AUGUST 2021

Today is HOT!  The temperature is over 90° with 88% humidity, 102° heat index.  We have two more days of this.  It's days like this that make fall seem a lot more appealing. Graymare, I know you are more accustomed to having days like this, but it is a little unusual here.

Our temp is 90 with 44% humidity...........it rained all morning........a good gentile soak in rain...........

We had company for lunch............yum..........AND, lunch was great.............

No other news...........

We brought Ace home on Friday.  Such a sad sad day.    His urn arrived not long after we got back home.  Talk about God's timing.  George got busy building Ace a little memorial wall.  We sat down and went thru Ace's photo album, laughing and crying at some of the antics the photos show.  Ace picking apples off the tree, chasing the snow shovel, kissing his animal friends.  What a special dog he was and always will be to those who knew him.  





It's going to be HOT HOT HOT here too.  100 tomorrow...And we have to pick about 200 ears of corn to give away.  Of course, we would pick the hottest day of the summer to pick a bunch of corn.  Kinda like the putting up hay days, we always seemed to choose the hottest day to be up in the hayloft throwing bales of hay around.  We don't miss those days.

We had a little excitement the other morning.  A skunk was attacking the cats.  Oiley who is the biggest scared cat ever, actually stood his ground and refused to let the skunk get any closer to the house.  Oiley is the cat who leaped 5 feet straight up when a bug touched his nose.     I was proud of Oiley...he is taking over Ace's house protector job.  

Stay healthy and safe and cool....

TRUDY:
That's a sweet memorial of Ace.
So did the skunk spray the cats?


It was nice and cool last week, but it has made up for it this week. We aren't getting 100 degree temps, thankfully, but around 90 is enough. I guess our elevation keeps us a little cooler. It's going to cool off this coming weekend. I am glad we aren't putting up hay in this weather!

There is going to be a hay shortage this year here. People are already talking about how the hay crops are going to be less because of the dry weather. We did finally have a little thunderstorm yesterday after a couple of weeks of no rain at all. We need it.

The weatherman was wrong again, unless you count the heat index, then he got it right. He had been forecasting yesterday's high to be 102. Didn't quite make it there, until you add in the heat index then we may have gone above it. I know when I was feeding last night the air actually felt thick and heavy. Because of the heat we had a lot of thunder and lightning, last night, but little rain. It was thundering again this morning when I went out to feed so I left all the horses in the barn so they could eat their hay in peace. I'll go home at noon to let them out or refill water buckets depending on what the weather is doing by then.

Lovely tribute to ACE. I think kitty needs to rethink who he's going to stand up to though. Did he get sprayed?

Elkhart is going to have go cart races this weekend. The street in front of my office is part of the race track and will be closed off starting tonight. Parking for the rest of the week is going to be interesting to say the least. I hope it cools off some by this weekend.

Indy, since your parking lot is part of the race track, I think they should call off work for the rest of the week.
According to the forecast, Friday is supposed to be a lot better than today and tomorrow.  I know what you mean by the air feeling thick and heavy.  With 90%+ humidity, I guess that's to be expected.
We got just a little bit of rain during the night, but not much.  Lots of lights and noise, little rain.

This past Christmas, my cousins and I postponed our gift exchange. It will happen this year instead of last year. However, one cousin and I always exchange our own gifts. I made her a sweater and gave it to her last January. Two weeks ago, she gave me the one she had for me. Don't you dare laugh. (at least not too loud). She gave me a little drone. Yes, one of those things that has 4 helicopter blades. It is operated from my phone.
Alex was handy, so he got it set up and running in about 3 minutes flat. It took me a little longer. I haven't run any radio controlled toys in YEARS, so I'm not good at it. However, I did manage to get it flying around the living room. Fortunately, it has a "slow" mode, so I have at least a small shot at being able to fly and land without crashing into walls or ceilings - yet.
This is not a big drone and won't fly far or high. Just enough to have some fun with it. I have to admit, it's FUN! So, now you can laugh at the old lady sitting in her living room trying to fly a quad-copter.

ELLEN, cool. You will now be our official drone expert...............You're now capable of going outside and going after geese and anything that is making a pest of itself in your yard.

We ad more rain today.......at least we've gotten it reasonable doses........parts of this area have not.

TRUDY, what a beautiful tribute to Ace.......Thanks for sharing.

Oh gads, I've let this sit so long it might not take my post.

Good night. God bless.

Graymare, I'm laughing at your thought of sending the drone to scare away the geese in my yard. Quite a few years ago, I bought a "goose getter", otherwise known as the world's weakest BB gun. I think I could throw the BBs as hard as it shoots them. It just barely reaches the lower yard, but it does the job. In the early summer, they are most likely to come up on the yard with their dozens of goslings. But, something comes at them from my bedroom door that they don't like. I never aim at the babies that don't have thick feathers. The BBs just bounce off the adults and don't do anything but startle them.
After a few years, the geese learned and as soon as the door opens, they head for the water.
It isn't that I don't like the geese, but 50+ of them leave an awful mess.
It's also going to take a lot more flight practice before I can make the drone go exactly where I want it to.

Nope Oiley cat didn't get sprayed. It was a stand off with the skunk bouncing at him and Oiley puffing up and looking like a mountain Lion. The skunk gave in and went in another direction. More skunks here, we have had 4 in 3 days. One of them was almost totally white. George has been shooting at them to scare them away. We don't want to kill them in the yard cause we don't want to have to pick them up and get rid of them.

Ellen: good luck with the drone and the geese.

It's 96 here today. We spent the morning picking corn. 10 dozen for Ruth, 10 dozen for Sharon, 2 dozen for Bev. That is WORK...picked early this morning before it got too hot.

Our neighbor brought down green beans, tomatoes and cukes this morning. So glad we didn't plant a garden other than the corn.

My girlfriends were here this morning for our little coffee group meeting. Such a fun time. We had fruit, nut & poppy seed rolls to munch on.

Yesterday we had storms roll through starting around 1:00.  We lost our power at the office and after awhile decided to call it quits and go home.  Power was on at the office first thing this morning.  Probably because they want to make sure there is power for the go cart races this weekend.   Lots of people still are without power at 4:00 on Thursday and ETA for some to be repaired is 6:00 p.m. FRIDAY!  I've been fortunate that I haven't lost power at home,(that I know of) nor did I have any big trees or tree limbs come down for once.

I have NO hand eye coordination. I can't play video games and I wouldn't be able to fly your drone ELLEN.  I sure wouldn't try flying it in the house.  I do like the idea of using it to chase geese.  We have geese all over the place at the office as we are close to the river and they are soooo messy.  I also like the idea of plinking BBs off of them.  LOL

MG that's a lot of corn! Do you freeze it? I planted 2 tomato plants and 3 varied colored pepper plants. I have tomatoes coming out of my ears. I take them to work and put them on a stand next to the road to give them away. The peppers are slow. One plant will be yellow/orange peppers and has one that is almost ready to pick. One of the other plants is suppose to be red and the third purple, but so far they are green. The only other thing I planted this year was a short row of beets and carrots. Neither of which have amounted to much. I think all the nutrients went to the tomatoes.

Indy, our neighborhood will have a seafood boil in September. The neighbor who is hosting it bought a bunch of fresh corn on the cob. She blanched it, we vacuum sealed it, and put it in her freezer. We did that last year with great success.
Now if we could just figure out how to do that with tomatoes.....

INDY: We do freeze a little for ourselves for the long winter, but we give the majority of the corn away to
family, friends & neighbors. Picking a little more this morning to deliver to our freind Dee. It has been a great year for the corn. We turned 1/4 of the old riding arena into a garden a few years ago, now it is just a corn field. Our younger neighbors grow the veggies and we grow the corn & trade off.

ELLEN: The drone is a great idea, we could buzz the skunks but I wonder if Oiley Cat would attack and knock it down. Probably... now that he is the tough guy around here. Or one of the rednecks who live around here would shoot it down. LOL No skunks this morning. HOORRAYYYYY

We had another house shaking storm last night, this was a bad one. Woke me right up and made me think how glad I am that Ace isn't here hiding and shaking during the storm.

Did anyone see the "Field of Dreams" game last night. I'm not especially a baseball fan and I've never seen the movie. The opening to the game was really neat, starting with Kevin Costner coming out of the cornfield onto the field, followed by all the players of both teams. It was a storybook ending with the last White Sox coming to bat and hitting a home run into the corn to win the game.
I'm sure there will be videos of all that somewhere online.

I was going to mow my yard this afternoon, and was waiting for the grass to dry a little more before I did it. Before that happened, Two-Doors-Over Neighbor did it for me. What a great neighborhood to live in!

As a small 'thank you' to my yard mowing neighbors, I made a breakfast casserole and delivered it hot to them this morning. It is a very easy one to make, very good, and will serve several people. Here is the link if you'd like to try it.
https://www.keyingredient.com/recipes/815375043/grands-biscuit-breakfast-casserole/

ELLEN:
That breakfast looks yummy! Nice idea for the neighbors.
I didn't see the Field of Dreams ballgame, but did see several snippets about it. It appears to have been a great success! I bet they all had such fun.


Corn on the cob.....


It has been very hot here, too. Not 100, thank goodness. I don't think I could deal with that very long. We did finally start getting some afternoon thunderstorms. We really need them for our hay. I am looking forward to the 75 degree temps and low humidity!

I gave away a pint of blood yesterday. Not many people there, unfortunately. I was in and out in about a half hour, a new record for me. The air conditioning was nice.

Hang on, Trudy and Ark. Perfect weather is on the way. Today has been just gorgeous.

My friend's sister and her hubby went to the DREAM game. They were in the outer area, not the grand stands.
We heard the seats were $2500 and up. Whew!!! Anyhow, they had a great time with their friends.

It's another dreary hot humid day................no rain today...........

This turned out to be a super nice day. Late last evening, Angie and her husband and boys called to ask if they could come up today. Of course, they could. They got here around noon. Matt cut some useless weeds, swept duck "leavin's" off the dock, and fixed my lawn tractor. Then we borrowed a neighbors' pontoon and went for a ride. (I love my neighbors.) The jet ski was a little low on gas and there was no place to get more without driving into town, so it didn't get as much exercise as intended. There was a fairly strong wind and lots of boats on the big lake, so it was pretty rough out there anyway.
We came back and just hung out and enjoyed being at the lake.
After dinner, they loaded up and headed for home.
It was a very comfortable and peaceful day.
The good news is they will be back on Labor Day weekend to stay a couple of days.

It was a beautiful weekend here. I never made it to the go cart races downtown but the news reports sound as if all went well. Except for the guy who fell off the bridge. I haven't heard how he fell off, but according to the guy he was with bumps and bruises were the only injuries. There was also a Bluegrass festival in the town just over the county line. I didn't make it to that either but I'm friends with one of the organizers and Saturday she put word out that they had already sold out of all the baked goods. I bet the ovens were going all of Saturday night to have more goodies for Sunday.

What I did get done were the stalls stripped, part of the pasture mowed, the back yard mowed, grocery shopping, and weeding the flower bed. Only got part of the pasture mowed because all the lights on the tractor came on that it was overheating so I stopped. Now I have to figure out why. I made a big pot of spaghetti that will last us a couple of days, I also found out that Madison (9) only likes spaghetti and sauce, no meat in the sauce. eww. Chase (4) will eat meat sauce but didn't like that I cut up the spaghetti. He couldn't twirl it much.

Kids can be picky eaters. The younger one who was here Sunday only eats things with cheese in them. He flatly refuses to even try anything different. Just getting him to eat ANYTHING is a struggle.
I have to admit to not being an adventurous eater, but my mother let me know from an early age, when she cooked dinner there were no other options. I HAD to at least taste everything. She was a very good cook, so there was no danger of me being malnourished.

We had a huge storm last night.............it did not have damage right here but other parts of the valley
had a huge leftover of mess, flooding, trees down, and several stupid drivers that needed rescuing.
There also was a truck struck by lightening and burned. We have been blessed so far.

We have huge mowing to be done which can't be done until Friday as it is so wet......No way can the horses eat
the weeds..............

Everyone have a great evening............God bless.

We got a lot of rain yesterday and last night from Fred. I haven't been out yet to see if anything flooded, but we worked on the ditching around the barn and it should have been okay. We were under a tornado watch last night, not something we usually have here. We needed the rain, now we need some dry to do our hayfields. The major rain is past us now.

Our lady farrier is coming this morning to do pony and donkey feet. I may try to talk her into doing Ivan's to relieve Donnie of his trimming duty this time. Ivan is the only one Donnie is trimming these days and he does a good job, but it is hard on his knees. Our new farrier calls herself The Donkey Dame. She lives very close by, but travels a lot to do mostly ponies and donkeys.

Cactus Jack acted a little colicky a couple of days ago, but seems to have gotten over it. He is 24 years old now, so I tend to watch him more closely than I used to. I heard minimal gut sounds and he didn't take a treat, which for him is a major sign of discomfort. I rubbed his ears and sides and he got better. He is now our oldest equine since Zippy died and the last animal we brought from our former home. He's a sweet donk.

Ark, I was just thinking about Cactus Jack this morning, wondering how old he is. How old is Trinket?

No storms here today.............Phoenix and Scottsdale still are drowning. Globe is awful with so
many displaced.........also Gila Bend..............It's just astoundingly sad.

I'm hoping our ground is dry enough to mow on Friday.

I'm going out for lunch tomorrow and dropping off 2 huge bags of clothes new underwear and sox for
adults and children.

That's it for here...........

Pray for our country..............

Our states damage from Fred was minor.   We had a lot of rain but no mass flooding like they were calling for.  The weekend weather was great but the heat returned and brought the humidity with it.

We just picked about 200 ears of corn to donate to our church food pantry.  WHEW  that is a lot of work.  I'll be so happy when this corn picking is over with.  More picking tomorrow...eventually I'll have time to get some in the freezer myself. 

We had a new great grandson born on the 16th.  Bowen James 7 pounds 3 oz.  

What a nightmare is going on with our country.  Everyone is so fearful and angry.  God help us.  Talked to daughter Heather who lives in the suburbs of Pittsburgh and she said "you can't even imagine how difficult things are in the big city."  She is talking about trying to move her family to the country, if things get any worse.  What a mess...

Pray for our country.

Congratulations on the new great-grandson.

I have been praying for this country for a very long time. It's a mess.


Just to change the subject.... This morning, I drove a neighbor to a place to pick up their small motorhome that had been repaired. That place was very close to "Sweet Corn Charlie's". That is a farm that grows acres and acres of sweet corn. They pick it early in the morning and sell it the same day. They have several roadside stands all around this area. This is the main farm where they grow it. We picked up a dozen ears and shared them.
When I got them home, I looked it up to see if they could be blanched in the microwave. Yes, they can. So, I chopped off the butt end, peeled off a couple of the outer layers of husks, popped them in the microwave for 6 minutes (4 ears), pulled them out, grabbed the tops of the husks with the silks and shook them until they fell out of the remaining husks, and right into ice water. The dreaded silks just slid right off with the remaining husks. Then I vacuumed sealed them and put them in the freezer. No mess to clean up.
That was the easiest processing I've ever done. I will definitely get some more to last through the winter.