7 Quick Takes (Vol 74)

It’s Friday!!! And time for another scintillating edition of Quick Takes. So read mine. Comment on mine (that is a hint by the way) and then click on the picture above to be whisked at the speed of deer raiding the garden over to Conversion Diary to read what everyone else has been doing.

1.
And speaking of deer, look who I saw while I was driving around this week…..
Can you see, hidden in the grass….

Bambi!

Bambi, Man is in the forest.

Sorry, I just had a sort of flash back to the days when the progeny were young and it seemed like all we watched was Bambi. I have seen a bunch of Momma Deer and fawns this past week. Just so long as they stay away from my hosta then we can live in peace.

2.
Garden Update: because I know that you were dying to know.

We have basil. No surprise there.
We have itty bitty tomatoes.
  We have jalapeno peppers
We have slugs. He met a rather messy end at the bottom of my clog.  

3.
I seem to be strangely drawn to watching FIFA World Cup Soccer. I am not really a soccer fan. It always seems like it is isolated minutes of intense excitement followed by hours of boredom. But that is just me. However, I find myself turning the TV on in the morning to see what match is on. I never watch TV during the day, always too busy, so this is just messing up my well crafted daily routine.
Now if they could just get rid of all those vuvuzelas I would be really happy. It makes it hard to enjoy the match when it sounds like they are playing in the middle of a hive of angry bees. I can’t imagine what it is like if you are actually sitting in the stands.

4.
I was standing on my front walk this week, weeding my front borders and I realized that there was this noise in the background.

This strange buzzing noise.

Looked around to find the source and realized that my Spirea bushes, which are in full bloom, are covered with very busy bees.

Very busy. I will try to get a picture but I didn’t have time at that point. But I did have time to just stand there and watch them flit from flower to flower to flower.

So cool.

5.
All my daylilies are expectant with blossoms.

They are fecund.

I love the word fecund. Just let it roll off your tongue.

Feeeecccuuuuunnnnnnnnd.

I am afraid to hope that I might see blossoms. I look out every morning when the sun is just lightening the sky and I check to see if the marauders from the woods deer have snapped them off just as they are about to burst forth in full loveliness.

So far I have not been disappointed. And I continue to hope.

And to spray the vomity stuff whenever I can.

6.
I continue on with my morning “Elixir of Life” updates on Facebook. I feel inspired. This is one of my favorites. It just sprang up in my brain while I was in the shower.

Oh Juice of Joy, so smooth like buttah. Clear my mind of morning cluttah.

It still makes me chuckle.

I am a sad, strange little blogger is all that I can say.

EDIT: I have decided to add the Daily Elixir Update to the sidebar. Just because they give me a chuckle. I am odd that way

7.
A month past the wedding and we are still eating on the left over Candy Buffet candy. And some of it may be a long time in the pantry before we get to it. I have a huge bag of Jolly Ranchers that may just get held over until Halloween at this rate..

And Starlight Mints. Hoo boy do we have A LOT of those. I am just going to have to find some kind of recipe…

But what?

I will let you know.

And speaking of recipes. I will be putting one up next week that you are going to want to make. BELIEVE ME. Chocolate Covered Key Lime Bars.

To. Die. For.

My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Jam Jars

I am beat.

Beat I tell you!!

And why would that be might you ask? Well I will tell you. Here is Northeastern Ohio the month of June holds many things.

Rain
bugs
bad baseball
And……….

Strawberries!

Lookleap and I drove over to a local farm/orchard to pick strawberries. That is my cohort in crime in the white shirt.

It was a gorgeous day for picking. Cool, cloudy, no bugs that I could discern. But I have to tell you that picking these luscious berries gave me a great appreciation for the migrant workers who normally pick the berries you buy in the store. I don’t know how their backs survive it.

And the strawberries!!! Good golly Miss Molly where they gorgeous. And so many of them.

  Nom, nom, nom, nom……..do I pick it and put it in the container or do I pick it and quietly put it in my mouth.

Dirt? Sand? Slug trails? Who the heck cares! Oh they tasted good.

I mean I THINK that they LOOK like they will taste good because I know my mother would tell me that I shouldn’t eat any before they are washed.

And I always do what my mother tells me…….

Beautiful!

You know, for some reason several people at the orchard seemed to think that Lookleap and I were sisters. I am not sure why that is……well…….

Except for the fact that we were bickering. In a playful way only mind you. And I was sort of bossing her around.

But that was only because I was right. HA!

Ummmmmmmmm, I may have gone a tad overboard on the strawberry picking. These are all mine. I am not exactly sure how many pounds that I picked. I was frankly afraid to ask. I will make a wild guess that it is less that 10 pounds and more than 5 pounds…….

But I might be wrong.

I really didn’t think that I had picked this many. Really I didn’t. I just kept picking and picking and picking. It wasn’t really until I got home that I realized that I was in a heap of strawberry trouble. What in tarnation was I going to do with all of this stuff.

Hi. My name is Debbie and I’m a strawberry glutton.

Oh Mommy!

So this is what I did with some of the strawberries….

 

And you can bet your last Euro that I sampled the goods more than once. I wouldn’t want to produce a bad product you know.

And I can also tell you that I still have half of the strawberries left. I am thinking maybe Strawberry/Blueberry Jam tomorrow.

But right now I am just thinking toast……with jam on it.

NomNomNomNomNom

Basil, My Own Personal Catnip

I am in love with Basil.

No, not some snooty Englishman. Who needs that when I have HHBL.

No I mean Basil as in the herb. You know, the stuff that they make pesto out of. You have had pesto haven’t you? Tell me that you have because if you haven’t then you must.

Divine, divine, divine.

But I digress.

I love basil. I love it so much that I keep buying more basil plants. I mean Look Leap and I have added a small patch of basil to the community garden plot. But is that enough for me?

Oh no it isn’t. Because to that I have added 5 more plants here at Chez Knit.

Oh Lordy don’t those look lovely. Luscious, simply luscious. If that is an adjective that can be applied to basil. And I say it is so HA!

I can’t get enough of this stuff. The minute there were any basil plants available at the local nursery I was buying them.

This poor plant looks sort of sad doesn’t it. All leafless and spindly. It isn’t really spindly it is just that I have been picking leaves off of it at an alarming rate and it is struggling to keep up with the demand.

Sort of like Apple with the new iphone.

Or not

But during the summer if I make pizza….

And I make pizza at least once a week….

I have to put basil on it. HHBL likes it that way and I try ALWAYS to do things that he likes……..

Um yeah.

So, back to the basil.

                                             Ooooooooo be still my basil beating heart.

Now, anyone who has ever grown basil will tell you that there is competition in the garden for it. The deer like it. The bunnies like it. The groundhogs like it.

The dog does not like it. He likes to pee on it but he doesn’t like it.

Maybe that’s why he pees on it. That is also why I always wash the basil before using it.

Always.

I have found that the biggest competition for my basil are the slugs. Man I hate those things. There is something so squishily satisfying about stomping down on one of them with my garden clogs.

Squelch!


I put down liberal applications of this lovely slugicide that seems to keep them at bay.

And before you say it I have tried the old beer in a “slug trap” trick and it wasn’t very effective. I seem to have more than my fair share of teetotaling slugs. And it always seemed a waste of a good beer. I am not wanting to pour any portion of my Great Lakes Dortmunder into a container for the slugs.

And every once in a while I just go out and pick a basil leaf. Just to sniff it.

My own personal catnip.

Things I Miss

I am in a melancholy mood today.

Can you hear me singing “Old Man River” which I find to be one of the most melancholy songs ever.

So I thought I would do a list of things that I miss. Are you depressed yet? Sorry, I just have to.

1. I miss the days of summer vacation when the progeny were still in school. Those days that stretched endlessly ahead with nothing really to do. No schedule to keep. No after school activities. No place important to go except maybe to the community pool. I miss them
.
Now the progeny are all grown and there are no more endless summer days where we can choose to just let the sprinkler run all afternoon and jump through it.

2. Kellogg’s “Concentrate” cereal. The most perfect cereal ever. A bit of sugar, some blueberries and a generous splash of milk and your day just started out right. It made the most lovely squeaky noise when you bit into it.

3. My ability to read for 6-8 hours without guilt. I am afraid that I have either lost or misplaced that guilt free ability. I am working to get it back but sometimes it just bites to be an adult with other responsibilities that take the place of reading…..or knitting.

4. My Grandpa Pringle. Especially when I am working in the garden.

5. My size 8 jeans. I had them fleetingly in 1980. Calvin Klein jeans no less. The kind that, if correctly fit, had to be dragged on as you were lying on the floor and sucking in your stomach. Why did I do that?

6. My uterus……….BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Did you really believe that one? How long have you been hanging around here? We all know that that particular organ and I had an adversarial relationship and that I took steps to eliminate it.

I was just trying to keep you on your toes.

7. Good movies. There aren’t that many of them. It may be that I am just watching too much Turner Classic Movies…..or not.

8. My size 6.5 feet with all of the cute shoes I had. Progeny killed my small feet. And of course all those shoes were cute back in 1985. But I still miss those feet. And my cream colored snake skin flats. Oh I loved those shoes.

9. My grandma’s apple pie. I just can’t reproduce it.

OK, I am done for the moment I think. I don’t promise that I won’t do another one of these lists. We will see.

What is that you miss?

7 Quick Takes (Vol 73)

Hidee Ho Neighbors! Well, the week has just flown by and here we are again around the Quick Takes table. Remember to click on the picture above to zip, at the speed of a Washington politician spending my children’s future, over to Conversion Diary to read what everyone else has been doing.

1.
Sometimes I just wonder about the Dewey Decimal system. It is strange and funky at the best of times. And, no, I don’t have a better suggestion. But explain to me why this book…
“Pipe Organ Pumper” would be stuck in the middle of books on photography. And yes I did check the call letters on the book and they were in sequence with the rest of the books. No one mis-filed it. Can someone explain this this to me.

It has been keeping me up at night.

2.
We went to a family wedding last weekend and HHBL and I were able to spend time with DaPoo (HHBL’s dad) and Linda (the step MiL) as well as the SiL and the nieces. I tell you, these nieces are a hoot.
Notice the purple streak in the hair. It is actually a little faded. It was REALLY purple at TMO’s wedding.
Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. But The Gymnast understands me and loves her crazy auntie anyways.
Sorry, that could have been a blog post all it’s own.

3.
I am a creature of habit. Hard won habits. I don’t like to have to form new habits because they just don’t want to stick sometimes. As far as habits are concerned I am the “Teflon Deb”.

But one habit that I have worked hard to cultivate is my bedtime. Sort of sound like a two year old there but I need my bedtime like a two year old does. I get cranky thankyouverymuch if I don’t go to sleep by 10:30p or so. And in order to be able to do that I need to pretty much “turn it off” by 9p. That means that I don’t do any heavy reading after 9p. I don’t watch ANYTHING political after that time. I just veg. It helps the old cranium to slow down and get ready for slumber.

Well, Tuesday evening I decided that I needed to learn a new heel knitting technique for the current socks that I am working on. It couldn’t wait until morning. It had to be researched and learned right then. I worked on that heel until after 10p because I just had to get it done. And because I did that then when I did want to go to bed, I couldn’t turn my brain off. It didn’t help that I had the song “Your Love is My Drug” by Ke$ha running around in my head. I finally gave up, turned on the light and read until almost 2a.

Consequently I was toast on Wednesday. Swimming through jello all day. And I fell asleep before the overtime for the Black Hawks/Fliers game and missed the end.

Oh who am I kidding. I could care less about hockey.

4.
We are doing the coolest thing at our church. As a church body, all who are willing, we are memorizing all of the New Testament. Now don’t get too excited. We aren’t all memorizing all of it. We each have our small portion. So that, if something happened and all the NT’s in the whole world were lost or destroyed we could resurrect it. Sort of like Ray Bradbury’s book Fahrenheit 451. Oh I love that book

I am Luke 24:1-5 in case you wanted to know. And no, I haven’t gotten it all memorized.

But I am working on it so I will be ready in case I am needed.

5.
I have a new software to learn….oh I can hardly contain my excitement.

I now have Photoshop Elements and I am dazzled and my mind is spinning.

Now I can hear you asking, “Why didn’t you get Photoshop?”

Do you happen to have an extra $700 that I can use to buy that? If you do then I will get it. Otherwise, I am going to enjoy Elements which cost $79, has a $20 rebate attached and does the things that I want and need.

Or at least I think it does. Cuz I haven’t learned it yet and each time I open it I am almost paralyzed with fear at all the bells and whistles. I went and bought a book to help me but I know that it is really just getting in their and learning it.

6.
Also on the photo front I am in the process of taking all my pictures off of my computer and moving them over to my relatively new backpack drive
.
I say relatively new because HHBL got it for me for my birthday….which was back in March…..and I let it sit in the box until last week. It sat there and stared at me and whispered to me that I needed to get it to work.

So now I am.

But sorting through and moving……20,000+ pictures takes some time.

Yes, I said 20,000+ pictures.

So I have Photographic Obesity. So sue me.

I will let you know how it all goes once I get it done. I am finding a number of pictures which are surely going to play a prominent role in the next installment of Pictures from the Crypt.

7.
If you have a day where you don’t have to go anywhere or do anything do you take the time to just stay in your PJ’s?

I just can’t seem to do it. I have to take a shower and put on actual clothes. I just can’t function if I am wandering around in my pj’s all day. I so envy people (like my progeny) who can do that. I just feel incomplete. I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything and it frustrates me. And then I can’t sleep at night because I am all confused since I have been in my pj’s all day.

But oh how I wish that I could do it.

The Things I Do For Hosta

Sometimes, really, I question why I do things.

Really.

I live in the woods for the love of Peter, Paul and Mary. Really, the better thing to do would just be to have landscaping and gardens that grew things like nettles or other thorny things that the rats with hooves deer won’t eat.

But of course I can’t do that. Oh no not me.

I have to have a strangely obsessive love of hostas. An overwhelming urge to plant every variety that I can find.

And I have to have daylilies. Many, many daylilies. For deer, daylilies are like candy. They call to the deer with soft and sweet songs. And the deer answer the call with gusto. Waiting until the flowers are just about ready to open. One day the bud will be there and the next morning…

SNICK!

No more daylily bud. Just an empty stalk and me, standing there and raising my fist in impotent rage!
If you live in a place where the only things that eat your plants are the little bunnies….you just have no idea.
And so, because I have this strange love affair with hosta and daylilies (really all Papa’s fault but that is for another post), I have to take action. I have to preemptively strike!

I must spray.

There are many different things to do when you want to discourage Gengis Khan in the underbrush the deer. Having a dog is good. I don’t mind it if Max “waters” the plants. Well, I don’t like to see that happen to the basil or the herbs but other than that he has freedom to sprinkle wherever. You can also have your husband go out and “water”. I think we will leave that right where it is. Or you could collect your own urine to sprinkle…..I don’t think so. Or you can make your own homemade stuff. I haven’t done that yet but I may if the cost of this stuff keeps going up.

I use two different products. One of which smells like a slaughterhouse and one of which smells like a vomitorium.Oh the things that I go through for these plants.

And let me tell you that when I say that the Liquid Fence smells like vomit I don’t mean just a little “spit up”. I mean it smells like

VOMIT!

Like when your child decides to have projectile vomiting in an enclosed space like a plane after having had a huge breakfast.

Too much info?

And the smell sticks around for awhile. Like for hours.This is me after having put the noxious liquid, which is all opaque and slimy and slightly grainy, into my spray bottle.

Breathe through mouth Deb. Breathe through mouth!

And then you also need to remember to use these….

Oh you really want to remember to use these because the smell of this stuff is really hard to get off. And if you get it under your fingernails!!! You will not be a popular person with others or even yourself for that matter.
Others can run from you but you can’t run from your own hands that smell like you have been dabbling in stuff left over from a raucous frat party.

And once you have put on your gloves, given the jug a good shake (REMEMBER to make sure the lid is on tight) and poured it into the proper receptacle you are ready to spray.

But now comes the really tricky part….what to spray. I have one word for you…..

EVERYTHING.

Everything that the deer might even think would be even remotely appetizing. Hostas, daylilies, rudbekia, daisies, basil (they LOVE this)…… just about everything. They don’t seem to like the marigolds or the impatiens or the lamium but that is about it. 

And when you are spraying you need to make sure that you know which way the wind is blowing. This is really important. You do not want to give a big spray with the stuff and then realize that the wind is blowing in your face. If the wind is blowing towards you then so is the vomity smelling stuff.

Believe me I know.

It is really unpleasant to have this blow back in your face. Really. Unpleasant.

And then you have to take another shower.

You also have to time the spraying. You really don’t want to do this the afternoon that you are having the big company party on the deck or perhaps a house showing. Trust me when I say that people are not going to want to hang around outside for 6-8 hours after this stuff gets sprayed. Especially on a warm day the smell just sort of settles over your house and you like the plague on the first born from The Ten Commandments.
But, if it keeps the deer out of my garden I can stand it.

But you might want to come over for coffee tomorrow and not today.

The Hummingbird Obsession Continues

I really like birds.

I just thought I would tell you that in case you might have missed this post and perhaps this one. Well, I don’t love the turkeys as I have told you before. But this time of year we don’t see them generally, we only hear them. They do then to hang around over at LookLeap’s house for some reason. Fine by me.
As we all know, because I talk about it ad infinitum (I love that phrase), HHBL and I are selling our domestic abode. Trying is the operative word because it seems that people don’t want to cooperate and I think that is just rude of them.

But I digress

Again

One of the things that I had to stop doing when we put Chez Knit on the market was feeding the birds.
For some reason I hear Julie Andrews singing, “Feed the birds, tuppence a bag…”. Sorry, channeling my inner Mary Poppins there for a moment.

Birds make an unholy mess around the feeders. You would think that they could be a bit more organized and not throw the seeds and shells around everywhere. And that they wouldn’t be quite so greedy. But they are just perpetual teenagers with not a care in the world and someone else, ME, to clean up after them. The listing agent took one look a the feeders on the deck and said, “Their outtah here!” Well she didn’t really say that but she was thinking it.

I can live without feeding the birds I find. I thought that it was going to be more difficult than it has been to give up blowing off the deck every few days and scaring off the raccoons that come at night to raid the feeders and buying sunflower seeds but the gross weight. I have missed the cheerful little finches that strip the feeder in a day. And the Cardinals, who were so friendly, but now hang in the trees and throw birdy epithets at me because the seed train has left the station.

But the birds that I missed the most, that I mourned the loss of, that left a little teeny weeny bird-sized hole in my heart were the hummingbirds.

I was bereft at the thought that I couldn’t put out the feeders for them.

Hummingbirds are sort of an obsession with me. I don’t know what it is about them but I just love them. It really is a childhood thing, a hold over from summers vacationing in Colorado with the grandparents where the cottage that they rented seemed to have a wealth of them. And it is also because I just worked so darn hard to get them to come and hang around with me. I put out hummingbird feeders for two whole years before I got a single one to stop by. Two. Whole. Years. I am not usually one who exhibits that much patience let me assure you.

But then I said, “Hey! Donna’s not the boss of me! I can put out the hummingbird feeders if I want!” I said it very quietly so that Donna couldn’t hear me. And I very quietly put out the feeders……..
And they are back!!!!

I apologize in advance at the quality of some of the pictures. If you look at the above picture you can actually see the rain that is falling. I have been looking for Noah and the Ark all morning long. And because I wanted to get pictures to show you my little hummy friends I have been sitting here in front of an open window, shivering uncontrollably, all because I want to have good pictures for you.

I am nice that way.

You know, I really do have a list of “to do’s” a mile long and still, here I sit, taking pictures of little tiny birds that sound like bees on steroids.
  Can you see all the rain on the feeder??? It has been raining since last night.

Noah? Noah where are you?

This female is very schedule oriented. She arrives every morning at about the same time, 6a, and then comes back periodically throughout the day. She also visits the feeder in the back. Really there are more than one hummingbird as we had a slight “hummingbird fracas” at the feeder the other day. They do not play well with others.

And so, I really should get going on that list of things to do. Things like clean out the refrigerator….

wash the kitchen floor…..

think of more ways to avoid eating Liver and onions (I have this one down!)

And yet here I sit hoping that the birds come back…..

And talking to you of course.