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Norma's Wanderings around a small section of Montana |
The days are getting shorter and the nights a little cooler. With September 1, more than the WDC birthday is afoot in my little kingdom. Fall is definitely in the air. School has started. Windows stay closed. The sun sets earlier and rises later. The sunlight seems less intense. We are harvesting the garden bit by bit. But I tell you what, the mess behind me, the one I've told you about, is continuing to grow. Mercy! Now there are more branches, more cut logs. another table saw. There are baby clothes on hangers on a clothes rack. A large green ladder appeared as well as three baby bouncy seats. Soon there won't be room in the driveway for the big white truck that drops off these items nightly. The couch is still there, the wooden table, the wooden chairs, the storage unit: still there. And we just had a whopper of a rain storm the other night. So Now I am thinking this is a hoarding situation?? We've talked about what will happen if they, meaning the mysterious occupants of this house, park in our drive, miniscule as it is, in front of our garage. If we get blocked in, we are calling the sheriff. No walking over to the house. No talking to them. You just don't park without permission in someone else's space. Then today we hear a chainsaw. A few doors down, someone is cutting down all the lovely lilac bushes. Cutting down a plum tree. Oh mercy, I never like to see trees or bushes of any sort cut down. Trimmed, pruned, of course. But eliminated? No. Getting things to grow here are difficult enough. Some lilacs in town are decades old, if not hundreds of years old. Then again, it's their property. We just recently planted a new lilac bush and are protecting some old bushes. We lovingly water them in the summer, protect them from deer until they get a little larger. And greenery helps the environment. Shade in the summer. Oxygen. Sigh... I do have a plan. I am going to the city offices come Tuesday. Complaining. May not help, might work. Oh, and another thing happened to end my summer with a bang. I woke up yesterday with eye pain and a huge red eye. We had to go to Billings for my knee MRI, so I stopped at the eye doctor. He checked it out. Yes, spontaneous hemorrhage. But it will resolve. But look at this Norma. You have something else happening in your eye's interior. Perhaps we need to check out this anomaly in a month. Glaucoma was tossed about. Ever felt like you are in a tiny ship on the ocean being tossed about, clinging to the mast?? That's me. |
I have nothing new to report on the neighbor across the alley. Stasis is good. I like that. But now I am watching something on Netflix,. The series about Marco Polo. I don't know how authentic the history is. But I found this little tidbit: Kung Fu - supreme skill from hard work. That was the definition given to Marco Polo by the man training him in the art of Kung Fu back in the 1200's. So he states anyone can learn Kung Fu by repetition of anything, such as sweeping steps, being a masterful servant, a calligrapher, a poet, a painter, a cook. Practice, endless repetition to achieve Kung Fu. I guess in my Western mind the equivalent is 'practice makes perfect'. You don't play a concerto the first time you sit at the piano. You don't paint like Renoir the first time you pick up a paintbrush. So we write, and write and rewrite. To someday achieve in the Eastern way of thinking 'Kung Fu'. |
Update! Well folks, the mess behind us is growing yet again. Sort of like a volcano and some slow moving lava,. Added to the other accumulated 'stuff' are multiple branches from trees and whatnot, a baby walker, and more boxes. Gracious...as long as they don't start parking in front of our garage door, I guess I'll just shake my head, complain again. Telling the city is of no effect. There is a 'compliance officer' but he does virtually nothing. Quite disheartening actually. Then we have dogs. Dogs, dogs, dogs, barking, barking, barking. The ones next to us, they have three, barked for at least an hour, maybe longer, last night. Their house is just a few yards from ours. Their windows are open, I am on my front porch. A Weimaraner, a little shaggy dog and a not-quite adult shaggy dog. All barking out the open windows. Oh my. Now I am a dog lover, but after an hour of full-on loud barking I was having some not-so-nice thoughts about that trio. So I gathered my laptop, my books, my papers and stomped upstairs. There I can turn on a box fan full blast and tune them out. I am off to the Library Book Sale. This once-a-year event has hundreds of used books to peruse. I need more books. As if... |
![]() ![]() So that is the mess I've been ranting about. Now, I don't have a cell phone. So this picture was taken from my garden with an old Nikon point and shoot. But, I think you get the picture...or at the least the idea... |
Okay for those of you that caught the drama yesterday, the saga continues. And the mess behind me grows. Somehow, I am thinking the woman who claims she moved into this house may actually be living in the driveway. Let's see, she has a stove, refrigerator, a table and chairs, a couch. a dining room table. a shelf unit. There is now also a microwave cart with dishes on it, wood pallets, tires, items in boxes. Earlier a truck pulled up with sheets of plywood in the back. How do I know all this? I can see this from my garden, which I go to daily now to pick tomatoes. And while I am checking for tomatoes and doctoring my kale for little tiny flea beetles and picking potato bugs off my remaining potato plants, I can see the flea market pile growing beyond the alley behind this house. But there is a deadline I can see coming. Rain. Rain from that Hilary storm that is threatening all of the SW of the United States. We actually had a wind storm yesterday into last night. Wind gusts up to 70 MPH were reported in the area. So if there is anything worse than junk in a yard, it's wet junk in your yard. Perhaps some of you don't believe this. Perhaps I'll get photo evidence, Stay tuned, |
So, the house behind us, just beyond the alley, is becoming a bit of a mess. At first I saw one dog. Then I heard screeching like nails on a blackboard one day. Did I mention this before? That was a wee puppy in the heat several days ago. Two dogs. Then the other day I saw another wee pup. Just a few days after that, another dog appeared. So now four dogs. In a postage-stamp sized yard. All day alone. In the 100° heat. Barking. Crying. And then there is the junk. I think it is breeding. At first there were boxes. Then a shelf appeared the next day. Then we saw a table and chairs. Then a stove and refrigerator and a band-saw. And now there are pallets and about 4 tires. Oh, and a couch. The driveway is becoming crowded. I'm not sure if this is going to become a flea market. When the garage door was open the other day, there was so much junk in there you could not park a car in it. I forgot to mention the 15 plants outside the garage door that are now wilted and probably dead. Am I living in some sort of alternate reality or are they? We try to keep our place as neat as we can. You know, trash picked up, yard mowed. House looking nice. We never let our dog bark for hours when she was alive. Egads. Perhaps they are aliens come to steal what is left of my sanity. They aren't aware of the rules here on Earth. Or at least the rules about pet ownership. If it gets too much worse, I will complain to the city. But they won't believe the alien claim, so I'll have to come up with a real valid problem. |
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This past week I've been in a self-exile of sorts. I injured my knee, and so have been sticking close to home, my bed and couch, ice and painkillers. Bugger. But I have read some, and watched some interesting computer videos. One thing I did watch was a British cooking series. It is on Netflix, and this is from 2018. So far I've watched season 2 only, so I need to find season 1. 'The Big Family Cooking Showdown'. It's actually quite amusing. No big prize that I can tell, just the pat on the back as the best family team. The teams were three people from the same family. Mother or father or child or aunt or uncle or cousin. You get the picture. There were 16 families to start. So you watched 4 families cook at one time, then they were winnowed down to the final four. I did make a few notes of some funny lines. And the interactions of the groups as they cooked, well, they were amusing and sometimes hard to watch as well. “Treat night - and nothing says treat night like half a lobster’s head on your plate.” “So you season. If it calls for one teaspoon chili - and you put in 4 tablespoons - you’ve created …LAVA!!!” “Got a watch on?” “Yep, it’s 10 to shut up..” “We try to buy most things British” “It's hard to buy British bananas.” “We don’t have anything to worry about, cake baking isn’t an exact science.” “Where did you read that? Jack and Jill make cakes?” So entertainment til I get the old knee examined on Monday. |
I'm just going to put this out here. If one more thing that disrupts my life happens, well, you'll hear the primal scream from your armchair. Now it's the knee. And like three others in my church, my left knee. What the heck... Yesterday we took my son-in-law to the airport. He spent several days with us after a conference in Big Sky, MT. Okay, nice time had by all. At 4:30 AM, we start to load up the borrowed truck. We still don't have our new vehicle. Sigh. Anyhoo, I think, okay, he is getting out first, he has a big cup of coffee, I'll get into the small seats behind the two main seats in the truck cab. Right. I step up to get in, and feel a 'pop'. I think, that's not right. And sure enough. Something is not right. I couldn't put weight on my leg, couldn't move that leg. Pain. So we drop off the passenger and go back to our motel room to rest a bit before we do shopping. And, nope, no rest. I am hurting, bad. So I tell hubby, we're going to the ER - which is right around the corner. Hubby pulls up the truck while I wait. He is blocking the traffic line as I get to slowly moving toward him. A real jerk starts screaming profanities and honking his horn. So hubby pulls up the truck this guy screeches out of the parking lot. Good gravy. That on top of a painful knee set me off. So I am now so upset as we get to the ER. Long story short, I either have a severe strain/sprain or an ACL rupture. I now have another Ortho appointment on Monday to find out more. I was sent home with narcotics for pain. And also a spray in case of overdose. ??? Since when is that a requirement?? Oh, and I also had to see the eye doctor for an eye infection yesterday. Mercy sakes. I am spending today in bed, leg elevated. Icing off and on. Eye drops. Pain pills. Eye wash. Tomorrow has got to be better. |
We're heading down to the finish line in the garden and I think the bugs know it. I for the first time have potato bugs. These little guys showed up a few days ago with a whole army. So hubby and I have been picking them off, putting them into a 5-gallon bucket with a thin layer of Lysol. (My friend used to pick them off when she was little and get paid a penny a bug.) That is as far as we go with pesticides. We don't spray for bugs in our yard or garden. I want bugs, the good kind, and bees and birds. Insecticides and pesticides are bad for all those. I did see some ladybugs in the garden. Good. I also saw a praying mantis type thing today. Good. Also lots of bees. Good. In my garden, I have lots of potatoes, kale, beets, carrots, tomatoes. I also have some butternut squash coming on. I didn't plant that. I guess it's just a 'volunteer'. I also planted some cantaloupe, but it may not be ready before the weather turns cold. We also have a raspberry plant, but it never produces berries. So it just happily sits in a corner. Grasshoppers are also trying to wreak havoc this year. But we read somewhere that baking soda hampers their ability to eat. So we've been spreading that about. They seem to be a little affected. Not eliminated, but lessened a bit. So we're dealing with some hot temps for another day or so, then back to manageable 70's and 80's. But it's summer. I like hot. I don't have a problem with hot. |
We're in the midst of a hot spell here. 90's, 100's. Dry and hot. But you know, it's summer. It's supposed to be hot. I survived without A/C growing up in hot and humid NE Ohio. And our bedroom faced West at night. Egads. Many a hot sweaty uncomfortable night. And riding in cars? You just hoped for a fast ride with the windows down. So get used to being hot in summer, cold in winter. Quit whining about the weather. It could always be worse. My cousin and her husband visited on Sunday. They have a heck of a pickle. They are traveling in an RV and somehow the towing mechanism for their car has drained their battery. So they are locked out of their car. Because they have one of those fancy-fancy keyless entry thingies. Ha! Stupid is all I can think. Give me a good old fashioned key and lock any day. No computerized gadgets that can go flujey and leave you high and dry and locked out of things. They couldn't even call OnStar - no power - no entry. They did call me a day after they left and tell me they figured out how to get in. And they have an appointment with someone in CO to look at the problem. They live in AZ. We are still waiting for our vehicle. It's still in VA. Hubby needs to fly or take the train back to pick it up whenever the son-in-law has a fixed it up. It's an older Jeep. So we are still borrowing a truck. But I find myself not wanting to drive it anywhere. So I walk everywhere. And right now I am walking back and forth to church for our Vacation Bible School program this week. We knew of at least 10 children that would attend. We are now up to 25. Amazing! It is a wonderful program. I think the kids are having a good time. I'm sure all of us will be worn out come Friday, though. So now I am switching hats and getting ready to attend a Chamber of Commerce meeting. I am the treasurer. Yeah, well. Someone had to do it. |