Following my garden theme of yesterday, I have to admit that I sort of stole some of Martha's seed last year and am cultivating my own Mexican Daisy patch. I confess.
Last evening as dusk fell, these characters were observed trespassing. I had the sprinklers on the not so grassy area I have been trying to cultivate. I think they may have been thirsty.
They looked at me a couple of times as I took pictures. No flash, I didn't want to scare them.
They did not appear to feel threatened by me or my camera.
Then they kicked up their heels and dashed off into the woods.
I wonder if they stayed overnight ......... they owe me $20 if they did!
I had a visit from the DNR today. That is Department of Natural Resources, not Do Not Resuscitate. Do not resuscitate is looking good at this point. Fines and permits are never good news.
My skin rash seems to grow in proportion to just how many things I can worry about. Seems that people I once considered to be my friends, never really were. It would seem that, not only do they not wish me well, but would be happy to destroy me. They might even succeed.
As I was tooling around the park this morning spreading water and joy to the the plant kingdom, I made a discovery. It was in Nan's happy little garden.
At the beginning of Spring she planted a clematis vine. It has looked like this all Summer. All shriveled and brown. An occasional sign of life with a green little leaf every now and again. I planted some Hostas and day lilies nearby and included the clematis in the inner circle of the garden bed. When I got through, it all looked like a bunch of plants in need of life support. They were all in shock at being unceremoniously dug from their former location and planted in the shade of the circle of trees. You would think they would all have thanked me for removing them from the barren wasteland in the direct rays of the sun.
Even Nan looked at them suspiciously. I know she thought I was giving her a garden of dying plants. I assured her that they would survive and thrive with a little love from the water hose and mulch.
And look!! I have been vindicated! The clematis has bloomed. It still has some dead wood in place, but just you wait and see. Next year this plant will be full of happy little blooms!
I am betting the vine will take over one side of this garden.
The hostas will guard the front and day lilies will fill in.
Nan will be needing life size gnomes!!
Miss Martha's Mexican daisies have crossed the border! These are thriving in gravel!
I suppose this plant is drought tolerant!
Martha wanted some shade. I dug and covered and hauled what seemed like tons of mulch. I hunted rocks and even sacrificed some of my own from my garden. I planted Tiger Lilies and Iris. Worked my fingers to the bone, I did!
Planted 4 Maples and 1 Sycamore tree. Spring came and the Iris refused to produce blooms, the Tiger Lillies were stingy, too. The trees looked pathetic. Martha didn't say much about the garden and I knew she was disappointed. I told her to be patient, that I knew the trees looked like brown sticks, but could still survive. She disagreed. I think if I had offered to have he who loves loud equipment plow the whole thing up and plant grass she would have been happier.
I was patient. I carefully checked on the trees for signs of life daily. I sang to them and begged them to live. Not so much for Martha's shade, but to not embarrass me in front of others. I carefully transplanted some scraggly looking Marigolds, knowing they would grow into shrub-like rounded plants. I could still see the doubt in Martha's eyes. She began to complain about the weeds that kept popping up. I pulled and yanked and often replaced the weed holes with seedlings.
Vindicated once again. Look at the Sycamore tree! It was so tiny when I put it in the ground. Maybe 8" tall and now it is waist-high! I am not one to say "I told you so ........" Wait ....... Yes I am!
Okay, okay. This one is dead. This Maple did not make it ........ but, the other 3 did!
My job is fairly simple. Or, maybe I should say one of my jobs, since the whole is a bunch of smaller pieces. Fractions is what we called them when I was but a child in school. I also learned to add, subtract, multiply and divide. All without the assistance of a calculator. I find that I put this knowledge to use daily. In almost everything I do. Cooking, gardening, sewing, and, of course, settling manners of money.
I am astonished regularly by those who have not a clue about basic math skills. How do they survive? Even the use of a calculator calls for a minimal knowledge.
One of my jobs is to check the e-mail daily for reservations. There is a reservation format in place on our website. Easy to use. I always respond to those and verify the reservation (unless the Internet powers conspire to thwart my efforts). Some users of the Internet prefer to e-mail a request to make a reservation. I am responsible for those, too. I respond with specific information, based on the information they provide. I tend to give lots of options in anticipation of questions. I always offer the phone number, too. You know, in case they might want to talk to a live person and have all their questions answered at once. Simplifies things.
I have been back and forth with a particular request all week. The latest question has me baffled. Okay, maybe a little annoyed, since the answer was right in front of them. The question was about reserving a tent site (or sites) for 11 people. Four children and seven adults. They wanted to know if I had sites available. I replied that I did. I went on to provide the rates (also on the web site they visited). Two sites at a base price of $20 per night per site for primitive camping and $22 per night with electricity. Each base price covers two adults and up to two children. Extra persons are $2 per person per night.
They replied with "How much will that be?"
I wanted to copy and paste my previous answer. I didn't. Carefully wording my response in the simplest terms, I tallied it up for them. I have a feeling I could have just done the math and given them an amount and they would have paid it, no questions asked. All they wanted was a total amount. I could have very well ripped them off. Instead I explained how I came up with the amount. I did two amounts. One with electric and one without ........ always anticipating the next question.
I did not add the tax to the total and I have a feeling they will show up with the exact amount in small denominations and then argue about the tax ......... After all, that will involve advanced math, being percentages and all that.
Yesterday was a beautiful day. I spent the morning planting wisteria vines that had been gifted to me from a friend. The big skies were blue and a gentle breeze blew. A hint of fall in the air. I gathered some flower seed and pulled some weeds.
I was procrastinating. Peaches needed attention. I have forced peaches on every camper passing through and they seem to be growing in number. I could not fit them in the refrigerator and they won't last at room temperature, so I had no choice but to tackle the chore and peel them and prepare them for the freezer. I have plenty of peaches in the freezer. This winter will include peaches with every meal.
As the sun warmed things up, I went inside to deal with the peaches. He who rescues stranded travelers was sitting in his favorite chair, laptop open and eyes closed. I set up my bowls on the table where I can see the door to the store and easily handle customers. I was sitting there, up to my elbows in peach juice when I saw the door to the store open. I asked he who was no longer napping to handle the customer as I continued to peel and slice. He stood at the half door and said that he saw no one. I told him that I saw the door open and the top of someone's head come in. I assumed it was a child. It was not. It was an adult. They were asking about tent sites. They wanted to go look first, then come back to the office. Not an unusual request, and off they went. I was still peeling away, determined to fill the container I was working on, despite the fact that my fingertips were pruning up and my arthritic thumb was aching. Fruit flies were swarming my bowl of pits and peels.
He who is wont to troll the kampground roads went out to do just that and noticed the couple looking at tent sites had pulled over at the bath house. He witnessed the female exiting the ladies room and upon driving off, they tossed a bag of trash onto the ground. Unhappy, he stopped and gathered it up to dispose of before going on in the direction they were headed.
He saw them coming out of a site occupied by seasonal campers and stopped them to ask what they were doing. "Oh, we thought this was one of the tent sites." He told them to be on their way, since they would not be staying in any event, due to the trash incident. "Oh, sorry about that."
All this was related to me as I was cleaning up my peach mess. He who delivers fuel to those who have none went on just such a call and I promptly forgot about the would-be tenters as I set about washing up my peachy mess.
We were looking forward to eating with our besties, Patrick and Julie. Never matters what we eat, it always includes lots of laughter. Julie was making a big pot of ham hocks and beans. I was in charge of the cornbread and was supposed to make rice. I had everything organized and ready to meet the timeline .......... then customers and the phone jumped in to ruin my plans. I forgot the rice entirely, which is just as well. I would probably have burned it. I did manage the cornbread. Also a nice little salad of cucumbers and tomatoes fresh from the garden. I used a dressing similar to the dressing used in three bean salad. Turned out to be quite tasty.
I mention the dressing to my salad for a specific reason. Julie is a character. When asked what she wanted to drink with our meal, she responded that she would just drink some of Patrick's ........ Like me, Julie considers the food on her husband's plate as theirs. We share. Julie really liked my salad and decided to put the dressing left into her bowl of beans with broken up cornbread. She liked it, but as she got full, she instructed Patrick to finish hers ......
He made a face and asked her what she had put in her bowl. All innocence, she says "cornbread", then half a beat later she remembers the "juice from the cucumbers". She informs Patrick that it is good and to just eat it. He did as instructed, then wondered how to remove the "sinkerator" tattoo that must be on his forehead.
See what I mean? Fun. After we ate, Julie and I took a ride around the park on her golf cart. While riding along we make an interesting discovery. In the road, on a back road, we see something. It is a pair of jeans and a car mat. We find it strange and I pick the items up and take them to he who is in charge of all things out of the ordinary. He looks puzzled and then asks if I used all the gas in the can he provided me with that morning. I was going to mow, but never got to it, so I had used none.
He then asked if I had moved the gas can. He had set it in the front porch, but found it at the bath house ........... empty. $12 worth of gas. Gone. At the bath house where the female partner in crime was seen exiting the ladies room where the bag of trash had been unceremoniously tossed to the ground ..... perhaps to slow down the man in the truck while they pulled off on a side road to take off the jeans that had been sloshed with gas from the full can stolen from my front porch. Setting said can on the floor mat, it sloshed again as they rode looking for a place to stop and pour it in their tank. They tossed the Tinker Bell floor mat, preferring not to smell gas as they made their escape.
Had they asked for help, we would have helped them and they could be eating some fine peaches. Now they have to wait for the payback they will get from this. Could be years from now, but they will get caught up with. And, I have learned a valuable lesson. I should always put the gas can away while peeling peaches.
See the crows? Eating my apples!
They don't seem to care that I am approaching them. Eating my apples.
Taking their own sweet time walking away from the tree. Eating my apples.
Patriotic wind chimes. I had them in the peach tree and it helped. Now, let's see if the crows will return. And eat my apples.
A crow free apple tree. The apples are ripening fast. I usually don't have apples until September. I haven't finished with all the peaches. I keep giving them away, but I still have a bushel left. I made 4 cobblers this weekend and gave them all away. Then I made zuchinni pineapple muffins with my abundance of squash.
You will recall the pool malady we suffered and battled and ...... lost. This product, Green To Clean, is supposed to kill all manner of algae and is guaranteed to work. Guaranteed.
We have actually used this product before and it did work. This is why I ordered it as soon as I noticed the turquoise tint to the water and subsequently discovered the wonderful bouquet of flowers that had been steeping in the skimmer basket.
It didn't work. It is not cheap, this product, and I was careful to order from the vendor offering free overnight shipping. In addition to this killer of algae, you have to make sure the PH is at a proper level and add additional chlorine and shock. This is at a considerable cost also. We contacted the company offering the guarantee and were advised that a replacement shipment was on the way.
In the meantime he who will take advice from any one with a voice was about the business of driving to town for remedies. Algaecide was dumped by the gallon. PH+ and PH-, depending on the advice of the day. Vacuum, sweep, beg, plead, and curse. I saw 9 gallons of Clorox go in. Shock and more shock. All I could see was $$$$$$$$ wasted. Looked like a huge vat of pea soup.
After 10 days of waiting for the miracle chemicals, more e-mails went and finally a company official called he who shouts on the phone. A promise of an overnight shipment was made. This was on a Friday. Fed-X and UPS deliver on Saturday and we were told to expect a delivery. It came the next Tuesday.
By then I had given up and was loathe to spend another penny on the green water. He who is ever optimistic, opened the package and proceeded with the instructions. He came in and told me the water looked better ........... I took a look and assured him it was not.
So, $1500 in chemicals later and untold loss of revenue, we had to have the drawback whatever thing tested on the well to determine if we would risk depleting our water supply to refill the pool.
The well is fine, so we dumped 60,000 gallons of water with over $1500 worth of chemicals. We set up some PVC pipes with holes to work as a giant sprinkler to direct the water onto the parched grassy field and found the algae alive and well on the bottom of the pool. The picture was taken at dusk and you can't see the bright green algae in all it's glory.
Pool had to be power washed and all the equipment had to be cleaned.
Then the refilling process began. No, we did not fill the pool with a garden hose. We have a fire hose that we drag out for this purpose. Takes a couple of days to fill it. We have to keep the pressure down on the hose during peak hours or our campers have no water ..... not to mention me having no water. The irony is that since we have refilled the pool, the weather has turned cool.
So that now, the campers complain about the water being cold. Not to mention the nuggets of wisdom and advice I get. "Have you ever thought of using chlorine?" "I had a pool once and I think you should run the pumps." "I heard about some stuff called shock, have you tried that?"
I escape to my garden and wish I was frog on a log.
Or maybe in an old wheelbarrow tending flowers, as I smell chlorine wafting through the air and listen to sound of the skimmer pumps filtering the water ..............
I picked peaches yesterday. If you recall, I already picked the peaches of one tree. That was the smaller tree. This is the bigger tree's yield. Well, some of it. I would say I got close to 5 bushels from the big tree.
Some are spotty, but these are organic, no spraying of pesticides. Even with spots, they still look yummy.
Maybe not so yummy to me. I peeled these yesterday. I was sticky with peach juice up to my elbows.
This bucket was full to overflow ......... I decided to start handing out peaches to anyone who happened my way. The first bag went to some campers looking for the state park. They bought ice and left with directions and a bag of peaches. They already had reservations at the state park and you lose your deposit if you cancel. I assured them they did not have to stay here just because I gave them peaches. They thanked me over and over.
The next bag went to a man looking for some RV parts that I do not carry. I gave him directions to the closest place that would have what he needed and a bag of peaches. Since he was alone. I asked him if he would eat the peaches and he told me he wanted a couple and would give the rest to his boss for the boss's four children. He was quite smitten with Mr. Martha and asked to take some pictures of the cat. I agreed, after asking if he were a 'pet'ophile. I have managed to maintain my sense of humor, after all.
Next came the man to fill my big propane tank. He checked both tanks and came to let me know that I didn't need a fill while I was clipping dead branches on the tree. I gave him a handful of peaches straight from the tree. I left some for the birds to peck at. I couldn't reach them without a ladder anyway and am hoping they will leave the apple trees alone as they eat the peaches.
I gave out peaches all day. Not to worry, Nick, yours are safely tucked away in the freezer. I am trying to lure my son-in-law with peaches. I want to see them and am not above bribery. Really, there could be apples involved, too. I will make your favorite potato salad ........... I will brew green tea ........ I am your favorite mother-in-law and you might have competition soon, so .........
This is before the picking .........
This is after! Having birthed many children, I know just how relieved this tree is! Her limbs are bouyant now, no longer staggering under the weight of her fruit. I lost two small limbs and a few tiny ones, but she is looking better after the trim.
Back to the pay-out of peaches. I had no reservations last night, but got four campers in yesterday. The first three were all from Georgia and were not together, didn't know each other! I had two cancellations for Labor Day weekend, but got three reservations!
I am still sad to lose the seasonal campers and my heart is heavy when ever I look at the spots they occupied, but the pity party is over! I have my big girl britches on and I am ready to meet some new people. I don't know that I will open myself to friendship, though. I think I will maintain a little distance from now on. I think maybe I won't care so much about the new people. Maybe.
