2005 Beeson Banner 

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4 January, 2005 
Bad attack of the lazies -- the rain the last few days hasn't helped any.  We haven't a vestige of snow left, and the lake is completely thawed.  
Rain stopped long enough for us to take two point sevens today, one of them through the woods and Stone Camp.  
It's supposed to turn into snow and sleet later tonight -- no mention of hail, but something about two inches of ice in the prediction.  Somehow I don't think that means on the lake.  Dave has put the truck in the garage again -- good excuse not to put up the Christmas things, because it keeps me from unfolding the ladder into the attic.  [Didn't get the sleet until nearly noon.] 
      
Alice has an appointment, some unspecified day, to come up here for bean soup and cornsticks and a shopping tour.  
I got a special brush for cleaning cornstick molds for Christmas -- then later I got a cornstick mold.  
There are still an awful lot of cookies in the freezer.  Hmm . . . I put one into the nut dish an hour or two ago . . . 

On Monday, I tried to mail a couple of packages I'd completely forgotten about in December.  Long line at the post office -- perhaps it was too close to noon -- and there were no prices given for any of the envelopes that I presume were for sale, which seem to come only in tiny and huge, and they had only one of the smallest of the huge sizes, so I gave up and went on to the supermarket.  Should have checked them out for mailing supplies; they haven't cleared out the Christmas stuff yet.  The wrapping paper hadn't been marked down, so I didn't get any.  
      
At 03:17 PM 1/4/05 -0500, Nancy wrote: 
      
> Alice and Joy, I've found our next trip,  > There is a round barn museum and a 
> number of barns in a county near Joy's.  > Is there a Fulton County, didn't think to > look for the town.  
      
Next county to the south and west from Kosciusko, and there's a town named Fulton in the corner of it that's on my Northeast Indiana map.  
Little adventure getting to it -- I keep it on the bike, and when Dave re-arranged the garage to get the truck in, he boxed the bike in pretty good. 
      
5 January 2004 
Dave got an e-mail from DNR today saying there are eagle tours in southern Indiana, one of them south of French Lick not too far from Salem. 
      
10 January 2005                    
While cutting the Banner into columns, I came upon a September entry saying that I hadn't gotten around to cutting the sheet I'd brought home from the church into two tablecloths.  Yesterday, I finally took the two tablecloths and my model, and two I'd brought home for washing in the meantime, back to the church kitchen.  
Still no progress on my bodice muslin, though there is a pile of crumpled patterns behind the sewing machine where they fell after I hastily cleared the ironing board after trying to scope out the problem.  
                                                           
12 January 2005 
We got the piano tuned today.  
                                                           
14 January 2005 
We've never seen the lake so high ÄÄ the shoreline is about where it was when Dave's parents built the house.  
Dave did a marvelous job of making the pier level ÄÄ "Unless it's floating", he said.  I'm sure it isn't floating ÄÄ but I wouldn't want to walk on it even if the causeway weren't covered; it's covered with ice from the splashing of the lake.  

At 07:18 PM 1/13/05 -0500, Nancy wrote: 
      
> The snow all melted last night and it is 
> snowing again.  I hope not the 2 to  4 
> inches predicted.  Coming from Indiana 
> too.  Supposed to get cold.  Would  like 
> the ground to freeze and maybe get some 
> of those pesky moles.  It  didn't freeze 
> last winter because of snow cover. 
      
Snowing here, too.  At least it got rid of the two inches of ice first.  All those soggy ridges we had for a while would have been nasty frozen.  The lake is so high that we speculate that they have closed the dam to protect areas downstream.  We were in town to go to the bank today, and wondered where else we could go while out -- but I didn't remember that we wanted to look at the dam until after dark.  
Lawn is a pond, but the new drains are working fine.  Water was running across the road in one spot in the end of Park Avenue that wasn't rebuilt, but it was a very thin layer. 
That was yesterday -- Wednesday -- we skipped our walk tonight.  
And I went to bed before midnight, with the result that I got up at 2:00 am & will probably sleep even later than usual after I go back to bed. 
      
15 January 2005 
I was sitting around knitting a mitten when I got a sudden urge to walk to the Trailhouse and buy a pair of cycling gloves.  Dave felt the need of exercise and went with me.  
They had only synthetic-back gloves, as I expected, and just as I'd decided that I wasn't going to spend a minimum of $25 for gloves I really, really hate, Dave said there's a box of $10 gloves over here, but they're all full-finger gloves.  But down in the bottom was a pair of fingerless gloves in just my size -- well maybe a little loose, but not as loose as my old ratty gloves have gotten, and they will fit under warm gloves much better.  And I won't mind them being plastic until after I stop wearing gloves over them, at which time I can go back to the old ratty gloves if Trailhouse hasn't gotten in some summer road gloves.  (The muddies like slick solid backs on account of the brush.)  
Man, I wish people had been willing to pay $15 for the ultramarathon gloves Elmer Little in Gloversville used to make.  Really nice gloves, and they wore twice as long as what was selling for $12 at the time.  
I wonder what they'd cost if you could buy them now.  
                                                           
The lake is still higher.  Still holding at what was the shoreline when Claude and Evelyn moved in, and the pier sections still aren't floating.  We may have a section of someone else's pier on the beach, though.  The canal is iced over, except for a couple of rippling spots under the bridge (I presume under the other bridges also), and there is ice around the edges of the lake.  All puddles are frozen; some have drained out from under their ice.  
                                                           
17 January 2005 
Lake was mostly frozen Sunday morning.  On our afternoon walk today, I wore the Capilene tights under my cotton- linen pants, and felt a bit cool about the knees.  
                                                           
18 January 2005 
Thought the lake was entirely frozen when I got up, but saw some open patches later in the day.  When we went past the boat launch, the lake was at least six inches below the top of the sea wall it had been splashing over at its height.  Hard to tell because the ice that formed when it was about four inches down was still there, sloping down to the current level.  
Not to mention that I didn't have a ruler with me, and it would have been difficult, perhaps dangerous, to get close enough for a good look.  
Also while passing the boat launch, I saw a patch of open water that, on second glance, had geese walking on it.  Will be great to skate on, and I think there are some skating-age people in Stone Camp.  
                                                           
20 January 2005 
Went out today intending to stop at Staples, Aldi's, and Aunt Millie's; did tour Staples & have fun, but their keyboards are decidedly Not Keyboards, in my estimation, except one that was (a) wireless (b) no improvement over the one I'm using now, so I didn't look at any price tags.  Can't understand why nobody makes a keyboard with a separate spacebar for the left thumb -- the old IBM Executive had a split spacebar, and it worked very well.  
But after spending five minutes cleaning up the car enough to leave Aldi's, I decided that the two half-loaves of bread we have will last us a while and came straight home without stopping at Aunt Millie's.  
Aldi had the nice little seasoned tenderloins, and I got a peppercorn tenderloin to bake tomorrow.  Also stocked up on frozen meat, so if Dave doesn't mind having rice with it, we can get snowed in for quite a spell.  There are two huge sweet potatoes left too.  
Learned something neat from the South Beach Diet.  Sweet potatoes are less glycemic than white potatoes.  Which I don't honestly believe, because there is definitely sugar in them; must have been some study where they isolated the starch.  Or wishful thinking from a sweet-potato lover.  
Anyhoo, one of the recipes is for Succulent Sweet Potato Side, which, upon inspection, is nothing but mashed sweet potatoes, made exactly the way you mash white potatoes, except that you leave out the milk and add nutmeg, white pepper, and allspice.  The recipe includes two tablespoons of buttermilk, but it's much nicer without.  And I use black pepper, not having any white pepper, and substitute a dash each of cinnamon and cloves for the allspice, since I don't want to grind allspice.  
It's also much nicer if you use a *lot* more butter than the recipe calls for ;-)  I may try it with walnut oil instead of butter.  

21 January 2005 
      
At 02:05 PM 1/21/05 -0500, Alice wrote: 
      
> Did you know, that without heat on the 
> windows, you can't hardly wipe off the 
> frost your breath makes at 14 degrees? 
> Couldn't get in my trunk to retrieve my > box of paper towels so thought kleenex 
> would do just as well. 
      
I keep a diaper under the seat.  It's been used to mop up the foot wells a few times, so I suppose I should put in a fresh one.  (Linda left three or four in the rag box, in case you're wonder where I came by diapers.) 
I doubt that paper towels would have done much better than kleenex.  
I'm glad I wasn't on that drive -- seems like forever in good weather! 
      
> Joy, I didn't even know they made a 
> split space bar.  Since my thumbs are 
> almost together when poised over the 
> keyboard, I'm trying to picture why you > need one. 
      
They *don't*, and I've been complaining about that ever since I got the TRS-80.  The IBM Executive had one -- still has; it's out in the garage.  
I want it just to stop wasting one whole finger, when it's so often necessary to take your hands off the keyboard to use outlying keys.  
It's a pity nobody thought of making the left thumb do the carriage return, back when they were inventing electric typewriters.  That would be the best use of the left spacebar, but it's too late to re-train for that now.  
Having an on-the-keyboard user-defined key isn't as important as it was when I was typing for publication all the time.  The use I remember most clearly was for typing the repeating parts in a list of addresses -- and come to think of it, I used shorthand mode for that.  I'm not sure I remember how to get into shorthand mode.  
I used to define the numpad "enter" as "enter, save" when I was punching in lists of names and addresses -- that was one job I really, really didn't want to risk having to do twice!  I went to the numpad to enter the zip code and phone number, so that was the logical key to hit when I finished typing an address. 
      
> I'll have to look for meat more at Aldi's.  > I bought a package of four frozen salmon > steaks--one just right for me--for $3.98. 
      
We had the tenderloin tonight, with corn and mashed sweet potatoes.  Delicious, and there's enough left for sandwiches.  The instructions said to bake it twenty minutes, so I put it in an hour before I meant to serve it -- and had to turn the heat up and put it back in for another ten minutes.  I don't know what they were smoking when they wrote those instructions.  They said that grilling would take longer than baking! 
But we still got back from our after-supper "point seven" while it was still light, yay lengthening days.  The storm was predicted to start at 6:00, so we walked to the post office in the morning, where I mailed two packages that I forgot about last November.  (Nancy, Mary:  watch the mail.)  According to the radar on Weather Underground (where *did* they get such a name?), it was already snowing at Alice's when we were on our evening walk. 
At staples, I learned that a padded envelope becomes a "cushioned mailer" when you substitute bubble wrap for the pulverized newspaper.  Reminds me of hunting all over for a grease pencil, back when I still did a little canning, and learned, eventually, that I should have been looking for a "china marker".  
Do people write on china?  A grease pencil doesn't write on glass unless the glass is hot, so I don't think it would mark china very well.  And it's a thin wax crayon in a paper wrap, so "grease pencil" doesn't fit perfectly either, though one *could* say that wax is very stiff grease.  Maybe the wax used to be softer. 
I should be able to think of a dozen things that aren't sold by their right names.  
      
22 January 2005 
But I can't.  
      
Either I peeled a smaller potato than previously or we ate more of the mashed sweet potato than usual -- I had to add corn and a tablespoon of potato flakes to make cakes for breakfast.  The white potato blended right in, but I don't think the corn was an improvement.  Dave said he couldn't tell it was in there.  
      
> Hope you guys up north don't get all 
> that snow they are forecasting for you.  
      
It's snowing now, but I can see the other side of the lake.  According to the turd I threw out the door at 5:10, we got most of our snow in the night.  Looks like just enough to keep the roads slick.  Supposed to stop this evening, but I'll probably have to wear my hiking boots to church again.  Perhaps I should wear my skis -- there's a park alongside the sidewalk where Chestnut climbs the hill. 
I've been writing down the times of turd-disposal because Dave is keeping a spreadsheet so he can predict the next one.  Ain't gonna work unless he also records the times I lie down and get up -- Al likes for me to be in the bed, but awake, for maximum speed of removal. 
When we go down to visit Alice, he holds it until we get back.  
I wish he just buried them like other cats.  When Dave said that, I said "but we have to carry them out anyway."  Dave said "But it isn't so *urgent*."  Which is probably why Al leaves them where we are sure to notice. 
      
24 January 2005 
The part of the creek that I can see from the living room is still open, but it no longer extends into the lake.  I suspect that it overflowed into the lagoon during the process of freezing -- there is a mirror-smooth pond of ice bordered by wet-looking snow.  
                                                           
25 January 2005 
Turned out to be a sun-puddle, which by noon had extended to the Wildman's pier.  Which made me very annoyed that I hadn't thought of cleaning the Buick off while the sun was still on that side of the house; we left it facing east, so it would have gotten quite warm if there hadn't been white insulation all over the windshield. 
In the course of the day, the creek ate into the ice on the lake again.  I looked out a little after midnight, and thought that the open water looked very black in the moonlight.  After a bit I realized that it is completely covered with geese.  
                                                           
26 January 2005 
Buick thawed before I got around to wanting it anyway.  Went to Marsh yesterday, and we are almost out of milk already.  
We went to see Phantom of the Opera tonight -- I enjoyed it even though I rarely had any idea as to what was going on.  This is the first time I've set foot in the multiplex theater off Husky Trail.  (Blanking on the name at the moment.)  
Dave warned me that I was going to want earplugs; I said no sweat, I *always* carry earplugs.  Except that I have some knitting tools in the same Altoids box, and said box is on the floor beside the computer next to my almost-finished mitten.  That seems to happen every single time I want the ear plugs.  On one occasion, I moved essentials from a large purse to a small one before going to the theater --and didn't transfer the ear plugs.  
Despite the warm weather, the sun puddle looked like a very nice skating rink the last time I looked at it.  
                                                           
4 February 2005 
It was so warm yesterday that I took my coat off during our after-supper walk.  Perhaps that was because I continued to wear a sweater under the coat and wrap my head in three scarves: a little red wool scarf that I had as a child, which has become very thick, a white wool-challis scarf I started to make, but it got stained before I got around to embroidering it, and it's just barely big enough to tie under the chin & I've come to prefer scarves big enough to wrap around my neck, so I just use it with raw edges, pinning it into a sort of coif under other scarves, and then I tied my highly-visible orange dupioni scarf over all.  
I was lining a cotton scarf with the red one the day I flew off my bike and broke my collarbone.  The people who called the ambulance said they'd have never seen me if it hadn't been for "that red thing" -- luckily I hadn't yet formed the habit of pinning it on, and was able to get it loose with one hand and wave it.  I treasured it for quite a while on that account, and darned the damage a weed had done to it in the process.  I still had darning wool at the time (I make do with embroidery wool now -- I had more fun embroidering with darning wool for want of embroidery wool than I do darning with embroidery wool for want of darning wool!) and you can't see the mend.  
But nowadays I keep it because it's just the right size to cover my ears, and very thick and fuzzy.  
                                                           
Not too long ago, my hair flipped from being brown with white streaks to being white with black streaks, and looks Really Cool pinned up in a gibson.  When braided, it's still a dirty-white cap with a brown pigtail, so I've been pinning it up more often. 
On the other hand, a hastily-braided pigtail looks a lot better than an uneven gibson with loops and locks poking out 
                                                           
                                                           
24 February 2005 
The sandbar was visible again when we got up this morning, and the lake has been dropping all day.  I could have measured how much if I'd taken a ruler with me on our evening point seven -- there was a shelf of ice all around the pier at the boat launch.  
I thought the lake was frozen all the way to the shore at that point, but a closer look showed that it was frozen *beyond* the shore -- ice had been stranded by the falling water level.  
The creek is still up and running fast.  Dave and I think that the dam must have been closed to protect property along Eagle Creek, then opened again.  
                                                           
Dave is using Firefox as his browser now, and recently downloaded the composer.  He has been gleefully overhauling his Web site ever since.  
                                                           
26 February 2005 
Yesterday was a write-off.  It's been so long since I had a cold that I don't know how to deal with it.  I still have a little headache, but I just took three pseudoepinephrine tablets, so that should go away.  
Al's fur is growing back, he's chasing his string normally, and he's almost out of antibiotic.  We took him in for what turned out to be a flea allergy on the 18th, and the vet gave him a shot of something like prednisone, and sold us some flea poison and a bottle of antibiotic.  The rash cleared up almost at once.  
We worried about the way he was scratching for a few days before making his appointment; now I see him lifting his back leg toward his neck, looking at us, and saying "nope, nope, I'm not going to scratch while they are watching."  
                                                           
There's still water in the lagoon, but it looks as though one could walk from our pier to the Wildman's pier.  The streak of water the creek keeps open gets longer every day, and was well past the Zimmer house the last time we took a point seven.  (Dave went by himself yesterday.)  It goes south almost exclusively, and Dave said that Zimmer said that he sees signs of sandbar.  
                                                           
My sister Nancy is on the verge of taking Mom's parlor organ to the Goodwill.  Dave would like to have it, but we can't figure out where to put it.  
                                                           
And I still can't remember what I meant to say when I was so rudely interrupted.  I took an unusually-long nap the day before yesterday, thereby missing a spruce-up party at the church, and by bedtime it was apparent that it was a good thing I hadn't gone; I'm sure the other folks would rather fill in for me than catch my cold.  
                                                           
27 February 2005 
Dave and I walked to Walgreens today, and bought two boxes of calcium chews.  
                                                           
We thought we'd give Al his last antibiotic this morning, but there is still some in the bottle after his evening dose.  Luckily, he doesn't mind the medicine at all.  We gang up on him anyway.  
                                                           
28 February 2005 
He really did get the last dose this morning -- whereupon, I forgot to give him his evening treat until after ten.  
Went to a fellowship-committee meeting at the church tonight, and snorted in a most disgusting manner throughout.  Also felt a little stupid.  No further responsibilities until 9:00 the Saturday before Easter, but I must have a white blouse to wear for Easter.  Also need my new black linen pants, but I can suck my stomach in and wear the black polywool.  
I have no white fabric suitable for blouses.  I tried on one of Dave's polo shirts -- quite impossible.  
                                                           
2 March 2005 
And just when I thought I was getting over it, I've begun to cough. 

28 March 2005 
I went outside in my bare feet for the first time today.  Wasn't as uncomfortable as walking barefoot in my sewing room at night.  
It took me so long to notice that the heat vent in the sewing room is closed that I decided that I like it that way, since it keeps needles etc. out of the duct.  That does make the floor a mite cool, but I have fuzzy slippers. 
      
8 April 2005 
That was also the first day Dave played golf.  
I've been too busy doing spring things to write about them. 
With the improving weather, Al has gotten very clever about flowing past obstacles to get outside.   Today I went wading in the creek for the second time.  I came back to the house, hosed mud off my feet, opened the door, kicked Al to keep him from coming out -- and instead of flowing over my foot, he backed off saying "Yuckers!  That foot is *wet*!"  
Creek bottom was cleaner and sandier the first time.  I'd been helping Dave with the pier and got my feet black well up the ankle.  Remembering that the black stuff doesn't hose off, I resolved to wade into the creek and rub my feet with sand -- but just wading in got my feet as white as can be.  Perhaps walking back to the house gives the black stuff enough time to dig in.  Or maybe it was a different black stuff last summer.  
The lagoon is drier today, and I didn't sink in as far.  Lots of nice muck, but I'm so soft from sitting around all winter that the tiniest dab of work makes my back hurt, so I've given up on hauling muck to the garden. 
      
11 April 2005  
Got on the bike for the first time in a long time -- my tires had gone soft.  And me too, apparently, as I came back about three in the afternoon wasted, even though it was at least ten before I started.  Went to the library by way of the bike trails, then to Ace Hardware to buy some razor blades -- I got a razor-blade holder while I was at it.  Backtracked to Pike Lake Park to try the boardwalk -- it didn't rumble as it did when a bike rider passed us when we went for a walk there after dining at the China Palace Saturday night.  I don't know whether that's because he was wearing knobby tires, or because I wasn't picking up the sound through my feet.  Stopped at Aldi for celery and peppers, after discovering that I don't know the way from the north side of 30.  I absent-mindedly tried to cross at 250 East; should have turned on 225 East.  But I think that that has been vacated and no longer connects. 
When walking then, we noticed a couple of warped boards, one in the deck and a spectacularly-warped board in the hand rail.  Today I noticed a piece broken out of the edging they put in where there isn't a hand rail.   
Tomorrow -- today, really, as it is after midnight -- is for getting ready to go to Michigan.   I think I'm finally sleepy now.  Went to bed away too early, and got up again.   
      
15 April 2005 
Sigh.  No ice cream -- just a golden-delicious apple.  But we are going out tomorrow.  
Brent had a fire while I was gone.  He was burning some brush in his bonfire, the lawn caught fire, spread to the debris that washed up in the flood, and from there to the woodpile.  Lots of people around and they got it out without calling the fire department.  They appear to have put out the woodpile by scattering the burning logs around the lawn -- only a little damage was done; the woodpile isn't obviously any shorter than it was before, and most of the logs that did catch fire are only charred on the outside.  (Stand by for a correction from the guy who was there.) 
Also while I was gone, Brent identified the pier section that had washed up on our lawn, so we've got rid of that.  He's having a bunch of boys come over tomorrow to take his pier out of the lake.  The excavating is postponed to Tuesday.  Dave got our pier out all by himself; he says it wasn't hard, but tedious. 
      
Alice and I designed a T-shirt to make out of my ivory waffle-knit cotton and trim with my striped cotton jersey.  I'll have to get on with it, because I found a little hole in the striped T-shirt I wore today, right on the tit where I can't patch or darn it.  Also have a mysterious spot on the pants I wore today.  That will wash out -- but I just washed the durn things!  My next linen pants are going to be *black*!  
      
Al got an airing while Alice and I were sitting on the porch.  It isn't often I sit outside long enough to let him out on his leash.  
      
The tiller did a lovely job on the garden.  Now I'm going to have to get out there with the rake and Culta-Eze.  (A sort of wheel hoe.)  I may set out the tomatoes right away, since it isn't any trouble to cover two plants when frost is predicted.  On the other hand, I don't always remember to keep an eye on the weather.   On the third hand, planting the onions and the tomatoes at the same time makes it easier to leave appropriate gaps in the onion rows.  
      
16 April 2005 
Everybody but Dave forgot about my birthday -- including me! 
I'll try to remember that I'm sixty-four, and not sit on the floor so often.  
I'm unpacked already, and my suitcase is in the garage waiting for someone to go up to the attic.  Still have some socks and things on the bed, though.  
The garden, which Dave was tilling when we left, is ready to plant, as soon as I push the Culta-Eze and the rake around.  Dave got our pier out of the lake while I was gone.  He says Brent says that he plans to get his pier out today -- but he also said the boys would arrive at 8:00 and it's now 10:54 with no sign of action.  The work on the lake bed is to be done Tuesday -- postponed from Monday because of equipment availability.  

The road crew dumped brown dirt into the ditch they left along the curb and ran a tracked vehicle over it.  In the park and one or two other spots they have also scattered straw around; presumably they also scattered grass seed.  The ground under the straw isn't leveled even as well as what runs by our place.  Though the guys who made the ruts in the lawn promised they would be repaired, the guy in charge of repair said "huh?" when they were pointed out to them -- or so I hear.  No sign they ever mean to do anything about the bump in our driveway, which keeps getting deeper.  
I saw a trillium in the lawn while I was carrying out the cat box. 
When we were coming back from our walk yesterday evening, I noticed a lily-of-the-valley growing on the north side of the driveway -- presumably transplanted by accident when the road crew was digging.  
      
22 April 2005 
Took today off gardening because of the rain, and didn't get anything else done.  Ran out for milk in the afternoon -- bought a steak for supper that has to be simmered for an hour and a half, then got home at precisely the time to serve it!  
I made a salad, mashed one of the two sweet potatoes I'd bought, and left Dave on his own among the leftovers.  Which included parts of two tenderloins, one pepper, one terriaki.  He killed the peppered tenderloin, since it had been in the fridge longer.  
I took the truck because the Buick needs fuel and I didn't want to go to the gas station.  I worried that there wouldn't be enough room in the passenger seat for the groceries, since I usually pretty well fill up the back seat.  But it proved easier to get them all in than with the Buick, perhaps because it's higher so I don't have to bend over to arrange stuff on the floor.  Also helps that there are high walls all around the foot well, so I can brace stuff in. 
      
I finished setting one railroad tie in sand yesterday, moved another, and started shoveling sand to level it.  Earlier in the week, I'd shoveled sand under one that was level, but tipped -- just pried up the low side and stuck shovels of sand under it.  This left it tipped the other way, but I think it will settle some.  Of course, this is how it got tipped in the first place!  
I took a level to the southern tie, but will make the northern one the same distance above the sloping ground all the way.  These two define the eastern edge of the garden.  I did those first, even though the western side (having been batted by a Bobcat) needed it more, so that I could line up the dis-arranged ties by measuring from the eastern side.  It's a lot easier to move the great heavy ties than I expected -- we have many nice round branches cut to convenient lengths in the firewood pile.  The "railroad iron" helps, too.  This is a really-impressive straight crowbar, reputed to have once been used for moving railroad cars. 
The old rotten tie looks really nice leveled up on a bed of sand, and when I get around to planting herbs in the holes, it will be gorgeous.  There is already a clump of oregano started. 
I'd asked for lake muck to fill the garden with -- I'm trying to build it up so it won't flood in rainy weather -- but the first thing the excavation machines did was to stir the muck into the sand, so I've got one load of very dirty sand and one load of fairly-clean sand.  But I think I'll use up most of the pure sand leveling the railroad ties that define the garden.  
      
DNR closed the dam when the boys were almost through playing in the mud, and there isn't much of the sand bar showing now.  Today's rain probably brought the lake up considerably, but I haven't ventured out to look. 
Looks a lot different now, and our pier is going to be a lot shorter.  
      
We had an asparagus spear scrambled into eggs for breakfast yesterday.  Only two plants up, so far.  The plant I took the spear from had another, and they were both nice and fat, so I thought it could spare it even though it's only had one summer of growth.  We're beginning to worry about the other plants, but the first spears haven't begun to leaf out yet, so they may just be slow.  
The excavation has revealed just how slanted the asparagus bed is.  Part of it was under water when the water was high last winter.  We aligned the bed with the windmill pad, but the ground must have been softer on the lake side when the concrete was poured:  the pad was right on the shore when the windmill was built, so the sediment on the lake side would have been recent. 
      
My daffodils have faded -- partly, I think, because I dug them up to keep them from getting buried.  Hyacinths were still going the last time I saw them, and the tulips are just starting.  I thought I had some paper-whites around somewhere, but haven't seen any. 

23 April 2005   
Still wet and cold.  Haven't seen any snow yet.  Weather Underground says to cover the tomatoes tonight; I haven't been out to see how the cold weather has affected them. 
       
2 May 2005 
      
At 11:39 AM 5/1/05 -0500, Alice wrote: 
      
> has been a month since the surgery.  
> She's only mildly discouraged, however, 
> and I think I would be bunches!   
      
I'm plenty short-tempered, and it was only last Friday my back got sore -- and it hasn't stopped me from anything except the gardening.  Dropped my shopping list in the grocery -- after I picked it up, a man walked over and said "You made it!"  I looked pretty normal until my hand was about three inches from the paper, then I had to sneak up on it.  
Strange what you can and can't do.  I can pick things up off the floor just fine when there's furniture around, but up until today, I had to lie on the bed to buckle my sandals.  Also grabbed Al off the concrete yesterday without the least trouble.  
When we went to the Great Wall Saturday night, I discovered that the Buick has a handle over the passenger door.  Still easier to get in and out of the truck.  
I needed the cane to get up and down the steps at the library today -- kept getting out of sync because I'm not practiced at using a cane.  On the flat, it's easier to walk without it, but I've been carrying it on our walks anyway. 
Washed dishes after supper, then made a birthday cake and boiled five eggs; put three into the vinegar off pickled sausage, and two into a jar of pickled beets.  
The cake recipe is absurdly rich -- a whole stick of butter, four eggs, a quarter pound of chocolate, and two cups of sugar to a cup of flour, and instead of the cup of nuts called for, I put in a cup and a half of pecans, a cup of chocolate chips, and dusted the pan with about half a cup of black walnuts after liberally greasing it with walnut oil.  Then I frosted it with most of a 300-gram bar of chocolate.  Oh, I want to go cut myself another piece! 
      
> It was a beautiful sunny day until a few > minutes ago, 
      
I got snowed on on the way to the grocery after visiting the library.  Covered my remaining tomato plant -- I couldn't find the other one -- and brought in the pussy willows and the potted catnip.  After watching Al love the cage the catnip is in, Dave decided to move it into the garage.  I hope I remember to put it back into the sun in the morning.  
And the latest forecast says it will be 80 degrees for the party! 
      
> I'll have extra everything if you need 
> peppers or tomatoes for your garden.  
      
Probably will.  I set my tomatoes out too soon, and they look pretty sick.  And, when I went out to cover them this evening, I couldn't find the one at the south end. 
      
> Hope to see you next week.  
      
I hope I remember to bring the chocolate books to pass on.  They were better than I expected; these theme mysteries include a romance -- well mysteries have always required "love interest" -- and the author tries to keep it at the same stage year after year.  But at the end the second book in the series (I think; they aren't numbered) the prospective groom gets over his fear of tabloids, and at the end of the third, the prospective bride gets over her fear of setting a date, so it might mature into a married-sleuth series.  But it still drags corpses in by the tail.  I *hate* it when the criminal in a mystery offs somebody for the sole purpose of making the mystery into a *murder* mystery.  Less annoying in potboilers such as the chocolate mysteries that start out by postulating a homicidal maniac than in stuff such as Charlotte McCleod writes, where she first sets up  a perfectly good puzzle, then spoils it with a senseless murder.  
Sherlock Holmes found mislaid letters and stolen tiaras and spies -- why aren't contemporary writers allowed to solve crimes other than murder?  
Hmm -- just offhand, I don't recall any "love interest" in either Doyle's work or Poe's.   
       
3 May 2005 
      
At 08:18 AM 5/3/05 -0500, Alice wrote: 
      
> How did you hurt your back?  
> Or did you just start having a hurt?  
      
I was putting laundry in the washer.  I always throw my back out doing something easy, and every time I've broken a tooth, I was eating something soft.  
Greatly improved this morning; I did a set of exercises before getting out of bed, and it didn't hurt.  Also got out of bed without any fuss!  I've spent the last few days wishing we had a trapeze.  I might try resuming work in the garden today:  I have a sneaking suspicion that shoveling won't hurt and pushing the cultivator will, since it ought to be the other way around. 
On the other hand, it's freezing cold out there, and there's a brisk breeze off the lake. 
      
> The cake sounds like candy.  Ymmm. 
      
I should save you a slice.  That "Choceur" milk-chocolate bar from Aldi's makes good frosting because once melted, it never quite solidifies, and you can cut it with a sharp knife. 
I've got to cut it up and freeze most of it this morning.  I'd better eat my cereal first! 
      
      
14 May 2005 
We've been having rain of late, and the last storm had enough water in it to do some good.   Even the areas "planted" by the road crew aren't looking as bad as they did, though the lawn is too rough to mow where they ran over it with various tracked vehicles. 
I set out the verbenia one or the other of us got for our birthday in the raised flowerbed yesterday.  I found the soil full of tree roots!  The rest of the plants are still in pots.  
When I went to choose places to set out the tomatoes Alice gave me, I found that the last of the tomatoes Nancy gave me had disappeared, so I set Alice's in the pots Dave bought his azaleas in, and they are still on the patio.  Looking healthy so far. 
The azaleas are in full bloom, by the way.  The cannas he set out between them aren't up yet. 
      
I just finished critting a novel set in Port Puget, a fictional town on "the peninsula" in the Pacific Northwest.  The characters sometimes visit Seattle.  I hope it sells, as I like the author's style very much.  It's her first novel, though she's done some very good fanfic.  ("Fanfic" is stories about someone else's copyrighted characters, written just for fun.)  
      
15 May 
On the way back from church, I saw grass coming up in the park, where they threw away grass seed first. 
       
29 May 2005 
I got a little dab of work done in the garden today -- shoveled a small pile of loose dirt out of the trench I'm digging to bed a railroad tie in, and carried one load of dirt/sand/gravel mix that had been piled up where the end of the trench will be to the low spot by the pussy willow.  And then hoed the onions.  I need to haul off another cart or two of dirty sand so I can measure across to see whether the trench is straight.  
Which I'd better do tomorrow afternoon, as it is supposed to rain on Memorial Day.  
The "muck" piled up at the foot of the garden during the beach building turned out to be too sandy to grow vegetables in, and the first load is too dirty to bed railroad ties in, so I'm filling in various low spots in the lawn.  I've already used up all the second load bedding railroad ties, but there's a pile in the front lawn, intended for filling in low spots, so there's plenty for the last tie, even though it's going to need a lot more than any of the other four. 
The potatoes look pretty good, even the one that sent a sprout up and then died.  Apparently, it had a back-up eye. 
      
Dave bought a smoker today.  Maybe I should move the tenderloin from the freezer to the fridge.  We had tenderloin for supper today -- I baked one of the little excessively-peppered ones on a bed of vegetables -- but it takes a couple of days for a hunk of meat to thaw. 
               
I made rhubarb jello to take to Alice's brat roast tomorrow -- and forgot to put in the sugar.  This should be interesting.  There are pears and blueberries in it, so I can't say I meant it to be a relish. 
I've been putting a few slices of rhubarb into meat dishes -- any time I want a little acid and it isn't convenient to put in a dash of tomato.  Goes well in tenderloin baked on a bed of vegetables.  I slice the rhubarb real thin and put it in with the chopped celery. 
      
30 May 2005 
      
I noticed today that the potted pepper Alice gave me is in bloom.  Loaded, even though it's very small.  
I'm keeping all the peppers and tomatoes on the patio, since the deer seem a little less likely to eat them close to the house.  They ate the tulips out of the raised flowerbed once, but not since we quit feeding the birds.  
My Joe Rickets strawberries are also loaded, and looking very good.  I hope I don't forget to water them!  
Yesterday, Alice invited Dave and me down for a picnic, which we ate in the comfortable kitchen.  Just five of us, with Larry and Sara Lee -- looked like enough sausages and brats to feed the whole crowd, but there were only five left over.  I ate two even though one was more than enough.  
I think that was the first time Dave and I used our smallest cooler.  It's just a comfortable size for two "soup and salad" semi-disposable dishes.  It was a surprise inside our big cooler, and is smaller than our six-pack size Little Playmate.  I think it was meant to be a lunch box. 
      
2 June 2005 
Busy day.  I played computer card games, hauled three carts -- the little cart that fits through a doorway -- of sand to various low spots in the lawn, and opened up the dining table so I can cut out a new pair of pants.  Haven't gotten down the box of linen scraps to see whether I have some thin black stuff for pocket linings, and haven't checked to see whether I have any #40 black thread.  
I desperately need new pants -- the two beige pair that are only two years old, and have been worn every day, need patching again.  I was disappointed that the heavy black linen isn't quite wide enough to make two pair.  
      
It's sort of trying to sprinkle a bit, so Dave raked and seeded the three spots where I dumped sand.  He's got a S.A.R. meeting tonight, so I don't have to cook supper.  
      
They met at a restaurant at six in the evening -- and *didn't* eat.  Some of the guys went to the Boathouse afterward, but Dave came home and ate a pot pie.  He says they are meeting at the library next time.  
      
8 June 2005 
I took advantage of Dave's absence to turn the air conditioner off -- and the temperature promptly rose so much that I'm tempted to turn it back on.  It doesn't help that he took the screen off the patio door last fall -- and I'd be afraid to leave a thin plastic-film screen as the only obstacle to Al's egress. 
I didn't notice the heat Monday and Tuesday because I was out on the bicycle.  Sitting around waiting for Joe and Lois to pick me up for lunch, I'm sweating. 
      
At 02:08 PM 6/8/05 -0500, Alice wrote: 
      
> And where is Dave?!  
      
Last I heard, he was about to leave for a NSVFD meeting.  He's gone to Voorheesville for a visit -- but staying in a motel on, I think, Western Avenue.  (Sure hope I don't have to get in touch with him -- he told me where he was staying, but I didn't write it down.) 
      
I wanted to open the patio door in the bedroom tonight, but when I tried to close the screen, it came off in my hand.  Not at all sure that I could get it back in the tracks even if I could see what I was doing, I put it in the barn and opened the windows in the kitchen instead.  Al is less likely to claw at those trying to get out anyway.  
Hmm -- would Erica have been so hard to contain if we hadn't taught her that one can get in and out through windows?  
A black cat crossed my path tonight.  I *think* it was black; I don't recall having seen black cats by daylight.  It was pretty late into twilight, since I'd waited until it was cool to go walking.  Got back just in time to give Al his 9:00 treat.  
Come to think of it, I don't recall having seen *any* cats in Stone Camp before.  But we don't walk there as often as on the other streets -- only when we feel like walking through the woods.  They all use professional landscapers, so it's quite dull on that street if you've seen all the fancy houses before. 
That was my first walk since Dave left, but I rode my bike on Monday and Tuesday.  I just finished reading the second of the three books I got at the library on Monday, and I've no intention of reading the third -- though I'd like to read the comic book it's a novelization of, if the library stocked such things. 
      
Had lunch with Joe and Lois today. 
      
I think I've finished digging the trench for bedding the last of the railroad ties that frame my garden.  Tomorrow I'll measure it and start hauling sand.  And thin the radishes.  I didn't think I'd planted them that thick!  I've pulled up two and eaten the greens; no sign of root yet.  Prolly time to plant more radishes. 
      
10 June 2005 
How behind on my sewing am I?  When I started hemming a linen scarf the day before yesterday, it transpired that little Al had never in his life seen my sewing bird.  
We've worked out a modus vivendi.  When I pulled the rocking chair into the best light, he discovered that that was also the best view -- and a very comfortable place to nap when you get tired of squirrelevision -- but a few flaps of the stick and string get him right out of it.  And then I flap it a few more times out of guilt. 
Didn't take me long to remember the trick of securing my thimble with the clothespin when I put the work down.  (My sewing bird is a clothespin tied to a dining chair, and it's *amazing* how much easier hemming is with a "third hand".) 
I thought I'd have my new slacks finished by now, and I haven't even laid the pieces out on the dining table yet.  On the other hand, I *have* opened out the dining table to make room to work.  <brief pause>  *Now* they are on the dining table.  With four sets of pockets that need hemming in full view, but still not a single stitch, not even the two tailor's tacks that show where to sew the back pockets on.  But I think I did the rest of the marking when I cut them out. 
      
Rode my bike to the library Monday, by way of the bike trails.  I checked out three books, which pretty well took care of Tuesday and Wednesday.  Might still be at it, but I decided not to read the new Tarzan book, after discovering that it was a novelization of a comic book made from eighty-three pages found among ERB's papers.  I *would* like to read the comic book, but I don't think interlibrary loan does comix.  A facsimile of the eighty-three pages would be cool. 
      
I'm hearing thunder.  Figures -- I watered Dave's grass just before my nap.  Well not *just* before, because my pajamas had dried when I went to bed.  My socks were still wet, so I threw then in the wash and got a fresh pair when I got up.  
      
Tuesday I rode again, a shortest-way trip to Big R for a sack of cat food, with a stop at Aunt Millie's for three loaves of Hillbilly bread on the way back.  Fun working out a way to bungee bread on without squashing it.  If I'd gone to Aunt Millie's first, I could have put them in the baskets under the bag of cat food, but that's strictly a one-way loop for bicycles.  (Going the other way would involve crossing Route 30 twice, turning left onto Argon, and many other difficulties.)  Fawch'nutly, I carry a lot of plastic grocery bags for just such an emergency.  They take up no space at all when neatly folded. 
-------------------------------------------
I should have planted radishes this morning, as a thunderstorm passed by in the afternoon.  I did come close to filling the trench for the last railroad tie with sand.  Forgot to distribute a wheelbarrowload along the tie that I didn't pull out and re-seat. 
Pulled up a few radish plants this morning -- found two radishes on them, very hot, presumably because it's been dry -- and stir-fried the greens in the oil and vinegar off some marinated artichoke hearts.  Well, I got mostly oil out of the artichokes, so I also dumped in some vinegar off pickled hot peppers.  Came out considerably less hot than the raw greens, to my surprise, and *very* salty.  And not at all sour.  I think they'd be better in a mess of mixed greens. 
      
The thunderstorm cooled things off a bit, so I'd better put my bra back on and take a walk. 
      
11 June 2005 
I stuck a hoe into the dirt here and there, and found it just as dry as before the thunderstorm.  Weather Underground thinks we might get another, though. 
Some of my potato plants are in bloom.  The most vigorous-looking potato is the volunteer. 
      
Wednesday, I went to lunch with Joe and Lois.  I'm not sure what I did with Thursday, but the trench for the railroad tie is full of sand now.  Need to pile it up some at the north end, since the ground slopes.  
Still not one stitch or crease in the pieces of my new slacks, which I need rather desperately.  I picked up two of the pairs of pockets and looked at them, though. 
And my red linen scarf is finished and on the bike.  Decided to leave the yellow cotton one in the basket, as it doesn't take up much space, and I've found unusual uses for a scarf a few times.  

13 June 2005 
The dime drops:  while investigating a stain on my shirt last night, I found what looked like the remains of a berry in the pocket -- but nothing I've eaten is *red*.  This morning I remembered that I walked under a mulberry tree six times yesterday -- or, rather, I walked under two trees three times -- and at least twice stopped to eat a berry or two.  
      
I chickened out of walking Saturday, but walked to church three times Sunday.  
      
Poor little Al!  I woke up to find a nice breeze blowing through the house, so about seven -- I've been waking earlier and earlier -- I closed the windows to trap the night air.  And there was a particularly good show on smellovision at the time, too.  Al can just see out the sewing-room window when sitting up.  When the sash is raised, that is. 
      
Three pocket pairs have creases basted in.  I haven't felt like heating the iron -- even though I can't wear my beige pants until I touch up the iron-on patch in one pair, and iron two patches onto the other. 
      
Dave has been calling every night.  He was upset when I told him I'd given all the leftover oatmeal crispies to the youth pastor -- but I did snitch four chocolate-chip cookies from two other plates and put them in the freezer for him. 
      
We had a graduation party at the church yesterday.  Surprise hand-made pizza.  I didn't get any the first pass, and when we were cleaning up, it was all gone.  So I came home and had a slice of left-over cheap-grade frozen pizza for a bedtime snack.  I don't think I'll buy any more "thick crust" pizza.  
      
I brought oatmeal crispies, which went over like a lead balloon because I left them in the bags and there was a vast surplus of cookies on plates.  I gave the left-overs to the youth pastor for "next Wednesday", whatever that is, which annoyed Dave very much.  I did fill a sandwich bag and put it in the freezer the day I baked the cookies, and I stole and froze four chocolate-chip cookies after the party.  I should have also wrapped half a roll of dough in foil and saved it to bake a few at a time in the toaster oven, but neither of us need fresh-baked cookies on tap! 
      
It can stop raining now, and rain again next week.  
Actually, it looks pretty good out there at the moment, but I don't trust it enough to go for the long bike ride I had planned for today.  Should have done some garden work in the cool of the morning -- come to think of it, it was still raining then; never mind.  I read _Starmaker_ for a while, and went back to sleep, waking about ten.  Olaf Stapledon was writing about WWII, which in the thirties was "this coming crisis".  He was afraid we wouldn't survive -- and in a sense, we didn't. 
      
23 June 2005 
The Joe Rickets strawberries are starting to taper off.  When they stop bearing, I'm going to destroy two thirds of them to freshen the bed.  Anybody want me to pot up a few plants first?  
      
Wore my new black linen pants to Aldi's and for our evening walk today, even though I haven't sewn on the hooks and eyes yet.  Must get at it, or the safety pins will damage the waistband. 
Also modified two patterns for bias-linen underwear, and hauled the bias linen out of the closet, ready to cut out the third beta of each pattern tomorrow.  The changes this time are pretty subtle, so I'll have to mark them some way.  I'm hoping this is the last iteration for the bra and I can cut out a white-linen one to wear under my translucent blouse.  I've no use for the briefs pattern; I'm only designing it to prove that I *can*. 
I've been working on my sloper pattern too.  I left a ball of thread on the floor when I stopped hemming the collar of the second madras beta to do something else, and Al unrolled it all over the living room, then put it back where he'd found it.  Oddly, the thread wasn't tangled, and I was able to wind it back onto the ball.  I even found the thimble I'd left inside.  
Didn't do any garden work today.  The beach needs cleaning -- all the weed in the lake washes up on our beach.  Only a few pieces of trash, so far. 
      
29 June 2005 
      
At 08:34 AM 6/29/05 -0500, Alice wrote: 
      
> Look forward to Joy and Daves for Saturday.  Joy howsabout I stay and go to church with you Sunday? 
      
How about staying until Monday and going to Joe's party too?  Sherry is expected Saturday; I presume they are staying through Monday.  I must remember to show her Janet's cookbook. 
      
I'm about to go out and buy a duck to smoke.  (Might turn out to be four game hens -- but I'll try Marsh before resorting to that.)  
I've remembered that we have the double-bed size air mattress Dave bought when he went back to New York to supervise the movers -- I'll set that up unless you prefer the rollaway.  The air mattress is more comfortable, but in the morning you may have to crawl over to the sofa to get up again.  
Any younger folks have to choose among what's left -- we have two rollaways, two self-inflating camping mattresses, and two sofas -- the one in the parlor, it matters which end you put your head on because of certain difficulties during Al's first weeks here. 
      
30 June 2005 
Owen's (Kroger) didn't have a duck -- I sent a clerk back to look, too.  
      
1 July 2005 
Dave found one at Marsh.  But he wasn't impressed -- the duck wasn't in their computer, and the clerk entered it as General Merchandise and he didn't realize he was paying ninety cents tax on it until he got home and was entering the receipt into Quicken.  He says he's going to Owen's today to buy baked beans.  I'm making a list. 
      
I'm accidentally making a matched set of underwear.  
If the bra pattern is finished, I'll make all my bras from it (if I don't outgrow it while wearing out the bras I made tweaking it!).  If the briefs pattern is finished, I'll put it away and never use it again.  I designed a bias-cut linen bra because it's much more comfortable than cotton knit in hot weather; I designed bias-cut linen panties just to prove that I could.  
Next up is mending one of my digging-in-the-garden shirts, followed by preventive work on the other.  They are so comfortable I decided repair was worth the effort -- but I wonder why they wear through at the back of the neck -- and nowhere else?  The wear is above where I lean on a chair.  If it was sun, they'd be thin all over the back, not just at the neck.  Sweat ditto -- and they aren't rotting under the arms. 
      
3 July 2005 
grumble, gripe -- it was after ten o'clock before the fireworks started; I saw the silhouettes of a family with young children tipping on out an hour before. 
And then they were so loud that I'm sure they woke the children up.  
Some folks said it was worth the wait.  Two cities and a bunch of orthopedic companies pitched in to have fireworks launched from the fairgrounds and two barges.  The biggest barge was behind some trees from our point of view, but sometimes I'd see the world light up and turn around to see a particularly high skyrocket. 
      
6 July 2005 
Al ran out with me, and stood under the patio chair so I couldn't pick him up.  So I moved the chair.  All moved with it.  So I reached under and pulled him out by the tail.  Al said "You are being extremely rude," which is only one word in cat. 
      
Joe gave Dave a trailer frame on Monday, and he brought it home yesterday.  That should keep him busy all winter -- though he's already taken out the wiring and the bolts, using a hack saw on one. 
      
10 July 2005 
Got my new sandals down off the shelf and put them on with thinner socks than I had worn last Sunday, which was the first time I'd worn them, since my old sandals are clinging to life with astonishing tenacity.  The top edges bump on my ankle bones, which hasn't troubled me since Mom was paying for my shoes.  
      
12 July 2005 
Looks as though most of Dennis went west of us, but the patio was damp this morning.  Lots of humidity, very little settling out.  Might get some showers tonight or tomorrow.  
      
Dave just took delivery of his new pump.  Hadn't bought any suction pipe the last I heard.  There's an old cistern under the windmill pad that we can pump from, so that will be easier than trying to keep a pipe in the lake clear.  
There's also a dug well (I dug it with my own little paws) in the garden, but I dipped it dry when the tub I was dipping into was only half full, so we won't be putting the pump in that.  It's easier to dip out of the lake, but I have to take my shoes off for that. 
      
I bought that petal-pink linen blend I've been going on about.  Last time I checked, it wasn't in the 20% off section -- ?? they'd had four hundred yards left!  A search on "petal" turned it up in the 50%-off section at $2.38/yard.  I also bought a yard and a half of lime-green handkerchief linen for $11.  Wanted a 40" scarf to wear on the bike, thought 37" wouldn't be quite enough; now I calculate that a yard and a half will be nearly square.  But I don't think I want a fifty-inch scarf. 
      
I haven't done any sewing lately, but thanks to gathering up scraps for the kids at Vacation Bible School to make collages with, my sewing room is a lot neater! 
All of the new order is in places that don't show -- I haven't touched the stuff on the floor, except to move piles to make room for the step-stool when I was cleaning the upper shelves.  I did cut a piece of red cotton satin I found into a pillowcase, but haven't even put red thread in the machine to sew it up.  
      
26 July 2005 
I got tired of tripping over 1977-1986 and 1987-1995 of the Beeson Banner, and put them on the shelf in the walk-in closet -- each box in a corner, for fear of the weight.  Somehow this created significantly more space than we'd had on the shelf before.  
I also discovered that I have five ornamented tin boxes of the sort used for presenting candy and fruitcake.  If you want one -- or all five -- it's yours.  (There are also surplus Altoids boxes here and there, but I can't guarantee I'll find one at any given time.) 
We took the rollaway beds and the high chair to Goodwill a while back, and I set the rocking horse out by the road and somebody took it, but we still have a blanket-box sized cabinet-model stereo in the garage, and a small table. 
The last time I went to Aldi's, they had an "underbed box" just the right size to set on a shelf, but it was one of a set of five boxes, I have no use for the smaller boxes in the set, and the underbed box by itself wasn't worth ten dollars. 
      
28 July 2005 
Which reminds me of a plastic tool box I saw in the dollar store.  It was very cheaply made, but a good design for a beginner's sewing kit:  small compartments in the lid for thimbles, bobbins, needles, thread snips etc.; a tray for larger tools, and a large compartment for patterns. 
      
Resumed weeding the garden today -- the onions are ripe enough that it doesn't matter that I'm pulling all up together.  I found what appears to be a volunteer potato among the weeds, in time to weed around it. 
I felt depressed all through the heat wave even though I never left the house, which is kept cool enough that I have to put on long pants or cover my knees if I sit up at night.  I didn't even get much sewing done.  And the garden had gotten out of hand before it got hot, after the onions started leaning over so much I couldn't use the Culta-Eze.  I'd been slack about pulling weeds the cultivator couldn't reach all along, except in the multiplier bed.  
The multipliers have done very well -- the previous four years they've been in danger of extinction, but this year we could afford to eat some.  Helps, I think, that I've found an unheated-but-not-freezing place to keep them over the winter.  
I think I'll pull up all the radishes and start over.  
       
29 July 2005 
I'm enjoying the cooler weather. Despite the whole-house air conditioning, I was depressed and dueless all through the hot spell.  I joked that it was a good time to catch up on my sewing, but I didn't do much of that either.  I guess I just need to get outside once in a while.  I've nearly cleared the garden of weeds -- and onions -- and I'm thinking about hoeing the lily-of-the-valley bed.  Blew this morning cleaning a bathroom at the church, then took a nap, and now I'm reading e-mail.  
(I didn't even know they had a bathroom between the two toddler-size Sunday School rooms.  You learn more stuff by volunteering for cleaning parties.)  
      
3:50 -- I can still get a little work done before supper.  
      
31 July 2005 
My old sandals finally gave up the ghost, and I threw them out. 
      
Dave's painted the trailer -- may be only primer; I'm not sure.  At the rate he's going, he'll have it in service before winter.  
      
I got the radishes pulled -- found one fit to eat! -- but haven't planted anything yet.  I've run the cultivator around, though.  And I've made a start on moving violets from the herb bed to the lily-of-the-valley bed.  I'm putting a daffodil bulb in with each violet.  I got rid of the oversized lemon balm; the herb bed may yet look like something.  The bronze fennel is going to seed; I don't know enough about fennel to know whether I should allow that -- perhaps the seed is the part I should harvest?  
I brought the potted catnip in, thinking that after Al pruned it, I'd set it out north of the house where the cage got knocked over and the plant didn't recover.  So far, he hasn't molested it.  We took the big cage off the catnip in the garden, as the plant is going to seed and looks stout enough to defend itself.  I may set out one of the potted tomatoes and put the big cage over it.  
I saw lots of deer tracks on the beach but they haven't (knock wood) eaten anything in the garden.  But now that the weeds are out and they can *see* the tomatoes . . . 
One of the potato plants looks ready to dig. 
Dave watered the lawn and garden with lake water today -- did the garden in two installments, as the pump got hot.  I was taking a nap at the time. 
       
3 August 2005 
It's away past time I wrote a critique of the fireworks party for reference next year.  
Moving the table to the point was an excellent idea -- but we need some glow-in-the-dark board games, and a blanket over a tarp for the youngest guests.  
Dip in the dark is a lousy idea, and there were too many choices of chips for people who are feeling around for them.  Some drastically different snacks, such as crackers and nuts, would have been a better idea than multiple flavors of the same snack. 
The party was well advanced before I realized that practically all of the beverages had caffiene in them.  I could have gotten rid of two six packs of non-diet beverage.  Citrus syrup to mix with seltzer does not go over well when people can't see what they are doing, but a pitcher of fruit drink would probably disappear. 

3 August 2005  
I no longer have to worry about what to do with my pussy-willow cuttings.  Some sort of disease got into them, and I looked out this morning to see that all the leaves on the last two are shriveled up.  It took the smaller ones first, so when it started, I thought I'd forgotten to water them 
      
11 August 2005 
I was glad to get an e-mail that Alice is safely home.   Route 15 was blocked off at Prairie Street -- well after she'd passed that spot, but I didn't know *why* they were blocking Route 15.  Still don't, and I don't suppose it will be in tomorrow's paper. 
I forgot that there was a glass of water with a lemon slice in it in the fridge at the Lodge.   About the most-harmless oversight one could imagine.  
And I'm unpacked already.  I've been known to have a suitcase on the cedar chest for *months* after a trip.  
   
19 August 2005 
Rained cats and dogs for a few minutes today.  I dug into dry dirt when I transplanted a violet afterward, though.  
      
20 August 2005 
I've been looking at the magnifying glasses every time I pass a display, but they never have clip-on magnifiers, and I thought spectacles rather expensive for the amount of use I'd get out of them:  it's possible to wear them over prescription glasses, but it isn't graceful. 
Yesterday, on the way out of the house on the way to Aldi's, I noticed two shirts I've been meaning to give to the Goodwill and took them along.  So I went inside after getting rid of the shirts, and they had a big rack of reading spectacles that come in a little tube, two dollars each, and they went up to 3.25 where 3 was the strongest in the supermarket.  
Today I had an opportunity to use the spectacles when I got a complicated knot in my thread at a spot where I couldn't cut it out.   They work very well, and I don't have to take them off when I look up.  It's even possible to walk around without removing them, though decidedly weird.  
      
My toe still hurts, if I pay attention.  Last Saturday I was on my way to Owen's, trying to open the door out of the garage, when I knocked over the folding ladder, which was balanced on its feet near the hook that it should have been hanging on.  I wasn't quite able to catch it, and I took the full weight on my left big toe.  It hurt so much that I checked to see whether I'd broken a bone, then rested the foot on a stack of pillows while I read my e-mail, Usenet, and some online funnies.  
Then things had calmed down enough that I picked up my purse again and resumed the interrupted shopping trip.  I was all the way to the fatal door when I remembered that I'd planned to bring my cane, just in case, so I limped back into the house and got it.  Then upon arriving in the parking lot:  well, duh!  You don't need a cane in a supermarket, you use the cart.  And the cane was a royal pain to gather up with two bags of groceries, but I didn't want to make two trips coming back into the house. 
      
Dave picked up his VIN number at the trophy shop, and pop-riveted it to the trailer with his new pop riveter, so I guess trailer construction is complete.   He still wants to design a tailgate that can serve as a ramp, but he's made and installed a tailgate of the same style as the sides and front.  (I think they call that style "stakebed" -- stakes on the bottom of a wooden fence fit into brackets in the frame of the trailer, so the sides can be removed if desired.) 
Now he's working on the picnic table Brent gave him.  It looked like a folding table when he got it, but it isn't.  Brent isn't sure what happened, but the yard was full of teenage boys at the time.  I didn't ask whether it was in the yard on on the float when it collapsed.  (Brent has a float that can be towed out into the lake for picnics.) 
Last time I saw him, Dave had run out of primer and needed a bunch of bolts.  He goes shopping more often than I do these days.  
      
31 August 2005 
Sat down to eat some warmed-over skillet dinner for lunch, and discovered that I'd doused it with basalmic vinegar by mistake for soy sauce.  
It's rather interesting.  
My garlic chives are in full bloom, and look just beautiful.  Especially when viewed from the far side of the raised flower bed, poking up behind the verbenia.  
      
According to the radar, a shower to the east of us is going north and a shower to the west of  us is going south -- the opposite to the way Katrina is rotating, if I recall correctly.  Dry and partly cloudy as far as the Weather Underground can see -- When Fox News was showing Katrina covering all of Indiana, most of Michigan, and half of Illinois (just how they calculated the edges of the hurricane, I don't know:  it was only a glimpse as I passed through the living room.), we got rain that was *almost* enough to dampen the pavement.  
When I got the paper, I noticed that it was raining, then about five minutes later I remembered that I had two towels on the line and went out for them -- they hadn't been dampened appreciably.  A shop towel Dave had left on the picnic table had gotten wet enough to detect on one corner.  
Vurra strange.  When we went for our walk, the road was wet only in the shade of the trees (there hadn't been any sun, and the rain was more-or-less still falling), but there were dry patches inside those wet patches because the trees never got wet through.  Gave me a few double takes.  My best theory is that the pavement was still holding heat from when there had been sun. 
      
Dave got his Comcast package yesterday -- their delivery department is faster than their billing department, so he had to call them to get it turned on.  His new address is debeeson@comcast.net.  The old address still works, but if Earthlink continues to pull such cute stunts as making the help pages available *only* if you are using the correct browser, that may change.  
      
The trailer is licensed now, and the plate is installed, but Dave has decided to repair the lawn mower himself instead of taking it to Argus.  He's already made two trips for parts (the first time, he learned that the store is closed on Mondays).  
The picnic table is long since finished, and painted green.  If he gets all this done while spending every morning playing golf, come winter I may have to go out and *break* something. 
On one of our walks, we noticed a picnic table with the same metal parts as our new one, and noticed that it was much shorter, and made of lighter boards.  We deduced that the table had been re-built before, and made too long and heavy for the braces -- since the original braces were broken, Dave had made new ones that are longer and thicker.  
      
I've been off on two excursions without mentioning it -- one to Souder Village with Nancy and Alice, and later I drove to Frankfort for a Farm Bureau meeting, and spent two nights with Alice.  We went to see Aunt Doris, and to take another look at an old grain elevator which had been rebuilt as a mansion, which I discovered on the next-to-the-last of my many wrong turns.  
Can you call it a wrong turn when you *don't* turn?  1230 east was hidden in the corn.  So I had to make a U turn on 28.  Don't recall just how; I think I borrowed a driveway.  
      
I need exercise, so Monday I rode out to Tractor Supply:  out Wooster, across 30 on 325, and poof! there it is right on the corner.  Pity I've no reason to go back.  I thought I might buy a bottle of white-horse shampoo, but after looking it over, I decided I didn't want it.  (Ashamed of the ingredients, like most cleaning-supply makers -- I'd had hopes on account of Orvus, which is also a horse shampoo -- and you have to buy enough to do a horse.)  
For twenty years, I've been looking at the bags of maple-nut goodies at checkout counters and telling myself they were probably stale.  This time I said I was on a long bike ride, and it was almost time for lunch -- I *needed* the sugar.  
Alas, they weren't stale -- no way a mixture of white sugar, Crisco, and food coloring is going to get stale.  The ingredient list claims peanuts, but there wasn't the slightest trace of peanut flavor.  
Ah, well, I *did* need the sugar.  I came back by way of Brower's Carpet and Furniture, but didn't know that the obsolete carpet samples are displayed back in an "employees only" room, and thought they'd taken all of them to the Goodwill. They have truckloads of samples they are still using -- some of the carpets must be available only on special order -- that building is big, but nowhere big enough to hold a roll of carpet for every sample. 
      
7 September 2005 
Went out to cultivate the garden this morning, and discovered that something had eaten the leaves and all the green fruits off the biggest tomato vine, and also a butterprint weed I'd been hoeing around because I think butterprint is pretty.  (No fields it can spread to anywhere near.)  The deer missed the volunteer potato vine, but I got that with the cultivator.  One marble-sized potato on it. 
Dug all but one hill of potatoes and put them in the crisper tray.  The red ones are a *lot* bigger than the brown ones, and more on a vine.  We should plant all red next year.  
      
The last time we went through the woods on our point seven, the spring they spent so much effort on making into a lovely fountain was just barely leaking.  The spring that seeps up through a crack in the walk on Park Avenue, however, is as brisk as ever.   Pretty circle of green grass below it.  
      
I'm approaching the end on my scheme to transplant a violet into the bare dirt between the lily-of-the-valley bed and the street every day.  Today, for the first time, the dime fell and I poured a bucket of water on the dirt I intend to dig tomorrow.   I've been *chipping* the holes to put the violets in.  
I'm also putting a daffodil bulb or two in each hole, but I'm going to have daffodils left over, despite having already planted daffodils between the tiger lilies and the road.  If it has rained by the time I finish transplanting violets, perhaps I'll ring a telephone pole.  
      
We drove to Salem the sunday before Labor Day.  Four hours down, four hours to visit, four hours back.  Lots of visiting and overeating. 
      
Dave has been hearing that coconut oil is particularly good for popping corn, and today he came home with a jar he'd bought at Warsaw Health Foods, complaining that it was expensive.  I looked at the sticker and said "$1.35 is about what a pint of oil should cost."  "Look again."  $13.50!  
Worse, upon reading the label, I found that it's "extra virgin" and claims intense coconut flavor.  Dave doesn't like coconut; he'd have been much better off with a cheaper coconut oil.  The jar suggested substituting it for butter, so I had some on a slice of zucchini bread for my bedtime snack.  It didn't taste of coconut at all, but a bowl of popcorn gives off a delightful coconut aroma.  
      
11 September 2005 
Dave scored 41 the last time he played golf.   He says the fairways are so dry and hard, and the grass is so thin, that the ball will roll a hundred yards.  
We are getting tired of sunny weather.  
      
I intended to ride to Aldi's to buy potatoes to make salad on the Saturday before Labor Day, so I put on my cycling suit as soon as I got up to save the trouble of changing later.  When Dave saw what I was putting on, he said "Are you going to the Farmer's Market?"  
Yes!  If I buy *new* potatoes, I won't have to peel them.  And as long as I'm riding out that way, I'll return my book, get a new one, and check the health-food store for spearmint toothpaste.  I hate brushing with mouth-stinging cinnamon -- though not as much as I disliked brushing with the "gingivitis" toothpaste I'd got the time before.  That was *almost* as nasty as the saccharine-sweetened toothpaste I get at the supermarket.  So I thought *this* time I should buy toothpaste while I still had plenty of time to reject flavors I don't like.  
Everyone was out of corn when I got there, but I got the potatoes, a pepper to put in the salad, and some tomatoes, then rode to Warsaw Health Foods -- which had closed for the holiday weekend, see you on Tuesday.  Thence to the library.  Though I'd been a bit late at the Farmer's Market, which sells out of the good stuff before nine, I was much too early for the library, which opens at ten.  So I shoved the book in through the night deposit and walked until I found a good chance to cross Detroit, mounted up in a parking lot, rolled into the street, noticed something very peculiar, dismounted, found my front tire flatter than a flitter.  I briefly considered taking the wheel off, swapping the tube, and inflating the tire with my dinky little frame pump, then walked to the dollar store on Market street and called Dave to come and get me.  
And it turned out that when you boil them before cutting them up, new potatoes insist on being peeled.  
I still didn't want to change that tube, so I persuaded myself that I needed a new casing -- the old one *was* slightly abraded at one point on the side wall, perhaps from being ridden flat.  So later in the day I took the wheel off the bike and walked to the Trailhouse.  She couldn't guarantee same-day service -- no sweat, I'll pick it up Tuesday.  I walked home reflecting that if I did want to ride, I could take a wheel off one of the bikes we aren't using -- well, duh!  I should have taken one of the perfectly-good casings in danger of rotting away unused, and replaced it with the worn-but-still-usable casing!  
Went back Tuesday -- wheel hadn't been worked on.  I told them to true it while they had the casing off, and I'd check back tomorrow, though it wasn't until Thursday that I remembered to pick it up.  
And on the way home with it, I noticed that they had put in a Schraeder tube.  I had made a point of saying I wanted a road casing like the one I was replacing, but it hadn't occurred to me that it was even *possible* to put a tube that wasn't Presta on an inch-and-a-quarter rim.  Having one valve that doesn't match the rest is going to be a major nuisance.  My floor pump has a dual-purpose head, but I'm not all all sure my frame pump can handle a Schraeder valve.  
I may yet swap wheels with one of the disused bikes.  
I still haven't got around to trying out the new wheel.  Meant to go for a spin around the block after we got home from our walk yesterday, but habit forced me onto the Internet instead.  
      
Got a note from Lawrence Watt-Evans this morning:  The first draft of The Spriggan Mirror is all written, and the last installment -- two chapters and the epilog as a grand finale -- will be posted in five weeks.   Go to http://www.ethshar.com/thesprigganexperiment0.html to see what I'm talking about.  
      
Garlic chives are still in bloom.  They are supposed to be an invasive pest, so I suppose I should pick them before any of the seeds get ripe.  
The deer missed a tomato plant that's hiding in the catnip bush, but that one isn't bearing any fruit.  We have the yellow italian under the cage that allowed the catnip to get big enough to stand up to the cats, so it's unmolested. 
I might move a few more violets, but yesterday I got pretty close to the end of the bare dirt, made a second trip with two more buckets of water, and sprinkled peat moss on everything, which made the bed look much better.  Not as good as a little rain, would, though. 
Like to never got all the peat moss out from under my fingernails. 
      
I made my haversack-linen pants in 1998, and I've been hitching at them and trying to roll the waistband down ever since.  Not long before bedtime yesterday the dime fell and I whipped them off, put a half-inch tuck across the front, and put them back on.  Now they finally fit -- after I've worn them clear out, and patched them twice. 
I hope Jameson & Sons still sells that same linen.  If I ever get caught up on my sewing, I want to buy some. 
      
Went out after our walk to take a lap on my bike, then went down Park Avenue to see how it did when I sprinted.  I'm planning to ride tomorrow, if I can think of someplace to go.  
      
12 September 2005 
I went to KCH with a stack of old magazines, intending to leave them in the waiting room for the emergency department, since I figure that folks in that waiting room are the least likely to have brought reading matter from home.  It was my first view of the newly-rebuilt emergency department.  The new waiting room is bigger and more comfortable than the old one, and has a cafeteria handy -- I didn't look into the cafeteria, for fear of intruding, so I don't know whether it's a bunch of vending machines or what.  
BUT the old waiting room had a coffee table with stacks of magazines on it, and more magazines scattered around on the little tables between the chairs.  The little tables in the new waiting room are kept beautifully, neatly, empty.  Instead of a coffee table, there's a teeny tiny wall rack already crammed with a small and pitiful selection of magazines.  I sorted and fussed, managed to cram in two Ellery Queens and an Adventure Cycling, and hiked to the main entrance with the rest.   In *that* waiting room, I can still add my magazines to a pre-existing pile. 
Getting there entailed going outside -- the hallway leading from the emergency-room waiting room to the main waiting room is no longer apparent.  It might have been behind the closed door at the end of the hallway leading to the cafeteria, but I didn't like to open doors with no signs even though some doors were marked "employees only", which implies that there is nothing private behind unmarked doors.  
The hallway is still there from the other end; I suppose I should have followed it to see if there's a sign on that side of the door, but I went only as far as the water fountain outside the radiology department. 
T'would have been better to go back to the emergency-room parking lot to get to the Greenway, but I'm a Loveless, so I kept on counter-clockwise around the building.  New construction on a road or parking lot or something north of the building cut off progress in that direction, but it turned out that there was a strip of lawn leading to the other end of the emergency-room parking lot, so I got onto the Greenway without further ado.  Rode the whole length of the boardwalk without stopping to sight-see.  The cat-tails looked very healthy; I didn't know they could grow so tall.  Then after several stops to read my map -- the last at a picnic table in Lucerne Park -- I headed toward 250 N on Park Avenue.  I'm going to have to get the map out again to figure out what I did at the end of Park Avenue; it included passing under Route 30 on a jeep trail along the railroad.  
Which led me to Wal-Mart.  Wasn't worth the trip.  Might have helped if I'd remembered to put my shopping list in my pocket!  I found some "gum-ball" knee-hi hose; it didn't say what size, but it was only thirty-three cents, so I bought a black pair.  Looked more like anklets when I took them out of the gum ball; perhaps these were children's hose. 
Taco salad at the new Steak and Shake for lunch, manfully resisting the "Sipping Sundae" milkshakes.  The piecrust bowl was greasy, and I didn't eat all of it.  Thence to 300 N, Fox Farm, and Lake Street -- I stopped at the nursery and looked at the herb plants and ornamental grasses, but didn't find anything I wanted.  Then, though it was getting on toward nap time, I stopped at the library. Bujold's "Hallowed Hunt" had been accessioned and was checked in; I must remember that I get only two weeks with a new book.  Hope I don't sit up late reading it, because I never did get that nap.  
And Warsaw Health Foods had an acceptable tube of toothpaste; more "special" to it than I like -- "anti cavity" this time -- but the list of ingredients didn't mention anything that tastes awful.  Come to think of it, that was the list of *inactive* ingredients; there is something in there that Tom didn't want to mention.  (Probably sodium fluoride.)  Picked up pistachios, unsweetened carob-coated peanuts, and an expresso truffle while I was at it, and spent $20.08 
      
Dave found a Web page about the tournament Joe is at this week.  He won his first match 6-1, 6-0.  
      
13 September 2005 
The outlet of the fountain is still wet, but it no longer glistens.  
      
Dropped eighty dollars at Owen's [Kroger] today.  It's been a while since I went shopping; we still need some stuff I prefer to buy at Aldi's.  
      
I went to bed early last night, then woke up about four, and read "Hallowed Hunt" until noon.  Napped, and went to Owen's.  Hastily and belatedly warmed up frozen meatballs -- I'd planned to buy barbecue, but couldn't find the "Meals Made Simple" -- went for a walk. 
      
Still no rain. 
      
14 September 2005  
When the front-page picture in the morning paper (which we get in the afternoon) was a corn picker in a field, I knew the dry spell was about over.  Sure enough, we got 0.14 inches of rain around five this morning.  Enough to brisk up the violets I've been hauling buckets of water to, enough make me worry about drying the wash I have to wash today, enough to make any corn picked today spoil (though I gather that they can dry it in bins nowadays), but not enough to do anything for dirt that's dry so far down that I saw wilted bushes on Park Avenue.   (The Winona Lake Park Avenue, not the Warsaw Park Avenue.) 
And I'll be surprised if any got into the lake without falling directly in it.  Well, it will get any run-off from the streets.  Or should that be drip-off.  
      
Dave must be on line.  He came into the hall to say "Joe's moving right along," which I take to refer to the Web site with the tennis results. 
      
Finished _The Hallowed Hunt_ yesterday.  Pretty good, but I've perceived a trend in the Five Gods fantasies:  all three are told from the viewpoint of a rock about which the gods have said, "We need a knife -- ah, this piece of flint will take a nifty edge if we whap it a few times."  
I wonder what effect the stories would have if read in a different order?  The chief charm of _The Curse of Chalion_ is the gradual revelation of the nature of the universe; subsequent novels can't have that charm, and I don't *think* any effort is made in that direction, aside from making sure the reader understands enough to follow the story -- but is there stuff in _Paladin of Souls_ and _Hallowed Hunt_ that would surprise and delight me if I hadn't read _Curse of Chalion_?  
One development I enjoyed in _Curse_ was that when the Bastard is first mentioned, he seems to be Satan, but as we learn more about the god of disorder, he's closer to being Christ.  And it is quite clear that Bujold did not in any way take Christ as her model, which leads me to wonder how Moslems, animists, neopagans, etc. would map the Five onto their own beliefs.  I'd like to post a query on rec.arts.sf.written, but there are four or five habitues who turn into foaming lunatics whenever religion is mentioned (and each denies hotly that he has one himself, despite longing to use the force of the state to make conversions to the TRVTH.)  Worse, there are at least a dozen otherwise-sensible participants who are completely incapable of ignoring foaming lunatics, and vigorously assist them in spoiling any discussion of religion. 
The Five Gods are four gods of order -- Father of Winter, Mother of Summer, Son of Autumn, and Daughter of Spring -- and one god of disorder, the Bastard.  The Bastard had a human father; the other four are an emergent property of matter:  in other words, the spirits of this world were created by matter, and stand as much in awe of the material world as the inhabitants of the material world stand in awe of the spiritual world.  This lends a piquant flavor to the universe and, in my opinion, dethrones Lawrence Watt-Evans'  quantum-mechanical pantheon -- though that might just be because the Five Gods are fresher in mind than the Lords of Dus.  
As far as I know, Watt-Evans is the only author to base a pantheon on quantum mechanics.  The fourteen gods appear out of nothing in equal and opposite pairs, they create the world among them, each rules it for an age, and then all goes back to nothing.  No god can exist without his opposite:  no growth without decay, no peace without war, no healing without pain, etc.   This concept is both grand and whole -- there are at least five volumes in the novel, but once it's over, it's over.  There are, of course, other stories that have happened in that universe, but telling them would be superfluous.  
But I think his Goddess of Decay is still my favorite fictional god. 
      
15 September 2005 
More vultures than I can count on our beach and in the park.   Though they really like the posts Dave put up to mark the property line, I rarely see more than half a dozen.  Do vultures flock up and fly south?  
      
Evening:  it's raining again, and soon enough after the last one to do some good.  About a tenth of an inch so far, but now it's raining just barely hard enough to discourage us from the evening walk.  When I carried out the garbage, I didn't hurry a bit, and stood on the patio talking for a minute before coming in.  
And yes, my linen pants are damp on one knee, but that's from hosing out the tidy.  
      
Dave's been spending the last week or two trying to get his new computer equipment to work.  Yesterday he was working on the network, and he could get at the old computer with the new one, but the old one couldn't get through to the new one.  
Today he looked at his firewall . . . 
      
16 September 2005  
Got at least nine tenths of an inch last night.  Kept misting down all day, but no accumulation.  All the scum has flushed out of the creek, and the sandbar across the mouth is back underwater.  Yesterday I could have stepped across the channel carved through the sandbar, were it not that I suspected that the other bank would be muddy.  

&&& 

17 September 2005 
Deer haven't molested the little pepper plant -- perhaps it's lost in the verbenia.  They did prune a tomato in the same flower bed, and bite off one of the fruits from one of the plants in pots on the patio, but didn't bite the plant itself.  (Dave is planning a cage for the flower bed next summer.) 
Perhaps they'll be less bold now that it's rained and there will be some green stuff in the woods.   I was rather disappointed to see that the fountain is running again -- not fast enough that you can get a drink out of it, but a steady stream where it had merely dampened the stones at our last visit, and not all the way to the ground at that.  But I'm not at all sure I *want* to drink from it when rain shows up *that* soon.  
Didn't think to try the valve on the side, to see whether it works now.  It's lower than the overflow exit, so it should at least dribble.  
The spring may not have quit entirely -- rumor has it that the watchman's cabin uses that spring for a water supply, so he may have been taking all of it.  
      
         19 September 2005 
      
On the way to church yesterday, I examined the spring in the sidewalk, and thought that there was more water than before the rain -- which suggests that it really is a spring; we'd been theorizing that it might be a leak in a water main. 
      
Didn't get much done today, except patching the seat of my blue cotton-twill slacks.  I underlined the patch with muslin, which is probably an un-necessary precaution.  But it will be good practice for patching my "oakwood" slacks; I've about made up my mind to underline the oakwood patches with my Very Loud black-and-white checked linen, as it's reasonably thin and seems to be quite durable.  Provided I can find fabric to make oakwood patches.  I got two pairs of slacks out of a piece bought to make one pair, and there wasn't much in the way of scraps.  
   
20 September 2005 
I *should* go to Big R, Aldi, and Aunt Millies today.  Put a load of wash in when I woke up, and I'm still at it.  Also re-entered an order for more of that cotton-linen blend -- a black-and-red print that should make a nice winter dress, so I got ten yards, it having been marked down to $4.52 when they got down to nineteen yards.   There's seven yards left now.  Wanted to get some handkerchief linen to make nice bras from while I was at it -- my green one shows slightly through my white blouse -- but they have only dark and bright colors left. 
I feel as though it's nap time.   Better do the shopping after napping; I had to re-enter the order because I believed them late last night when they said my card had expired, instead of noticing that I'd left the default expiration date on the order blank. Don't want to make a mistake like that in the car. 
Now it's time to hang a load of wash. 

      
21 September 2005 
      
Checked phoenix.com this morning, and someone had bought the remaining seven yards of paisley linen-cotton.  Good thing I got my ten yards yesterday!  It hasn't been shipped yet -- at least they haven't sent me the tracking number.  
      
UPS has been so fast of late that there isn't much fun in following my packages on their Web page.  But Dave has a power supply en route, due Friday.  Last time he mentioned it, it had been shipped but they hadn't said where its next stop is. 
       
21 September 2005 
As I was getting ready to go, I thought about how hard -- not to mention dangerous -- it is to get out of Aunt Millies at rush hour.  A little light bulb appeared over my head and I decided to do a very un-Loveless thing and go the same way I planned to come back, so as to buy the bread first.  
Which worked out very well.  I had to cross Route 30 twice going that way, but there's a light at both turns -- and in the left-turn lane, you aren't likely to get run over by someone who thought you were going to run the red light.  (Why they don't introduce a *yellow* light, I'm unable to fathom.  We have one *technically*, but it doesn't *stay* yellow long enough for someone who is half-way through the intersection when it goes yellow to get out before it turns red.)  
But at Big R, I absent-mindedly spent all my cash.  They would have taken my Mastercard, had I only thought to offer it.  Worse, I also spent all my quarters.  I *did* think about that, but reflected that there are four quarters in the little bag I carry in my left front pocket.  
I forgot to ask for the Tuesday discount, but on reading the receipt, I see that I got it anyway.  I'm not sure whether to be pleased about that! 
When I told Dave I'd spent all my money, he first asked my why I hadn't used my card, then was impressed that I'd spent most of it on Al.  I'd bought a bag of dry food that should last several months (we keep it in the freezer), a few cans of treat food, a bag of litter, and a can of peanuts. 
I save back five-dollar bills, so I counted those, found that I had six, and figured that I could get most of the things on my list, though it would be tedious to keep track to make sure I didn't go over $30.  Then I got out of the car and went for the cart -- and remembered that when I dressed, I reflected that the bag is only a duplicate of what I carry in my wallet (which is too big to carry in a pocket), so I didn't need that lump and might as well leave it in my other pants.  
I didn't even have enough change to buy a cart from someone bringing one back!  
At this point, I didn't feel like getting change from the checkout, so I bought what I could carry in one of  my canvas bags.  This included one of the little spiced tenderloins, which I baked on a bed of vegetables for supper tonight.  Put in half of one of our home-grown potatoes, split in two.  Dave said that his quarter of a potato was more than he wanted -- "but I'm going to eat it anyway."  With sour cream, which was also in the bag.  
I felt lucky when the woman ahead of me, having failed to keep track of what she was putting into the cart, had to put back several items, and un-check one that had already been checked when she realized that she was going over. 
      
Got to get up bright and early tomorrow to follow Dave to the car dealer, where the Buick has an appointment.  Considered throwing my bike in the pickup instead of having Dave bring me home again, but Wal*Mart isn't all that interesting.  
      
22 September 2005   
Problem was worse than expected, so I don't have to go with Dave to pick it up.  Gone cost about $500, he said. 
He's mowing the lawn at the moment.  I should go shovel some weed for the asparagus bed while it's still warm enough to walk in the lake. 
      
23 September 2005 
      
Phoenix wrote today that though they'd sold me ten yards of paisley, all they had was two five-yard pieces.  I wrote back that that was fine. 
      
Makes it easier to pre-wash it anyway.  I'm thinking a dramatic long dress.  
      
Picked the muskmelon that volunteered on the compost heap today.  Vine looked frosted.  Smells good, but we haven't cut it open yet.  
      
Busy day tomorrow:  Farmer's Market, I ought to return my books while I'm at it, I've volunteered to help serve lunch at the church -- and haven't ironed my white blouse yet -- and it's Back to the Days of Kosciuszko at the fairground this weekend.  
      
The books are Dickson's _The Dragon and the George_, and Stratton-Porter's _At the Foot of the Rainbow_.  I read the opening chapter of _Rainbow_, then skipped to the last page.  I'd read _Dragon_ before, but remembered very little of it.  The bit or two I did remember didn't have as much oomph as I remembered it having.  Enjoyed it very much, however, and I plan to check out a sequel soon (and a more-congenial Stratton-Porter), but I shouldn't get to the library late enough to do it tomorrow.  Perhaps I can stop on the way to Back to the Days.  If I'm not too tired to go; they are on again tomorrow, after all.  
Must be practicing tonight -- I heard cannons while I was on Usenet.  I hope tomorrow's paper will say when they do that, as I have to leave when they start.  Perhaps I could stay if I put in my ear plugs, but half the fun is talking to people. 
      
28 September 2005 
I was too tired to go, and then it rained Sunday afternoon, so I never went.  
I would have gone Saturday if I'd been quite sure I could buy supper there, but there was little but bread last year.  
I've been getting a lot of sewing done while Dave's tower is in the shop and I can't play Spider.  I've cut out a hat, I'm altering a bra, and I'm mending my gray linen pants. 
Also washing half of the ten yards of paisley border print that UPS brought today. 
      
29 September 2005 
Beheaded all the garlic chives yesterday, and a picked few early-ripening heads of bronze fennel.  Do I *ever* use fennel in cooking? 
      
The other half of the paisley is in the dryer.  Time to get it out and drape it over the shower-curtain rod.  
I should take the shower curtain off that rod -- it interferes with drying laundry!  
      
2 October 2005 
We cut open the volunteer melon today, and it was good.  
      
I love the paisley linen blend.  It's about the weight of chickenfeed sacks, somewhat tighter woven, and nearly as soft.  Now I'm contemplating a pair of slacks and a thigh-length shirt.  I'll have to cut on the cross grain because of the border. 
      
Went to the farmer's market deliberately late on Saturday, and checked out both sequels to _The Dragon and the George_, and a book of dragon short stories.  None of the Stratton-Porters filed under General Fiction appealed to me, and I didn't feel like fluttering all over every collection to find the majority of them.  
                      
10 October 2005 
Yesterday I planned that today I would mail WEB #60, change my books at the library, ride the boardwalk to the hospital and drop off some old magazines, ride back along the boardwalk, and pick up milk and paper towels -- both of which we are nearly out of -- at Owen's.  
I got the bike and my jersey pockets all packed, took my bottles outside to empty them into flower pots -- and discovered that it wasn't misty out there, it was misting rain!  
Hastily logging back in I went to Weather Underground -- this is probably as hard as it's going to rain, and it might go away altogether.  
Briefly considered changing clothes and walking to the post office -- but I'm already dressed, might as well ride, and maybe go on.  The rain wasn't quite enough to get me wet, but it messed up my glasses, and the wind drying the rain made me cold.  I decided to put on the wool jersey in the bottom of my pannier for the trip back, but it was so warm on the porch of the post office that I forgot about it until I was out in the rain in my short-sleeved cotton, and the trip wasn't long enough to make it worth my while to stop again.  
Yeah, I said "under the porch roof", not "in the post office".   
IT COLUMBUS DAY! 
      
11 October 2005 
The 'zines are finally in the mail.  It's at least as rainy today as yesterday, and tomorrow is promised to be merely cloudy in the morning and afternoon, so I walked.  Saw people converging on the post office as I approached, said oh, good, they are definitely open --- wait a minute, people converging on the post office?  
While I was getting my letters out of their nest of plastic bags, a woman came out of the back room with a cart and relieved four of the people in line of bundles of envelopes that already had stamps on, so it wasn't much of a wait.  Rush seemed to be over when I left.  Aster was standing at the table doing something, but didn't hear me say hello.  
Went shopping by car yesterday afternoon, but they were out of gallons of 1%, and the halves were substantially more expensive, so I got only one.  Stocked up on everything else.  
      
23 October 2005  
The last line of the last message in a thread about entertaining schoolchildren on field trips was "I'd love to hear some other ideas for engaging the students, and keeping their parents under control."  
One of the vendors still had tomatoes when I got to the farmer's market today, and I bought as many as I thought we would use before they spoil -- choosing one slightly-green one for that purpose.  There are tomatoes on our plants, but I doubt that any more of them will get ripe. 
      
I'm sure there's been other news.  
      
26 October 2005 
I forgot to bring the potted plants in for last night's frost, but appear to have gotten away with it.  Some of them have probably taken root through the drain holes; I hope bringing them in isn't too much of a shock.  
      
My knitting class at the church starts on November 15th.  I'm supposed to just sit there being available to answer questions, and I'll have two assistants -- but it's past time to get down to the bookstore to order three copies of _Knitting Without Tears_, and I should visit the yarn shop so that I can tell people what is available.  Mrs. Phipps may expect me to write the announcement for the bulletin, too -- and I'd *rather*, really.  
I've been Googling "book pocket" with an eye to getting my books back after lending them.  I was mildly surprised to see that they are still being made, in a plethora of sizes and styles, but five hundred seems to be the minimum order.  Wouldn't hurt to look around at the stationers --- though I doubt that they open packages and sell one at a time, the way some do with envelopes. 
      
27 October 2005 
Just been to the Bonneyville Mill web site -- http://www.elkhartcountyparks.org/ properties_locations/bonneyville_mill_ county_park.htm -- and I've got three more days to buy my winter supply of flour.  I don't think I'm going to make it.  
      
I caught a whiff of insecticide as Fred climbed up the back of my chair and jumped onto the ironing board, but his fur doesn't look as odd as it did before Dave worked him over with a washrag and towel yesterday.  We aren't going to buy any more of that brand of flea goop -- Advantage is much more expensive, but it doesn't stink.  
      
I learned about a neat safety feature of the Buick today.  
I *never* forget my key in the ignition, but I *always* nervously pat my pocket to make sure I have my key before shutting the car door.  
Today, after parking at Aldi's and taking my grocery bags out of the back seat, I opened the front door and poked the "lock all doors" button.  It didn't dingdingding, but it was so noisy -- Aldi's is right off route 30 -- that I might not have heard it.  I waited a bit, watching the lock on the other side of the car.  No click.  Tried again.  Well, the window button on the passenger side has been acting up; must have spread to the lock button.  I walked around to the driver's side, tried again.  Still didn't work.  Well, I *hate* honking the horn, but I reached into my pocket for the key fob . . . it was not only still in the ignition, the car was still running!  
It's certainly lucky that I didn't go around the car flipping the latches by hand! 
      
28 October 2005 
Yesterday Dave and Joe hauled Dave's boat out of the water and cleaned Joe's boat.  Today Joe took both canopies to have the zippers sewn back in.  Dave took all the seats out of the pontoon and is cleaning them.  I didn't realized that one of the seats is a cooler -- technically a live-bait well, but it's insulated and has a drain hole to let the melted ice out.   But we never stay out long enough to pack a lunch. 
I finally got around to putting my waffle-knit ivory cotton in the washing machine to shrink.  It's draped over the dining table, being too big to dry in the dryer. 
I've got a practically-new wool jersey, but all my wool tights need mending.  I do have capilene long johns I can wear under slacks, but I'm running out of "old" slacks. 
My gray mock-wool pantsuit needs mending, and the shirt of the ecru linen suit needs to have the sleeves turned up.  The brown wool is in perfect shape.  Pity I don't like the way I look in it. 
   
So far, only three of the copies of WEB#60 have bounced. 
Four -- now that the mail has come.  This is the first of the doubtful addresses to come back.  
      
Al has informed me that this typing chair is defective -- the top of the back is *much* too narrow.  He'd sit there and visit, he tells me, if he could just get comfortable -- and if I'd stop swiveling it out from under him. 
                 
2 November 2005  
I spent all day Monday thinking Halloween was Tuesday.  
It was raining too hard to go for a walk anyhow.  
A flock of swans are near the park this morning, and have two cygnets with them.   Now I see why they are that dirty-gray color -- they blend right in with the blue lake.  
      
Finished critting "The One World" last night -- to the detriment of Usenet, and entirely skipped reading the on-line funnies.  The novel is *good*; he should be able to sell it.  Hope he tries; he has a record of writing just for fun -- but hasn't come up with anything as complete as this before.  
      
8 November 2005 
The lake looks to be a trifle lower than it has been -- perhaps they have finally opened the dam.  There's a pretty good-sized flock of swans in the park -- they appear to have spent the summer elsewhere, but have been around off and on all fall.  
      
I rode my bike to Atwood yesterday, but didn't see the Atwood Hill.  Perhaps I didn't go far enough -- I turned around at the grain elevator, which is now a hardware store.  (A real one, with drawers of nuts and bolts, etc.)  I went out Old Thirty, which is heavily traveled and so rough that one can't ride very fast.  The return trip on Crystal Lake Road was a bit longer, but *much* easier.  
My arms ached before I got back, but my legs took it pretty well.  I suppose just hauling all this flab around keeps the legs in pretty good shape.  
I've signed up for both knitting class and embroidery class at the church.  Mrs. Phipps said that it can be worked out.   Since the knitting class is every other week, it might happen that only one of the three embroidery classes will conflict.  
The embroidery classes have higher priority, of course, since they are for children. 
I ordered three copies of _Knitting Without Tears_ at Reader's World on my way to Atwood.  Now I need book pockets.   
      
9 November 2005 
I'm getting started on my pile of mending.  Yesterday I darned a pair of fingering-yarn tights and patched my Flye shorts; today I darned my summer gloves.  I tried to replace them last winter, but could find only impervious gloves, so bought a pair I wouldn't mind wearing under wool gloves, hoping to get better in the spring, but ended up wearing the raggedy old pair all summer.   
I've located my inner mittens, but have no clue where the outer mittens might be.  They *should* be in the mending basket. 
      
Dave mopped the kitchen floor today, a thorough pull-out-the-fridge job on account of Al's fleas.  He also invested in a package of Advantage -- and saw a flea fleeing while he was applying it.  
Now we've got to do all the carpets.  I'm not sure it's *possible* to mop the sewing room, but Al doesn't spend a lot of time in here.  When he does come in, he sleeps on the ironing board, and I can put the cover through the washer.  
I'm getting the stuff stored on the rod in the laundry room sorted out -- many of the fabrics hung to the floor -- which is one reason they aren't on the lower rods in the sewing-room closet -- so they had to be removed & it won't be any extra work to sort them out putting them back.  I'll start by putting all the linen together. 
I've also discovered that I have no fewer than six iron kettles, all about the same size.  If you need a cast-iron cookpot, don't buy one!  But only two of them have lids.  (I also have an odd lid that doesn't fit anything.) 
One pot appears to be intended to fit into the hole in the top of a wood-burning range.  
      
The perceived drop in the lake level appears to have been wishful thinking.  Dave has considered calling DNR to ask what's going on.  
      
13 November 2005 
The lake is still as high as ever. 
      
Fellowship meeting tomorrow, kick-off for the Women's Society classes on Tuesday, maybe knitting lessons on Wednesday.  Embroidery lessons start on November 30.  And I gave a thirty-second crochet lesson in the narthex this morning.  
      
Dave found a nifty-neato cheese store on Route 30, but didn't write the name down because he thought it would be on his receipt & it wasn't.  I intend to ride out and hunt for it tomorrow anyway.  About two miles beyond Larwill, on the south side of the road, I think he said.  I'm thinking of riding out Old Trail, then coming back on the north side of 30. 
      
15 November 2005 
Zigged when I should have zagged at the end of Ryerson Road, and ended up on Rt. 30 instead of Old Trail.  Whereupon I learned that that stretch is really boring and I needn't go that way again.  Turned around not much past Larwill, followed county roads until I came out on 30 again, crossed at Pierceton, followed Pierceton road home. 
I got a late start, and had less than an hour to lie down before it was time to cook supper and go to the Fellowship Committee meeting.  The walk to church made my legs feel better, but coming home again was just a tad too much exercise.  Didn't help that my current purse won't stay on my shoulder, so I have to hold it in my hand or clutch it to my chest.  I'll have to rustle out a daypack or bum bag to take to the Women's Society meeting tonight.  
I wonder how much turnout we'll get when the invitation says only "you're invited" and doesn't say to *what*.  
      
Sent my embroidery-class data to Lynelle just before I staggered off to bed last night.  Hope I didn't make any errors as bad as the one I caught:  saying "needle" where I meant "thimble".  Now I've got to get the Web page up before she publishes the URL.  (I do have a page saying "this is a test" up, for purposes of making sure I sent her a *working* URL.)  
      
On looking out this morning, I saw a great deal of sandbar that hadn't been visible before, and the creek is no longer up to the grass.  I do believe that they have finally opened the dam.  
I wonder whether they waited for a spell of bad weather on purpose?  By the time this rain-and-maybe-snow patch is past, we'll be pushing winter pretty hard.  
Maybe they'll also delay and delay next spring, and give me time to get the leaves and weed off the beach. 
      
17 November 2005 
I got four spams this morning, when there were only twenty messages total.  I'm beginning to wish Eudora allowed me to put "fraud@earthlink.net" on a defined key.  (PC-Write is the only program I have that allows one to define keys.)  
I've been in a spamstorm of late, all alike:  a plausible-sounding name in the "from" line, random snippets from works of fiction in the body to make it look like a message to spam filters, and the ad itself in an attached .gif file.  (I hear that people who enable HTML in their readers see the image instead of the text.)  The names of the gifs are always the same number of all-caps letters -- the spambot is probably working its way through all possible combinations -- which makes it possible to clear them out of my attachments directory without having to look at them first.  
The spambots are getting so good at generating plausible names that some of the guys in the writers' newsgroup are collecting them for their characters. 
      
I'm thinking of making both devilled eggs and potato salad for thanksgiving, but haven't bought anything yet.  Did, just now, check the weight of the gallon of olive oil in the freezer, then set it out to thaw because the bottle by the stove is empty.  
      
I forgot entirely to go to the kick-off meeting for the knitting classes.  Hope this doesn't mean they are canceled.  (I don't suppose I can hope that the weather was so nasty that nobody else showed either.)  
      
We have a thin film of snow on the ground.  I think the sand bar is a bit bigger, suggesting that now that the rain isn't draining, the lake has resumed dropping, but I'm not going out in the cold to check.  I'm sure all the debris I wanted to clean off the beach is frozen solid -- I suspect DNR of postponing the dam opening until cold weather set in on purpose.  Someone should tell them that the people who didn't rush their boats out of the water before the scheduled drop date can play on a low lake just as easily as on a high one. 
      
Dave put the shower back together today.  He noticed that the bottom of the door was disgusting, took it off so he could clean it properly, one thing led to another, and the shower is in *much* better condition now.  
While putting the door back on, he discovered that it is bowed in the middle, which is why it's been so hard to close all these years.  A bar clamp straightened it up a bit. 
      
20 November 2005 
There was a sign-up sheet for the knitting classes in the narthex this morning.  They start in January, date to be announced.  So far, only Martha has signed up.  
      
I gave up hunting for the lipstick I bought at Warsaw health foods, and bought a Chapstick when I went out for milk Friday.  Used it for the first time today, and discovered that it has a very strong scent that reminds me of insecticide. 
      
I rode to Reader's World to pick up six books yesterday.  Stopped at Bishop's Books on the way, went to the hospital afterward to dispose of some more magazines, and zigged a bit to come back by way of Lakeview Plaza to investigate the new health club, but saw no sign of it even though I checked the empty stores for "coming soon" signs.  Saw an auction sign on the store where an insurance company moved out -- mostly office furniture. 
I've decided to go on a long ride every Monday -- lets see how long that lasts!  
But according to Streets and Trips, Columbia City isn't much farther than Larwill, so that's motivation for two more Mondays.  I'm going to the cheese store tomorrow -- with fewer wrong turns, I should be energetic enough to actually get there.  And the weather forecast is so promising that I've about decided to wear my cotton jersey -- over a silk T-neck and under my jacket-style wool jersey, of course.  I sweated just a tad in my wool jersey yesterday, even though I started the ride wearing my wool inner mittens over my synthetic gloves, so being able to peel down a layer when it warms up in the afternoon sounds nice.  
I learned last time that the breakdown lane on 30 is in such good condition that boredom is one's only problem when riding the main road.   Well, boredom, and it taking a mile to make a U-turn.  
      
21 November 2005 
And today I learned that, given a choice between Rt. 30 and Old 30, take Rt. 30 every time!  The traffic on Old 30 was nearly as heavy, and there wasn't a spare inch of roadway.   And I was much too tired by then to deal with it -- a boring road would have been just the ticket.  
I was cold, but everything was damp when I got back, so I undressed into the laundry sorter.  Hope I get around to doing the wash before I need to wear my blue cotton-twill pants again.  
We'll have to take Alice to see Spring Creek Market and Greenhouse the next time she comes to visit -- it's not very far, and easy to get to.  
I bought maple-nut goodies, which are actually good!  I wouldn't swear there is any maple in them, but at least there is no Crisco.  I've already eaten more than half.  They had flour, but I didn't find any whole-wheat bread flour -- just pasta and pastry.  The had so many different chocolate-covered nuts that I couldn't make up my mind and didn't buy any.  I bought some raisins for Christmas cakes, and some local walnuts that I intend to take to the Thanksgiving party -- if there are any left.  
Prolly should have gotten dried apples and pineapple too.  
I found the missing lipstick when I put my zip-front wool jersey on. 
      
Fifteen spams, all with zip-file attachments, when I checked the mail tonight.  I begged off forwarding them to fraud@earthlink.  I think I'll borrow Dave's computer and check the website first, next time, so I can delete all those huge attachments without waiting for them to download.  I vaguely recall a "this is spam" button, too. 
      
23 November 2005 
Dave's computer was busy, but I can get through some parts of Earthlink's websites on mine if I use [gag spit] Explorer, and it turns out that Web Mail is one of those parts.   [Won't be when they are through beta-testing the New Improved web mail and delete the standard version.]  Two screens of spam the first time, but only two last night -- I think I'll post on the N3F list that messages with attachments won't get deleted unread if they say "Writers' Exchange" in the subject line.  
      
There's a visible coat of snow on the ground, and more coming down.  This is our second fall, and the first significant.  Dave says that Weather Underground was predicting a foot of lake effect, but canceled it.   
I'm glad I don't have to go anywhere -- and I sure hope I bought everything I need for the devilled eggs and potato salad!  
      
---------- 
Eggs and salad in the fridge, and my overnight case is mostly packed.  Must remember to change the cat box in the morning.  And put a second feeding station in the kitchen -- I wouldn't like to eat in the same room with Al's box when it's been untended for two days.  Poor Al will celebrate Thanksgiving by skipping his 9:00 treat.  
Perhaps I'll give it to him at 9:00 am.  Nasty weather predicted for tomorrow, but we should beat it out of town. 
      
27 November 2005 
Which we did.  The lawn chair I use for a laundry-basket stand was a yard or two from where I left it, so we must have had some wind.  
The boys had so much fun that they want to do it again in the spring.  
When I was telling Alice I'd left three goose feathers behind because they were so ordinary, Dave reminded me that one of them is a vulture feather.  I must put them with the magazines and books to be swapped.  
      
I was thinking that since it's the first Sunday in Advent, I'd wear a long cotton-print skirt today -- but while eating my breakfast beside the patio door and watching the rain mist down, I decided that my stodgy brown wool suit would be better. 

29 November 2005 
More weather-related changes of mind.  I've decided that I should ride my bike every Monday, and all week was wondering where to go yesterday.  The trip to Spring Creek Market is just the right length, but if I go too often, I'll wear it out.  
Then I observed that the embroidery class starts tomorrow and I haven't bought any die-cut circles for the kids to display their embroidery on.  (We make Christmas-tree decorations by stretching embroidered fabric over cardboard circles.)  Riding to Sprawl Three to investigate the scrapbooking store, then crossing 30 at 250E to ride to the Detroit-Street sprawl by the back way, then coming back past Owen's (Kroger) would also make a trip of about the right length.  (If I can't find anything else on Detroit, Walmart has plastic-canvas circles that are only a little too big.) 
The predictions said that we wouldn't get any decent weather until Wednesday, and that is way too late to buy stuff for a class that starts on Wednesday, so I set out to do the trip by car even though that leaves me with no place to go tomorrow.  Not sure which sprawl or intersprawl the scrapbooking store was in, I decided to go in by way of Jefferson Street so as to see the full length of Commerce Drive.   That takes me past Goodwill, so I grabbed a hot-spotting miniature skillet I've been wanting to get rid of, and a hair-teasing comb I found in the street.  I bought a suit hanger while I was in there, and also toured a dollar store before reaching Sprawl Three -- no telling what you'll find in a dollar store even though they are much more standardized than they were when they first took off.  
The scrapbooking store did have a 2.5-inch hole punch, but it costs $20, would never fit into the box I stored the embroidery-class stuff in last winter, and I was far from sure that it would do the job.  I'd been hoping for a die that I could whack with a hammer.  For *that*, I'd have paid $20.  
Then I came out of the scrapbooking store, looked at the driving rain, decided that hand-cut circles would do just fine, and went next door to Staples to buy some nice white cardboard to cut them from.  Staples has a wide selection of cover stock, both letter-size and poster sizes, and they have nice thick foamcore poster boards in all sizes, but no medium-thick card.  
So I puzzled over how to get to Owen's for a while . . . well, duh, Aldi's is right here, and all I want is milk and corn oil; never mind that I have to mix 0% and 2% together to get 1% milk, I was planning to buy two gallons anyway.  
On coming out of Aldi's, I remembered that I want notary seals to cover the backs of the ornaments -- last year's children were somewhat aghast at the thought of making two ornaments and sewing them back-to-back -- so I went back to Staples.  I looked all over the stickers, then asked a clerk and he led me back to the sticker display and showed me some pretty gold notary seals that were *away* too small.  
So I came home.  Ah, well, if I have to hand-cut the paper circles, I can print the kid's names on them first -- I got the class list ahead of time this year.  And pinking shears -- I have a cheap pair -- will disguise any uneven cuts.  
And I found a plain brown box made of very thin corrugated cardboard in the garage; no printing to show through the fabric.  
Checked the embroidery-class supply box:  gack, no floss!  Found my box of floss, there it is right on top, together with the two iron-on pencils -- apparently I haven't embroidered any since last year's class.  Not with floss, anyhow.  
Hope I get to Lowery's before class time.  I have plenty of needles left from last year, but I want a size coarser.  
      
1 December 2005 
The class went reasonably well, but I was flaked out all day today -- I'm not accustomed to socializing of any sort, let alone the high-energy socializing that teaching requires.  It was rather clever of me to type the students' names on their work bags in 44-point letters -- a great aid for one with a congenital case of Whatsisname's disease. 
      
It looks as though I'm not going to get any bike riding this week.  We got a nice layer of snow today, but it hasn't stuck to concrete or blacktop. 
 
6 December 2005 
Chickened out of Monday's bike ride, and drove to the sewing store, health-food store, and grocery in the afternoon.  
      
A flock of tundra swans spent yesterday on our end of the lake.  Dave says they are very shy; if you walk toward them, they swim away even when they are already way out. 
      
Got my teeth cleaned this morning.  The dentist says that two of my lower incisors are worn out, and ought to be crowned.  They worked fine on the prime rib at Bogey's tonight.  They have a special on prime rib every Tuesday, I understand.   
      
Past time to write the Christmas letter.  I have nothing to say.  Which is very good news at our age.  Maybe I can describe a routine day?   Try to make the re-arrangement of the beach interesting?  Thank goodness for sixteen-point type!  
      
7 December 2005 
I'm all packed for my embroidery lesson.  Hope I didn't forget anything!  (Brief excursion to make sure the beeswax is in my bag.)  
      
The tundra swans are still out there. 
      
---- 
Lost one little boy, who decided to take another class.  The two girls are still missing.  The remaining two had fun, and both finished ornaments.  But they are getting bored with running stitch, so I'm (gulp!) going to have to teach them chain stitch next week.  They're not ready, but if *I'm* alert, I think we can manage.  
When he saw me struggle into my backpack, Dave said "That's not how we put on Scott packs."  His description didn't make any sense, but when it was time to come home, I tried throwing it over my head the way he said -- and it worked!  
      
8 December 2005 
My backpack was lighter this time.  I realized that I didn't have to take my *best* iron to the class; the cheap Proctor Silex is much lighter, and it's a great advantage that it doesn't get very hot -- when you are using an iron while also supervising little boys, having to hold it a long time is an advantage, and this iron can't melt the nylon drawstrings no matter how hard it tries.  There are holes in the bottom, but I make them choose among designs that I've already stamped, so I'm not likely to transfer a design with it.  
I let Alejandro look at the transfers yesterday, because the pre-stamped designs had gotten picked over -- and because there wasn't time to stamp it before the class ended; I wrote his name on the one he chose, and will stamp it and put it into his bag before the next class.  
Ah, yes, another advantage of the cheap iron:  I can leave it in the backpack until the next class.  But I'll probably need the sleeve board before Wednesday.  
I ran into Sandra Hall in the hallway, and returned the bag of floss she didn't pick up last year -- and gave her a stamped design to use it on.  So even though she missed the last session, I seem to have gotten through.  
      
Evening:  they are predicting six inches of snow.  Dave has put the car into the garage. 
      
9 December 2005 
      
We skipped our evening walk. 
We appear to have gotten more than the six inches of snow predicted, but it's hard to tell -- it appears to have blown some after we went to bed.  The wind sock is standing up now, but none of the trees are shaking.  It started about four yesterday. 
We have to go to a wedding tomorrow.  Streets should be clear by then; I heard snowplows on the scanner all night.  (Gave me a turn at first, because I thought I was hearing the police channel, and wondered what they were chasing down Park and Chestnut.)  Gratefully, I heard somebody order them not to use salt.  But they planned to start salting at dawn.  
I suspect I'll be wearing flimsy slippers in church Sunday.  I saw a pair flimsier than mine last Sunday, and wondered whether the wearer had changed out of snow boots. 
Dave parked the Buick in the garage just before the snow started, after going out to buy a card for Nate's wedding check.  He dithered for a while on whether to put the truck in instead, since the truck has four-wheel drive. 
Doesn't appear to be falling now, but the houses on the other side of the lake are somewhat dim, and the world ends at the trees behind them.  The lake had skimmed over with ice before the snowfall, and now large patches are white, most of the rest is light gray, and the open water where the creek runs is darker gray.  Might be some more open water near the other side and a bit south.  Lake Cam shows a uniform white on Little Eagle, except for a small patch of tree reflections along the shore of the fairground.  I *think* it's the fairground.  I don't check Lake Cam often enough to recognize things by where they are, and the only sharp image in the picture is a tree in the foreground.  Must be a mite foggy.  I *think* it's mistier than here, but that might be the difference between eyeball and camera.  Just went to ask Dave whether Lake Cam is closer to or farther from its other shore than we are, found him outside shoveling the patio, and decided not to interrupt.   (Besides, it's *cold* out there.  
      
13 December 2005 
Just heard someone announce that Buffalo Street is closed between Main and Fort Wayne.  GAACK!  DON'T GO ANYWHERE NEAR DOWNTOWN!  
Oh, wait a minute . . . I was thinking of Detroit Street.  
(Rt. 15 comes into town on Buffalo, jogs east on Winona, and leaves town on Detroit.  Which it does because every other north-south street dead-ends at a lake, so Detroit will be very busy even after they build a bypass for Rt. 15.) 
      
I still haven't gotten any outdoor exercise.  
      
Yesterday I got up at one or two, stayed up until five, went back to bed, woke up with Dave waking up beside me, and said "I'm astonished that I woke up as early as you did."  Then I raised my head, looked at the clock, and said "No I'm not."  Dave raised his head, looked at the clock, and said "Well, I am."  
It was 10:30.  
I doubted that the roads were clear enough for bikes, so probably would have run my errands by truck anyhow.   It turned out that even where there was snow on the roads, the wheel tracks were clear -- but there were puddles here and there.  When it's cold, I don't want to run even the slightest chance of getting wet.  
The puddles have probably drained, but I ain't going out today either.  
I'll walk to the church and back tomorrow. 
      
15 December 2005 
Which was all I did -- the class was cancelled for bad weather.  Which made me go "Huh?", but many of the children come from out in the county, where the roads aren't plowed as assiduously.  And I don't think the church van has four-wheel drive.  Lynelle was upset at not reaching me before I began walking to the church, but we go for a walk at that time every night.  
      
We got our flu shots today, at the fireman's building in Pike Lake Park.  The line moved briskly, but by the time we got back, it was time for my nap.  
      
Dave found me a picture, so I designed our Christmas card before lying down.  Now all I have to do is to check the list, address the envelopes, and print out the cards.  Should have them in the mail tomorrow.  
      
We have more geese than you could shake a shotgun at on the ice and in the remaining open water.  I think I saw some swans at the other end of the lake on our way back from the flu shots, but only white specks so I don't know whether it's Tundra swans or the domestic variety. 
      
16 December 2005 
The swan seen most recently was a mute swan, as shown by its size and yellow beak. 
      
We mailed our Christmas cards today.  Met Joe, Dave's brother, at the post office.  And a large number of other people who had come to buy stamps and stick them on envelopes.  I was surprised when the clerk asked me whether I wanted the old stamps or the new thirty-nines when I asked for a roll -- it has finally occurred to the powers that run the post office that one should notify one's stamp printers that there will be a rise in the postal fees.  
But I won't celebrate until after the price goes up and there isn't a shortage of stamps.  
Entirely by accident, we bought a roll of very appropriate blue stamps with a portrait of a white bird on them.  Looks like a heron with added plumes -- might that be an egret? 
      
22 December 2005 
Went downtown to pick up books I'd ordered at Readers' World, so I bought my butter and eggs at Owen's West.  Gave up looking for chocolate coins and bought chocolate-covered caramels wrapped in gold foil, then overshot Market Street and ended up coming home on Winona Avenue, which passes right by Marsh, so I dashed in there, and behold, they *did* have chocolate coins.  And everybody in the check-out lines was stocking up for the feast!  (The express lane was closed, and our Marsh doesn't have a U-check.) 
So now what do I do with gilded caramels?  
Owen's West didn't have "medium" eggs in eighteen packs, so I bought a two-and-a-half dozen pack -- why don't they just make it six-by-six?  So instead of devilling eighteen eggs, I'll devil a dozen and a quarter, and save the other half of the package for New Year.  
Or maybe I should devil eighteen and pickle the other dozen. 
Found holes in my black linen slacks Monday or Tuesday.  I should have known that drapery linen wouldn't stand up to wear.  And I'll have to patch them with that same cottonized linen -- perhaps I can find something durable to underline the patches with.  The houndstooth-print linen is durable, but would shine through when the patches get thin. 

<!-- [this must have been written on 21 Dec.] 
       
I made a pair of red newborn booties for Linda's baby -- she's due in January -- for Christmas.   (The same red thread; I should put a different ball in my purse.)  Tonight I started a larger pair.  Since the three-month version is kinder boring to crochet, I'm working the newborn pattern in 3/12 worsted with a #5 hook.  
In a shade of green I got rather tired of rather fast, but it's nice and soft.  Finished the first one, and it's four inches long.  Do you think Matt's baby could wear that, or should I make a larger one?  I can get it done by New Years -- and I have several other colors of 3/12 yarn.  
Or maybe I'll give this pair to Matt's baby -- what's her name again? -- and make a pair in persian wool for Linda; there's a very large jump between the two pairs, and it might be too warm for wool by the time Linda's baby grows into it. 
      
The books I'm giving to Nick and to Dave's great-nephew Daniel are at Reader's World; I'll go pick them up tomorrow -- and try to buy some chocolate coins to put in with five real dollars for the Linda's two little boys.  And then I'm going to have to start wrapping presents!  Today I cut two pieces of red sateen to make bags to put the coins in.  If I can't find chocolate coins, I can fluff the bags up with ordinary candy.  
Or double-dipped malt balls:  we went to Spring Creek today.  Dave selected cheese while I tore around loading a canvas bag with dried fruit, nuts, and flour.  Got a bag of white bread flour and a bag of whole-wheat bread flour.  I have a dab of Bonneyville Mill whole white wheat left, so I probably won't see how good the Spring Creek ww flour is any time soon.  But they kept it in the cold room, which means it's got to be better than Hodson's Mill. 
The white flour is already in the flour bin.  I had emptied it yesterday making three fruit cakes, which I put into the freezer as soon as they were cold enough to wrap.  There was enough dough left to make two little bitty loaves in my toy loaf pans, but somehow those seem to have disappeared ;-)   
Apricots, dried apples, dried pineapple, and a few Aldi maraschino cherries.  Perhaps next time I'll stick the cherry halves on top after filling the pans, since they are primarily for making pretty red splotches. 
I'm taking the devilled eggs to Lois's party.  Might make another batch for New Year.  
      
At 07:10 AM 12/22/05 -0600, Alice wrote: 
      
>Isabella is a tiny thing, so the 4 inch booties should be fine. 
      
Thanks -- I think I'll save the pair I'm making for Isabella and make a persian pair for the yet-unnamed youngest Beeson.  Provided there is something non-revolting to watch on the television.  Still have to make ties for the red pair, too.  
That will be the last pair for Isabella, as four inches is on the verge of being too big to be cute. 
   
Speaking of  TV:  
      
I read a rave review of a show called "House" in Analog -- it's a medical-mystery show.  But Analog has a long lead time, so I've no idea whether "House" is still on, let alone which day's listing to peruse minutely hoping to find it! 
Must be a TV guide on the Web somewhere.  
      
> Haven't even looked at my calendar for today. 
      
I'm half dressed to go fetch my gift books.  I think I'll park at Owen's West, walk to Reader's world, then get groceries -- including more butter and a sack of sugar!  And a dozen and a half eggs.  (small, i.e. "medium", eggs come in packages of 18 at Owen's.)  
      
>Deviled eggs are always welcome, here!   
       
I plan to shop again before New Year. 
      
-->   
      
25 December 2005 
      
Almost forgot to devil the eggs.  Used only twelve of the 30, leaving 19 for New Year's.  (One is cracked.) 

I was surprised at how poorly dollar coins are made; the brass has turned an unpleasant color, and on one coin it was actually chipping off!  Luckily, the standard roll left a lot over, so I could be picky.  
      
      
2 January 2005 
      
Haven't laid a needle on the black linen slacks, or any of the dozens of other things that need mending.  Haven't even done the ironing in weeks.  
      
Been eating lots of goodies, though.  Just as we got rid of the loot from Christmas, we started over at the New Year party.  I put two bags in the freezer.  
The first two days after Christmas, my breakfast was devilled egg on garlic bread, but I didn't bring any eggs back from the New Year party.  
      
I undecorated the tree this evening, put it into a box, and threw a dust cover over it.  Al took great interest in the procedure.   
      
Al has given up being paper trained for his New Year resolution.  When I brought the plants in, I noticed that he *really likes* real dirt, so after the thaw, I dug up some of the pile of sand that got dumped on the garden when I asked for lake muck.  On New Year's Day, I scooped some of it into a spare litter box and set it beside the box of sawdust pellets.  And he has been burying his turds ever since.  So instead of picking up the newspaper and carrying it out, I have to sift the sand, dump the lumps onto a newspaper, and carry it out.  But it's not so *urgent*.