Turkey Day!

 

As you can see, Gru is perfectly safe with his minions. It's very cold; bad enough that my fingers were hurting by the time I finished chores. I need to toughen up for winter.

Mildly interesting

I have an aquarium that is cycling, that means it has everything in it except the critters. Until the right bacteria get to work and clean the water any fish living there would have short, painful lives. Except bladder snails, the aquatic equivalent of cockroaches. Because there are more nutrients than the plants need, algae grows. Today I took a clump of hair algae and dropped it into my shrimp tank. They immediately swarmed all over it. Yum yum.

Today was the last of the Indian Summer weather. Here comes cold and wet. It feels like a good time to make zucchini bread. :)

Ooooh, is this fall?

I think we've had more rain in the last two weeks than we did all summer; right on time for the farmers to be in the fields for harvest. Oddly, even though I live just four miles from my parents, they didn't get the last three rainfalls that I did. I had an extra load of wood delivered which I'll stack outside to season for next year. It's a nice feeling to be ready for winter. 

I harvested the rest of my apples. So much yummier than store-bought. Hmmm, maybe from the dirty aquarium water I poured under the tree all summer? This tree is seven years old and bearing nicely. Yay, honeycrisps!

My basement is the catch-all for stuff in my house; like when I got new electronic equipment and wanted to hang onto the box in case of problems. Now I want to do a bit of decluttering so those boxes are getting cleared out along with odds and ends. I've reached a stage where things I held onto in case they came in handy, I now realize I am unlikely to ever use.

A couple days ago I tried on a size smaller t-shirt. Hooray! It fit. I keep all my smaller clothes so going down a size is like getting a whole new wardrobe (for free). One thing I've learned this time is not to get overconfident so I will be holding onto my bigger clothes just in case life ambushes me.

What's that smell?

I can smell Canada! The smoke has led to an air quality alert and makes a thick haze. It wasn't too bad this morning, but now it's pretty bad.

Yesterday was our hottest of the year; over 100, humid and with a feels like temp in the 120s. Miserable. So, when I woke up early today my first thought was firewood, of course. I've had a pile of wood in my yard for two months. It's very, very dry and we might get rain tomorrow (fingers crossed) which is why I wanted to get it put away. I worked for two hours and got through most of it. Then, when I got back from a grocery run to the city, I decided to finish it off. My feet are tired (and very dusty) but my bad knee is acting up and not happy.

Now I'm trying to find the energy to take a much needed shower and maybe eat something before I fall asleep.

Shrimplets!

One of my covid hobbies was setting up old aquariums from the basement. I have a 29 gallon community tank and a 10 gallon shrimp/snail tank. 

Tonight as I was turning off the lights I looked over the 10g to see how things looked. I have three red and one black shrimp plus 4 nerite snails (and lots of volunteers that came with the plants). While laughing at a snail stealing the shrimp food, my eye was caught by a flicker of movement. The teensiest wisp of a shrimp. I spotted a few more moving around. 

I'm so happy I set up a tank for them without any fish to eat the babies.

Yep, still hot and dry

 Sunday I decided to treat myself and went to town to buy a Subway (never as much a treat as hoped for, but edible). While there I spotted a clearance sign painted on the side of a plant polytunnel and called mom to ask if she would like to check in out the next day. Sadly, she was down with a headache so we waited until Tuesday to return to town. I suspect we would have found the same thing on Monday; an empty lot. A quick drive to the other independent plant sale; also gone.

We ended up stopping at Lewis for a few annuals. They had some lovely perennials but not on sale. Mom didn't get much because in her words "I don't want more things to water." I've been watering in the evening when the heat eases up.

Out of curiosity I looked up the average temps for us in June and this year we are about 20 degrees warmer. You know it's bad when even the mosquitoes don't bother breeding.

Dryyyyyy, splish splash, dryyyyyyyy

In case you don't understand my cryptic title, after weeks of hot, dry weather, last night it rained! Sadly, that was the only moisture forecast. I'm questioning if there is such a thing as normal weather anymore. My sister in Texas has been enjoying much cooler weather and lots of rain while we are in the high 90s and even a few 100s in early June. When I was younger the heat didn't bother me so much, but now my ideal temp is in the low 60s which means I'm uncomfortable in the 80s and miserable any higher. At least today I shouldn't be so crabby!

In a more personal insight; I was thinking about going to the local bakery since the covid cases are way down here. This morning I weighed myself and I'm down another three pounds, so, of course I can't get rolls. The part that makes me wonder about my psychology is if my weight had not gone down I would have been eating donuts today...what??? I confuse even myself.

Yesterday, I took cool water out for the chickens a few times. Mostly for the sake of the three chicks which are just a few days old and cute as can be.

It's the little things

Twice today I read my water meter while in the basement. Both times I forgot to write it down when I came upstairs. My brain has let me down. 

Catching up

 This is what my wood stove area looks like in the middle of winter. Surrounded by chicken water buckets thawing out and stacks of wood with a big pot of water for humidity. Cleaning definitely takes a back seat to function.

Eventually, winter staggers off and it's time to think of better things to come. Cue starting seeds. I have to protect my aerogardens from Loki who thinks anything in the house is fair game for her to play with, hence the fence.

I already gave some of the pansies and marigolds to my mom. I'm about to give up on the lemon tree seeds though. No activity at all.

Wild times weather-wise

Monday was warm and windy, reaching the 80s with 40+mph winds. It's night now and the temp has dropped over 50 degrees!

It's too soon to plant out but I did pot up some seedlings so they can continue to grow.

More soon.

Beating the Brrrrrr

We've had a mild winter up til now. There's snow on the ground but not deep and the temps haven't spent much time in the single digits. That changed this week as a cold system moved in and settled to stay. Actual temps have been well below zero and wind chills much worse. 

Normally, I'd wear these to do chores. Insulated and comfortable, I could do whatever was needed.

Then came this week and my fingers started hurting before I had even finished feeding the chickens. Time to pull out the big guns. A bit awkward to work in, I have to take them off to pick up an egg, but I don't feel the cold at all! I ordered them years ago from a Minnesota company which I just googled to see if they are still in business. So, here's a shout-out to Century Leather Products for a great mitten.

Nit-picking

Warning: I have a sinus headache so this post may be a bit grumpy.

Today I find it annoying to read comments with excessive exclamation points. As in:

"blah! blah blah!! blah blah blah blah! blah!!! blah blah!!"

It's like a toddler jumping and demanding 'look at me!' I may look, but I'm not impressed. In fact, I lose a little respect for the writer with each point.

On a more positive side note, I found a tip for keeping effect/affect straight in my head. Remember that 'a'ffect equals 'a'ction. This should save me a lot of stopping in the middle of a sentence and looking it up. :)

Laughing at myself

I watched some of The Great British Bake-off for the first time today. Anyone who knows me well already knows I'm not a fan of cooking so watching these incredibly complicated concoctions is funny. Tonight, I paused the show and went searching for something for supper... stick a potato in the microwave and eat it with butter, salt and pepper. 

Lol

Salads in the winter?

I generally have a hard time motivating myself to eat salads when it's cold out. Hot, savory foods just sound better when the snow is blowing. I may have stumbled onto a solution though. My sister recommended a salad kit that she liked and, while that one didn't appeal to me, I tried a couple others. The key is variety; instead of keeping two types of dressing on hand, I now have five and I've been enjoying daily salads.

I have to admit that I am very concerned about the covid variants. If it follows the first wave, South Dakota will get spread later than higher population states, but when it hits it will be dreadful. Expected deliveries of vaccines have been delayed or drastically reduced globally. Each new positive case is a potential for new mutations which could lead to a new variant. This disease is truly insidious.

Funny, just when I could use a friendly cuddle, my cat is in deep-sleep mode on the bed. 

Overdue Update

 

The video and pictures are all from before my world turned white. 

I find I've gotten out of the habit of talking here; my mind has gone blank.

Okay then. After sitting at the keyboard for a few more minutes with nothing forthcoming, I'll leave the pictures as my post for tonight. 

Stay safe and warm.