spent time weeding in the side yard, this morning, I decided to check out my mm that sits between our back lawn and the far back grounds, to see how the milkweed plants are doing. The above photo shows the mm's status.

The lacy-looking white flowers are Annual Daisy fleabanes, I think. I didn't plant them, but neither did I pull them when I saw them growing. The daisy-like yellow/brown flowers at mid-height are Brown-eyed Susans that I seeded a few years ago.

The multi-hued little flowers lurking in the shade of the towering Brown-eyed Susans and Wild asters are Blanket flowers that I planted from pots in 2019. At the left of the photo, one can see that the milkweed plants have grown little since I stopped babying them. Perhaps they are thirsty. The mm is just out of reach of the irrigation system unless the wind is from the north.

As an afterthought: The yellowish long leaves sticking up at the edge of the bare dirt, toward the right edge of the photo, is what's left of one of the Narcissi that surround the mm and a few of the trees that I've had planted in the edge of the woods. The Narcissi have shriveled, fallen, and been mowed down for the season.

Weather notes for the week

It has been hot, hot, hot - and it isn't even summer, yet. The NPR station was announcing that their studio thermometers (in Downtown Wichita) were showing 103 degrees Fahrenheit. The hottest I saw, myself, was 103 on my car (but it changed to 100 when I turned down-sun) and 100 on our front porch. It is supposed to be hotter, today. It is 96 on our front porch. On my drive home from visits to the gym, this week, I've been swabbing down my carotid arterial areas, etc, with the wet wipes that I have been carrying in the car for COVID-19 precautions for the past 15 months. When one cannot perspire, it really helps cool one down.

Bogie, how's it doing up there in New Hampshire? You've been having really hot weather for an area that is supposedly "cool". You were hotter than were we, by about 20 degrees during May, I think.

Weekly summary - 5/22/2021

Our first roses of the year were picked Monday, the 17th. As the blossoms opened even more, the larger of the yellow roses (photo, below) reached a span of over six inches. Beautiful! Although the roses are fragrant, HH says that he can't smell them. His "smeller" has declined in sensitivity over the past few years.

Today, I photographed the whole rose garden (below), and the real Mr Lincoln rose bush. I had intended to pick the Mr Lincoln bud for HH to enjoy. (He doesn't go outside, much, and it takes an effort to see the rose garden through the kitchen window.) I waited too long.

 

 

In Horticultural pursuits, I showed several of our bushes that I was/(am still) trimming to remove the winter killed branches. Most are doing well, as can be seen in the photos that I took, today.

Double Play Big Bang (larger bushes) and Magic Carpet (smaller bushes) spirea - with sedum ground cover (foreground) and tomatoes (background)

Ivory Halo Dogwood bush

(Dead) Hick's Yew of which I've just started digging out the roots  - outside my bedroom window - The photo's not being 3-D, it's hard to tell that there is a hole around the few remaining dead branches and that there is a pile of dirt to the right of it. It has copious, tough roots that will make me glad that I've had the axe sharpened, when I get to that point.

Nanho Purple Butterfly bush, I think

Assorted holly bushes in front of the house - work in progress

Crepe Myrtles

Although I did not post "before hacking out the deadwood" photos of our crepe myrtle bushes, I'm posting a couple of "after hacking" photos of three of the four bushes. In the first photo, showing a dwarf variety, the bush on the right is one that I layered off of the 20-year-old bush on the left. The bright green at the right edge of the left photo is a couple of the Stella de Oro Daylily plants - with a volunteer tomato nestled in there. The second photo (on the right) shows one of the two standard variety crepe myrtle bushes that were much cheaper since I bought them on sale at a big box store.

Irises

The irises were lovely, again, this year; but, I didn't get around to photographing the various kinds - except the Root beer irises. The root beer irises were the earliest bloomers. Not too far distant from them are the latest bloomers - Orchid irises - shown below.

It's a matter of perspective

I just know that I have made a posting with a similar title; but, for the life of me cannot find it. Although I've always found the TypePad internal search function pretty useless, I gave it a try. The search function came back with exactly one hit on "perspective" - What Makes Us Laugh from 15 years ago. The subject of that posting was my favorite cartoon character, Ms Crumm. When I went to the posting, the most interesting part was the link to a now-defunct (AFAIK) blog by a friend in the UK - and the comment string that followed.

Back to perspective: Liz (in Wales) frequently posts about her exploits in the field of exercise. She leaves some of us in the dust! Two Three weeks ago, I started going back to the gym. Wednesday, all of the signage to the effect that "Textron requires everyone to wear a mask" were missing and I was informed that they were no longer required. As there were only three other people in the gym, that morning, masking/not masking wasn't a big deal. I did, however, note that the only other woman was wearing a mask and asked if she would feel more comfortable if I left mine on. She demurred, thanking me for asking. I don't know her vaccination status; but, she is a member of a minority community so it is entirely possible that she and her adult son (also working out - never with a mask) are not immunized against COVID-19.

To the point: Amount of exercise that one is taking is a matter of perspective. From the perspective of my old, old age and past experience, I have been trying to gradually increase the intensity of my work-outs (from the "weak" state at which I re-started my gym visits) so as to avoid aching muscles. So far, so good. I am making great progress. However, my usual intention of applying the same concept to the work that I do in the yard has been less successful. Today, I arose with achy upper arms (biceps).

Yesterday, I cut off dead wood from one of our crepe myrtle bushes with our Craftsman loppers. "Aha!" I thought. That is what made me achy. But...I didn't do that much. It didn't stand to reason. Oh, yes, now I recall. Before I did the dead wood lopping, I had weed-whacked around all of the newish trees, around the steps down to the woods, and so forth. Our string trimmer is a Weedeater cordless - not very heavy. However, I did use it until the battery ran down and I am sure that was the cause of my achiness. 

ADDITION of five hours later:

Today, I've had to get myself outside between rain showers. I used the Weedeater to trim around the lone tree in the front yard (oh, yes, that's where the achiness came from!) and have completed the removal of dead wood from one of our crepe myrtle bushes. In addition, I've pulled a lot of weeds and, from the edge of the woods, many purple winter creepers. As of 4pm, we have received 0.55" of rain.

Unfortunately, I didn't think to turn off the sprinkler system last night. At about 5:30am, I heard the sprinklers hitting my bedroom windows - that would have been from Station 3 of the system. An hour later, there was an announcement on the radio that said that Wichita was getting rain and thunder. I wondered, to myself, whether we too would receive rain. A few minutes later, we had several flashes of lightning. I arose about that time, and it was raining by the time I got upstairs. The rain sensor only turns off the system if it detects rain before the system activates; thus, I turned off the system just after it had cycled to Station 6 (we use 7 stations). Most of our yard has received a lot of water, today.

Tidbits for another week - 3/12/2021

Electrical Problems (3/10/2021):

We have overkill in my kitchen: There are four ovens in it. Since I'm not much of a cook (I only cook to keep us from starving), you may not think that logical. However, the number of ovens in my kitchen is not the point of my sad tale. The point is that I had an electrical problem with the small toaster oven (to left of microwave on the counter in the photo, above) which proved to the world that I, who completed a minor in Electrical Engineering back in the late 1950s, am an idiot.

I wanted to toast a sandwich bun for our dinner, last night. I put the bun in the toaster oven, set the controls and started the oven, and left the room. Upon my return, I discovered that the oven was not hot, did not even have glowing digital control numbers showing. I unplugged the unit, re-plugged it. (That's the plug to the toaster oven at the right end of the toaster oven and above it. The other plug to the left of the toaster oven is actually the plug to the microwave.) Nothing. Exasperated, I used a skillet and the range top to toast the bun. As I went downstairs to bed, last night, I took the toaster oven down to our workshop where I intended to check it, later, to see if there is a fuse inside the casing.

This morning, as I came upstairs, I brought our standby toaster oven up from the basement. Later, I stuck a bagel into the standby toaster oven and set its simple mechanical controls. I listened to the hum of the spring-loaded timer as I walked away. When I returned, did I find a toasted bagel? Nope. The toaster oven was (electrically) dead as a doornail. Bah! Humbug! The poor thing had served me well in Albuquerque in the 1980s and had served me well for the first 10 years after my return to Derby KS; but, it hadn't been used since about 2000 - at which time it had been replaced by the newer unit.

A bit later, after working in the yard and kicking back thinking to take a short nap, my idle mind realized what was going on with the little ovens: I had been checking the wrong ground fault interrupter (GFI) unit. I had checked the GFI into which the microwave is plugged. That's logical since it is, physically, the nearest GFI unit to the outlet into which the toaster oven is plugged. However, the electrical outlet into which the toaster oven plugs is actually wired into the GFI unit of the outlet that is to the right of the microwave. Duh!

While everyone is looking at the photo of the ovens, please note that the little woodwork one can see is nice and clean. I started on spring cleaning, in the kitchen, the other day. It took me four days to finish scrubbing all of the cabinets in the kitchen, but they are clean!

Terminology Illuminated (3/12/2021):

The other day I asked that anyone who understood "Lie group" and/or "surfaces of ignorance" let me know so that I could share the Zoom login information to yesterday's Wichita State University Physics Seminar. I needed someone to watch and translate for me. The seminar featured Dr. Shannon Ray, National Research Council Fellow, Air Force Research Laboratory, speaking on“The Purification of 3-Level Quantum States and Surfaces of Ignorance”.

No one took me up on the challenge of translating for me, so I watched the presentation, alone. It turned out to be an interesting talk. Although I understood the math (heavy on tensor algebras), there was a lot of what turned out to be jargon - much of it invented by the presenter and his colleagues. One term that he used in a peripheral comment turned out to be less esoteric than I had perceived or considered: it was "The Bottom Turtle".

In exchanging emails with Ole Phat Stu, a few minutes ago, I was inspired to research "The Bottom Turtle". *Face Palm*  The term is from Yertle the Turtle by Dr Seuss.

Seuss (Theodor Seuss Geisel) has been in the news, much, of late - at least, here in the States. Fortunately, Yertle the Turtle was not implicated in the loud complaints against some of the Seuss books. Who knew it would contain an allegory during a physics talk? Whoo boy.

Personal Tidbits from Hunky Husband and me:

As of Wednesday (3/10/2021), Hunky Husband and I are considered by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be "fully vaccinated". We may now meet with a few other people who are also "fully vaccinated", indoors, without masking and distancing. Unfortunately, in our family, being "fully vaccinated" has skipped the generation of our daughters. We are looking forward to their attaining the designation no later than the end of May.

On Friday (3/12/2021), HH & I met with our tax guy. Yikes! HH had, without my having noticed it, until we gathered our tax papers, chosen to skip the Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) from his Volunteer Investment Plan (VIP) with Boeing, for 2020. The problem that it presented for our 2020 taxes was that by not taking his RMD (not required in 2020 because of COVID-19), he did not contribute the taxes that he would have had withheld from the distribution.

For 2020, we had under-withheld (Fed & State) by an amount equal to my income from retirement benefits plus social security. (Of course, for 2019 we had over-withheld 1.2 times that much.) HH had left home without his checkbook, so the rest of our taxes will be automatically syphoned off of my checking account.  Fortunately, I am in the habit of carrying a blank check in my wallet and Robert was able to get the routing information off of it to give the Feds and the State Revenuers. (The minute we got home I transferred the funds from my savings. In the meantime, HH had received texts from H&R Block informing him that both sets of taxes had been accepted and would be deducted from the indicated account.)

 

Moving along

Wonderful Weather (2/17/2021):

By Tuesday (2/16/2021) morning we had accumulated about five inches of snow since Friday. During the previous night, our outside air temperature (OAT) equaled the -17F OAT that I recall having experienced in Kansas in about 1960. The Current Results: Weather and Science Facts website tells me that, as recently as February 10, 2011, we reached -17F, again. How soon I forgot. The website tells me,

"These records were observed at Eisenhower National Airport and go back to 1954. The lowest temperature measured during that time was -21 degrees Fahrenheit (-29 Celsius) on February 6, 1982."

Lowest Wichita temperatures in recent years

Min °F	Date	Min °C
2	March 05, 2019	-17
-2	January 01, 2018	-19
4	December 31, 2017 +	-16
-10	December 18, 2016	-23
0	January 07, 2015	-18
-5	January 06, 2014	-21
3	February 23, 2013	-16
7	December 29, 2012	-14
-17	February 10, 2011	-27
0	January 09, 2010	-18

Not living in this area during 1981-1989, I missed out on the -21F  OAT in 1982. I was living on the Gulf Coast of Florida's panhandle at that time.

Finally this afternoon, I got around to tackling the snow on our driveway. I do, after all, need to drive to the grocery store tomorrow. (Kudos to WalMart for automatically having rescheduled my pickup from Tuesday to Thursday when their online scheduling system was overwhelmed such that we customers could not reschedule for ourselves. One assumes that everyone with a scheduled Tuesday pickup was pushed back to days expected to be exhibiting better weather/street conditions.)

I never spent more than 11 minutes at a time and only went out thrice. My muscles are not accustomed to that sort of exercise, now, and I hate it when I cripple myself because I'm too stupid to pace myself. I'll do even more shoveling tomorrow morning - after it warms up a bit, but before my appointment at WalMart's little store.

The first photo (below) shows the results of my first two ventures out. That bare concrete is where my car will be required to back and turn to the street (to the right).

Next, I cleared some of the concrete in front of the garage doors that hide Hunky Husband's and my cars.

Emergency Supplies (2/17/2021):

Yesterday afternoon, a tiny package was delivered by FEDEX; but, today, FEDEX brought me a really important, heavy box: 14 pounds of safflower seed and 10 pounds of shelled peanuts for our birds. Yay!

Old Photographs (2/18/2021):

One of the photos that I scanned, today, was of my mother's basketball team. She attended country schools during her grades 1 through 10, then had to transfer to a larger school in a town down the road a piece. Whether she also played basketball in 11th or 12th grade, I'm not sure; but, I also scanned photos of the elder of Mom's two younger sisters with her basketball team from the larger school.

In the photo, below, my mother is holding the ball because they lined up by height and she was the shortest. I remember a few of these players, and the coach, from years later when I lived in that area. In fact, my first year or two were spent in a house whose yard abutted the schoolyard. I suspect that the "uniform" bottoms were bloomers - with elastic at the leg opening which is pushed up on the thigh. At least, our gym uniforms in the 1950s had elasticized legs that pushed up - a bit shorter than the ones shown.

ADDITION of 2/24/2021:

Joared gave me a thought. In seeking a photo that showed the gym clothes that my own generation of girls wore in high school, I had searched my yearbooks from 1954 and 1955. Aha! I have a yearbook from 1956 (with which class I should have been graduated had I not skipped 11th grade). The following image is a scan of a page from the 1956 yearbook which illustrates, nicely, the outfits that we wore in the mid 1950s. Since I attended school with these girls for several years, I know knew nearly all of the girls in the two photos. The girls who were seniors when the photos were taken, and who have survived, will be celebrating their 65th year reunion, this year.

Turkeys Making Tracks (2/19/2021):

Each day, early of a morning, our neighborhood's turkey flock left more tracks through the snow. We could follow the flock's movements after-the-fact, up and down and across our street; but, the most interesting patterns were left in our back yard.

Finally, a "clear" sidewalk (2/19/2021):

Now that we've finally reached an OAT that is above freezing, I deigned to clear the snow from our front walk. A man walking down the street to retrieve his mail from the mailbox cluster asked, "Would you like for me to do that for you?" I thanked him and explained that it was good exercise for me. Really, it's more fun than work since I limit what I do at one time - this stint's being limited to 14 minutes. (Working my way up.)

It is a waste of time to clear the sidewalk: no one uses it. I can't blame them. It is so much shorter to cut across the yard from the street to the front steps.

Batting cleanup 2021Feb5

Cleaning up some of the items I've posted/commented in the past few days -

Yellow jackets, galore: 2020Feb3 - The more I look at the photos, the more I think those are honey bees rather than yellow jackets. As docile as they acted when I poked my camera among them, I can believe that. (Yellow jacket is on the left, below; honey bee, right; my photo, below the other two.)

It was confusing because it had been so long since I had seen a honey bee around here and because I've never seen them cart off bits of a corn kernel.

     
 

16 Escapees:  2020Feb4 - This morning, we were visited by all 16 turkey. When Hunky Husband and I counted, we arrived at 15; but, I can count 16 in the last photo (below). I had to lighten the photos a great deal because it was before sunup when the photos were taken. (So as not to flush the flock, the photos were taken through the kitchen window.)

It takes teamwork & Hunky Husband's 15 milliseconds of fame: 2021Feb4 - Hunky Husband just showed me his left arm where his first shot of COVID-19 vaccine had been administered. It has a faintly red area (below). Personally, I would attribute it to his having kept the little bandage on it until now. He may be a bit sensitive to the adhesive. Who knows? My own little bandage came off when I changed clothes upon arriving home from receiving the shot, so I have never been able to tell exactly where the needle went in - near my smallpox vaccination scar from 1941. My shoulder did give me a tiny twinge a few minutes ago when I was examining my own arm; but, I believe that to be from the axe wielding that I did Tuesday, hacking out a couple of small tree stumps. I can't replicate the twinge, now.