Bill Is Still Missing

It has been rainy and cold, and he's still out there somewhere.  I've talked with the neighbors and have asked them to keep an eye out for him.  He's very friendly, so if they call him he'll likely go to them.  The lady down the hill said she'd be out in the woods hunting turkey soon, and will keep an eye out for him.  We've been out along the edge of the woods and fields calling for him,

I hope that he comes back soon.  He's an old guy - 17 years old - without much extra meat on him.  He's all hair.  Some friends have suggested that at his age, perhaps he just went away to die.  I don't believe that's what happened.  He's old, but he was healthy and happy, and did not appear to be close to the end of his run.  He still has his moments when he runs around the house like a kitten.

He just isn't the type to stay out.  I don't think he's ever stayed out all night.  He's out there somewhere, wet and cold and lost.  The rain has kept the farmers out of the fields.  I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing.  Would he get run over by a combine, would it chase him out of the field and toward home, would it get the corn out of the way so that he could find home?  They're not going to be getting the corn out any time soon.  The forecast through next week is rain, rain and more rain. 

Poor Bill.  If something got him, I hope it was something big and that it was quick.  I hate the thought of him out there cold and wet, covered with burrs and ticks, sick and miserable....  I hope he comes home soon. 

FT

Bill Has Gone Missing

I expected that he'd be hanging around the house when I got home from work, but he's nowhere to be found.  I called for him, walked around the woods, but there's no sign of him. 

I've been hoping he'd come home, but it's not looking good.  He goes out when he wants to, usually but not always sticks pretty close to the house, usually but not always is back in the house within 15 minutes.  He doesn't stay out all night, but he did last night.

I'm guessing he was out strolling around yesterday and either the lawnmower or the kids' dog scared him into the woods or into the corn and he got lost.  I hope that he makes his way home before it gets cold.

FT

Home Invasion

It's a part of living where we do that we just have to accept.  When they start harvesting soybeans, the Asian Lady Beetles will invade.  Today there are hundreds, probably a dozen per square foot of house surface. There are also dozens inside the house.  There will be thousands of them on the house when I got home from work tomorrow.  I may get lucky as it's supposed to be cloudy and cooler, then rain for days after that, possibly even snow by Friday. 

I'm hoping that bulk of the ALB will decide to lay low tomorrow, but I can't see how that will happen.  They like it when it's sunny, but the farmers are unlikely to take that into consideration.  They've got maybe 36 hours to get the beans out of the field before it starts to rain. 

I could still get lucky because the fields around me are corn this year rather than beans - these ALB are coming in from at least a mile away.  I'm hoping they'll find a place to stop before they get here. 

FT

More of the Busy Week

Last Saturday some friends came for a visit.  We were walking around the backyard, and one of them saw a patch of grapes that hubby and I had missed.  We went out Sunday to pick and got another 8 1/2 pounds of grapes.  I turned some of them into booze, the rest will be more juice for jelly. 

I had actually forgotten about the rest of the grapes.  I just put them on the stove.  Eesh, that would have been bad, all that work molding in the fridge...

I went down to the ditch this week and picked some more cattail leaves.  The ones I'd picked before are all dried and ready to try out some basketweaving.  I suspect that I'm going to enjoy it, so wanted to get more supplies laid in. 

I tied the first ones in bundles and hung them to dry, and that worked pretty well except that the leaves shrunk and the bundles fell apart when I took them off the wall. This time, I took a stout needle and some 1/4" ribbon and strang them together to hang dry.  There weren't really any problems with tying them in bunches, but this will make them easier to handle when they're dry.  Once the bunches fell apart, the leaves were rather cumbersome. 

Basketry is going to have to wait, though, because Halloween is coming up before you know it, and I have to make costumes for the grandkids.  Thing 1 is going to be a velociraptor, Thing 2 wants to be Spongebob, and Thingette wants to be a butterfly.  I've started working on the patterns.  I'm knocking out the butterfly first because it will be easiest.  Spongebob won't be too bad, but the velociraptor is going to be a real challenge. 

I'm really pretty excited about putting these together.  It's going to be fun.  I've really got to get busy, though.  I'm pretty good as a crunch player with this kind of thing, and there's really plenty of time to get these done, but the kid will be driving me crazy if she doesn't see progress.  She's a worrier.

FT

Busy Week

It has been a week since I posted anything here.  A very busy week. 

It's been cold and rainy all week, and it looks like it will continue to be cold and rainy.  Both the hummingbirds and the bees are gone, at least for now.  I'll fill the feeder again this weekend and see if any of them show up.

There was a threat of frost for Tuesday morning, so we went into the garden Monday night and picked all of the tender stuff.  It didn't actually get down to freezing, and that's a danged good thing.  There are a lot of green tomatoes still out there, and a lot of itty-bitty cucumbers.  I think that the cucumber is about a goner.  That's it on the far left in the picture.  It sure has been a producer this year.  This one plant has supplied me with probably 50 good sized cucumbers - the seedless, soft-skinned English kind.  It's leaves are all turning now, but it's still putting out blossoms.  What a trooper.

One of my pepper plants had just took off about a month ago.  It sat there doing pretty much nothing with it's brothers all summer, then this one just took off.  I got 4 peppers off of it when we took all of the veggies out Monday night, and it had a lot of little ones starting.  It's got all kinds of flowers on it, too.

I don't know what kind of pepper it is.  It's not a bell - its peppers are darker green and longer.  I haven't tried them yet, but I'm going to be making goulash this weekend, and will throw them in there.  I don't even know if it's a hot pepper.  If it is, the son-in-law will be pleased.

This is how dismal the weather is now - it looks like the picture of the pepper plant was taken at night, but I took it at 8:30 in the morning.  This is apparently all the sun we're going to get today.

We got a happy surprise in the mail on Monday.  Apparently, we made a mistake on our taxes.  The IRS sent us a check.  I went a little crazy and spent about $500 of it on new clothes and a haircut.  The kid came with me, and she was all kinds of excited about seeing me buy clothes.  She's tired of seeing me in home-made pull-on pants and hubby's Hawaiian shirts.  So now I'm wearing actual girl clothes.  It's nice that this year's colors are my colors.

My favorite purchase was a pair of Sorel winter boots.  It has been decades since I had a really good pair of winter boots.  My feet will be warm and comfy all winter long. 


 


FT