Friday's Feast for August 17

It's Friday, so let's have a Feast.

Appetizer
Describe your laundry routine. Do you have a certain day when you do it all, or do you just wash whatever you need for the next day?

For the last few years I've been doing it all on the same day.

Lately, to vary the process, I've been using a three week rotation schedule:

• Week 1: a) Darks including jeans and b) reds
  
• Week 2: a) Medium cool colors and b) medium warm colors
  
• Week 3: a) Whites and b) Miscellaneous fragile things

Bedding is washed on the day I change the bed.

Throw rugs are washed when decide they're dirty.

I'm not strict with myself about this schedule. All types of variations happen depending on how disciplined I decide to be in any given week. Right now I'm behind with the laundry schedule but we're not out of anything critical.

Soup
In your opinion, what age will you be when you’ll consider yourself to truly be old?

110.

Salad
What is one of your goals? Is it short-term, long-term, or both?

My long term goal is to maintain my weight at five pounds less than I weight today.

My short term goal is to get back to that weight.

I'm blaming the extra pounds on the road construction. Why not? Road construction is a very convenient scapegoat for everything.

Main Course
Name something unbelievable you’ve seen or read lately.

Dorothy, a blogging friend who lives in the Northwest is getting the road where she lives lowered eight feet. Her driveway will be unusable for at least 56 hours twice.

Trying to guess why the road lowering is necessary and how they're going to match up the newly lowered road with her driveway both stump my imagination. I'm hoping she posts pictures and explanations on her blog.

Dessert
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how happy are you today?

7

Although I have no major life problems, the stress, noise, and dust of the road construction continues.

The bulldozers are digging a huge trench for the new road bed (the road is moving 5 feet in our direction). Looks like they won't reach our former yard until next week.

Road construction disrupts normal life and upsets the dogs.

Pappy finally gave in to doggy road construction stress by scratching and chewing on himself creating two hot spots, one on his right rear hip and one on the base of his tail.

Hotspots grow quickly. I rescheduled a haircut to get him immediately to the vet for a steroid shot, antibiotic, and a topical power for the pain. When he stopped his frantic scratching and biting, he was so tired he didn't even want to go for a walk. He's been sleeping almost constantly for more than 24 hours.

Good thing he's getting rested before the bulldozer arrives.

Six Willows Down

Although we never thought we wanted our road paved and we certainly never thought we wanted the trees along our frontage removed, there are some benefits.

For the past several years it's been obvious that the six willow trees on a strip of land between the pond and the creek needed to be removed.

Before the county took down the huge pine trees lining the road, there was no way to reach these willow trees with the machinery needed to safely down them.

In this picture taken last weekend, the trees were old and falling apart. There were large, lethal, broken off branches hanging in the remains.


By the time our frontage trees were gone, we knew the owner of the tree service by first name. He was a nice young man and we contracted with his company to take down the willows, and grind the stumps down.

Monday morning they arrived once again to cut down more of our trees. This time we were happy to see them.

In this picture four trees were down, two still standing, and brittle, broken willow branches were everywhere - in the pond, on the land between the pond and the creek, in the creek, and on the land on the other side of the creek.


Tuesday morning when they came back for most of the clean up, one of the men was wearing waders to fish branches out of the creek and from across the creek.


By the time they finished and left Tuesday afternoon, the strip between the pond and creek was empty.

Ready for grass and maybe something else - but it won't be willows!

Thursday's Tale

Two huge backhoes spent Thursday afternoon in our front right of way removing tree stumps. They clanked, roared, banged, dug, and hissed. And there was the almost continuous DING DING DING compliments of OSHSA - (Occupational Safety and Health Standards Act).

In the US, OSHSA requires most equipment to loudly DING DING DING while backing up. While OSHSA was busy coming up with rules to keep us physically safe, they forgot to consider our sanity.

Dozens of stumps on our frontage and across the road came out easy. The biggest oak stump didn't. It required both backhoes working together. I could feel the house shake when it came loose.

Once they got it out of the ground they threw it around, banged it up and down, and pounded on the top of it to

• a) try to get as much soil out of it as possible because it had left a large crater they needed to fill
  
• b) attempt to get in into pieces so they could fit it into the truck that hauls stumps away.

In this picture, the backhoe on the right is taking his turn with it.


They were unable to break it up. They are going to bring in a low boy (whatever that is) to pick it up and take it away.

Meanwhile, here it sits in the corner of what used to be my front yard.

The top part where sawed is five feet across. The entire trunk mass including root stubs is about twelve feet across.


The dogs were totally nerved up all afternoon. They even did some "marking" in the house in hopes that claiming it would save their home from the horrible creatures destroying their front yard.

Doggy naps were impossible.

When it was time to go to doggy school Thursday evening, they were tired. Very tired.

When it was Pappy's turn to do the agility course which he normally loves, he ran across the building and jumped up in the chair where we'd been sitting.

When it was Sunny's turn to do the agility course which was mostly jumps, her very favorite, she ran along side the jumps instead of going over them.

When we got home, the men were gone and all was quiet. Pappy sacked out to sleep in a limp pile. Sunny slinked under the bed for safety and went to sleep.

Bob reported that after the men left, Glory enjoyed walking out to one of the backhoes and peeing next to it.

They're not done yet. The backhoes are still parked here and they'll be back 7 am Monday morning for more stumps.

To make things even more interesting, a tree crew is scheduled to arrive Monday morning and take down 6 large willow trees along the creek on our property. More about that some other day.

Friday's Feast for August 10

It's Friday, so let's have a Feast.

Appetizer
What is your favorite kind of pie?

Mom's apple pie made the old fashioned way with totally unhealthy stuff in the crust.

In this picture from March my little brother Dave from Oregon was in the area and Mom baked an awesome apple pie in his honor.

We had a great visit and ate every last crumb of the pie.


Soup
Name something that made you smile this week.

It rained!! We got a little over an inch.

We've been suffering and are still suffering from Level 2 drought. There has been irreversible plant damage. Many of the none damaged plants have gone dormant for the year.

Since we live in a swamp wetland our damage was not as extensive as other places in SW Michigan. It still hasn't been pleasant with the trucks and heavy equipment on our "under construction" dirt road. Remember the dust clouds when they took the trees down?

Other summers the county has watered our road on a regular schedule. They're not doing that this year. My theory: They want us to get as much dust as possible so we will be grateful they're going to pave the road.


Salad
What do you do to cool off when the weather is hot and humid?

Do all chores that require effort in the cool of the morning and then sit in front of the fan during the heat of the day.

Main Course
You receive $1,000 in the mail with a letter that says you can only use the money to redecorate one room in your home. Which room do you pick, and what do you buy to spruce it up?

The only pretend part of this is the someone giving me money to spend.

With the missing trees and more missing trees to come next week, the house is now exposed to the road and the neighbors. I need to buy curtain rods and curtains for the windows.

For this question I pick the living room because it has the biggest windows and will be the most expensive.

Dessert
Fill in the blank: My _________ says __________, but I __________.

My birth certificate says I'm 62 years old, but I don't feel it most of the time.

Catching Up on Memes

Son John unofficially tagged me for a meme to list things I can't live without. Since it was unofficial and the rules are totally vague, I think I'll skip. Thank you for giving me the choice, John.

Lisa has nominated me as a Rockin' Girl Blogger.

This is so not me, including the Barbie pink color of the button. I'm more like Creaky Grandma Blogger.

It was nice of her to think of me, however. And I'll take the opportunity to nominate 5 Rockin' Girl Bloggers casually selected from my Bloglines list.

These blogs may or may not have been nominated previously. I haven't kept track and I'm not going check with my totally non-Rockin' dial-up connection.

Bunchkin. A talented, fearless young knitter. She lives in Alaska, is currently in the process of moving to Fairbanks, and sometimes has a moose in her yard.

Kathy. Newly retired, she sticks to a few projects at one time and knits them to perfection. Sometimes her little dog, SofeeSu steals the blogging show.

Sue. Recently moved to Cody Wyoming and has been posting beautiful pictures of the area on her blog. She's a new mom to Milo, a rescue Weimaraner.

Alwen. She lives near me somewhere in SW Michigan and does all types of interesting Lost Arts like tatting, netmaking, chair caning, and even weaving. It wouldn't surprise me if we meet someday, but we're both introverts and it could take a while.

Trish. Another Michigan knit blogger with awesome garden photos. This week she is showing roses. Beautiful!

I dislike tagging people to do things they may not care to do. So this branch of the award ends here - unless you're one of the five bloggers mentioned above, this is your first nomination, and you want to nominate five Rockin' Girl Bloggers of your own.

Friday's Feast - two days late.

Appetizer
On a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being highest, how polite are you?

9. Sometimes I mess up, but rarely on purpose.

Soup
What was the last thing that made you laugh out loud?

Pappy licking my neck.

He likes to sit on the back of the loveseat behind my right shoulder while I work on my laptop. Sometimes he can't resist sneaking in a few doggy kisses. They tickle.


Salad
Who is your favorite cartoon character?

Shrek. I enjoy the Shrek movies and the pleasant memories associated with seeing them with Granddaughter Kimmy.

Main Course
Tell about the funniest teacher you ever had.

A math teacher in Junior College who frequently came to teach evening calculus in his slippers.

Years later I met his daughter. When I mentioned this to her as part of my fond memory of her father, she was horrified and told me, "My father would never do anything like that!"

Well, he did. But with respect for her, I won't mention his name.

Dessert
Complete this sentence: I strongly believe that ______________________.

I strongly believe that the Bible is the key to the meaning of life.

Dog Days of Summer

There are a few days each summer when we think we should have an air conditioner. We're having those days this week.

It's very dry. The grass is dormant and even the weeds are looking droopy.


Hey Mom! Remember that thing that used to happen sometimes? There were big booms that scared Glory and then water came down out of the sky?

How come that doesn't happen anymore?

By the way, thanks for the haircut. It feels great on a day like this. But I hope you're planning to let some hair grow back before winter.


The water level is so low in this creek that I can wade in on one side of the bridge, walk through the culvert, and come out the other side.

I'm Glory, the big dog in the family, and I love going into the water to cool off.

Sunny and Pappy think I'm nuts but I know they'd love swimming if they'd only give it a try.


My name is Sunshine. Mom and Dad usually just call me Sunny. On hot summer days I like to sunbathe.

Some dogs, like my crazy sister Glory, think going into the water is the answer to the heat. I worry about Glory when she does that and try to herd her to safety without getting myself wet. It doesn't work, but danged if I'm going into that cold creek to rescue her.

Saturday Sky and Stuff

Once again it's a beautiful summer day in SW Michigan, sunny and hot - mid 80s.

Temperatures are forecast for the mid 90s next week. Not my favorite weather but not unusual for this time of year.

We long for a good, soaking rain here, but it isn't going to happen soon. Just now I went to check out the 5 day forecast to see if there was any mention of future rain. There wasn't.


The creek is the lowest since we moved here 16 years ago.

I've been transplanting many plants because of the destruction of our shady frontage. This is not a good time of year to be moving perennials. That plus the lack of rain explains why they're all looking sad in their new homes. I'm hoping most will just die back for this year and come up again for a new start in 2008.

Even some of the weeds are looking bedraggled.

Sympathy to the area farmers. Their problems are much more serious than wilting perennials and brown grass.


An exception to the botany blues are the Rose of Sharon bushes. They're blooming more abundantly than normal this year thanks to their long tap roots and our high water table.

In the background are a couple of big old oak trees. We may have lost two oaks to the road widening, but we still have plenty left on the rest of the property.