little vampires, mice, and winnowing down the to do list

When the wind blew over the pink angel trumpet awhile back that broke off three small branches, I got the big vase out I use for rooting yellow angel trumpet cuttings and put them in water even though I have never been successful rooting pink angel trumpet broken branches in water but you know, hope springs eternal. Slowly the leaves all fell off one by one, no roots appeared and I just sort of ignored them thinking I would make a fresh cut on the ends and try dipping them in rooting powder and sticking them in dirt but just never got around to it. Yesterday I happened to look at the vase and the water was black, no exaggeration, with teeming mosquito larvae. They looked to be ready to emerge during the night and suck our bodies dry while we slept leaving our desiccated husks for someone to find days later. Horrified, I picked it up and dumped it outside. 

But it got me to thinking, how long would it take for our bodies to be discovered if Marc and I both died overnight and by who. We don’t talk to our kids every day, in fact there is no one we talk to every day that might get alarmed at not being able to reach us. Unlike my sister. But even then it was only because she missed her regular Sunday call from her granddaughter that raised the alarm that caused me to go check and find her. What if Pam had stroked out in the middle of the week? We saw or talked to each other most days though not all, might go a couple of days with no contact. How long would she have lain there before I got concerned enough to let myself into the house? One day, two, three? Living alone, she was worried about not being found while her cats feed on her body. Gruesome, I know.

Anyway, we’re not likely to both die at the same time but if we did, I expect it would be Robin who would find us. Maybe not the first day or two though. So, yeah, I’m going to make sure Robin has a key to my house. 

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Saturday, I pulled out the bottom drawer in the kitchen with the storage containers to find everything fouled with mouse pee and poop again! Dammit! Several days after the first time I did set up two mouse traps, one against the baseboard under the drawer and the other between the stove and the refrigerator. I put the traps in small paper bags so that when they work all I have to do is pick up the bag and throw it away. Thursday Minnie triggered the trap against the baseboard by nosing the bag and I didn’t reset it that day. So I cleaned out the drawer again and this time I baited the trap and put it in the empty drawer. Then I checked the trap between the stove and refrigerator and it had caught a mouse. I don’t know if it was the drawer mouse or not but is there ever just one mouse? So I’ll leave the trap in the drawer for a few more days and see what happens.

Saturday was such a relief; cooler, low humidity, overcast and windy; after the previous hot and humid weather that I worked outside all day watering, turning the dirt in another flower bed and throwing out more zinnia seeds, picking up a pile of sticks accumulated in the little backyard and emptying the now mounded up garden cart onto the burn pile, doing some heavy pruning on the wisteria over at Pam’s house, stuff like that. I had all kinds of plans for Sunday starting with mowing the little backyard which I haven’t done yet this year, digging up all the pecan and oak sprouts from all the pecans and acorns we had last fall, maybe even torching the burn pile even though rain was predicted but I woke up with a big pain in my left hip (not sciatica) and my left calf feeling like I had done a heavy leg workout at the gym. I dosed myself with ibuprofen. Stuck my head out the door and ugh, hot and humid and the ibuprofen only dulled the pain a little so nope, not working outside today.

Instead I tackled all the minor little things that had been piling up and trying to clear the small table in the workroom. I hung or rearranged 11 things that I either already had or brought over from my sister’s house like this cross-stitch of cats that she did

and this big metal gecko I got at an estate sale (finally securely mounted on the wall I hope, second attempt, first time it fell off when the garage door slammed)

and this 6" tile I made for Pam years ago when she had every family member make one at one of those paint it yourself ceramic shops,

glued the legs and wings and antenna to the body of this folk art piece that my son gave me years ago (all those pieces are intentionally removable for easier shipping I guess and plug into holes in the body but they kept falling off when moved),

threw away or put away some small things I couldn’t decide what to do with, and a few other things. So it was a very productive day. Didn’t get the table completely cleared but now I really need to go out and mow the little backyard.

I woke up this morning, all pain gone, and managed to get the little backyard mowed and now a heavy storm is bearing down on us, lightning, thunder, wind, rain that is supposed to get heavy.

 

hornworms, glasses, and kittens

Mornings I wake up, feed the cat, take my meds, let the dog out. Wednesday morning I went out with the dog to look for that little bastard of a tomato hornworm. This time I found it but it wasn’t much over an inch long and there was too much damage for just one so I kept looking and found two more. They’re hard to find when small because they’re the same color as the tomato plant and hide under the leaves and stems (not in focus but you get the idea).

When I went out Friday morning to remove all the damaged foliage so I can determine if there are more I found another one bigger and fatter than the ones two days ago, that’s how fast they grow. It’s a green smear now. This morning’s examination found two more of the fuckers.

Also Wednesday I moved both of the bell pepper plants, one into the empty corner of the little raised bed and the other in the pot in which I had planted a tomato that was in constant wilt no matter how often I watered it so I figured it had something wrong with it and pulled it out. Put the little pepper plant and watered it until water ran out of the holes in the bottom. Checked on it yesterday afternoon and it was wilted. WTF. Stuck my finger in and the dirt was dry as a bone. Watered until water came running out the bottom, dug in the pot some…dry as a bone. So then I did some intense deep watering and this morning it looked OK but now there are ants in the pot when before with the tomato, no ants. Can’t win for losing with that pot.

The other thing that happened this week was Thursday when I went for my pre-op for cataract surgery. I was joking with the assistant that as soon as I had had my February appointment when I complained about my left eye bothering me for months, feeling like there was some goo or something that I couldn’t rub out, the feeling went away and hadn’t bothered me for the past two months. When asked if I didn’t want to have the surgery I shrugged and said it depended on what the doctor thought. So when Priscilla came in I told her the same thing and she said let’s look. Can you read this line, can you read that line, which is sharper, this or this, etc. Then she pulled out a weird glasses frame in which you could insert different lenses, which she did, put them on me and told me to go outside and see what I could see. So, what am I looking for, focus, clarity, I asked. She just shooed me outside. So I stood outside looking around and everything seemed to be in focus and clear, close and distance. When I came in and reported she said this doesn’t happen often but you were reading two lines better today than in February so let’s get you some glasses. No cataract surgery? Not yet, come back next February. She doesn’t like to do unnecessary surgery which I appreciate.

So I went next door, picked out some frames and ordered glasses. This will be the third time in my life that I’ve been talked into getting glasses. First time was in my late 40s maybe. Wore them off and on for a while and then stopped as my vision wasn’t really that bad and I preferred drug store cheaters for up close work and reading as opposed to wearing glasses all the time. The second time I got glasses was in 2015 when I had to go in and take an eye test to get my driver’s license renewed and I failed the eye test. Two years later I lost them when the town flooded after Harvey and I was wading in thigh deep water and tripped on some unseen something and fell. My glasses had been hooked in the neck of my t-shirt, because I still never got in the habit of wearing them all the time, and when I stood up they were gone. So I went back to drug store cheaters and hoped I didn’t get stopped while driving. Three plus years ago I realized I didn’t need glasses to read in the evenings or do close work, set the cheaters aside and went and got my eyes examined telling the optometrist that I thought my eyesight had improved which he confirmed but attributed it to developing cataracts. That was January 2021 and I haven’t used glasses or cheaters since then. My eyesight is not crisp except in certain ranges but it’s not bad enough to impact my life negatively either so I imagine after I get these I will revert to wearing them when I drive or when what I’m reading or working on is a little too far away. Same as it ever was.

Yesterday afternoon after watering the garden in the back I went over to feed the wildlings a little later than usual and saw that Robin had already fed them. Then she came out with this.

Her boyfriend got a job at Tractor Supply for the summer before he returns to college in the fall and this little 5 week old kitten was abandoned in the parking lot so of course he brought it home. They already have three indoor cats, Pam's Boys and Robin’s Noodle, and the four wildling outdoor cats…Momcat, Handsome Boy, Lovey, and Twin. I told Robin they were quickly becoming the cat people of the neighborhood. Robin is adamant that the new kitten is going with the BF when he returns to school.

After nearly a week of horrible heat and humidity today is cooler and less humid. 

hot, humid, and other miscellania

Yesterday a crew showed up on our street to install fiber optic cable underground for the internet. They had been working all over this little neighborhood and finally got to our street. Apparently we’re getting Rise Broadband, a company that brings internet access to rural areas (we get our access through the cable TV company). The ends of the cables were still sticking up out of the ground about a foot with the ends taped up. A guy was out there today doing whatever he was doing to the cable ends sticking up and now they are not, completely buried with this cover on the spot by the telephone/power pole. About every other pole has a larger rectangular cover.

It’s been overcast and hazy the last several days, the haze being caused by a Saharan dust plume hitting the Texas Gulf Coast. This happens every year but more commonly in the summer between late June and mid-August. It hasn’t done much to mitigate the heat because it is fucking hot here the first week of May. At 5 PM it’s 87˚, 73% humidity, and real feel in the shade is 91˚. Oh joy. Standing outside, just standing there in shorts and a sleeveless top and less than ten minutes later I’m sweating. Do anything like pull a few weeds or take the dog on a very short walk and it’s dripping off me and my hair is soaked. Fortunately Joe and Mary showed up around 6 yesterday and took care of the shop yard and the yard around Pam’s house. And those poor workmen putting in the cable wearing hard hats, long sleeves, long pants, safety shoes, and construction high visibility vests working out in it doing manual labor all day. Do they get required rest and water breaks? Fuck no because our asshole republican governor for whom cruelty is the point, made it illegal for cities and communities to require it for outdoor workers.

I picked enough green beans this morning to have for dinner tonight, 

my squash after giving me two fruits are now producing only male flowers, one of three cucumbers is growing and blooming but not seeing any little cucumbers, the other two are barely bigger than when I planted them, I have no idea why. The tomatoes are blooming like mad and setting some fruit but not enough and I have a tomato horn worm on one that I have not been able to find but every morning more leaves are eaten, the potato plants are turning yellow but never bloomed, the two bell pepper plants are being smothered by the beans so I need to dig them up and move them but omg it is so hot and humid out there. 

Yesterday I had my pre-op appointment for my cataract surgery scheduled for the 22nd. Showed up and they told me she wasn’t there, that they had tried to call me twice but it went straight to voicemail. Did you leave a message I asked, yes she said. Liar. Checked my phone. No missed calls in red in the 'recent' folder from their number, no voicemails either. Checked my voicemail history and there were two from February so I know they have the right number for me. So it’s rescheduled for Thursday afternoon. Last week I got a reminder phone call from the dentist office about my cleaning appointment today. Do you need another call she asked, no I’ll remember I told her. And I did remember…yesterday. Totally forgot today. They called, are you on your way? (I was already late). Yes, I’m on my way! Good thing the office is only 5 or 6 minutes from here.

When I was out this morning picking beans and looking for that damn worm this clump of daylilies was just outstanding.

And now I have to start getting dinner done.

 

no rain, mouse, feral yard, rain, fancy desserts

Today is overcast, dark, and windy with the feeling of impending rain except there’s no rain. At least it’s keeping the temperature down. Last night during my hour or so of wakefulness I planned to do the second round of fertilizing the azaleas and the camellia today. I usually wake up around 2 AM drifting back to sleep an hour or two later. Last night I slept til about 4 before waking and when I was still awake an hour later I thought of my sister who often complained about waking at 5 and not being able to go back to sleep. I thought at a little past 5 AM I probably wouldn’t get back to sleep either and then my pill alarm woke me at 8:30.

I won’t be getting out in the yard today I guess, haven’t even stepped outside yet. When I finally got up to fix breakfast and was emptying the dishwasher I opened the bottom drawer I keep the glass storage dishes in and everything was covered in mouse poop and pee. Dammit. Fucking mouse, damn cat that isn’t catching the mouse. Now that drawer has to be emptied and cleaned and everything in it washed as if I didn’t already have enough dishes to do (my turn) and also my turn to cook dinner tonight. I had thought we had another mouse because my line of bird skulls keeps getting disturbed. Well, the little rodent must have had a party in the drawer last night because the last time I took something out of there it was fine.

It’s Sunday and I wrote the above on Friday. I keep forgetting to set out a trap before I go to bed and this morning my row of bird skulls looked like this, flipped over and askew.

We’re having lightning and thunder and rain! right now which we really need, raining rather hard. Of course I spent yesterday fertilizing all the potted plants and as many of the azaleas I had enough fertilizer for and then watering over at Pam’s house which really needed it. In the past two weeks that yard has gone feral even with the little bit I do over there every day when I go feed the wildlings. I was going to make a concerted effort over there today but now that’s not happening. And of course the dog is in complete panic mode. And wants in my lap, wants down, wants in my lap, wants down ad infinitum. Cat seems a little concerned about her doggy sister and has just come over to nose and sniff at her.

The couple, Joe and Mary, who mow and trim the shop yard and Pam’s yard and who are old like me didn’t come this week. They drove by to see how bad it was and I happened to be walking back to my house when they did. Joe went to his heart doctor the previous week who promptly put him in the hospital to put in a stent and sent him home with an exterior pacemaker while he arranges for the real one. Maybe next week, Joe says, depending on if he’s getting the pacemaker. I don’t know what we’re going to do if he retires. He only charges us $100 to do that acre and a half. It’s getting pretty rough over there and that’s with no rain to speak of for the last few weeks. Now with this rain the weeds and weedy grasses are going to double in the next few days.

My neighbor, the one who cut that horrendous ditch for me, who works for a farmer came by Friday evening with a big bag of freshly dug up red potatoes still encrusted with dirt, way more than we can eat especially since we already had plenty of potatoes and I have yet to dig up my two big containers so I took some to Robin and will share with another neighbor.

Oh, and now the rain has stopped, thunder still rumbling in the distance. Minnie is starting to calm down. The ground is too wet now to do anything outside today so I guess I’ll read more in my book, Stephen King’s The Institute. I know, I swore to never read another of his books even though I used to be a big fan. I did read Fairy Tale which was OK but a little contrived with all the references. Anyway, I thought I’d try this one.

Report on the fancy desserts…left to right:  berry tart with custard, lemon basil mousse kind of thing, and blackberry lavender cheesecake. 

They were all good. The berry tart would have been better if growers hadn’t hybridized all the flavor and juice out of them for size and firmness. Strawberries particularly which used to be small, soft, juicy, and bursting with flavor. Now they’re big, red on the outside and white inside, no juice or flavor, and impossible to bruise. But, hey, they look good. My favorite though was the lemon basil mousse thing, so creamy and flavorful.

And thank you everyone for all the lovely birthday wishes.

not dead yet

Yesterday was my 74th trip around the sun. We went to a Mexican restaurant for a late lunch and margaritas and I was so full that the stuffed feeling didn’t start to abate til about 8 PM and I have left overs for lunch today. I got text messages from two of my granddaughters, a long phone call from my son, and a visit from my daughter who came bearing a gift of three fancy desserts, none of which I sampled last night because see above.

I told Marc during lunch that I think I’m more freaked out about being in the mid 70s than I think I will be when I hit my 80s (positive thinking here kids, putting out in the universe what I desire). The reason being that people start dying in their 70s; my sister who was active, self sufficient, and basically healthy being a perfect example since she keeled over dead at 76 last year. So I looked up some statistics.

According to the Social Security actuarial tables, a female (me) who was 60 in 2015 will live to be 84, 70 in 2015 will live to be 86. I was 65 in 2015 so I should expect to live until I’m 85 at least. But then my sister, older by 3 years died at 76, almost a decade less than the expectation. Here’s another statistic, more than 20% of people will die before they are 70 while almost 60% will live past 80. In 2020 the average age of death in the US was 73.7. At 74 I’ve passed that milestone if only just barely. World wide the biggest cause of death is cardiovascular disease (what killed my sister) followed by cancer, respiratory diseases (in 2021 in the US that was covid specifically) and fourth, various dementias.

In my youth and hallucinatory drug days and later delving into metaphysics and Theosophy and Jung and even the ridiculed New Age stuff, I came to understand that all is one and one is all, that death of the physical body was not necessarily the death of consciousness, that death is really only birth in reverse when we shed the physical body we took on when we were born, that our consciousness cycles through what we think of as reality as independent beings and being absorbed into the All That Is; that past, present, and future are all happening simultaneously. Research and speculations coming out from quantum physics seems to support these notions. 

The upshot is that I’m not afraid of death, but I’m not ready for it either. That’s where the fear and anxiety comes in, that it will happen suddenly like it did for Pam. I saw her one day and she was happy and healthy and the next I found her basically dead on the ground from a massive stroke.  

She had had a heart attack at 50 and at least two TIAs that I’m aware of, one a year or so after her heart attack and one in the year of her death though I think she had at least two others last year, judging from observation, that she wouldn’t admit to because she didn’t want to go to the neurologist and go through all the tests because she was seriously claustrophobic. While I have not had a heart attack or any vascular blockages or mini-strokes, I do have afib which puts me in the cardiovascular disease column, number one killer of humans.

When my death comes, as it will for every living thing in this theater we call Earth, I want to be so fulfilled with life to the point of being tired of living, to be ready to say goodbye and willing to take that last breath and give up the ghost to rest and reflect and plan for the next go round.

In the meantime, I try to be a good person and, if I’m lucky, as loved as my sister was.

photo dump

Two of the wildlings, Twin and Handsome Boy cuddled up together.

The walking iris is blooming. It’s so pot bound I intended to split it up and repot it before now but the road to hell and all that.

Minnie’s shadow on the chair cushion.

The recipe for the roasted tomato sauce for those interested. It keeps longer in the freezer than the four months noted.

Pipevine swallowtail caterpillars chowing down on Pam’s pipe vines. The first round has hatched into butterflies but they don’t cooperate for a photo.

I got down in the ditch Friday and cut it again. I guess I’ll do this until it gets too hot and then I’ll give up and give in.

New cat in the yard though I’m pretty sure this one belongs to someone. Minnie treed it yesterday twice and I saw it at the back of the big backyard this morning but it ran into the Wild Space as I walked back there. 

First harvest of the spring garden.

Two views of the flower beds.

Finally getting some tomatoes. The plants are as tall as the cages and have been blooming but not setting fruit. Discussed it with neighbors and SHARE volunteers who said the same. I cut out a lot of the dense foliage in mine to open them up some because maybe they weren’t getting fertilized. 

just more grunt work in the yard and the peacock

clasping leaved coneflowers, the last of the spring wildflowers along with the queen anne’s lace, taking over from the spent evening primrose, at the back of the big backyard

Remember when I wrote on the 13th that I used the trimmer to cut the ditch in front of the shop yard that just 3 1/2 weeks prior my neighbor cut to the ground and had regrown about a foot? This is what it looked like Tuesday only 11 days later…at least four times the coverage and just as tall. I swear those grassy weeds grow 2” every day.

I got down in there Monday with the pump sprayer and doused those broad leafed weeds that send up the big stalks because they didn’t seem to be dying from being poisoned the first time after I cut the ditch and there were at least twice as many new ones.

My intention was to get down in there again yesterday and cut it while we are still having this cooler weather but once again I need gas for the trimmer and besides that I woke up with a stiff neck on the left side and an aching left shoulder and then I forgot Marc had an errand in the city so no ditch yesterday and it also turned out the cooler weather was already gone. Instead I hauled the full garden cart of broken downed branches from the storms over to the burn pile and then filled it up again, raked all the small sticks and leaves to the low spot on the west side of the house that Jade had brushed off the roof for me last time she was here, 

swept the concrete apron in front of the garage and barn while Marc was gone with the car, did some weeding, intended to dig the hole to sink the pot of one of the plumerias in its summer spot but too many fire ants which I then doused with diatomaceous earth. Fuckers (next day they still aren’t dead even though it says right on the bag it kills ants). 

Nothing much else to tell. Started setting up the sprinkler Monday and Tuesday because no rain in the forecast though that’s changed. Doesn’t mean we’ll get any. And the AC got repaired Monday after which we turned it off because we didn’t need it. Went to yoga last night and when Abby hadn’t shown up 5 minutes past class time I stepped up and led the class. Abby usually texts me when she can’t make it but it turned out she had just completely forgot preoccupied with some personal stuff. 

Lots of pictures piling up so maybe a photo dump next time. Til then here’s the local wandering peacock. He's looking much better than the last time I saw him so I guess he was molting back then.