Friday, July 18, 2025

On A 39th Tornado Anniversary, Memories Revisited

They brought back the footage from that day on the news/weather this morning. KARE 11 TV had had a chopper in the air nearby, filming the dancing twister for nearly an hour! That fact alone - as they put it this morning - put them "on the map". Footage is still damn impressive, looking like the chopper was about to be picked up by it if it veered even a bit closer, but I'm sure they had great zooming equipment rather than risk getting too close. How else do you follow a police chase from the air? Good lenses! But I'll give them kudos for cojones as well. So did the world.

It was one of those pleasant midsummer days, and I was back out of the way of the excitement in Golden Valley. We couriers were still radio dispatched back then, different size vehicles on separate channels with their own dispatchers. It's easier to organize the vehicle to send that way. I drove a compact all those years. Why bother me with a dock truck run? Or even a pickup load?

I'd just finished dropping a package, sitting in my car waiting for the next piece of work in my area. In the sky between me and downtown Minneapolis I was watching a cloud build. I love to watch them anyway, but this one kept my attention because it was growing quickly,  roiling and churning like I'd never seen before, ever. Since dispatch was slow, I made a comment over the radio that there was something really weird going on with that cloud. Maybe there was weather brewing? When possible, we all gave each other heads-up information like that. Avoid road X, accident backing up but Y looks like a good alternative. Road Z's construction was finished, good to use again. "Mounties" patrolling at such a location, watch your speed. Dispatch could use the open channels to ask who was interested in some late work that afternoon/evening and let us bid on it or not. Computer dispatching was soon to change that. But not yet.

Shortly I got a pick-up to head up to Coon Rapids from where I was. Interesting! I'd be driving into a thunderstorm, looked like. 

Suddenly the radio erupted in chatter. One of the rare fellow women drivers asked whether one stayed in their car or got out and headed for the ditch when a tornado was coming?  Say what? Others piped up to warn to avoid where I was heading... so of course I headed that way... slowly. Got to get the job done, right? And I was carrying medical stuff to a company manufacturing the latest at the time, a new, large company and - to date - good customer. Scandals were still a ways off for them. I'd be coming in behind whatever the storm offered, slowly, but I'd be coming. I hoped the roads would be clear of debris by the time I got there, mentally reviewing alternated routes if needed.

There was a nature center in the area, which is where the funnel hung out for quite a while. My destination was across the road from it. On my way to them I saw all kinds of tree damage, though nothing really impacted me or prevented my little car from proceeding carefully. By the time I'd gotten that close to my destination, sirens had silenced, dispatch let us know it was officially over (but still be careful) and we had work to do, folks!

I pulled into the parking lot and walked up to the front door. Mine was a little package, not a dock delivery. The front door was locked, but I rang the bell. And again. People were just starting to emerge from somewhere within the building. A couple popped their heads out to survey possible damage, and probably assess whether they still had transportation home. A couple trees were down on their property but mostly just damage to their landscaping. Essentially that tornado had hung around next to them and never quite crossed the road!

That wasn't the most unusual thing for me that day. It turned out I wasn't the first from our company to make a delivery once the twister had passed. Their bell could be heard from wherever they were sheltering, once sirens has shut down, and somebody walked out to find one of us waiting to be let inside with their package! Boy were they impressed! And here already they had a second one. It took me a while to wonder just why they locked their door behind the first driver, but by the time that occurred to  me I was down the road onto my next run. I did pass the info on to dispatch anyway. Likely some ambitious sales staffer could use it to try to impress the next potential customer.

The broken trees at the nature center eventually got cleaned up, and things regrew or got replanted. I don't recall anybody getting hurt that whole time, though there was minor property damage for such a long lasting twister. The TV footage was aired over and over and over, part of the station's self promotion, until we all forgot about it. Awards got publicized, reminding us to tell our tales again. Just like today's morning news/weather did, showing some footage just another time.

Wonder how they'll celebrate 40 years? 50?

I do know one thing. If ever I see a cloud churning and boiling like that one did 39 years ago, I plan to drive off in another direction... as fast as is safe!

Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Postal Claim Impediments

I sent off a package a while ago, special jewelry I handmade for special family - and about to be family -  members to suit the occasions of a pair of weddings. They were general styles I'd been making before in the jewelry club, some selling in the store, many or most given as presents to others. These were earrings and necklaces mostly, or at least the really good stuff was. By "really good" I'm talking about adhering to club standards for their store: quality of construction, sterling silver, high quality beads. In other words, not the mass market plastic or cheap glass one can buy at Michael's. Not knocking Michal's here, because thank goodness for them and being able to learn inexpensively, right? 

My version of high quality beads is the kind one pays for individually, not by the string. In this case, my particular choice was to order via Etsy some hand crafted glass beads in various colors in the form of small flowers, like 3D and/or multicolor roses. More specifically, when the Ukrainian war started I made a point of ordering  from a shop called Oliverstar. I highly recommend them, both for quality and - as the budget permits - helping a business succeed and the artists make a living in the middle of horrendous circumstances. Dignity and respect, not bad goals.

Sounds  good so far, right? But you did read that title?

Three women were sent gifts. Since all are (now) in the same family, I mailed them in one box, wrapped individually, made according to the information supplied by one of them: color preferences, and the previously unknown fact that one didn't have pierced ears, meaning necklace only.  I included something larger for one, glass made when that was my favorite skill to work on in that same club. The other two had received similar glass earlier, hand delivered for another occasion. It's why several packages went in one medium box instead of a second flat smaller one. (Go ahead, call me cheap!)

It never occurred to me to have to document all my parts purchases over the years except when I made enough to have to file a 1099 for tax purposes. I wasn't selling things recently, just gifting them. I didn't take photos of them before sending, the way I used to do before placing them for sale in the club store. I never before had any problem shipping a package. None ever got lost. All were cushioned as needed and had always arrived safely.

That's now ancient history.

I received a hesitant call from the addressee I sent the entire batch to. She also emailed me photos showing what condition the box arrived in. She had understood that I was sending several things in the same box. Initially I ascribed her hesitancy to thinking maybe I'd sent things in separate boxes? Or she'd misunderstood there would be several? I mean,we're talking a couple of weddings here, and no "real" presents? (Was I really that cheap?)

I asked what to me was the obvious question: Was the glass broken? I hoped not. I could replace, more or less, the other items since I have no need of a kiln make those, but couldn't replace the glass. Nope, the glass was perfect. But the box had arrived squished on one end - the one I had the jewelry in. Everything was well protected with all the bubblewrap I could cram in. The cards I sent along were fine as well. Anyway, who'd really mind a bend or wrinkle in a card?

The problem was the other end of the box was wrinkled AND torn open along a full corner. The small packages were missing. You know, the more-or-less replaceable items, after replacing parts of my remaining stock like the beads and special-order silver headpins, special order because I spiral them so they have to be over twice the length of what one can order pre-made.  Back in the club with their equipment, I frequently made them myself. I'm not there any more. I don't have the equipment, nor a good fireproof place to use it. Nor a good spot to store the chemicals. Nor.....

She sent me photos in case the post office needed them of the box where and how badly it was damaged, also showing address info and tracking number. Of course they weren't home when it arrived, so no postal employee to talk to.

I had insured the box, for a bit over the standard, under the circumstances. I took my Priority receipt to the post office and asked what did I need to do. The postmistresses in small towns I have invariably found to be courteous and helpful. This one was no different. The answer, not so helpful: go online.

Ever run into one-form-fits-all issues? I was OK through the first few questions. Name. Addresses. Tracking number. There wasn't enough form to answer their other questions however. I tried again, reframing. And again. It timed out and the form went blank.

Let's start with simple: when was it purchased? Purchased? They were manufactured by me. Maybe which part were they talking about? I could give them a range in years as I accumulated things to put together, but their form required one square in one of a choice of calendars which couldn't begin to explain the facts. 

Name the item: Which frigging item?  Are we thinking each individual item? Each individual package is already more than one item and three had gone missing.

Prove your purchase price. Asked and answered already in various ways, nothing suitable for their form however.  I could by now come up with photos of the various orders for replacement beads, which of course include more than just the items needed to replace these pieces because why, for example, pay international shipping on just a few beads when you are sure to want more in the future, and face it, the war means buy what and when you possible can at the time you buy anything. Worst case there's not a second chance.

Note that there is a small limit of photos one can e-attach to the form. How many receipts can you get in a single photo? How many of those can somebody read?

Silver head pins? Special order, walk in a store, talk to one of their suppliers who makes special order pieces, pay in advance and wait for return to be picked up in store, and again, since I need 6, buy two dozen. Incidentally, everything for this transaction is a handwritten note and cash exchanging hands ahead of time. Did I keep the paper? Of course not. I trust that store and our long relationship, and thus whatever person they direct me to who can provide the odd thing I need. It works, though patience is required. I'm not in business these days. No tax info needed.

Then pictures of the lost items. I didn't take any, as it turns out. I was working on a personal deadline, not making proof for myself for the club's store inventory time of what a certain inventory number and brief description  actually looked like to separate it from seven other similar ones made with a little different wire bend in each just because. That wire bend might have made a $3 difference in sale price or something. But document it for a gift? 

I could take pictures of their replacements, once made. They wouldn't be exact. If the originals ever showed up, can't you just see some officious ass trying to claim fraud because this wasn't precisely what got lost?  Or finding it but not returning it because of a small difference? Obviously somebody else made and lost that one. Can I perfectly remember which silver spacer bead of my 4 different kinds in stock that I used where? Of course not! Nor did this flower open on this end or on that end? Point up or point down? Part of the point is to not make exact replicas of anything - it's what separates art from machines. For earrings, two alike is it... as close as it can be. 

Even in necklace length, I can't be exact. Recently I've been working on giving a choice of lengths in the same piece. One cuts the chain to the shorter length desired, plus another piece of chain about 2" longer. A jump ring to connect the two that the lobster claw can fasten into if the shorter length is desired, plus an identical jump ring at the end of the small piece so it can be fastened at the longer length. One design, two uses, short or long. Did I do that for all? What did it make the total lengths? Pretty sure the measurement would be half an inch or a full inch off my best guess. I was in a hurry finishing up. Do you seriously think I measured precisely? Then there were blue flowers I attached differently than for the others. It's hard enough to describe here, wordy as I might choose to be. Imagine squishing that detail on the final three digits of a standard form. Go ahead, try!

Yeah, you're not that crazy either.

Is the loss of the claim going to devastate me? No. I not only can afford to replace the parts, by now I have nearly done so. Nearly. I'll be sure when the reconstructing of them as much as I can is finished. Occasionally things go wrong and one starts over. It's a reason for keeping a container for "sterling crap". I sold some filling a pill bottle by the metal's weight on the club scale for another member to use for silver casting. WOW! Who knew the price mounted up that fast? It paid to have kept every crumb.  I gave her a slight friendship discount and we both were happy. I'm already working on bottle #2, with no idea of its eventual destination. But for the moment I'm pretty sure I'll need to purchase more sterling ear wires, the French style. I don't work with posts. And I have more planned to make besides these.

I also know that those uniquely wired blue flowers cost me some wire until I figured out exactly how I wanted to do it, since it was new to me. Do I recall exact details? You jest! I know each wire went through 3 tiny spacers before going together through one flower, and .....  I'll figure it out. I did once.

Point is the irritant value of that damnable postal form is worth way more than the fairly high cost of the claim, which would still be less than full insurance of the package because we know the glass arrived intact. I'm already dealing with the side effects of those stupid steroid pills, and watching for other possible side effects from them supposedly not to be taken if I have 5 different medical conditions, which of course I have. For example my morning blood sugars have spiked two days in a row now. Let's just say digestive upsets have arrived... hurriedly. None of the side effects have been pain relief, because of course.  That would just be too easy.

And yesterday was my first day of professional torture... er, physical therapy. We now know my starting point, range of motion, muscle strength, etc. I have a schedule of how many repeats of what for how long each time for the next three weeks till my next appointment. I like the therapist, including for her being impressed at how flexible my back is even with everything else life has tossed my way. I explained that 6 years of belly dancing - even ignored for decades - can do that for a person. Someday I may show her a thing or two. Just for fun. It might be fairly easy since she "gets" isolating movement in a single body part.

But the point is,  right now it is not worth the extra aggravation of trying to deal with the (so far) worst form, most irrelevant and unresponsive form that the government has thus far cooked up to keep a dozen oval pegs out of a corrugated miniscule square hole. Not to mention preventing fraud and waste and efficiency.... Oh, that last wasn't official?  My bad.

I had been informed that if the packages had been released in the truck they were in, with no indication of which damaged box (of just how many, exactly?) they came from, they would wind up in Georgia. This assumes honesty, of course. (Can I choose not to comment with an opinion on that? Wait - of course I can. This is MY BLOG!)

Let's choose for the moment to imagine some day those little white-paper-wrapped packages will be opened and examined, and whatever person involved recognizes workmanship like those Ukrainian beads for their actual value. I won't pretend I think they would ever come across this, but I might hope they find the items an appreciative home. I'd hate to think they simply got stepped on by some careless person when whatever happened to destroy the box (and who knows how many others at the same time) to let them free.

The second box will be handled far differently I assure you. I still won't have a single date of purchase, or all the necessary receipts for that one either however. I doubt their form spaces will have enlarged. Or...

Hmmmm.......

Tuesday, July 15, 2025

Collecting/Keeping Seashells... While You Can!

 Scientists are finding what common sense already knows: oceans are acidifying from CO2 buildup in the atmosphere, and it's killing corals, oysters, and thus presumably most other sea life protected by hard  calcified shells.

When I was five, my Mom was very sick. I went to live with relatives while my older brother stayed with our father and went to school. It turned out I went to school as well, since I was now in the big city and they offered kindergarten, not yet available in a tiny rural school. I learned a lot, like street lights and tying my shoes and spelling my name. My older cousin taught me to make my bed... and hers as well since she was always on the brink of late to high school. I had no problem with that because I was "growing up!" I never tattled on her either, at least not to my Aunt.

My Aunt and Uncle had a big bowl full of small seashells, all kinds of varieties. When I was both good as well as bored, I was allowed to take them down, spread them carefully around the carpeted floor, and examine them. Then they went back in the bowl, and the bowl back on the table. It was my introduction to shells. Any others were the little snails along freshwater lakes or clams when one could spot them. That usually happened after the raccoons came in the evening and had a feast of their insides.

My parents, long ago, collected shells. They'd vacation on Sanibel Island, a location where storms in the Gulf would send shells in towards the beach. They'd be out there scouring the sands the mornings after, looking for intact and identifiable ones. Though retired, they had a hobby business to run, named Jewels of Shell. What they couldn't find, they'd buy and have shipped by the crate. (We still use those empty crates - very sturdy!)

Good shells would be used in different ways. Small perfect ones would be turned into jewelry. Medium ones would be hot-glued into figures like silly baseball players. Rare and thin ones, or cuts of ones showing internal architecture, would be made into wall art, put in deep frames called shadow boxes  behind glass to stay safe and dust free for... hopefully, almost forever. I received some which still decorate my walls. The most recognizable ones are cut sections of chambered nautilus, but there are others of critters I can't even name any more.


 Just a couple times Mom took several varieties of smaller and interesting shells, and glued them in a pattern around a circular frame for a mirror. "Strawberry strombus" comes to mind as one of the showier ones, but likely there are olives, corals, scallops, coquinas in lots of colors, and other bivalves well displayed. I'm relying on memory here because that is a family heirloom already passed on to my granddaughter to save for her descendants. She's the last one in my line to remember my Mom.

I also have boxes of them, packaged for traveling as we move, and rarely taken out to look at. They're being saved for the great-grandchildren who have shown they would treat them with respect if not reverence. The one most of the kids get to see is a large conch which lets them "hear the ocean".


I protect the rest because all too soon they will be nearly impossible to find, and certainly not pristine as acid eats away at their shells and footsteps and carelessness break them. Mine come from the '70s. 

I'm not suggesting you head out and strip the oceans of their shells. But if you do have them, or come across some while beach combing, pick them up gently and protect them.   Chances to do so are diminishing.

Sunday, July 13, 2025

First What We Know Won't Work

Ahhh, insurance companies! 

When we know what doesn't work, never did work, but have to try anyway, there's still the sequential hoops one MUST step through! It's supposed to save them money, I guess. Maybe it does if the patient dies before the final, known workable, expensive treatment gets on the schedule. Because that last thing is the thing that is proven to work. 

It's not just me, either. Steve's insurance company was that way over the years with his back. A friend's insurance company, different kind of problem, ditto. Nobody cares about how much pain one is in, how one's health otherwise suffers. You're still required to used all those non-remedies, visit all those other doctors who know as well as you do that this isn't going to work this time either. Anybody ever wonder why they put you through all that crap that doesn't work and take the money for it? 

Oh yeah... silly question. Have I gotten to the part about being bitchy yet?

You know I've been complaining.... uh, commenting...  on my "bad shoulders".  I finally got x-rays taken of them this week. I had a chance to discuss the issues I've been having with the "lesser staff", though only in terms of lesser power to work on the actual remedies. I'm pretty sure they understand all the issues and their treatments, even if they're not the top authority, say, for performing surgery. They're also not lesser in terms of being caring humans. And especially not lesser in terms of listening.

I'd heard that x-rays don't necessarily diagnose rotator cuff damage, being tissue, not bone, and a proper diagnosis requires the proper machines. However, if they mean MRI instead of CAT Scan I'm already SOL anyway. I tell everybody about the pacemaker, just in case. I have known about my rotator cuff tears for a couple decades, anyway.  That was no longer the question. Recently, in addition to the pain when I (try to) raise my arms, there is the additional joy of having my shoilders dislocate themselves. The contortions I need to go through to get them back where they belong are.... interesting. Thank goodness nobody is secretly filming them! It wakes me out of the sound sleep I fought for an hour to get into, a process which depends on my bracing one arm just so against the other elbow so the pain lessens enough to finally drop off. When it doesn't, I'm out back in my recliner because mostly the arm's gravity pulls the shoulder back into place if I don't move. 

Mostly.

I do my best to avoid causing them. Because that surely works, uh huh, yes sirree! I'll never forgive the sadist who designed kitchens to have microwaves over the stove! The counter is just fine!!!

Just over a week ago when I was exchanging a good-bye hug, the other person commented that she felt my shoulder pop back into place. I'd suspected, but this was confirmation. I made my postponed appointment.

 Friday, X-rays it was. Three different angles for each shoulder. Fortunately, none required me to lift my arms. Good people in that department! One in each set did require me to twist my hand at the wrist. Interesting! I can't feel any difference in either shoulder when I do that on my own. Although, in the course of a day I'm probably doing that a lot and just don't notice new pain levels. But who am I to argue? It wasn't any worse at the moment at least.

The Doc put the digital films up on his office computer. He wasn't commenting as he went through them, but I peeked to see what they looked like. What I saw were huge gaps between the balls and the sockets. My arms had been hanging down, so naturally the "dead air" was mostly at the tops.

The verdict was instant: "'severe arthritis" in both shoulders. Like I couldn't have told them that! I went through it with my knees for over a decade before getting them replaced. The pain was similar in intensity and patterns. It never really went away from lack of joint use, but it sure did discourage using them whenever possible. I'm one of those people who never have gotten the concept of pain being good for the soul, or some such claptrap. What it's good for is bitchiness, plus loss of coordination, muscle strength, balance, and stamina over the years. One at least tries to avoid the pain.

It was also great for figuring what worked and what didn't to ease the pain, regardless of what the docs did or warned against. Tylenol? Might as well have been swallowing air. This is bone-on-bone, not a childhood fever. Aspirin? Same. Clinoril? Same lack of effect but also caused severe depression. Twenty-four hours after that last pill I was bouncing off the ceiling in reaction for a few hours, until my mood regulated again.

The docs were united in advising me not to use ibuprofin. Hurts the stomach, they say. Mine is cast iron. Hurts the kidneys, they say. My last doc warned about that, noted I'd dropped a bit in kidney function, and then summed it up with I was right on track for my age. So yeah, I do take that. Again. 

I'd stopped after my knee surgery mended. Didn't need it. I started again when the shoulders started acting up. I'm not up to maximum dose yet but pushing it. 

What I did find that really worked on the pain was a narcotic. I'd had darvon, vicoden, and others and  meh! Dentists used to like prescribing codeine after a procedure when walking out of their office was all that was ever needed. I had weird reactions, so list it as an allergy. Percoset filled in for a bit when I had to stop ibuprofin before knee surgery so I could tolerate the needed PT to strengthen the needed muscles. It let me tolerate the severe pain post surgery when doing that PT. And then the pain left. Titanium knees do not ache. (Kneeling on them with no kneecap is a different story.) The ibuprofin still sat there with some pills in it, but they weren't needed. I weaned myself down from perc as the knees recovered. It didn't appeal with any kind of a high, and in fact when not actually needed it makes me itchy. Between that and needing to legally drive, who needs the stuff? OK, I'll agree that maybe it's just me who doesn't... until I really need it. It always involves a discussion with the docs because it's related to codeine.

I got a kidney stone and discovered that fentanyl didn't touch the pain - in the hospital of course. They added something else  - toradol - and the combo worked well enough. Lithotripsy did the rest. I don't knee-jerk fear fentanyl but it better be from the hospital supply.

I had major abdominal surgery and found the drug that actually works: Dilaudid. Insurance coverage was a big issue back then and I got released from the hospital ASAP after the surgery. My knees hadn't been fixed yet at that time, but I had to walk frequently after surgery. It was great! No pain! The nurses tried to tell me to slow down for my mandatory walks, but I explained to them I hadn't been able to do that for years! This was great! I talked the doc into releasing me early, and with 10 tablets of dilaudid. It was accompanied by a stern warning that not a single more pill would be forthcoming. I stretched those out, taking halves, quarters, increasing intervals. I stayed pain free nearly two weeks until the day after that last bit was gone. When I woke to head to the bathroom, OMG the first couple steps killed my knees! I had forgotten what my knees had felt like! 

Nobody has offered me any since, nor have I asked. It's ibuprofin again. It does less and less all the time. I know the PT for shoulders is even worse than for knees. I also know it's the next thing on my "remedies" list. This doc offered to put me on steroid shots. They didn't work longer than the time it took to walk out of the doctor's  office with my knees and the novocaine in the shot wore off. You know, the kind they add to the steroid shot to keep you from screaming when they jab it into the tenderest spot in the joint. Then they put you on a fake bicycle to pedal so... whatever that's supposed to do for bad knees. It never did.

I asked this doc since it hadn't worked with my knees years ago, why were we expecting that it would with my shoulders now, which are supposed to hurt even more than knees in PT? So he offered me the option of taking steroid pills instead. I agreed. But that is when he informed me what we already know, that the hoops have to all be jumped through in order, just to prove what doesn't work.  And since I'm getting steroid pills, I have to stop the ibuprofin, since the combo is like an overdose, and the effect isn't in pain management being "too good."

After that doesn't work, there'll be the next thing, and the next...... and always with the PT.

The next weeks are going to be ... interesting.

Bitchy!!! 

At least he suggested I might take up the idea of small doses of dilaudid with a pain specialist. These days full of opioid paranoia, I'm sure that will work. Yep, easy peasy, no fuss, no bother, full trust....

Like I said, bitchy!!!!!

I'll have to be especially nice to Steve. I still need him to help me get dressed in the mornings. I tend to get trapped in bra straps or sleeves, nearly every day. Winter is worse with long sleeves and coats added. Things just don't move the ways they should any more. He's a real sweetie about it. He even offers to help me if I need any held getting the clothes off again later....

What a sweetheart! What a guy!

Friday, July 11, 2025

After A Long Year Of Hard Work…


I have a raised  circular garden in our east yard. When we moved in, it had produced a single flower and seventy bazillion weeds. Stinky weeds, even to my inept nose, because they were spearmint. I find that odor nauseating. Those were the first thing dug out, with most of the work being done by my youngest son, Paul. Large bagfuls of black dirt were added to encourage optimism for the project ahead.

Me? I "just" do the deciding, the planning, the buying, the arranging, the watering, the fretting... and finally, the shooting, camera style of course. I don't need my Concealed Carry Permit for that kind of shooting, and for that matter, don't have a gun to go with it even if that AZ permit meant anything except a piece of interesting plastic in MN. Or maybe they don't find it that interesting here anyway.

So far this year there were some tiny start and lots of disappointments in that bed. Scillas had an encouraging start, and as soon as they were ready to pop out seeds back in Paul's yard, he brought a new bunch of them over to - with luck - fill a large central gap in emergent plants in the center of the bed. We'll know next year.

Following that, a couple tulips pushed out warped and quickly munched leaves. No blooms. There went $$$$$. Crocus and daffodils didn't even bother to go that far. Some critters somewhere spent a well fed winter. Bearded iris in two of the 7 planted varieties bloomed, one a soft blue, the other deep purple, almost black. Hooray! I hope for better showing of colors next year, including from seeds chilling in pots in the fridge currently. (Yes, they're sealed in bags. Nothing will be dropping into the yogurt. Promise! Even when I do the needed periodic airing out.)

Even before the iris were done, the daylilies started pushing up bud stalks. First, everything presented small blooms, yellow or gold. Ho hum, borrrrrring! But more stalks were pushing up and while about half were green where the growing blossoms were tucked inside, close to another half were getting darker and darker.

Horray! No more just-two-colors garden! I'm expecting reds, purples, and some so dark they're named Root Beer! There should be a bunch of bi-colors as well, lots of various pinks, and some year I still want to find out if those "dead" ones, which finally show leaves, will ever actually bloom as advertised, because what was advertised was blue! 


First the yellows and golds, hard to distinguish. It is possible when they are  side by side, but otherwise  they look the same.

Next came an odd, mottled pink with yellow (right side). Then a delightfully bright but soft pink. One blossom is trying to hide some very dark buds coming up on the other side, while a day-old spent blossom is in turn trying to hide it.


The first of those dark buds to open belongs to Root Beer, so far the darkest of my daylilies, and the darkest expected. Surprises can happen, of course, I do expect two purples.

The smallest of these has opened and is called Grapette. The larger should be opening soon, but so far I only have a photo of one from its former location. So I'm going to cheat a little and put it in here anyway.


It's much darker and taller, but still more purple and less brown than Root Beer. I particularly love its name: Nosferatu. I bought 5 a couple years ago, planted them next to the former house for easy location and removal, and am waiting on results... along with several other varieties yet to bloom.

Meanwhile, this greets me in the mornings before the sun hits it, as well any anybody looking in from the street or passing on the path behind it which leads to the storm shelter/ rec center / mail room.

Lots of buds yet to open. Plus I haven't dressed yet to head out and remove yesterday's spent blossoms. To nourish the garden they get dropped onto the ground they came from.

 

.

 

 

Saturday, July 5, 2025

Heartbroken: The Consequences of Stupidity

 I must have been overwhelmed when packing up the house for our multi-state move. Or  maybe I just mis-read the information on the storage of our PODS to include some kind of climate control while sitting for months in Phoenix. Possibly both, overlaid with personal stupidity.

The project started much earlier, when my laptop's photo library was getting way overloaded, and my back-up system wasn't working. I like to shoot shoot shoot and look later, something formerly not economically feasible before I went digital. A single roll of pictures would cost over $10 before I saw anything, and I can shoot multiples of that in a single outing, repeat it the following day and the next, and now not spend a penny unless I want an actual hard copy of something. I can email favorite files to friends. I even figured out how to post itty bitty ones here.

My solution was to pull out the thumbnails of each topic of files onto my desktop, stacked and overlapped like crazy, deleting each one from the photos library as I went. then I'd insert a thumb drive, move each file over, save them there while deleting them from the desktop as well - yep, very labor intensive - and tape a label on the thumb drive to identify the contents. Label might include "videos", "people", one of several different state names where I shot a lot, and above all, the name of my favorite wildlife center which incidentally has an annual photo contest.

I enter that contest nearly every year. Occasionally I place, getting a "second" a couple times. Amazing considering my modest equipment and all the photographers I see along the roads with heavy duty tripods supporting 20 inch lenses. Not that I measure them, that's just an estimate. I'm sure some are longer. Once I was invited to look though one and a tiny black speck off in the distance turned into a black ibis way off its usual migration path. That kind of straying happens a lot. I'm lucky if I can get an ordinary red-winged blackbird next to the road clinging to a cattail.


I got this lucky a couple weeks ago. This fellow was puffing his distinctive wings out every time he trilled his challenge to any nearby males: this was his territory and they could go take a hike - or something even ruder in blackbird-speak. It won't be entered in the contest because the sun was at the wrong angle and the eyes don't show well. Black is tricky that way. I had to fiddle with light levels to overexpose everything just to get a hint of one eye plus an assumption of his bill. Still, it's my best of one of these guys in the years I've been there. The yellow-headed ones are much simpler to shoot, if rarer in fact.

Back to the stupidity. I filled about a dozen thumb drives with what became the only files of a whole bunch of photos. I ignored the bag they were in when I unpacked it, thinking they were as they'd been made, and set it on a shelf in my room. But this year's photos contest is under way, and I was looking through older photos. Or at least looking for them. I'm supposed to have two drives with that name on them, but found one. There was also one with people photos separated out, many from either new babies or backyard bonfires. One held videos, another National Park shots.... you get the idea. 

I'd plug one in to the slot to open it, and nothing came up on my desktop to tell me there was something, anything, in the slot, much less a named thumb drive. Try another. Same. When I finally got to the drive with the pictures I wanted to look for a contest photo from, I finally got a list of file numbers, the kind that all end in jpg. I opened the first, and... 2/3 of it was a grey block. A whole bunch had varying levels of the same, others had grey or multicolor lines running horizontally through it, just enough visible to see what I had lost. Over and over. Again and again. I tried scrolling way down into the files and picked one at random. Same results.

Somehow labels have disappeared of some of the drives, or - knock on wood - when I stocked up before we moved on inexpensive blank thumb drives to spend more weeks  filling, they needed a second bag which might have been stored in another location, like a camera case which made the trip in the car... in March... and didn't get fried. I have no idea where such might be, of course. But I'm hoping it's a wobbly memory and not just a fervent wish.

Meanwhile, I went back into what I did still have on my laptop. I found a great heron photo, taken from the right location, meaning one of the three properties controlled by the refuge folks. That photo reminded me of a heron video I had seen recently, though from the wrong location to enter the contest. It was from 2 years ago when I took the camera along while Steve went fishing. One heron stayed close since we were the only ones there, were staying quiet, and nobody had launched a boat yet that morning.


I'd taken several stills, like the one above (with its tongue stuck out if you look close) and then since it was earnestly watching the water directly under it and stalking, I turned on video and got it catching - and swallowing - a newly caught fish. I love that video, especially with the fish tail still wiggling out my side of the bill until the heron took a second gulp to send it down the hatch. I'd seen that recently, because I'd shown it to somebody else who thought it was disgusting! 

SAY WHAT? WTF IS WRONG WITH YOU ?!?

I couldn't find it. I checked around, and other still shots from that exact time are there. Same location, same heron which never came back on any of our visits. I looked for other keepers, contest entries that I didn't want to lose, and hadn't copied elsewhere. Those weren't even on my laptop, and I never erased those even when transferring a copy.

Now I have only memories of those photos, like two different babies gnawing on the visor of whichever ball cap Steve had worn and loaned to the occasion for the day. Elk lying down at the entrance station to RMNP, antlers in velvet, backlit by the rising sun, possible only because of covid and we two geezers had qualified for our first 2 shots and felt able to travel. Nobody minded the entrances, we could park on the road and capture the photos with nobody waiting and honking for us to move. Another elk walked straight in front of the car while we were stopped. I shot it too, even though the windshield turned it slightly green.

It goes on and on and on. I haven't the heart - yet - to try every one of the drives. I've been looking through what I actually still do have, since old photos still qualify if taken at the right location. The good ones still are in my memory... only. I got to the place where I couldn't bear to hunt any more. There are a few more days to get my act together and submit what I can.

What   do you do with a thumb drive which won't even say "I exist"?

Besides mourn?



Monday, June 30, 2025

Addendum: Weather Update

Those spectacular growing columns of clouds yesterday turned into flooding and small twisters, mostly down around the extended Twin City metro area. Morning news reports are just coming in. 

Once again we lucked out. For some reason, systems split  west of here, with the worst going around us instead of through us. Maybe it's the concentration of lakes in the area. We're fine, but flooding and wind damage hit other places. Even as I update, we're getting more rain but only the southern tip of a system this time. On the plus side, it's supposed to settle down and dry out this week. Time to get some yard work done... if I can get out before it heats up too much. Except those cooler morning hours are when my job hours tend to be.

Que sera sera. 


Sunday, June 29, 2025

Weather

Growing up in Minnesota, with my parents, weather was what you talked about when you had nothing else in particular to say to somebody. Or maybe just nothing polite. One ALWAYS had to be polite, or there were consequences, and depending on the violation it either came later in private, or immediately in public. In public meant you'd just been terribly naughty and your parents had to show the people witnessing your misbehavior that they were trying to raise you better than that. I translate that into they're worried more about their own embarrassment than mine.

There was always something to say. Hot (or cold) enough for ya? How much rain did you get yesterday? Do you think we'll get some rain? Did you hear about that storm/twister/wind over at _________? Did you get your hay in before it hit? Have you gotten into the fields yet? How's the creek running over at your place? Need some help from our crew with the chain saw? shovels? rakes? Nasty sunburn there.

One way or another it was all about the weather. It helped that we were in the country, but even for city folk, your weather is your life. What crops grew this season? How much will they cost? How much extra work will it cause me? How much dust is getting in the house? Pollen allergies bad this year? How should I dress? How can I play? How safe are my roads? Can I get wherever there is on time? Will my house be there when I get back? What's amazing when I look up? Does your date include smooching to a beautiful sunset,  or a clear view of the moon reflecting in a long white ribbon on a windless lake? Even for my parents, married 67 years, weather was a significant blessing on their wedding and anniversaries, Over all those years, it rained only 4 of the years their special date came around.

I could talk about Steve's 82nd birthday party yesterday. It would be about the weather, since all the family there were predictably themselves, and everybody got along... (except for one person, and if called on for a vote, those who knew the back story took an expected side. Old news/no news.) It was held outdoors, late afternoon, with a local town park reserved for the day. The number of people invited would never fit in the house. Children were invited, and those ranged from almost two to almost teens, so the large grassy space for running around and the double playground was exactly what was needed, one part toddler sized, the other perfect even for the twenty-somethings who were shepherding the younger ones around. And keeping them out of the temptation of the pond. Maybe even guiding them into the porta-potty, or making sure trash went into the bins, and "assisting" at the water fountains so those who wanted to get wet could do so in the manner they pleased and their parents approved of.

Because the weather was hot. And sticky.  We knew it was likely to be rainy or even stormy in advance, because it's been a wet and stormy June. The the precise forecasts as each day came closer continued to insist on storms. They just didn't all agree on where or when, even while getting daily more insistent about the what. So it turned out to be good planning to pick a location not just with a bunch of picnic tables, but having them tucked nicely under a big roof, no side walls to prevent what turned out to be a fairly steady breeze from shoving its way through and cooling us all down while keeping skeeters away.

We assured our invited guests of the amenities. Just in case, one guest brought a portable charcoal grill with a cover for cooking the burgers, in case it had to be brought inside. The big public one was on a post in concrete out in the open. Rain would not be conducive to having yummy burgers without another option.

Since my garden rain gauge Frog arrived and got stuck into the ground, I've been keeping track of rainfall, in addition to rain locations around the state, along with the abundance of twister warnings sprinkled through the broader area, or straight line winds over 100 mph doing their own amount of damage very near to close family. I've found rain amounts of 3 inches, 4 inches, half an inch, one inch, three inches, half an inch, a quarter inch (gross underachiever!!), and the ever-popular 3 inches again. It did storm last night, but not till everybody was safe in their homes again, no matter from how far away they came for the party. 

It was potluck, plus burgers and buns provided. Some brought presents as well, including the birthday cake with, of course, the theme of a fisherman in a boat out on a lake.

Other people took pictures. Yes, I took my camera, but was too tired from all the prep including loading and unloading the car, to even hunt for the bag it arrived at the party in, until the car was being loaded again at the end. Uhhhhh... Oops! Too late! Food left over did manage to get home in condition safe to eat - we'd been bagging cubes from the ice maker for weeks ahead, and gotten that huge cooler on wheels you've seen from a previous post. I got help loading the car back up, and bringing things into the house, but exhaustion hit hard.

I managed to stay awake long enough to see our helpers out, and put my feet up long enough to start hearing the rumble of thunder in the distance. I was pulling the blanket up during close cracks of thunder and the drumming of hard rain on the roof, windows, and skylight, all of which combined to make a perfect lullabye. It was over when I woke, though another thundershower came through this afternoon, with rivers running down both side of our street. 

Today I've been lazy, eating some of the party leftovers so we can get room in the fridge/freezers again instead of prepping/heating anything. A tag end of laundry was tended to, except for the folding and hanging part - too much strain on the shoulders. I'll have to actually get dressed soon, since I need to go pick up a grocery order - fortunately mostly staples only needing shelf space, not cold space. On the way I'll go check the froggy rain gauge again, see how much came down in these last 24 hours. Steve has been busy choosing how to spend a couple gift cards, then getting more details and changing his mind. At least he's reading the fine print, because one footstool he really liked turned out to be a kit to make it himself!

Uh-uh. No way Jose! Ain't gonna happen! I won't list all the reasons, but any one would sink the effort. On to plan B... C... D........

*    *    *    *    *

Back from picking up the grocery order sent in. On the way out I emptied the rain gauge of another full inch of rain.  That gives sixteen and a quarter inches since keeping track! Hoo boy, no wonder the weeds are needing so much attention! Please note I never said they were getting all the needed attention, and some still have to wait for dry days in order to kill deep woody roots that never quite get fully dug out nor quit growing. With luck that'll take care of those till next year, and new weeds sprout and....

Yes, I dream.

While traveling on my errand, the clouds were giving quite a show. Did I mention I'm  a cloud watcher whenever possible? Skies are blue here since our last system went through a few hours ago. But weather is active northeast and southeast of us, both disturbances having moved by now well into Wisconsin. That's my now, not yours waiting much longer till I post this and you get around to reading it.

The northern one was the least impressive, during the time I was able to view it. Still, it puffed up several large lumps of clouds, coalescing into a possible shower later. Against otherwise cloudless blue, it stood out beautifully, and the afternoon sun highlighted it well. But my drive provided few openings between treetops and field borders on that side of the road to exhibit much of interest.

The start of my drive circled down to the lakeshore where I was treated not just to a very impressive cloud but its reflection as well, now that the wind was all but gone. The first thing one would notice if they were paying any attention was an anvil cloud. The cloud stretched out east past that anvil point, with a few building clouds pushing up through the flat top. Semi-connected on the trailing side was a series of large tall columns chasing and catching up to the anvil, eventually obliterating it altogether, or at least on its back end. The front, or leading side must have hit a high sheer wind while I was getting my order loaded, as the lumpy tops had been ripped off into a long flat cloud, eventually hitting a downdraft where they were sinking in a solid chunk down towards the ground again. Not rain, just cloud, all keeping pace now as a single unit stretched over miles, heading east and into the enveloping evening. Last I saw of it was upon reaching home again, where more building was slowly taking place on the western end, but it was looking tired, like it had had all the day it wanted to endure.

Dang! I wished I'd brought my camera! 

It's not just bad weather I love to watch in the clouds. There are so many different kinds of them, and I've even seen noctilucent clouds, rare as they are. I've come to love cirrus clouds. They can paint a landscape without diminishing the sunshine in it. A few years back I spent a jet boat tour on the Colorado in Utah capturing more cirrus clouds than red rock canyon walls or water reflections.

On my 75th birthday, one particular cirrus cloud lingered so long in the sky I had the chance to drive to where I wanted the perfect foreground to shoot it from. I considered it my private birthday present. I had gone to my favorite nature and wildlife sanctuary, alone, just me with the camera, able to drive where and when I wished to whatever next spot I want to  go to, no worrying about was the other person getting their photos yet or in the way of mine? It happens a lot. I enjoy taking them but solo trips have different rewards. This particular cirrus cloud was formed into my favorite bird in flight - at least in my eye. It was still intact when I hit my spot to shoot. The body arched just so, the wings were up and back, the head out with the long beak rising, and a couple wisps circling to add substance to the head before narrowing for the long beak. Every wisp of cloud could have been a line drawn in place by an artist to make the perfect whole, nothing out of place except to fill in the background a bit.

I cherish a fantasy of some day painting those clouds on a piece of transparent blue glass. The glass is prepped, cut to size and fused to a clear piece for body. I have the special paint and have test run a sample. I just need time... and some courage.


Wednesday, June 25, 2025

Between The Iris And The Daylilies

It's that time of summer, finally. The iris are giving their last gasps, and the daylilies are sending up stalks with still-tiny buds at their tips. Life keeps kicking along, and the columbine are still managing new blossoms, although heat, winds and hail are wreaking their damage on them. I showed the pale blue bearded iris here a while ago, which don't even have stems left, just flat blueish leaves. But the slower to bloom deep purple ones are still chugging along. 

 This was an early one, called All Night Long, and its blooming time overlapped the pale blue as you can see in a corner. It's curled, shriveled, and drippy - unless it's one I already removed for compost. More recent ones are a bit weather-pummeled.Other bearded varieties I mail-ordered last year have nice large leaves but haven't born flowers this year. Next year!!

None of the smaller varieties of iris bloomed this year, but we have healthy leaves for those too. They survive, tucked among daylilies.

While we wait for the daylilies to continue to grow and bloom,  the Asiatic lilies in the south garden are becoming showy, as the bleeding heart dies back until next spring.

 
First Asiatic lilies to bloom after planting were what they call tiger lilies. OK, they're orange. Big whoop, (The yellowish bits on the petals were hit by the sun, so the color is overexposed, not how the eye sees it.)  But I'm used to a very different tiger lily, recurved speckled orange petals and black balls (bulbils) lining the stem where leaves sit. Oh well. I grew up with those in northern Minnesota, proving how hardy they are. Mom grew them in her gardens. I have some still growing in the garden in my previous MN yard, now my son's yard.

A couple days ago we got an orange/purple combo called Forever Susan, though their "purple" is my brown. Still, it's striking. Since then several other varieties started opening.

 Can't be sure - no match to varietal pictures. The colors hold steady for at least a couple days anyway.

Exotic Sun 

I'm still deciding if this one is a red "tiger" called Red Velvet. A lot of these change colors as they age, and who knows with photos posted where Google can display them exactly where in their color changes a shot was taken? I still have several others I hope produce this year but which got slow starts, and a very few left from last fall that I hope to eventually prove weren't all eaten then. 
 
This pale pink might be Josephine.                 
                                

While these are in the garden now that they finished blooming, I bought them past full bloom at a reduced price from the store. The color fades from deep pink into soft lavender (lower left corner) as petals drop. These are shown on the porch where they could get sun and be easily watered via the tray they were sitting in, and surrounded by plastic hardware cloth to keep the bunnies at bay.  The tag identified them as Summer Sky.

I'm waiting for full white ones called My Wedding,  some Stargazers, some Fireworks, a couple Turkish near blacks called Nightrider, different pinks. I know many of those will never appear due to squirrels, as they were ordered online from Holland. But I do plan to keep photo records of what does show this year. There will be surprises next year if I can continue to keep the bunnies out because this spring they've already nibbled budding tips off of several newly sprouted ones before I noticed, Those won't bloom now, of course, but they're still surviving, surrounded by generous helpings or rhubarb stalks.

I'm told by the packaging that several of these varieties are fragrant. Perhaps after a few more seasons I'll be able to tell for myself. Of such things dreams are made.

Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Living Under A Skylight

Until this place, I never have. Everywhere either had a solid roof, or was in a building with another floor on top. But this home has two skylights.

Now I was raised to value privacy, almost to extremes. Mom taught us - or me in particular, being a young girl at the time - not just to keep the blinds or curtains closed, but the importance of the difference in light levels between inside and outside. It had better be darker in the house if curtains were going to be opened. Or windows for fresh air, for that matter. It wasn't by any means a total prohibition for her. I have many memories of her standing with her back to a south-facing window with the sum coming in and warming up her back. The colder the day, the longer she stood there to collect free heat.

Inside doors had to be shut tight when changing clothes, sleeping, or using the bathroom for any purpose including brushing one's teeth - that last not being something I'd think of for a modesty fetish. Nobody thought to argue, it was just how to be "proper".

To this day I still judge internal light versus external light in deciding whether blinds need to be re-angled to give us privacy or if we could open them wider to see what was going on outside. Because it was outside, we weren't spying on the neighbors of course. Any good lawyer will tell you there is no expectation of privacy out in public. Besides, we like to know which delivery trucks are stopping, especially when it might mean something we ordered was being delivered. I can tell you which neighbor shakes out their small rugs from their front porch, who waxes their car at least monthly, whether it's recycle day or just garbage day by the colors of the lids on the cans brought to the curb. And we always check whether it's raining or snowing by looking at the street pavement.

But all that is normal stuff, typical for any dwelling that isn't a cave.

There are two skylights in our roof. One is in each bathroom, either over the toilet or the shower. On the one hand it's nice not to need to turn on a light every time it's in use, since neither bathroom has an actual window on any wall. On the other hand, there's Mom's paranoia about being seen when not perfectly clothed. And she never had to worry about who might have a drone out scouting, or how sensitive satellite cameras really are.

But when under a skylight I can actually hear rain hitting the roof because it's hitting the glass, no insulation in between us. I can look up and see where a cloud stops and blue sky begins, or catch sunrise/sunset colors otherwise blocked by trees or other homes. On cloudless nights I can see two bright stars when forces of nature wake me out of bed. Should I wish to I could head out and locate constellations, moon phases, or what have you, though I never actually do, preferring more sleep instead.Well, unless it's a clear but not too cold winter evening, of course, since I don't have to wait till the wee hours to see the sky. Besides, summer night skies here are often blocked by general humidity, or in recent years, wildfire smoke drifting down from Canada. Winter cold seems to knock both those out.

Other things that do not manage to impede the skylight view include birds, since they do not seem to like to land or walk on the glass. On the other hand occasionally the local crows become the view as they glide overhead. We do see them walking on the neighbor's roofs, just not anywhere near our skylights. It may be a puzzle to be solved... or just ignored. Leaves don't gather there either. It could become quite the rainbow in the fall if they did, with all the maples we're surrounded by. Even that possibility is waning now that the park management has been cutting down a number of trees, saying they have become diseased.

Some of those trunks are huge. I have fall shots of a huge variety of colors while the trees were still here. If a huge storm did go through, the damage could be incredible, so I can see their point. And for a bonus, fewer trees just might mean fewer squirrel nests on the site, meaning fewer bulbs dug up for squirrel dinners, and even fewer oak trees arising in the middle of plantings around the house, like we've had the last two summers. I get the maple trees popping up all over, since their seeds helicopter their way down to wherever the breeze drops them. But acorns have to be planted by thrifty squirrels since there are no oak trees in fact in the park. Not a one is close as a block away. None were before the cutting, anyway. But at least no tiny trees have tried to sprout around our skylights.

On the whole, despite Mom's lessons in paranoia, I find the skylights much more boon than problem. But ask me again, if and when we are next in line for baseball-sized hail, eh? Somebody (else) will have to be hired for replacing them. I don't do ladders. I don't do roofs. So I sure as hell won't be doing any skylight installations myself.


Monday, June 23, 2025

The Blind Men and The Elephant

You're probably saying, "I can skip this, I know that story."  Yes, you probably do know that story, but this isn't THAT story. I'll show you the connection. 

For you who have forgotten or - is it possible? - never heard it, several blind men had never seen an elephant, nor gotten otherwise acquainted with one. Each of them reached out and touched a different part of one. The fellow who touched its tail described an elephant as being like a rope. The one finding a leg said it was like a tree. The one hitting its side thought it was a wall, and so on. We who see elephants know, of course, it is like all those things but so very much more.

There is a big family birthday party coming up. With all the family invited, we're holding it in a city park. It's got a lot of running room in addition to a playground full of equipment for the kids, a grill for cooking, a porta potty for anybody, and a large roofed area over picnic tables. Since everybody is driving, it's also got the necessary huge parking lot.

We're bringing hamburgers to grill, and charcoal and tools have been acquired. The burgers come from a meat packing plant where one family member works and got us an employee discount. There's room in the freezer, but there are a lot of things to transport which are temperature sensitive for food safety and require a cooler for the afternoon. Anything resembling one has long since been used for fishing and I'd never want to eat anything coming out of one of those.  I went and bought a brand new one. It's huge, very squarishly cubical, and has wheels and a long handle for pulling, plus extra handles for lifting it in/out of the car hatch.

There won't just be burgers in there, but buns, condiments, baked beans, and one family member plans to hit our kitchen just ahead of time and do something with potatoes to bring. We also have a hyperactive ice maker in our freezer, and have been collecting bread bags full of ice cubes to take over.

Steve and I have been disagreeing about what color the cooler is. It was sitting in the living room for a few days, but was placed back into the car over the weekend ago to transport the hamburger patties for their over-an-hour trip north, needing to stay frozen. The patties came into the house, but not the cooler. In its absence, Steve has been referring to it as the red cooler. I've been referring to it as the blue cooler. Both of us are positive we are correct, vehemently enough to get us laughing about the disagreement while scratching our heads over how one of us could be so wrong. 

With the super hot temperatures these last couple days, going out to look at it or better yet, bring it inside, has not been any kind of a priority. Today was cooler, and I had to head to work. I remembered to bring the cooler inside, even if for no other reason than to cool it down to room temperature from sunny car-oven heat so it will actually keep meat cool by party time. I decided to take a shot of it against a very neutral wall, and - I promise - no shenanigans with fiddling with the color. Here it is below. So now, you help us decide: is it blue or is it red?


                           ; )


Sunday, June 22, 2025

Heat Wave!

 I'm used to dealing with cold weather, being a Minnesota native. Spending three years in Georgia back in the '70s was a total revelation, particularly after watching the neighbor mow their lawn on Christmas eve! Any yard care we'd have had to do in MN would involve shoveling and spreading sand or salt. Becoming recent AZ snowbirds for ten years got our bodies accustomed to heat, and our wardrobes bereft of heavy coats, boots, mittens, scarves... all things a part of us hoped never to have to deal with again.

So now we're back for good. It was a chilly winter, nothing like the old ones which routinely hit -40, which is just as cold in fahrenheit as it is in centigrade. But we did hit -30 at least once this last winter. It also bounced right back again so whatever snow we got was gone from the streets in a couple days. Our bodies adjusted a bit, our wardrobes more so. We again were surviving winters. Minnesota winters.

Our bodies didn't adjust all the way, however. It used to be the thermostat was set to heat the house to between 65 and 68. Now our old bones start feeling comfortable at 72, which is comfy if we're moving and wearing sweats as a second layer. When we sit to read or watch TV, or even snooze ( because geezers, hello!), a lap blanket is added in addition. Double layer polar fleece.  Ah-h-h-h-h-h....

Last summer we turned the AC on about 3 times, not for long periods, but with ceiling fans to keep us comfy. I was being cheap about it too, having no idea what the electric bill would turn out to be. Turned out to be fairly modest for the summer, and even for winter, because this place was made with gas in mind instead of electricity. Gas furnace, gas stove and oven, gas water heater. I do all the cooking I can in the microwave. There are ceiling fans for cooling down - 4 in various rooms. A light whisper of breeze over my bed at night in the summer usually means no AC needed. For contrast the AC was on 6 months of the year in AZ, and we were grateful to have gotten solar installed on the roof.

This summer is being different. We switched from El Nino to La Nina. We're setting summer heat records. If that isn't enough, the humidity pushes up the heat index - the "feels like" temperature. I wanted to hibernate inside for two days, since the low temperature this morning was 81! In Minnesota! That's often the nice warm summer high, good swimming weather. But today the feels-like temperature is supposed to be around 110! Inside my little car with a black interior and no garage or shade would be just plain cruel. 

Life intervened.  I had to climb into my mobile furnace just before noon. It was a short errand, a trip to the local grocery store which would almost cool it down by the time I arrived. But it was all in a good cause.

My youngest son called, asking if we had a mixer. Nope. OK, he'd bring one if I'd go pick up some heavy whipping cream. Also, if I made shortcakes (Bisquick alone will fill that bill, no other brand allowed!) he'd also bring the strawberrries! I am so glad I taught him years ago what Mom taught me, the one and only acceptable way to make strawberry shortcake! In addition to the good company, he will have been out at the local apple orchard to a separate patch on thier property where you pick your own strawberries, charged by weight. He'll have picked extras for making jellies this fall when it cools down, and meanwhile they'll be sharing freezer space in his basement with cherries, elderberries, grapes, and whatever else he can harvest from his yard, or maybe supplement from the store, to produce jars of jelly for all on his Christmas list.

But today, it's "only" strawberry shortcake. Yummmmmm!

Tomorrow it's supposed to cool back down, a good thing since my yard is calling. Heat-blown flowers are in need of deadheading.

Thursday, June 19, 2025

A Granddaughter's First Rainbow

I'm "borrowing" a granddaughter for a few days. She's old enough now that we can do some things together (making her some earrings), and she can appreciate a trip to my favorite nature center to look for swans, cranes, egrets, eagles, turtles, deer, herons, water lilies, and whatever else there we might be able to find. She's also old enough to have her own cell phone and use its camera. I planned to give her some tips, as well as lots of opportunities to try to use them. She's got the technical stuff down, but I was trying to get her to do some horizontal shots for wide subjects, or zoom in before clicking instead of cropping afterwards to get a full(er) and less pixelated screen shot.

She soon tired of that, so we had supper and she returned to her cell for non-photo reasons. After a few minutes I wondered why planes were flying overhead. The sun was shining, so surely it wasn't constant thunder? I stepped outside and not only was the thunder louder and non-stop,  but I was getting pelted by the first onslaught of rain. As soon as I was back inside, I noted hail hitting the neighbor's roof and bouncing down its slope and into the grass. 

I called her in the room I was in to see it before it stopped, and then we went to the other side of the house since the cloud was moving in that direction. Besides there is a covered porch on that side for our protection. Even more hail was falling on that side of the house, and with a metal roof over that porch, was loud enough to keep her jumping until she realized she was still protected. We watched it bouncing off several roofs, and both grabbed cameras to see what we could capture. 

Suddenly she cried, "There's a rainbow!" Both our cameras pointed in that direction, and I shot some video trying to include both hail and a rainbow in the same sequence. It didn't seem to be working, and the hail was letting up. I lowered my camera enough to pay more attention to the rainbow and discovered it was now in fact a double!

I grabbed a still shot, noting later a few pieces of hail still stuck on the neighbor's roof peak. There was also time to notice that the space between the rainbows was the darkest part of the sky, as if rainbows stole light from their surroundings so they could paint the sky in all their colors.

It didn't last long,  the hail was over, and we both retreated back into the house. I went to pull out my laptop for a radar view of what else might be coming our way. Only now, finally after all the action was past, were the town sirens going off. Was more on the way? Worse?

Radar showed us as getting poured on, orange and red with a trace of green covered the screen. It just wasn't raining any more however. Radar is goofy around here, showing rain where it won't hit for at least 5 more minutes, or not showing this while I checked it before the hail hit to see if the rumble was weather or aviation created. Now it was working, and I expanded the view outward for a bigger picture of what lay in store. 

Nothing.

Nada.

The one lone cloud in the entire state had landed on us and us alone, giving my granddaughter, at 11, her first ever rainbow in a real sky. She'd had hail before, and shared a couple stories. Only now, not just her first rainbow, but a double!

I can't wait to see what the rest of her visit has in store for her!


Tuesday, June 17, 2025

No Kings... And Way Fewer Monarchs

We in America, for the most part, honor our history of separating from a king who wanted to rule us from across a wide ocean. Our ancestors came here to be free of such kinds of governance. Just because your dad was a king didn't make you qualified to be one yourself. We all recognize that our children are not carbon copies of their parents in every other way, but somehow there are still places where who your parents were determines your right - or not - to tell others what to do. For the most part, we elect the people we most wish to write our laws and lead our country. Millions of us were out demonstrating all over this country last Saturday, showing our displeasure over somebody who would do their best to declare himself King - or autocrat - of this country. With the backing of a very narrow segment of the population, he is doing his worst to change how this country runs, and who it does it for. 

 

 There is another change in monarchs in this country, and it is becoming just as worrysome, a visible symptom of a much larger problem we have caused. Latest counts show the population of monarch butterflies is down over 22% in the last few years. All kinds of reasons are looked at. Pesticides get part of the blame. Extending agriculture over wide swaths of the country to eliminate habitat and food sources is another problem. Perhaps the most telling is climate change. 

In the last few years, I've seen plenty of milkweed blooming. We have deliberately planted, or allowed self-planted milkweed plants to grow where they would in the yard in small-town Minnnesota. They infested the gardens, the grassy patches which then protected them from being mowed for the full season... and the next... and next.  Butterfly bushes (asclepias) mostly left the formal garden areas and sprung up in the lawn, so mowing detoured around them, allowing their growth and spread. Neighbors may have complained, but while grass height lowered, individual plants remained. We have been trying to provide for the ones that do finally reach here.

The problem these days is the timing. The above photo shows the ideal. Milkweed blossoms are in full bloom, each filled with nectar for the curled up proboscis to extend into and drink from. Unfortunately, this photo is nearly a dozen years old. These days the flowers are done blooming, and seed pods forming, before the first monarch appears.

Sure, the plant has been pollinated by other insects, its seeds will develop and be fertile. Grandchildren will be invited over to POOF! them into the winds to be carried wherever then can go in hopes of finding the right spot of soil. But no monarchs will have been fed here.

With luck they might have found another plant to sustain them for a bit, like this liatris.

Or they may have landed on a late season balloon flower, long past offering anything but a perch.

 They might have even laid eggs which hatched.... though this picture is several years old. These lucky monarch caterpillars found plenty of tender leaves to munch on while they grew.

Some find food but which comes with competitors for the supply.

 I haven't seen a caterpillar for about ten years now. They are hard to miss! Even the smallest of us can usually spot them even hiding in a bunch of similar colors.

The last time I watched a green chrysallis turn clear, split, and allow a new butterfly to spread its wings was so long ago I didn't even have a digital camera yet, nevermind being on #4 in my series of them. Somehow cameras just don't work at capturing what is no longer around to find. And while I do oppose having any kings over us in this country, I do hope we don't soon loose sight of our spectacular flying monarchs.