Slow down

The past two days I have applied the brakes to my Midge's Manic Lawn and Garden Beautification Project. This old body needs a mini-vacation. So I have been eating a long, slow breakfast on the porch where I can hear the birds and watch the deer. I have a long cup of tea. I read my two newspapers front to back. I watch the shadows of the trees dancing on the damp morning lawn. I slowly inhale the cool morning air. All this is a luxury that I don't have time to enjoy during the school year. I will miss it when school starts.

I've been wandering around the house and yard doing small, mundane things that need doing, like taking apart the grill and cleaning the insect screens on the burners or taking Paul's deposits to the bank. It feels good not to be pressured or rushed. Last night I heard the katy-dids for the first time..........a reminder that summer is starting to wind down, already. Much too soon.

I'm reading a very good escape book. A page turner. Very hard to put down. It's called Color of Light by Karen White. I try to sneak in a few pages between projects during the day. Does anyone have a really good summer reading book that they haven't been able to put down this summer??

What a weekend..........................

We are closing out a VERY busy weekend. Who says life gets easier when the kids leave home???

Paul has moved Kara a few times. From Pennsylvania to Georgia, from Georgia to Connecticut, from Connecticut to Boston, from California to Boston. When she got married it was with a sigh of relief for Paul. He told her new husband that this was one job he was gladly giving over to him. Now that she had a husband it was time to pass the moving legacy on. But when it came time for Kara and Sean to move this weekend, Paul offered to help. This was a two-man job.

We drove up Saturday morning, a muggy, humid, hot, sticky morning. Not exactly what you would call perfect moving weather.






The littlest Maddens were eagerly waiting for us in their very empty looking house. They were very excited about this move and were so enthusiastic about "helping". Eamon grabbed everything that was important to him and very seriously dragged it piece by piece up the ramp of the moving truck. His gigantic toy stove and sink, his gigantic stuffed dog, his big stuffed turtle. This little guy was working so hard. Elizabeth "helped" too. Picking up a little piece of cardboard off the floor she would trot it up the ramp and carefully lay it on the floor of the truck. Then back down to the house to find a stray barrette to bring into the truck, and on and on and on. My job was to make sure that they weren't in the way when the big guys came out the door with the big stuff.



When bored, the little Maddens were pretty skilled at bringing out toys that had already been packed away and spreading them across the once empty, clean floor!

After waiting out several heavy downpours and a couple of thunderstorms, the very hot and sweat-drenched men finished moving three (or was it four) truckloads of very heavy furniture to the new house. It was a real blessing that the new house is only about 6 houses away from the old one.




Eamon immediately made himself at home in the new den/playroom with some of his favorite cars and trucks that he had packed in his backpack.




Paul and I happily baby-sat for Eamon and Elizabeth while Kara and Sean went on a "date"...........to return the U-Haul. Well, I guess maybe I baby-sat. As I said before, Paul can and will sleep ANYWHERE. Luckily the Lego-blocks had not yet been taken to the new house or it would have been a LONG hour in an empty house.




A dinner of seafood and wine and good company at the Summer Shack is a pretty good reward after a very hardworking day. These men deserved it. And Kara too. She has put a superhuman effort into this whole move.














The little munchkins had an unbelievably long, hot and tiring day but they were SO good at dinner. No whining or crying at all. Good parenting, Sean and Kara.




















We rolled into University Drive last night at 10:30 pm. Tired tired tired. This morning it was up and off to Rhode Island to visit the other grandchildren, little Albion and Elliot. They have grown and changed so much since we saw them 6 weeks ago. They are twins in name only because they are really both so different with their own sweet litttle personalities.


Albion is so much like Brett was when he was little. A little blondie. Very muscular and strong. Wants to be on the move. Constant motion. A mini soccer player. A laugher.



Elliot is bigger and darker. He seems to be mellower and is more of a watcher and thinker. He has a very sweet smile. He's a little shy and hides his head in Brett's chest when you look at him.

They are both very good babies. I didn't hear any fussing when we were there. Megan and Brett and doing such a good job. Megan is staying home with them rather than working and it shows. Brett is doing a great job as a father. A mother always wonders how her son will do at fathering. I'm proud of Brett. He gets an A++++!

I had that camping spirit...............

Last weekend Sean and Kara took their kids on the ultimate kid's vacation..........camping. Kids just love the whole idea of camping, probably more than the parents. Which stands to reason because they don't have to pack, think of what food to bring, cook over a little Coleman burner, wash dishes in little pots with water that you heat over the Coleman burner and then unpack everything when they get home. They just get to have fun.

It made me reflect back on my camping days. I didn't start very early. The first time I did "real" camping was when I was in high school. I did some camping in the backyard when we were kids but that doesn't count because we would usually escape to our comfy little bed before the night was over. When I was a teen the Little Rapp Family invited me on my first ever real camping experience. It was the perfect way to break me in because these people were the "real deal" when it came to camping. They acted like they really knew what they were doing. They had a cool tent, called a Baker tent, which had two separate rooms, one for the men and one for the women. Praise the Lord. We had rain and I remember digging a trench around the tent so it wouldn't flood. Like I said they knew what they were doing. We took turns standing up during dinner to lift up the dining canopy to empty out the water that had pooled in the roof. But most of all I remember sitting at the picnic table at night in front of the fire and just talking. Talking with each other and talking with the neighbors. No Ipods, no Iphones, no laptops, no cell phones. Everyone enjoyed being with each other.

After Paul and I got married we got into the camping spirit, probably because it is a cheap way to take a vacation and we had NO money. We bought a tiny little itty bitty canvas pup tent, which is all we could afford, a Coleman lantern and a Coleman stove and we were all set to go. I guess you could say it was truly a "pup" tent because we took our little dog with us on every camping trip. Can't believe we did that. That little tent was pretty crowded. Trying to get dressed in that pup tent was a good test of your flexibility. We went lots of places, that little tent and us. West Virginia, Virginia, Falls Village, and the middle of nowhere in Ithaca where we got lost in the woods after Paul assured me that he NEVER gets lost. Back then I still really loved the whole camping thing.


Then Kara came along. We had to buy a bigger tent. We bought a dining canopy so that we could eat outside in the rain or get a bit of relief from the sun. We had to buy ingredients for s'mores. We took camping trips to "the brook", Paul's old farm. No toilets, no running water, NOTHING. That was REAL camping. We made a big campfire every night, cooked marshmellows, talked and laughed. No Ipods, no Iphones, no laptops, no cell phones. Soon we started looking for campsites that offered hot showers and flush toilets. We camped in Cape Cod........pregnant. We rode the bike trail along the seashore, Kara in a bike seat behind Paul. Paul thrilled Kara with his high speed rides. Camping was starting to become a little bit more like work.

Then along came Brett. He started camping with us right away. And along with this came camping with pampers and porta-cribs and baby food, baby toys and walkers. We went camping at Lake George when he was 7 months old and teething. We arrived at the end of the day, put up our canvas tent and found that it had developed a mildew problem since we last used it and was full of holes. We patched the holes with pine needles and spent the whole next day, our ONLY sunny day, shopping for a new tent. The mosquitoes were the size of helicopters. The rain brought them out in droves. We had to remind Kara over and over that our new tent was nylon and if you touched the sides in the rain it would leak. She touched the sides and it leaked. Kara was having a great time. I was beginning to think that camping was not really a vacation for mothers.



We went camping at Sebago Lake in Maine. By this time Paul had built a nifty trailer to haul behind our car. We could store everything in it. He made a pull- down shelf so that I could prepare meals easily. As easily as you can do when you are camping. We now had bunk beds to sleep on. Things were getting pretty cushy in camping wonderland.


The kids loved swimming in the lake. We rented a motor boat to go "fishing". Paul hates fishing so he spent most of the time seeing how fast the boat could go. Once again, Kara was thrilled with Paul's speed. She sat in the front of the boat howling with laughter as we went crashing over the breakers. I was thinking how nice my bed was going to feel when I got home.

By the time little Damon came along the whole idea of the pampers/porta-crib thing became less appealing. I started craving a restful vacation. We would often get back from our camping trips wondering why we went when it was so much more peaceful at our own home. So we packed our camping equipment in the attic. Every once in a while I would move it around up there to make room for something I was packing away. Every once in a while I would want to go camping again. We had some great trips and wonderful memories. There is nothing that can beat sitting around a camp fire at night, talking and laughing and slowly eating a s'more. It's one of the best things you can do for your children. No Ipods, no Iphones, no laptops, no cell phones. Just being with each other.

Hate that flipper.

Yesterday I had the first installment of my implant........tooth implant, that is. The first installment involves extraction of the tooth and then the placing of the titanium device to which the new tooth will eventually be attached. Now comes the waiting period while the bone forms a good bond with the titanium device. It seems like such a long waiting period. It can be anywhere from 3 to 9 months. That could be as long as a pregnancy. They have given me a device, called a flipper, to wear in the interim so that I don't lose my lovely smile. It looks just fine and no one would ever know that I had a tooth taken out. In fact, it probably looks better than what I had there before. But let me say right now that I truly HATE this flipper. It is really uncomfortable. I have to learn how to talk all over again. I don't enjoy eating with this thing in my mouth. In fact, I dread eating with this thing in my mouth. If I wanted to lose weight this would be the perfect time. The thought of living with this thing for 9 more months is pretty dreary. Pregnancy was more comfortable than this thing.

Enough whining. I'm going to bed and read. I'm reading John Grisham's A Painted House. It's not like most of his books. I think I have enjoyed this one more than any of his others.

To brighten your day!

Brett has posted 3 new little video clips of the twins on his site. Click here if you want a chuckle!! Give them a few seconds to load.

Rhapsody in the rain

On my way home from Falls Village on Wednesday I stopped at the Falls Village Flower Farm. This is a really really really great place to buy plants. Several years ago the Scotts bought the house where our town librarian used to live and, through lots of work and love, have turned it into an impressive nursery.

Here is a picture of the Scotts taken from the fallsvillageblogspot blog.


I have never met Roberta Scott, but Tom is always there when I visit the farm. He is a very pleasant man who seems to enjoy plants and people. He is eager to answer all my silly gardening questions. They have some of the healthiest plants I have ever purchased. He says it is because his wife is a former nurse and gives the plants lots of TLC. "And a little bit of fertilizer doesn't hurt either", he says. Their prices aren't cheap but you get what you pay for.

When I went there on Wednesday it was drizzling. He came out to greet me in an old raincoat and very patiently stood in the rain while I chose my hostas. "It's kind of wet out", he said, "but it's a great day for planting". He was so right. I loaded my hostas in the station wagon and drove home to plant. Great day for planting if you're a plant. It was wet and humid and warm and muggy. I was slathered in mud. My hair frizzed up like a brillo pad. The mosquitos were attacking me with gusto. The sweatier I got the more attractive they thought I was. Once I planted my hostas I moved on to transplanting some lilies. Why stop when you're on a roll?

By the time I finished it was late afternoon. I went inside and peeled off my muddy, wet clothes. I felt cozy and comfy as I slipped into something warm and dry and sat down with a little glass of sherry on my porch. A small reward but oh so sweet at the end of a wet and muscle-punishing day.

Farmer Bob

I woke up this morning to the sound of raindrops against the window. A sound which signaled a shift in my usual outdoor activity. Sometimes it is a relief to have a changing weather pattern so that you have an excuse to shift gears. I used the opportunity to drive up to the town hall in Falls Village to take care of some business that I had been putting off.

When I arrived at the town hall and gave them my name I got the usual "Are you related to Peter Cortesi?" This question comes up alot. Everyone seems to have known Peter. Don't they remember Paul? The rumor mill once had me engaged to Peter. Oh boy. I explained that he was Paul's cousin and then said "I'm sure you knew my father, Bob Frueh". Instant smiles all around. "Oh yes. Farmer Bob!" I heard another voice in the background eagerly say, "Raw milk, right? Raw milk". A woman about my age scurries from the back room and says that she remembers buying milk from my father. She remembers picking it up in the milk house in their own personalized can. "Oh how rich and good that milk was", she reminisces. We both agree but also agree that we probably would find it too rich for our taste today. We admit that we both have weaned ourselves down to skim milk. Quite a difference. She said she still has the milk can.



This is the milk house where the customers picked up their milk. Eventually this building was torn down and a new milk house was built but it never was quite the same. This one had an old stone tub filled with cold water where the large milk cans rested until they were wheeled out to the road to be put on the milk platform to wait for the milk truck. You can see them sitting on the cart in front of the door ready for the trip down the driveway. The stone step in the doorway had been worn down to a saddle shape by many years of footsteps crossing over the threshold. The local garage always gave away a free "girlie calendar" each year, very tame by today's standards. My father would hang it on the back of the milk house door where, with a giggle, we would sneak a peek, feeling just a wee bit naughty. There was a cigar box over the refrigerator where people could leave the money for the milk. How trusting we were back then.

My father would carefully label each customer's milk can with their last name. The process was always the same. He would trace the letters on a piece of masking tape, cut out the letters, carefully place the tape on the can, paint over the letters and then slowly peel the tape off leaving bright red letters (always red) on a sparkling new aluminum can. Each time he had a new customer he would set up all his stenciling equipment on the kitchen floor to label a new can. I would kneel by his side and watch carefully the whole process, marveling at how neat and clean the name would appear when the took the tape off.

Lauri and I used to take trips to the milk house during the day to look in the refrigerator to see who was coming for milk. When we were young we were looking to see if any of our friends were expected to stop by to pick up milk. By the time we were entering our teens the thrill of the day was to see if there were any cute young male types who might be stopping by for a milk pick up.


Paul's family used to buy milk from us. I do NOT remember that at all. Why was he not one of the hot dudes that Lauri and I would watch for? Paul's mother kept their milk can. Several years ago she gave it to us. Whenever I glance at it I see the ghost of a little girl kneeling in front of her father as he carefully paints the letters with his large, work-worn hands. The little girl is thinking how much she enjoys being near her father. She is thinking that he is probably the smartest man in Falls Village. The father is thinking of how happy he is to have a new milk customer. That means a little more money in the bank. Neither of them knows that these brief, fleeting moments are making happy and comforting memories that will last forever.

A marathon of sorts

Last night I had an ironing marathon. I had piles and piles, really big piles, of ironing. I was going to take a picture of the piles but it was just too embarrassing. I found clothes that I had forgotten all about. I absolutely cannot iron unless I am watching television. Is there anyone who can simply stand at an ironing board for hours pushing an iron back and forth without some entertainment? I realize that most people, unlike me, do not have "hours" of ironing to do, but even to iron for 20 minutes blankly staring into space is torturous for me.

I found a good movie in the tv listings. I had already seen it twice but I love it so much that I had no problem watching it again. Have you seen "Immortal Beloved"? Interesting plot. Wonderful music. If you enjoy Beethoven's music then you should give this movie a try. My very favorite scene is the "Ode to Joy" scene. I feel like Pavlov's dog whenever I hear that music now. I have a strong desire to run out to the nearest lake at midnight and bob around in the water with the "Joy" music pounding in my head.

After two hours I made a significant dent in the laundry mountain. The next challenge is trying to find a place to put it all.

More outdoor working today. It was so hot. If you can really lose weight by sweating then I must weigh between 6 and 10 pounds by now. My reward was a relaxing dinner on the porch of grilled chicken, potato salad, zucchini from MY GARDEN and iced tea. As we ate we watched a deer lazily chomping on her clover dinner in the meadow and saw a porcupine slowly ambling down the driveway. I love my home.

Work-aholics

When we built our house 29 years ago our landscaping was as barren as the desert. There was NOTHING. One tree, no shrubs, no flowers. I am not a barren landscape person. I need to have trees around my house. When I am flying over the Midwestern states I love the look of the prairies with miles and miles of nothingness punctuated by the tell-tale signs of the presence of a home, a cluster of trees. Once we built our house we went to work planting. And we planted. And we planted. Now we have tall trees and bushes and flower gardens. And lots of work. And suddenly it feels like we have too much vegetation. We are starting to feel crowded and hemmed in. Things feel a little moldy. So this summer we have been pulling up some of the things that we so carefully put in 29 years ago.

I have been working myself into a frenzy thinning and pulling out lilac bushes. Paul hooked the tractor up to the rhododendron that has been shading our kitchen window and pulled it away. I can see again out of my window. There is light! We walk around the yard together pointing out branches, and trees, that need to be taken down to improve the view or brighten things up. I have been working every day since school got out undoing all my hard work of many years ago.

Yesterday I sweated and grunted in the hot and humid weather over the last set of lilac bushes. Now I can see the field when I sit down in my lawn chair.

Today I edged around my flower gardens and then did some weeding in the vegetable garden. My squash plants are huge this year. You can barely see me behind them. I think it has been good weather for growing things. There have been lots of hot sunny days ending in a little rain shower in the afternoon. Just enough rain to give the plants a good drink. Today there were more showers than usual. I hauled all my paraphernalia out to weed and then a shower would come. I'd huddle under the apple tree to stay dry and go back out until the next shower came along. It made for some pretty muddy clothes and frizzy hair. Once the thunder began, though, I was in the house for good.

Paul was equally busy today.





He put together a picnic table.

He installed the railings on our new porch steps.

And he worked on his house painting project. (He's going to kill himself)

At the end of the day he asked me if I wanted to go out to dinner. I didn't have to think about that one at all.

Have you seen one?

When I was walking through our old farmhouse on Wednesday something was said to me by the former owner that gave validation to something that I "saw" in that house when I was a child. I think my siblings know what I am going to say and are probably rolling their eyes at this point. I know they are probably sick to death (no pun intended) of hearing about this so I give them permission to log out and engage themselves in something much more interesting.

As we were walking through the house with the former owner on Wednesday we were talking about the interesting things in the house such as the wide old floorboards, fireplaces, etc. I jokingly said "and ghosts". The owner looked at me with his eyes opened wide and said "Oh yes, we have those, too. The lady with the old fashioned hat". OMG. Finally, someone who saw what I did. I always knew I wasn't dreaming. I am not cuckoo. What I saw was really and truly there.



It happened one night when I was about 10 or 12 years old. It can see it in my mind just as clearly today as the day that it happened. I was sleeping in the bedroom where the middle window is upstairs. I was awakened by a rustling of papers on my desk. I sat up in bed and looked over at my desk. There they were, two little people about 2 feet tall, dressed in Revolutionary War era clothing, standing on my desk. I sucked in my breath in surprise. They heard my gasp. They looked at each other, said "shhhh shhhh" (I don't know whether that was directed at me or each other) and then disappeared. I told everyone at the bus stop the next morning but didn't talk much about it after that because I could feel the words "kook" burning into my forehead.

The thing that always bothered me was why were they only 2 feet tall? One day about 20 years ago I happened to hear the Warrens, a couple famous for ghost hunting, being interviewed on a local radio station. They were taking call-in questions. I thought what the heck, I'm asking them about this. So I picked up the phone and called, trying to disguise my voice so no one would think that the local vet had a wife with a few missing marbles. I asked them what it meant when the apparition was only 2 feet tall. They were able to answer that easily. They said that sometimes the visions appear small or dim if your "energy" is weak. Small children usually have the strongest energy and it gets weaker as you get older.

I had another "event" a few years later when I was in high school. I was reading in bed at night and I suddenly heard a small child cough and cry. It was a croupy cough. I stopped and listened and it continued. I thought maybe it was Liz and crept down to her room to check but she was sleeping quietly. No crying, no coughing. She didn't even have a cold.

There was one other incident which happened with Henry. I don't know if he remembers this. Henry and I were in the house. My father was in the barn. My mother was away for an overnight visit, I think with the little Rapp family in Kerhonkson. We thought we would live it up a bit, practice at being real cool. We put a record on the record player, turned it WAAAAAAY up and were dancing up a storm. Suddenly we heard a TERRIFIC crash from his bedroom above us. I can remember it scared the heck out of us. Stopped us cold. We went up to see what had happened but nothing was out of place, nothing had fallen. Everything was where it should be. Hmmmmm. Angry spirits??

What I would like to know is if any of you have seen a ghostly specter yourself. I would love to hear your story if you have. I won't call you crazy. Promise.

Gus was here.

When I was a little girl there used to be a family who owned a summer home next door to us. "Next door" on the farm meant within reasonable walking distance but we couldn't see them. They had a boy about 4 years older than I and a girl one year older. The day that they arrived for the summer was like Christmas to Lauri and I. We would wait at the end of the driveway all day long, peering up the road for the sight of their car pulling up to their house. This was big excitement for two little farm girls from Falls Village.

Having neighbors was such a hoot for poor people-starved Lauri and I. From that moment on our summers were filled with playing caroms and pick-up sticks inside and sardines outside, baseball games on the lawn, building hay-forts in the hay-loft and pine forts under the pine trees and trips to the ice cream parlor. We laughed together. We played together. We were occasionally naughty together. They were great years.


By the time I was 11 or 12 they stopped coming to their summer home. The son was in college and life was changing for them. It was changing for us, too. We were on the brink of entering our teens and those sweet, innocent childhood days were soon to become only a memory, never to be captured again.

Yesterday Paul answered the phone and gave it to me saying, "Midge, it's someone who says he used to be your neighbor". I knew right away. I only ever had one neighbor. "Gus?" I asked. "You got it", he said.

He was visiting in the area with his wife and wanted to know if we could get together for lunch. I hadn't seen him in 50 years, which makes me sound much older than I feel. I met them at the inn where they were staying in Lakeville. As I drove over there it was all about deja vu. I drove past my old high school. I drove down the same road where I took my driving test. I drove past the house where Lauri's high school hot-flash lived. I drove past the house of my very best high-school friend where I spent so much time. I drove past Hotchkiss School where I went to church camp one year and fell in make-believe love for the first time with a boy from Yorktown Heights, New York. By the time I met Gus and his wife I was already living in the past.

We had such a nice visit. I don't think I have ever reunited with someone that I have not seen for that long. There is so much to catch up on. We went to lunch. Then he wanted to see Music Mountain. He knew he had been there as a child but he couldn't remember where it was. Then he wanted to see where he played baseball with Steve Blass. After that he thought it would be nice to stop by his old house and take a picture of him standing in front of it.


I snapped a picture of him and his wife. He told me that the yard of that house used to be LOADED with snakes. Those big black snakes. I didn't know that back then. I told him that it was a good thing he did not know of my snake-a-phobia or, knowing him, he would have terrorized me into a catatonic state. He said I was probably right.

He wanted to see our old farmhouse. The present owner was there and took us through the house. There are so many changes that have been made that it is almost unrecognizable. The one thing that Gus noticed was that the side door had been removed from the house and filled in. "The door's gone", he said. He can remember coming in that door everytime he came to the house. It was always open in the summer time, letting in the breeze and sunlight.

By this time Gus was going through caffeine withdrawl so we had to make a trip to the coffee shop to perk him back up again. Then it was on to home. I have been thinking all afternoon of more thoughts that I wanted to share with him. Reuniting with old friends and acquaintances is so special. There is a special bond that you once shared that suddenly makes your world very small and personal when you meet that person once again.

What are they??

The other day I was in the goat house (which has been upgraded to a storage shed now that we no longer have goats) pulling out some lawn chairs and I came across these tucked in the corner of the little hay mow. It has been a while since I have seen them. The former owner of our land had tossed them in the woods along with a variety of other items, such as old cars, that he no longer had any use for. Paul picked them up and used them as food dishes for the goats. I thought they would make great planters to use on the stone wall that Paul built in front of our Belly Acres room. Can anyone guess what they are?????????? You can click on the picture to enlarge it for a better look.

You're going to kill yourself................

Today was the first day that it really, finally, felt like summer. It was HOT. The trees and grass are green and full and at their prime. It just felt really good. It felt good until I went to K-Mart this morning to buy some potting soil for all those plants that I haven't yet had a chance to pot. The summer section with the lawn chairs and tables was cleaned out.....bare and empty. In it's place they were arranging "Back To School" displays of notebooks, pens and lunch boxes. Back To School?? What is going on? I haven't even had a chance to put out all my lawn chairs yet and we're already thinking Back To School. That is SO depressing. Isn't summer just beginning?? I hate to have my seasons rushed.

Paul and I had a non-stop working weekend. We both have so many projects that need doing. I could probably work until I'm 95 and still have a to-do list.



The "twins" spent this lazy hot day doing wonderfully lazy things like this. Oh to be a cat.




I made two trips to the nursery this weekend and then spent most of today digging up a new area around the foundation so that I could plant the new shrubs I bought. It wasn't lazy but it was VERY hot. I headed straight for the shower when I was done because I really could not stand to be with myself. That and a dinner of cold tuna-macaroni salad, watermelon and cold home-brewed iced tea followed by a trip to Nellies for ice cream made a perfect ending to the day.



Paul spent the day doing foolishly dangerous things, like climbing on the roof to repair some rotted sills he found. Did you ever see the move " A Christmas Story" about the little boy who wants a BB gun for Christmas? Every time he mentions it his mother and father they say "You're going to shoot your eye out". My life is beginning to sound like a re-make of that movie because everything that Paul does lately I feel the need to respond with "You're going to kill yourself". He jerry-rigged a couple of ladders in a weird and wacky way today to climb up on the roof to repair the sills. ("You're going to kill yourself"). The safety guard broke on his electric saw but he continued using it. ("You're going to kill yourself"). He insists on painting the house himself rather than hiring someone which would be fine if we had a ranch, but that peak above the attic window 30 feet off the ground is VERY high when you're 65. One little mis-step or back spasm could spell disaster ("You're going to kill yourself"). Paul's mother called today. I told her that he was planning on painting the house himself. She said, "What? Is he crazy? He's going to kill himself!"

Beautiful dirt

Several years ago the City of Torrington was offering compost bins at a very discount price, probably in an attempt to encourage people to recycle so there would be less of a strain on the city's "sanitation services". We bought one to replace the old homemade wooden slatted thing that Paul had made. We've been making daily schlepps ever since to dump our garbage, along with an occasional paring knife or silverware item. But we have never used the end result, the compost.

Today I was planting some shrubs. They are guaranteed for a year as long as "planted as instructed". One of the instructions is to put a layer of compost in the hole. If my shrubs should die and I have to ask for a replacement I know they would list every item on the instruction list and ask if I had done it. I am the world's worst liar so I knew I better follow everything to the letter so that I wouldn't have to practice my poker face. I took a walk over to the compost bin and opened the little door at the bottom for the first time in years. And out poured the most beautiful dirt. Along with a few bottle caps and rubber bands (but no silverware). I mean, this was beautiful stuff. I am in awe that disgusting decaying banana peels, lettuce, oranges and tomatoes can somehow magically turn into this beautiful dirt. That is some weird process.

They're baaaaaaaaa(t)ck.

Three years ago we had a bat invasion in our attic which resulted in me getting a series of rabies shots. We found their exit/entry point, sealed it up and were free of bats, for a while. It looks like they have returned.

Paul was in the attic the other night to get the exhaust fan going when he noticed a bat flying around. We were hoping it was just a lost little bat trying to find it's way out. Just to make sure, he went up to the attic Wednesday to check the situation out. He shone the flashlight up in the little space between the chimney and the rafters and, sure enough, that is where the little critters are hanging out during the day.

It looks like we are just going to have to share our living quarters with them until September. What we have up there right now is the maternity ward. They have just had their little babies. The little wee ones are unable to fly until the end of August so if we seal up the exit/entry point at night when all the adults are out snatching bugs now we will seal the babies in and create quite an odor as they die off. I'm going to have to sit outside for a few nights and see if I can see where their entrance/exit is so we know what to seal off. I did read that bats like to return to the same place year after year. UGH. We better do a darn good job of sealing this time. It doesn't bother me terribly that they are up there. But I'm not going to be spending much time hanging out in the attic.

On the garden front, I have a question that I don't have an answer for but maybe there is some very bright gardening guru out there who can answer it for me. Paul gave me some weed cloth to use in my vegetable garden. When I went to lay it down I noticed that there are two sides, a fuzzy side and a shiny side. Does anyone know which side is up?? Does it make any difference? Paul said that there were instructions that came with the roll but he threw them away because, as you know, men don't need or use intructions. Right?? Paul said it doesn't make any difference which side is up, but he is always making things up.

This was the 4th of July????

I love the 4th of July. It is my favorite holiday. I love it more than Christmas or Thanksgiving. I love the patriotism. I love the flags waving. I love the grilled food and the picnics. I love the fireworks. I love the watermelon. I love being outside. I love the relaxed feel of the day. I love the music. I love the families getting together and lounging in the shade in their lawn chairs and splashing in the pool. I love the lightening bugs. I love hearing the neighbor's fireworks going off all day. I love when the smell of whatever high cholesterol food the neighbors are grilling drifts down into our valley. I love it all.

Today won the prize for the ugliest, most boring 4th of July I have EVER spent. The weather was so very un-typically 4th of July-ish. It started out as overcast. Then it started lightly showering. Then it poured. The temperature hovered around 65. Ugh. Ugh. Ugh. I had great plans to work outside all day. I stayed outside until about 3, even in the rain. But I finally got so wet and cold that I had to call it a day.

It was a pretty solitary day. Paul and I didn't see anyone but each other. Ho hum boring. Tonight we lit a fire in the stove in the Belly Acres room and listened to the rain on the roof as we ate a very un-summerlike meal. Tonight I watched a movie with popcorn and cocoa. Fire in the stove, cocoa?? I don't think I have ever done that on the 4th of July.

A Birthday Boy

I can barely remember the day he was born. I remember being sent to stay somewhere........was it Bornemann's or Aunties in Lakeville....for a week. I remember trips to the hospital with Daddy. We weren't allowed in the hospital but Lauri and I would stand underneath mother's window and wave to her. I remember feeling really happy that there was a new baby in the family. I remember coming home from wherever we had been parked for a week and seeing mother at the door with something wrapped up in a blanket in her arms. She couldn't have given me a better gift.


As a big sister I always felt a bit protective of this cute little brother. In a way I suppose it was my training for motherhood. I can remember going into his room one night during a thunder storm. He was frightened. I took him to the window and tried to show him the beauty in the storm rather than the fierce intensity. But trying to ease his fear of snakes was going above and beyond the duty of a big sister. Just couldn't do it. Sorry about that, Henry.

Life with Henry has always been about good moments. Baseball on the front lawn.......all summer long. Hide and seek outside at night. Cap guns. Red Ball Jets that made him jump higher than anyone else. Ouija boards that said scary things. Stupid bipe and song dong booth. Big Three Theatre. Captain Kangaroo. Watching the test pattern. Dunny. Hay forts. Sledding. Shoveling the driveway together (until he got a "headache" and had to go inside). Catching fireflies. Ruthless badminton games. Laughing at the dinner table. It was all so good. I'm glad mother didn't stop at two.

Happy Birthday, little brother.

Garden fatigue

Oh my oh my oh my. I am so sore and so tired and I can't wait for a long hot shower and a soft bed and a good book. It has been a gardening weekend. I spent half of Friday and all day yesterday hauling mulch to the new garden that I made last summer. Lots of heavy work but it looks so good. Much better than the tangle of wild rose bushes that was there last summer.

Last night I started weeding my veggie garden and worked on it again today from 9:30 to 5:00. What a job. I looked at it yesterday and saw nothing but a vast sea of green, as in green weeds. They were overtaking the place. They weren't the kind that were easy to pull, either. They were the hateful little things that have their bodies so tightly twisted into the ground that they break off at the top when you try to pull them out, leaving the roots in the ground to grow another day. There is so much dirt jammed under my fingernails that I could start a new garden there. I'm 90% finished. A little more work tomorrow and then I will be free to start another garden project. It never ends.

The book I'm looking forward to reading tonight is the last of Anne Morrow Lindbergh's diaries, The War Within and Without. I am so sorry that it is the last of her diaries because I have enjoyed them so much. This one is fascinating because it is written during the WWII years. It is really interesting to read someone's thoughts on the war knowing what we know now. Even in 1940 she, and most people, still had no idea of the atrocities of Hitler.

As I read through this book it I often think of what I read somewhere not too long ago. In a survey adults were asked what one subject in high school would they like to take over again if they had the chance. Interestingly, the majority said history. I have always felt that would be my choice. Especially American History. And it was a subject I truly hated in high school. A subject I was in danger of failing. I was so incredibly bored in class. My favorite position in class.......arms folded on desk, head in arms, eyes closed. I was SO BAD. And now I find it fascinating and wish I could teach it so kids would find it as interesting as I do. Maybe it's because we look at it with a different perspective as adults and can see the relationship between then and now.

What subject would you like to take over if you had the chance???