More Rain!

It was dreary all day and rained a tiny bit but I hear thunder right now which means there're storms around.  Great.  Just great.  We've had enough rain that the city water treatment plant asked people to hold off doing laundry and running the dishwasher to lessen the amount of water coursing through the pipes.  Of course, that made me want to do laundry and run the dishwasher.  I settled for taking a shower.  After working half an hour with T the trainer this morning a shower was a necessity.


When I got home I noticed that Dad's Rose is blooming again and there are no Japanese Beetles around to munch on the tasty petals.








I picked up a couple pots of mums the other day and planted them in front.  Every year I plant more mums and the only ones that survive are those goofy lavender ones that try to bloom every July so I end up cutting them back so they'll bloom now when they're supposed to.


 

ACJ gave me a cool birthday gift yesterday.  It's a trivet she made with a CD case, a bunch of corks, and some buttons for feet.  Pretty clever, huh?




Early this morning before any rain, I shook about a dozen Warfarin into a sandwich bag, crushed them with the hammer, and stirred them into some lovely rancid peanut butter I keep for just that purpose.  Globs of it got put out on the patio and the Dixie cup of the stuff got tucked under the step by the patio door.  I have high hopes that this will cut the rat population in my yard down from one to none.  Yesterday afternoon I watched the rat defend its turf (the patio and nearby feeders) from a determined and persistent chipmunk.  It was pretty entertaining but not entertaining enough to earn a reprieve or stay of execution.





 
A while back I read on a blog about a nifty pencil holder/circular needle holder that the person uses that holds 100 pens or pencils.  That led me to believe that there were places to put them.  Not so fast with the thinking, Barbara.  Seems that there are 24 little elastic loops for holding things and then a nice big open space for all the rest.  Grr.  Not what I had hoped.  So I sulked and fumed a bit and then I got my thinking cap on and figured out a way to make more pages to sew into the case.  I did that today.  I had a plastic place mat that I traced the pattern onto twice and cut out, then I dug out some cotton for the covering and elastic for the loops.  I have "jeans" grade needles for the sewing machine so I carefully sewed the elastic to one pieceof fabric, then sewed the fabric to the place mat piece, and finally sewed binding around the edges (not very neatly, I will admit, but it's done).  I used a couple more pieces of fabric to make tabs to sew onto the tab in the holder and Voila! I have something more useful.



Today, tomorrow, and Saturday morning a couple guys are down at Camera Corner buying old film cameras for either cash or store credit so I gathered up all of our old film cameras and Durwood's ancient cameras and hauled them down there this afternoon.  None of the old old ones were worth much but our not that old Canon and Ricoh film cameras and lenses netted me a cool $130.  While I was there I learned that they are also buying digital cameras so I'm taking that European one I got from Amazon and the one that Durwood got from the pawn shop about 5 years ago AND the enlarger that I showed them a picture of down there tomorrow.  I want to look at polarizing filters for my Canon digital camera so maybe I'll take store credit for those.  IF they offer me a reasonable amount.  The guy said he'd give me $40 for the enlarger which makes it worth another trip down there anyway. I have a dentist appointment in the morning so I can swing by afterwards.

12 September--Barbara Malcolm, Horizon. 

           Abel and I went skiing again later that January and had planned to go more, but February blew in on the back of an arctic blast and wouldn’t let go.  The frost on the old house’s windows spread in from the edges until the panes looked like pieces of sandblasted art glass, each etched by a different artist.  The wind blew straight out of the north and wormed its way inside through every little gap in the old house; it whistled through the cracks and drummed loose shingles and shutters.

Not a flake of show fell that month because the wind blew all the clouds away.  Instead the gusts picked up the January flakes and whirled them in the sun to sparkle like glitter.  It frustrated me that I couldn’t figure out a way to paint it.

I even called Jake-the-painting-Nazi for his suggestions but he just laughed and told me to “figure it out for yourself, Gail.  I gave you the tools.”  Humph.  Even though his class had really pushed me as a painter, he still wasn’t much help, still hadn’t lost that bad boy personality.

          So I tried and tried to paint the bright winter scenes.  The pile of rejects grew around the legs of my easel and crackled underfoot as they dried.

I hear a little rain, no downpour, just gentle rain.  We don't need no more stinking rain.  Besides I noticed that the potato plants died back which means it's time to dig the potatoes out of the bales.  Stop raining already!  I need to harvest carrots and potatoes.
--Barbara