Beeson Banner for July, 2017

3 July 2017

This morning I said, for the ten thousandth time, that I couldn't believe that there are no ready-made dishes for taking chilled food to pitch-in dinners.  Dave said "nonsense", and a brief search of Amazon turned up a long list of dishes that keep your food on ice — on a buffet table a short walk from the kitchen.  One dish (which was listed from three different suppliers) has a "dome lid to keep cold in and bugs out".  Okay, I can use rubber bands to keep the lid on, as I do when carrying a crock pot.  Two problems with that:  the bowl has no ears to anchor the other ends of the bands (and the knob is no bigger anywhere than it is at the bottom) — and by "vented ice chamber" they mean that there are slots in the bottom of the salad compartment.  The bowl is strictly for tossed salads with no dressing.

Later I tried Froogle, and found one that might conceivably do for fifty dollars.  Further search turned up a better choice at Walmart for thirty.

So now I've got motivation to ride around Center Lake.  I can combine that with a trip to Goodwill to dump various things turned up in cleaning.

I spent the entire morning sorting two of the three drawers in the shower room.  (We no longer have a tub, so I refuse to say "bathroom".)  I got two of my pincushions sorted out in the process.  I found seven packages of dental floss and dental tape.  I set the three that are in still-sealed bubble packs aside to take to the church the next time I feel like a one-mile walk; there's a bin to collect toiletries for the food pantry.

4 July 2017

Oh, arrgh!  I heard the washer stop, took the clothes out, putting some into the dryer and some into the basket, put the next load in, picked up the basket — and remembered that this load hadn't been rinsed.

We had a lovely weekend, by the way, and saw most of the Beeson family at yesterday's picnic.

7 July 2017

I rode around Pike Lake on the fifth.  The purpose of the trip was to get a salad bowl at Walmart and a lemon squeezer at Aldi, but I couldn't find either.  Came home with full panniers anyway — partly because Big R had *finally* got in single-cat size bags of Perfect Weight.

I'm not at all sure what I did with yesterday.  Gloomy today — I need lights on in mid-morning — but I hope to clean up the sewing room a little, and catch up on my training log.

Gone a bit gloomy.  I heard

I think I'd have put "more" before gloomy if the lights hadn't gone out before I could tell how a KABS driver or somebody complained that he needed dive gear to cross Main Street.  (Am I mis-remembering?  It's Market Street that floods.)

Something is wrong with my UPS; I had time to close this document, but before I could click on "shut down", both computers had crashed.

I wailed "But everything I had planned for today requires me to be able to *see*!"  After a bit I noticed that an apron with too-short strings was on the ironing board.  The Necchi is right up against a window and was getting all of what little light there was.  I could see well enough to cut two pieces of tape to splice a string with, and a job like that is done mostly by turning the handwheel anyway, and things were going very well when an awkward move unthreaded the needle.

So I went into the kitchen, where the headlamp strapped to the Necchi has been ever since I found it dead, but for some reason didn't want to change the batteries just then.  I couldn't see to read the black-on-black instructions for opening the battery chamber, and I couldn't see to identify the spare batteries — dry cells differ enough that I could have picked some by feeling the new and the old batteries, but the lamp hadn't shown any sign of failing batteries before going dead and I wasn't sure all that fumbling around would bear fruit, so I snitched the White's headlamp and finished the job.  The lights came back on before I'd finished hand-sewing re-inforcement patches to a jersey that I'm revising, but after Dave got back from driving around.

Al came out from under the bed early in the storm, and huddled in the hallway.  Now he's in the living room, but in a corner instead of sprawled out in the middle of the carpet.

Just checked the living room.  Dave is watching a baseball game with his cat shirt on and all is right with Al's world.

8 July 2017

The eighth of July, and we still have cheese dip.  I allowed it to boil after putting the cheese in, which ruined the texture and also causes it to separate when re-heated.  But there's not much more than would decorate a tostada for my lunch tomorrow.

The chips are pretty much gone.  I just ate the remaining crumbs of vegetable chips, and there are still potato chips only because we have been restraining ourselves.  But the tortilla strips will last a bit longer — that bag is *huge*!  We both like them, but I won't buy more unless there is a two-person bag.

9 July 2017

The watershed is still draining after Friday's storm.  When I got home from church, I thought that there was more water between the paddle boat and the grass than when I'd left, and this evening I can still see Wildman's pier, but I don't think I'd walk on it with my shoes on.  I definitely noted, in the afternoon, that it was above water by the width of the stringers.

The paddle boat floated up to the beach Friday night, and Dave tied a rope to it and pulled it onto the land with the lawn mower yesterday.  Now you'd think it was floating again, were it not that an improbable width of float is above the water line.  I took a picture of it and Dave took the picture to the police station in the park, but they were closed for the weekend.  He did report it to Dispatch by telephone.

There is lots and lots of mud coming down the creek.  I wish DNR would let people dredge it out and take it some place where it would be useful.

As I was leaving church, I heard a commotion — a man had fallen down our back steps, and got an abrasion on his forehead bad enough that he dripped on the sidewalk.  They said he never passed out, but I don't think he was tracking.  EMS carried him off.  Dave heard the ambulance crew telling the hospital it was a cut on the forehead.

10 July 2017

Morning report:  The beach is still part of the lake, but the deck of Wildman's pier is definitely above water, the paddleboat is on ground that's merely wet, and there's a definite bank between the creek and the puddle in the park.

There's a streak of sandbar-colored water where the streak of dirty water was yesterday.

Yesterday, the lowest part of the compost heap was under lake, and the low spot near the garden was wet enough that I had to throw the garbage.

When I woke up and saw that it wasn't quite eight, I thought that if I hurried, I could get some of the wash dried before the afternoon rain, but it's thundering off and on, so I'd better plan on racks in the garage from the beginning.

There must have been an inch of rain in the squall that just passed over — the paddleboat is surrounded by water again, the deck of the Wildman's pier is barely above water when I could see most of the stringers before, and the bank of the creek isn't quite as distinct.

The banks aren't above the flood plain — they are impossible to mow, and the string trimmer doesn't come out very often.

There's a fine crop of mints along the string-trimmer line this year.  The patch on our side of the fence appears to be peppermint; I haven't sampled the creek banks, having both chocolate mint and apple mint in my herb garden.

But the Joe Rickets strawberries may have suffocated the apple mint.  I never pick it, so haven't paid much attention.

12 July 2017

Hey, I scored nine at HexaVirus — I think that that is a record.

Just went out to check the apple mint.  Not a trace.  I pulled some weeds, and moved a Kenilworth ivy.  In digging the ivy, I pulled up a winter savory runner that I'd overlooked among the weeds, so I put that into the fern bed too.  I haven't had any luck in moving plants to the spot where I put it, and it was mangled some, so I don't have much hope.

Sprinkled a handfull of 12-12-12 on the strawberry bed.

No news from the owner of the paddle boat.  We're beginning to think he has gone somewhere for the summer.

14 July 2017

The owner of the paddle boat came for it yesterday.  We never took a ride in it, partly because it would have been so much effort to launch it and drag it back up onto the shore.  The owner launched it all by himself, without straining any.

He towed it away with his motorski, also recently recovered.

The winter savory was still green when I emptied a water bottle on it yesterday.

I took a short walk — a wade, in the current condition of the park — along the creek to check the mint.  All seems to be peppermint, but I only tasted one.  There are lots of plants, but nowhere a vigorous growth like that along the lake shore.

Things have been soggy, but never quite what I'd describe as a flood, rather than saying "the lake is up".  The story about the closing of Winona Lake Beach quoted two different people as saying it was the second-worst flood they could remember.

Perhaps they see it as "bad" because the lake continues and continues to *stay* up.

I don't think the creek has overflowed anywhere above the flood plain.  I should hop on the pedal-powered wheelchair and ride along Union Street to look for signs of recent submersion.

Last night, as I was shutting the door to tone down the annoying whine of JOY98, I said "well, duh!" and shut down the computer.

Then this morning I tried to turn off the screen saver — and when I just now tried to exit, I typed "pp" instead of "save to backup".  At which point I remembered that this weird keyboard turns off the function keys whenever the computer is reset.

I wonder what all the extra keys are for?  It's frustrating that none of them can be redefined without also redefining one of the standard keys; they must be pure duplication.

18 July 2017

Poor Al!  When I picked up his treat dish this morning, I realized that I'd forgotten to give him his second treat.  When he leaves crumbs on the plate, he likes for me to pour a little water on them and crush the lumps to release their flavor.

I'm planning to wander around on the bike this morning.  All my itinerary is downtown, but I'm taking my distance shoes so I can come back around the south end of the lake, by way of Tippy Park.

20 July 2017

Did.  Boring.

I stopped at the International Market and bought a can of corned beef and another package of dried hot dogs.  I looked at a five-pound package of brown rice, and was amused that the cooking instructions assumed that you had an automatic rice cooker.  I suppose that anyone who buys rice in five-pound bags *would*.

I was intending to say that the new pastor is a Van Gogh fan, but last Sunday's bulletin decoration was by Thomas Kincade.

22 July 2017

It thundered all night, one flash was bright enough to see through the curtains, and a UPS beeped, but when I woke up it was merely overcast and soggy and the rain was definitely over.

The local radar showed all clear except for a blip at Etna Green.  The national radar showed that that blip extended well to the other side of Illinois.

The rain seems to be veering to the south, but I don't feel like going to the farmers' markets today.  I should pull some weeds in the garden.

Harvested most of the multipliers in the process.  I need to go out and five-tine hoe the little strip I've cleared.

The multipliers were pretty well formed before I stopped tending them, and don't seem to have suffered from being buried in weeds, but they've lost outer wrappers from being harvested too late.  Despite my neglect, I can plant for green onions next spring, and spare a few sets if someone else wants to do the same.

They were coated in mud, so I thought I'd put them in the leaky wheelbarrow and hose them off.  The wheelbarrow doesn't leak fast enough, and after mud accumulated, it stopped leaking at all.  I've got them spread out on a newspaper on the picnic table, and plan to put them on a dry paper under the benches piled in the garage after my nap.  I put four rocks on the paper in case of wind.

25 July 2017

Well, I've never been so glad to be cheated out of a treat!

I've been wanting to go to the Rentown Country Market for quite a long time, and today was the day.  I meant to park our truck at the market and explore the neighborhood on my bike — according to Google Maps, there are a lot of interesting places between Bremen and Nappanee.

Yesterday evening, I mentioned that I was about to sort my Nappanee maps, and that reminded Dave that he'd meant to fill up the truck before my expedition, so he went out, started it up, and gasoline began to pour out.  The leak was under the truck, so I probably wouldn't have noticed until the fumes found a spark.

So this morning Glen's sent a flatbed to haul it to the Toyota place, and this afternoon Dave said the Toyota people had called to say that they'd found time to look at it (they'd expected not to have time for us before Friday) and a new hose is on order.

I put the Nappanee maps away and hastily tried to think of a tour starting here.  I found a note saying that the Warsaw High School had laying hens, and decided that looking at the chicken pen would add a bit of interest to yet one more lap around Winona Lake.  Further research showed that it was Wawasee High School that had the chickens, but I toured the school complex anyway, and saw the bike rack the Eagle Scout built for Edgewood middle school.  I got to the schools by way of Country Club road, so I could look at the dam.

I had lunch at the Tippecanoe Park picnic shelter and came back by way of The Farm, where I bought a green bell pepper.

I stopped at Owen's, where I was two for two:  they were out of Kroger ginger beer, and also out of Kroger Hot Dog Chili Sauce.  They are almost always out of ginger beer — they get in only two six-packs at a time — but the chili sauce surprised me.  For a while I thought I'd gone cross-eyed and couldn't find it.  I did check off everything else on my list.

Then I back-tracked to International Foods, not looking too closely at chilled and frozen stuff because my insulated pannier was stuffed.  I bought two cans of New Zealand corned beef and a thirty-nine cent envelope of ramen noodles.  It looks like a single serving; I used to split a grocery-store ramen packet with Dave, but he shouldn't eat that much carbohydrate, so I quit buying them.

I got home in time to serve lettuce salad, wee little hamburger patties, and cottage cheese for supper.  (It's easy to plan a meal when a bit of raw meat needs to be used up *now*.)

27 July 2017

When I got up this morning there was no wind, and there was a moiré pattern in the waves on this side of the lake.  The lighter color of the parts of the lake that were rippling gave the illusion of a frozen lake with a patch of open water in the middle.  I puzzled for a while but couldn't see what was illuminating the waves in crosswise curves, then walked away.  When I turned back to the window, the moiré pattern was gone, but the frozen illusion remained and light-colored objects on the far side were reflected in streaks across the whole pattern.  While I watched, the waves on this side of the lake dissolved into the "open water".  Being blurred by distance, the lighter streak on the far side looked more like ice than ever.

When I went out to comb my hair, a light breeze had arisen, and the lake was a uniform gray.  So was the sky.

We fetched the truck this morning.  It was squirrel damage, and a *lot* of stuff had to be replaced.  The mechanic said that for some strange reason, new hoses come coated with peanut oil, and the insulation in a car is soybean based.  Perhaps the manufacturers are trying to drum up business?

Dave has ordered rodent repellent from Amazon.

When the demise of Sears was news, I realized that Amazon is now what Sears and Roebuck used to be. When do we get the equivalent of Montgomery Ward?

I thought I'd be carrying my Trafalgar bag with just my pills and grooming kit in it, but I kept remembering things after I zipped up my carry-on, and it's nearly jammed.

I just took Dave's cane out of the car and put mine in.  I'd like to take the walker, but it's so *huge*.  I can get it into the trunk, but it's a struggle.  And I doubt that there will long paved walkways to take exercise on.

Considered taking the Wheelie-Cool, but if I need to keep something cold, I can wrap it in my emergency blanket.

I've just realized that it will be time to send the July Banner before I get back.  Tuesday at the earliest.

I'm taking Dave's laptop.  The laptop bag fits neatly into the carry-on I packed my clothing in.

I hope there's room in the Trafalgar bag for my phone charger.

I recently got an extension cord for the charger so that I could store the phone in my pants pocket.  That should put an end to leaving the house without it!