Seeds!

My knitting and gardening pal, MW, stopped in at the dive shop yesterday and handed me three packets of hand-gathered milkweed and purple coneflower seeds that the 4-year-old kindergartners at the Wildlife Sanctuary collected last fall.  I can't wait to plant them, probably not tomorrow because it's supposed to be in the 90s and humid, and there's a little more weeding that needs doing before I plant them.  I'll wait until Sunday or maybe Tuesday when it'll be cooler.  I've got three milkweed plants ordered at Stein's but these seeds will let me get a jump on the growing.  That MW, he's a real friend.

 

Look at these poppies.  Aren't they gorgeous?  It's sunny and breezy and they were just loving being alive. 




Last week Mr. Boss stopped in at the dive shop to drop off some regulators that he'd finished servicing and he stayed to visit since he hadn't seen me since the big Fall/Snap/Thud.  It must have been Thursday because I was telling him that Durwood and I were going to drive off for cheese and pasties the next day.  He and I wondered if there's a pasty shop in town so I did a little web browsing and found The Pasty Shop (creative name, don't you think?) connected to a gas station in DePere, a town 5 miles south of here.  I called and the lady emailed me her menu.  Everything's $5, she's not open on the weekend, and she doesn't have a website.  So I printed out the menu, one for Mr. Boss and one for me, and brought it home for Durwood to see.  Since the pasties we got in Menominee last week were disappointing I couldn't get these off my mind so when Durwood called me at work yesterday I suggested we have pasties for supper.  He agreed, so I called to pre-order two cabbage pasties--ground pork, ground beef, rutabagas, potatoes, cabbage, onions, & spices--for pickup after work.  When I got there she said it was a good thing I'd called because she was cleaned out.  !!!!!  She took them out of the warmer and wrapped them in foil; I popped them into a warm oven while I got out of my work clothes and we visited a bit before diving in.  Oh. My. Goodness.  I think I found my favorite pasty place and it's an hour's drive from mediocre pasties in the UP and only 15 minutes' drive from home.  It was all I could do not to call her today for six more (buy 5, get 1 free) for the freezer.  The lack of enough money in my wallet is what stopped me, let's be honest.  It'll take a little time to recoup the 5 weeks of missed wages while I was stapled to the couch with my foot up in the air.

After supper Durwood was channel surfing looking for boxing and discovered that E.T. was on Showtime.  It's been years and years since we'd seen it so I grabbed an ice pack and my knitting and piled up in the living room, he stayed in the kitchen, and we watched it.  I almost cried at the end.  Almost.  I think I did cry at the end the first time I saw it.

Anyway, while I watched I finished the instep scallop of the Autumn Cumulus sock.  Next comes the heel and I can't wait to see how she manages to make a scallop turn 90 degrees to make a heel.  Watch this space.

Once I got promoted from a walker to a cane it soon became evident that I couldn't safely walk around with one of my shoes on my good leg and one of Durwood's shoes on my bad leg.  His shoes are 1 1/2 sizes too big, I need the width in the heel to accommodate my air cast but I kept almost tripping on the extra toe.  I do not want to trip, no, I do not.  I didn't mind having mis-matched shoes but minded the lack of stability very much.  I was going to go to Rogan's after I grocery shopped at Walmart but then I realized that if I could find a pair of shoes like Durwood's in my size I'd save a bundle.  So I looked in Walmart's shoe department and, voila, I found a pair.  One pair, in my size, not gray like the other ones, but I can live with black shoes.  Look!  My shoes match.

June 10--Scott Barrow, Inc., 727.  Jena lay in the grass behind the hedge so Leon and the rest of the boys on the block couldn't find her.  She liked it back there.  It was quiet, only the scraping of grasshoppers and the rattle of the tall grasses in the breeze broke the silence.  She heard the boys riding their bikes down the hill, the tires crunched on the gravel, and the boys made race car sounds as they went.  She heard the far-off rumble of an airplane and looked up to see if it came her way.  It did.  It flew right over her like a big black bird silhouetted against the white and gray clouds and blue sky.  The sound of the jet's engines followed it, shaking the ground and feeling like a hand pressed on her chest.

The cottonwood trees in the neighborhood are sending their seeds all over the place making it look like it's snowing when the wind blows a bit.  I don't mind them but they sure make it hard for Durwood to breathe.  Just about everything makes it hard for Durwood to breathe these days.  I don't like it.  Now I'm going to organize the yarn and stuff I'm taking to Friday Night Knitting.  I'd be foolish to knit on my sock there because it'll take concentration and that's in short supply at Friday Night Knitting, there's more talking and laughing and smartass-ery than concentration.  My kind of crowd.
--Barbara