These guerrilla gardeners are getting creative with their travel methods. This batch came by helicopter.
This one left its helicopter in full view.
This sneaky arrival wanted just a little more thyme. Haha.
Tricky things, those maples.
I won this round. All the mini maples are now in the compost. I will remain vigilant, however. Those guerrilla gardeners can attack at any time.
Chuck was busy cooking lunch, so I posed the produce on the table instead of the kitchen counter.
What didn’t I buy?
Well, I bought lettuce, but no spinach. I bought strawberries, and just a few blueberries and cherries. We’ll wait until later, when they’re ripening closer to home. I bought eggs, but no cheese. I bought asparagus, but no peas. We could have had sugar snap peas, but I thought I’d wait until I could get a larger quantity for less money. It could happen this weekend!
Chuck complains that I bring too many bags to the market. He’d better look out; I might just feel I must prove him wrong by filling them all. Sneaky snicker.
It’s looking a lot better. In fact, I’m blogging from my New Office even as we speak. Desk, file drawer (one might be enough), desk chair — and more.
Summer School, here I come!
Back to inventory. Desk, file drawer (to the left of desk), pencils (found in file drawer) and pens (also found you-know-where), clipboard, document camera, desk chair, and pillow.
Pillow!
You can’t see the last line. Here’s the verse.
Rain or shine, fail or pass
With crayons or computer, lad or lass,
Teachers never lose their class.
It was a sweatshirt. La Petite made it into a pillow, and it’s perfect for a desk chair.
The room isn’t fully converted, but in my own little corner, in my own little chair, I can do whatever I want to do! (with apologies to Oscar Hammerstein, of course)
In earlier posts, I shared the saga of the antique family bible and how it came to our home. The original owner received the bible on her wedding day. Chuck dug into his records and confirmed the date, the bride, the groom, and the immediate family. He also confirmed that she lived in several locations including upstate New York, Nova Scotia, and eventually Wisconsin. She is buried (are you sitting down?) less than a mile from our home in Riverside Cemetery.
We thought a reunion photo would be appropriate.
Elizabeth, your bible and your history are in good hands.
Elizabeth (Locke) Dane, Died 1835
We took a tangent on the basement clean-up. The major cleaners will be here Tuesday to clean up the silt and dirt from the water disaster. Then they’ll set up professional size fans and dehumidifiers and leave them running to dry the walls. If the walls could talk right now, I’m sure they’d be asking for dry clothes and a little dry weather, too.
Chuck unearthed two aging file cabinets – full file cabinets. He went through them and sorted the contents into recycling and shredding. The shred crates are rather full.
To Be Shredded
By the process of estimation (actually from experience feeding pages of old tax returns through the shredder), I’ve determined that one grocery bag of shred equals about three full files. Look at the above crate again. Then look below.
Shredded! It’s shredded!
I leave a little space at the top so I can staple the bag shut. That way, my shredded old resumes won’t be flying around the neighborhood when the truck picks up and dumps the big blue bin.
I’ve already tossed three grocery bags of shred into the bin. We have many more to go. What do you think, peoples? Are there other uses for shredded paper? Before I start sneaking bags of paper into my neighbor’s bins, leave me a note with an idea or two.
And I still have a lot to do to call the patches of dirt “Garden.”
The soon to be asparagus patch looks lovely in its shades of brown: peat and topsoil. I hope this will do double duty by supporting asparagus plants and assisting the rest of the yard in absorbing water, therefore preventing the OkayByMe Swamp from turning into Lake OkayByMe.
Shades of Brown – so pretty.
It wasn’t easy to get this set up. We bought the peat and topsoil from a local place and brought both home. I felt rushed because our street was about to be torn up, and I wanted to get the materials while the minivan could still get in the driveway. Poor old mini: with ten bags of topsoil in the back, we feared it might try doing wheelies before we got it home.
Then there was the surprise. Most of the bags were that wonderful deep brown color, almost black. One, however, had been exposed to a little too much – heat? humidity?
Terrarium in a bag!
Chuck asked, “Should we return it?” I said, “Nah. We have a compost bin.” There really wasn’t much wasted. After I tossed a few handfuls of moss, etc., into the compost, most of the topsoil remained ready to use.
So here it is, folks. The next step on my To Do List: plant the asparagus crowns. Then: wait. Two years, perhaps three, until the asparagus matures enough to harvest. But then, when it’s ready, I’ll have fresh asparagus every spring. Yum.
And I still think shades of brown are prettier than any number of shades of gray.
Soon to be Home to Asparagus
It was a sunny afternoon and the Milwaukee Brewers were – losing. Big time. But the game offered some fun in the form of closed captioning errors.
Ryan Braun retched first on a base hit. Retched? He’s tossing bases now instead of cookies? Ouch.
Later, Gomez got up to bat and the ballet slipped out of his grip. Yep, he threw the ballet. I know professional baseball is an art, and I understand that these young men are quite graceful at times. But when did the bat become a dance?
So I went to school the next day and let go of baseball and its lingo. It wasn’t long, though, before I was looking over information on a literacy grant and – oh, readers, you’re way ahead of me. Here it is. Put down your beverage.
We also will consider grant requests from organizations and programs that support children, families, and animals that are not easily categorized.
— an animal that is not easily categorized
Inside Chuck’s new-old family bible, we found the all important list of births and deaths and other family milestones. He matched these with his research and filled in a few holes in his records.
Then we found this. What is it?
ribbon?
One End
Another End
Well, readers? One end implies it may have been attached, perhaps worn around a neck. The first end looks like needlework. I thought it was tiny beads at first, but it’s simply colored threads.
It’s quite faded, from an original orange or peach.
Okay, readers. Help me out. Might there be meaning other than the personal value? Ideas? Thoughts? Historical context or clues?
Courtesy of his web site and records of his family history, someone found him in a search. The email they sent read something like this.
My husband picked up an old, old family bible in a batch of misc. from an estate sale. We have no need for it, and I feel that it should stay with family. Let me know if you want it; I’ll ship it to you.
Of course he said yes. The bible came to us, and we carefully, carefully opened the box.
binding – aged to perfection
the inscription
And finally, the inscription: this bible was presented to Elizabeth Dane in 1835, around the time she married Thomas Dane, from her parents, James and Frances Locke. These ancestors lead directly to Chuck’s family. In fact, we spent some time in Lockeport, Nova Scotia a few years ago to dig for more information about the Dane and Locke families.
Based on some investigation, we believe it was a Baptist bible of the time. And as we tenderly turned the pages, we found…. oh, that’s another post in itself.
I have a few seemingly random “rules” in my life’s routine. I keep my minivan’s gas tank at least half full. I like all my electronics to be charged or close to fully charged at all times. The gas tank is mainly because it’s such sticker shock to fill it. That vehicle has a big tank, and when gas gets close to $4 a gallon – let’s just say it’s not good for the blood pressure. I like the laptop computer and my phone and my camera to have a charge in case I need them – and I need them a lot.
Wednesday, that icy weather day, I failed. My minivan had a quarter of a tank of gas in it. Ironically, I’d kept putting it off because of the weather. It was cold. It was windy. It was just not self-service gas station friendly weather. Note to self: it might get worse before it gets better. Fill the tank.
My phone wasn’t charged. I often charge it under my desk at work or in the kitchen overnight. This particular morning, my phone had no charge whatsoever. I went in to school after the two-hour delay (the delay I saw on TV before the power crashed) with my dead phone in hand. I was greeted by two teachers saying, “Oh, Daisy didn’t get the phone call. We’re closed. Too many schools have no power.” Note to self: charge it. Always. On this day, after charging the phone in the minivan (the one with a near-empty gas tank), I found the voice mail from my boss saying “We’re closed! Don’t come in!”
My camera had a little charge left, so I took a few pictures. A few, I said. When the power came back to us that night, I plugged in the camera battery.
Procuring fuel was harder than we thought. We passed three shuttered gas stations on the road and several of our favorite restaurants totally in the dark. We eventually ended up at iHop, and then with full stomachs headed down the road again to feed the minivan. We picked up batteries for the boom box so we’d have radio if we needed it, invested in a Hershey’s chocolate bar with almonds and a Reese’s peanut butter cup for our mid-afternoon snack, and charged our phones in the van.
And here we sit, a few days later, reminiscing and making notes. Note to self: keep phone charged no matter what the weather. Keep minivan at least half full of gas – also no matter what the weather. As for the camera, well, if the phone is charged, the camera isn’t necessary, but let’s not waste phone time on pictures. The ice day was more of a tough spot and less than a true emergency, and I felt the lack of preparedness. Note to self: tornado season is on the way. No more excuses: channel that inner Girl Scout and Be Prepared.