July 4th memories….

Because of the drought, our fireworks were cancelled here in Sandwich…and I have no problem with that.  By the looks of the grass around here, it wouldn’t take much to set this town ablaze…However, that doesn’t stop the pyrotechnic geeks who are lighting off stuff in their backyards…sheesh!

We did have a parade, however, and I took the usual family photos..Then, I got to thinking (yes, I actually DO think…on occasion), and I went back to compare who I have taken pictures of over the past few years…Of course the grandkids are a given…

Above are photos from parade, 2006.. Upper left, cousin Scott (black T) was still able to walk..And just notice  how little the Heiser kids were…

 

Above collage is from parade, 2010..Den with his “on again off again” mustache, the kids, Ter and Campbell, and …Scott is now in a wheelchair….time marches on.

 

This last collage is from this year….

Biggest change is the kids…Aunt Juanita in upper right, age 93..she NEVER changes…and poor Scotty is no longer with us…He is now walking and whole, and in a better place.

 

CHECK OUT THESE NEXT 2 PHOTOS…I LOVE IT!

2008, the Heiser kids and pal, Jessica……and 2012, this year…Boy, am I getting old!!

 

We have been sweltering here in the past week, enjoying  tolerating 5 consecutive days of 100 degrees or over…So…I know that many of you are wondering why we didn’t just go sleep in the Hiker, where we have A/C…I know you were thinking to yourselves, “Boy, are they dumb!”…eh??? See?, I know you all pretty good… Well, McGyver did suggest that very thing , but I was the one who said no…Why did I say “NO” to a pretty easy question?…I said that because I know ME..Once I succumbed to the coolness of our air conditioned camper, I would not come out.  I would become destined to live there without TV, food, Dennis (you KNOW he would come out), or a workable toilet…(we have no sewer hook-up here)..Once inside, I would stubbornly NOT put even a teensy itsy part of my body back in the hot outside…Nope… I, personally, was much better off living in the “hot cave”, bitching, taking cool showers, and sleeping with 3 fans blowing on me…AND..I SURVIVED!!!! A blessed cool front came in last evening, the temp dropped to 85, and we now have a wonderful cooling breeze…but, unfortunately, that front was rainless…the drought lives on.

Here is a question for our Bird Lady of Blogland…Are birds affected by this heat???…and do they hang out with their mouths beaks wide open for a reason?? Is it cooling????

 

This dude was drinking some nasty water from our birdbath, but spent most of an entire 30 minutes sitting on the side with his beak open Don’t birds have to swallow?…I know, I know…our birdbath is green…I do keep water in it, but it’s darn hard in this heat to keep algae from growing…I scrubbed it and refilled it the minute Mr. BigBeak left…(Maybe he was doing the “beak” thing as a way complaining about the state of the birdbath, but I know I’ve seen birds drink out of dirty mud puddles, so don’t give me that!!)

Every July 4th celebration includes a 5K run and it always goes right by our house…

This affords Den and I an opportunity to have coffee on our front porch, while these poor “run loving suckers” are pacing their butts off…I took these pics out our front door…And NO!  McGyver and I do NOT  run, we walk….thank you very much..

OK, this has been a little lengthy, and since the day is gorgeous, I should get outside and enjoy it…Finally, I can decrease my 3 times daily shower to one, and quit stockpiling deodorant and baby powder on my shelves …Thanks for reading to the bottom, for those who actually stayed awake !!

“Leadership involves finding a parade and getting in front of it.”

~John Naisbitt

I AM the Wicked Witch of West Center St….

  Yup, it is official…100 degrees today, and gonna be 102 here tomorrow…..I am now melting….

 "I'm melting! Melting! Oh, what a world, what a world!"

                                                ~Wicked Witch of the West, Wizard of Oz

 

“As coroner, I must aver..I thoroughly examined her.

And she’s not only merely dead, she’s really MOST sincerely dead..”

                                                               ~Munchkin Coroner, Wizard of Oz

 

THAT’S ME…WITHOUT THE FLYING MONKEYS..

Have a wonderful and safe July 4th…

 

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence. It is force. And force, like fire, is a dangerous servant and a fearful master." George Washington

I Know I’m “Squirrely”, But This I Do Not Get!!

  This morning McGyver and I finished our walk soaking wet..and NOT because we ran through sprinklers on our 2 mile jaunt.  After wiping of the dripping sweat, we got some ice water, coffee and went on our front screened porch under the ceiling fans…Ah, yes….now THIS is exactly where we spent the day yesterday!..

  I must say this first to tell you what’s goin’ on..We have 2 trees that touch leaves/needles toward the tops and they are right outside our screened porch, providing us with some much needed shade..One is a young Maple and the other is a very tall,old Blue Spruce.  While recovering from my meltdown, I watched my arch nemesis..the dreaded Squirrel…come sacheting down the Maple tree with a branch of leaves in his little choppers…He took that branch to the ground, ran over to the Spruce, and zipped up that tree until he was out of site…building himself a condo, I’m sure.

At first I thought he was coming back DOWN the Spruce and going back UP the Maple to rob the poor tree of some more leaves.  But, after closely observing this little rodent, we discovered he was delivering the leaf branch to a nest under construction in the Spruce…Then he was jumping from the top of the Spruce to the top of the Maple, resuming his destruction, and going DOWN the trunk of the Maple..making a complete circle and making me dizzy..Not unlike a high wire act…We watched him closely, and every so often he would screw up , dropping the leaves …(smirk, smirk…)  These dropped branches fell to the ground underneath the Maple Tree..

  Now, I’m not the smartest “squirrel” in the bird feeder, but wouldn’t it be easier if he picked up all the darn leaves he dropped and haul them up to his little nest in the Spruce???..OH, NO..not this guy..He just left those laying on the ground, and kept going across and cutting different ones…How dumb is that??? I swear those little varmints will invent ways to get my goat..GRRRRRR!!

We did have a little excitement here the past few days…RAIN!!! OK, Sandwich didn’t get too much.  According to McGyver ( the Weather Geek) , we got about a total of 1” here at the Cave Dwellings..

 

That big glob of red was headed right for us…Hey, all I want is the rain!!!  We can do without the hail and damaging wind scenario..pullllease!!

 

We did get some wind here, but no trees down..Just East of Sandwich they had lots more limbs down….It blew over 2 semi’s at the local Wally World, and some snapped some electric poles..

 

Being a tornado chaser “wanta be”, I seize every potential thunderstorm as an excuse to capture the always interesting cloud formations…

Right after this, it began big time lightening…EXIT , STAGE RIGHT!! WHEW!! SOME GREAT CLOUDS, RIGHT?? (I really gotta be a little more cognizant of the unpredictability of lightening!)

I am in and ongoing fight with my camera, trying to learn how to take better photos….  I have been experimenting with close ups on my flowers (Lord knows I do NOT want to practice on myself!)…

Above left…blurry yellows, clear stamens…Right blurry stamens, focused yellow..DAMN!

Obviously I am having problems with the macro-focus..I can’t get the whole thing in focus at once…We have an easyshare max Kodak Z990 with a 30X zoom. ( I know this because it says to on the camera..) This thing has waaaaay too many ways for me to get myself into a confused fog over my photos..Especially when taking photos of moving objects (like fast moving squirrels.)..By the time I set the stuff, focus and find the “shoot” button, the moment is gone and so is the squirrel! Oh well, I’m NOT giving up. But…frankly, my cell phone takes as good or better photos!

  So now it is 4PM and the temp on our deck is 100…Our windows are open and we have all ceiling fans going at mach 10.  I’m using our shower as a swimming pool, taking a plunge as often as possible…I have resorted to men’s boxers and a tank top for my evening ensemble…AND, we are trying to keep our dinners lite and simple..Tonight is grilled marinated spicy shrimp, cole slaw, mashed cauliflower and mixed veggies…One thing we always keep in the back of our mind…We ALWAYS have the option to fire up the A/C in the Hiker and sleep out there!!! Hasn’t happened yet, but…the summer’s not over YET!

“The best thing about shooting bottle rockets off on July 4th is emptying the bottles”…

                                                                                      ~MAXINE

Can you say “In-fes-ta-tion”? WE GOT ONE!

  First of all….

 

…we are certainly in a bit of a heat wave here…This is the temp on our deck outside our kitchen…Just after I took this photo the degrees jumped up to 106..Suffice to say, the dress code here at the Cave Dwellings is “the less , the better, without getting arrested”….

Did I mention that we have NO A/C?? I believe I have also said that we really don’t mind it…most of the time.  Actually, even today, we have a breeze from the South..Unfortunately, today it feels like it’s coming from a blast furnace…

These poor birds are really in need of water, and I have done a “cease and desist” on screaming, stomping and banging on the screens to chase them off.  I am becoming a more gentle soul, allowing the birds ..ALL the birds, even the nasty Blackbirds , to use my birthday fountain as a Roman Bath/sometimes toilet.

I ask you..How could I deny them this temptation in 106 degrees and a drought?

 

We have  had a few “confrontations”….and even the Wasps are “hanging out” drinking from the water running down the outside..As they say, “all creatures, great and small”…Yep, I’m feeling a new attitude about “sharing” my birthday gift…

I am NOT getting a very good feeling about our pests that have invaded the roses here…Remember our neighbor’s beautiful rose garden we could enjoy from our deck???

Above, Left is before the infestation…..         Right is how it looks now…and here is why..

…Japanese (Asian) Beetles….not sure which is the correct term..ALIEN BEETLES!!

If you really want to be grossed out, click the pics to enlarge..I double darn dare ya!

I kid you not..All of Deb’s rose bushes and every rose was covered with these…The air was thick with them…They were on my 4 spindly rose bushes, and I sprayed them and then cut all the buds (and what remained of the roses) off….Deb did the same, but compared to my 4 measly bushes, she has at least 50….Now… go back up to the 2 photos of her garden from our deck…What a difference…

We are spraying with Seven, and the beetles are a little diminished, ( now that we have taken their main meal away), but they are VERY hard to kill…When I was taking these pictures they were dive bombing me!  YUCKO!!…and I felt like my skin was creepy crawling just watching them devour her beautiful roses…As I said…INFESTATION!!!! OK, that’s enough insect photos…I am feeling the urge to hurl…

Den and I are considering taking out a lien on the house to help defray the cost of our water bill…that we have yet to see…One can only imagine….I have to run the hose in the driveway for 5 minutes just to cool it off for watering plants (wasting that precious H2O)..If I began watering the poor flowers right away, I would cook them.  We are hoping for a little rain tonight….(key word is HOPE!)

Our oldest daughter, Terrie, is undergoing a purge of her current house décor’(Could it be the fact that she will turn 40 this year?)…She has taken all of her stuff off the walls, tables, counters, and has them ready to sell or give away…She is feeling the need to change up her wall colors and “knick knacks:.  It looks like they are moving…I will post some after pics if and when she finishes this MAJOR project..

I’m hoping to tap into her taste for re-purposing and re-modeling when, and IF, I ever get McGyver to realize that our 1970’s kitchen is no longer the newest and neatest room in our house…It is now possibly the oldest and the scariest!!..

Well…Golly darn, it’s clouding up a bit…Maybe..just MAYBE, we could catch a few raindrops here in Sandwich…before we end up as TOAST instead!!

I’m stuck in the movie, “The Birds”..or worse.. “Harvey”..

If any of you are old enough you might remember these 2 movies.  The first was a horror movie about , you guessed it, BIRDS!!..The other movie, Harvey, starred James Stewart (not one of his best movie attempts), and it was about a giant “white rabbit”…(OK, some of you flower children may be having a flashback to the singing group Jefferson Airplane and their song about drugs named “White Rabbit”….  but snap out of it!!.. It was the 60’s, after all!!!).  At any rate, I am feeling like we are slowly becoming a reality show here, starring Dennis and myself being possessed by the wild creatures…

Sooooo…I am not crabbing about the heat…I am now crabbing about the drought..and our lack of vegetables still able to fight the good fight against the long, lop earred, fuzzy, hopping critters living rent free on our property.  I did quit hauling water to my lettuce in the veggie garden..The rabbits are keeping it trimmed down to about 1”…So much for fresh summer salads,eh?..I had been watering my radishes faithfully.  They had nice big green tops showing and looked ready for picking.  I pulled a few out of the ground and realized that unless I had a recipe for radish TOPS, there were no radishes in my future, either.  They looked like an itsy bitsy red root…Our pepper plants would be doing nicely..I had watered them well…but now Brer Rabbit has devoured most of the leaves, so it is doubtful we will be stuffing any this year…HMMMM..a recipe for stuffed rabbit, perhaps???

 

 

….or maybe a nice tenderloin of squirrel?? If I truly AM the Wicked Witch of West Center Street, I should be able to turn him into “potted squirrel”, right?..Now, if I could just find my magic wand..I must look for it later.  All I need now is a basket for my bike, then just kidnap a little dog, and I could double for Elphaba (W. W. of the West)…

 

It is becoming “Critter Wars” here at the Cave Dwellings…The Blackbirds have invaded my new fountain and take their baths there daily, throwing water at least 3 feet around the fountain. This is bad enough, and makes it necessary to wear a swimsuit on our deck… but to make it worse, those rotten big ‘ol nasty birds are throwing BLEACH water…Yes, I have had to add a little bleach to the water with the 95+ heat wave…As it turns out, my flowers surrounding “said fountain” are not fond of bleach water..they turn black..and I have had to move them about a gazillion feet away from the “dirty bird bathers”..Don’t get me wrong…I love the little cute birds..They exhibit some “fountain manners”, dipping their little toes in, fluffing a little, getting a drink and flying away…but those Blackbirds might end up in a pie!

Our weather has cooled off slightly, so this AM I took the bike I mentioned above, and rode out past the Sandwich Fairgrounds..I had it in mind to ride through the grounds , but forgot that they are having a big Engine Show this weekend…

 

I have yet to figure the allure of looking at old engines…This must be a testosterone related disorder…

So, instead of zipping pedaling through there, I opted for riding my bike to Edgebrook .  This is our local golf course/country club with lots of homes built around and in it…

  If you are NOT a golfer,…I feel your pain at being bored to death here…My adventures on a golf course are memories of the elephant trunk waterfall at Goofy Golf…

I’m sure the country club police were watching my every move as I pedaled my arse down the golf cart roads like a crazed Tiger Woods stalker…

To further irritate you non-golfers, I will provide a link for Edgebrook Golf Club…I know, I know…but I have a certain public I must provide for…Actually, Dennis and I did go to a golf tournament once, courtesy of our good friend who lives near Dallas..We attended the Colonial, while in Texas one spring.  All I remember were the very well dressed Southern ladies (compared to moi), and whispering while we were following some guy named Fuzzy Zeller around…How could I EVER forget that name?

Well, it’s date night tonight.  I washed the GMC this morning, thinking I could trick the Rain Gods into watching us drive it out of the garage tonight..all clean and sparkling so they could drop buckets of rain on it…As it stands right now, they didn’t take the bait..and I have to add more water to my fountain so the evil blackbirds can throw it all out…