Thursday, Not Quite 13

It has been a fairly busy week at work, and I’ve had an extra office day this week, so I don’t have 13 interesting things I can share, but here are a few highlights.

Howard seems to be feeling pretty good this week.  He just seems perkier and was very excited about his breakfast this morning.

I ended up working pretty late yesterday, so I only had one chicken visitor when I came home from work.  She seemed pretty happy not having to share her treats with her sisters.

It has been hot and rainy here, which the marigold has loved.  Look how much bigger it is this week.

One lone pansy has perked back up.  I think the rain helped, but it has been too hot for the pansies.

How has your week been?  

Come Hell Or High Water

High water, anyway. 

A few weeks ago my aunt and uncle, Diana and Lane , were in town on their way to move several states away.  They’re the one who met online, like Nick and I did, which we owe at least partially to them.  And I have the coolest aunt in the world.   So, of course, we wanted to spend time with them while they were in town.

Unfortunately, Lane is allergic to cats.  He seems to be able to tolerate being at our house for a few hours during the winter.  Our house holds heat like an oven, so during the winter whenever we have a lot of people in the house the heat doesn’t run.  As you might imagine, the air conditioner runs non-stop when we have a lot of people in the house during the hot weather.  The air running seems to blow the cat dander around and really exacerbates Lane’s allergies.

So we opted to have a picnic at a park with them. 

The first plan was a park with grills and picnic tables, but no shelters.  But every time I checked the weather forecast the chance of rain went up.  So we opted for a different park, where we could reserve a covered picnic shelter, with a grill just outside the shelter.

Picnic day arrived overcast, but not rainy.  We took everything to the park, met up with Diana and Lane, and their dog, Ambra.  We set up the food and coolers in the shelter, and all went on a walk to take Ambra to explore the park.  It was windy and cool, but still not raining.

We started to think that it wasn’t going to rain after all, and lit the grill.  About the time we got the grill going a major storm broke loose.  The rain poured down in sheets, there was thunder and lighting, and it was extremely windy.  The basketball courts and part of the parking lot flooded.  At one point we were all huddled together in the middle of the shelter because the wind was blowing the rain into the shelter. 

The wind stopped before the rain did, so we were able to sit at one of the picnic tables and play Apples to Apples while we waited for the rain to stop. 

When the rain finally stopped we decided it was time to re-light the grill.  The grill was drenched and had all of the drowned charcoal from our first attempt in it.  Fortunately, though, Nick is a firefighter, and firefighters start the best fires.  We scraped all of the wet charcoal out of the grill, but the grill was still pretty wet.  I had packed an extra disposable baking pan at the last minute, so Nick put the charcoal in that, cut some vents, and got the grill going again.

Once the grill got going for the second time it started raining again.  It wasn’t the torrential downpour from earlier, but we were worried it might be enough to put out the grill.  So we all took turns standing over the grill with umbrellas.

It was definitely a group effort to get the burgers grilled.

I promise I did take a turn holding an umbrella.  I just didn’t take pictures of myself.

The burgers were delicious, and we all had a great time.  Nothing stands in the way when our families plan a picnic.  

We’re pretty sure the picnic is going to become one of those family stories that get told over and over again.  

So what about you?  Have you grilled out in the rain? 

Our Hurricane Roommates

The local animal shelters have really stepped up to help out the shelters on the coast.  Lots of local rescues had multiple transports to the coast to then take animals to partner rescues up north.  Some of the shelters in areas with mandatory evacuation orders were able to send all of the animals in their care to other shelters.

This represents so much progress.  For years, many of the shelters on the coast had no choice but to euthanize a lot of animals ahead of catastrophic storms.  Now, thanks to rescues in multiple states reaching out to help, that’s not nearly as common.  There’s still a very long way to go, but there’s definite progress.

The shelter we adopted Duke, Tara, and Cookie from asked for temporary fosters for all of their animals until next Friday, due to the bad weather we’re expected to get from Florence.

Initial forecasts had the remnants of Florence arriving in our area tonight, and into tomorrow.  Now the forecasts have Florence, currently moving at two miles per hour, arriving tomorrow night into Monday, and basically stalling against the mountains.  They say we’ll start getting some wind and rain tonight, but our major impacts will be later.  We’re told our area will likely receive six to twelve inches of rain, with some areas getting up to fifteen inches of rain.

Malmo, a.k.a. Motimer

The shelter is in a flood prone area, so they wanted the animals out in case it floods there.  If it doesn’t flood, they can be a stopping off point for animals being transported up from the coast, or from the coast or midlands of South Carolina.

It has been quite some time since we’ve done any fostering, and while we’ve made the decision to never bring another dog into our home, we still want to foster cats as we’re able.  This seemed like a good time to make the leap, and get back into it.  Every animal out of our local shelters frees up space for an animal from the coast, and generally allows the rescues here to divert more resources to helping the shelters on the coast.  We signed up to temporarily foster two cats and were told we’d be matched with two cats based on our application information.

We went to pick up our cats after work on Thursday, and were sent home with Malmo and Copenhagen.  They’re about 10 months old, and full of energy.  They also seem to be very bonded.

Neither one of us are very fond of their names, so we’re calling them Mortimer and Charlie while they’re here.  Cats don’t exactly come when they’re called most of the time, so we don’t think it’s doing any harm.

Copenhagen, a.k.a. Charlie

We’re currently keeping them separated from the rest of the pets, so they’re in our bedroom.  Thursday evening they only really came out to eat, and spent the rest of the time under the bed.  We heard them wrestling, and playing with some of the toys.  They just didn’t seem very sure of us. 

By Friday evening they were starting to warm up to us, and started to come out and let us pet them.  They’ve also decided that sleeping in the bed and cuddling with us some is kind of nice.  They definitely like the food here, and they seem to love the toys we’ve given them.   

We have no plans to go anywhere this weekend since the weather is supposed to be so bad, so we’ll be able to spend a lot of time playing and cuddling with them.   It’s not a bad way to weather the storm.

So. Much. Rain.

It has been raining almost non-stop here in western North Carolina for two weeks now.  Last night on our local news they said we have received the equivalent of six months worth of rain (based on yearly averages) since this started. 

We’re under numerous flood advisories and warnings, some of which are extended through Saturday morning.  Surrounding counties have been hit worse than we have so far, especially with landslides.  Several roads are closed.  More rain is expected tonight, tomorrow, and Friday.

Our house and neighborhood are fine so far.  The yard is soggy, and the sump pump has been working non-stop, but that’s it.  It does seem likely that we’ll have to take the slightly longer way to work tomorrow, though.

I took this picture yesterday morning on the way to work while I was stopped at a red light.

I took this picture this morning on the way to work while I was stopped at a red light. 

As you can see, the water is much higher in the second picture, just 24 hours later.  I wasn’t able to get pictures, but it was higher when I came home for lunch, and even higher when I came home for the day.  Based on the amount of rain we’ve had this evening, I highly doubt that section of road will be open tomorrow morning.

Our chances for rain start to go down significantly on Saturday, and there are even a few sunny days in our forecast for next week.  I am definitely ready for some sunshine!

How’s your weather?  Are you getting desperate for some sunshine?

More Peonies

The peonies I shared with you last month have long since wilted.  They never seem to last very long, but the peonies on the shady side of the house have bloomed since then.

We’ve had torrential rain for most of the past week, but they seem to be holding on. 

The pink ones grow right next to the house, on the shady side. 

Everything on that side blooms about a month later than everything on the sunny side of the house.  I like the fact that it's spaced out like that.  I'll take coming home to this for as long as I can.

The white ones were planted in front of the house, with roses and several other bushes.  I don't think whoever planted them realized how much everything would grow over time, so it's a little wild and tangled.  I kind of like the way all of the different colors and flowers are packed in.  The roses over there shade the white peonies some, so they bloom later too.

I normally prefer more colorful flowers, but I think these are absolutely gorgeous.  The petals just seem so creamy and perfect.  And I love how vivid the green leaves are against them.

Can you tell I have a thing for peonies? 

Now if it would just stop raining so we could spend some time outside enjoying them!

Do you have any late bloomers? 

It Was Nice While It Lasted

On Thursday we enjoyed temperatures in the mid seventies.  It was sunny and beautiful, and it was wonderful. 

I wanted to enjoy every minute of the beautiful weather, so I ate my lunch outside, and took this picture of these tiny little wild flowers that are blooming in the yard.  I was so happy to see something colorful and blooming.

After work Nick and I loaded the dogs in the car and went to the cemetery to walk.  It’s not as weird as it might sound, I promise!  It’s a really big cemetery; lots of people walk and jog there, and bring their dogs.  It was fairly crowded Thursday evening.  I think a lot of people had the same idea.

We also walked through the neighborhood near the cemetery, and Nick showed me the house his grandparents lived in when he was born.  They moved from that house when he was five, but he still remembers quite a few things from when they lived there.  It was fun to picture a little version of Nick playing in the yard. 

We walked until it started getting dark.  We knew the nice weather wasn’t going to last, so we wanted to take advantage of every minute of it.  I think the dogs enjoyed the long walk, too. 

Yesterday started off sunny and warm, but the temperature started dropping in the afternoon.  It dropped twelve degrees in between the time I went back to work from lunch and the end of the day when I left.  It continued to drop last night.  Today has been cold and rainy.  The temperatures haven’t gotten above the mid forties, and it has been raining all day.

Fortunately, it doesn’t look like we’re going to drop down to freezing, so hopefully the little flowers will survive.  The beautiful weather was so nice while it lasted!

So how about you?  Have you had any warm days?  Any sign that spring might be on its way?

November Wrap-Up

It’s hard to believe that tomorrow is going to be December 1st.  The last few weeks of November seemed to fly by, but was actually mostly good.

I’ll start with the best news first.  We finally got rain!!!  I’ve never been so happy to see rain.  We had a tiny bit of rain in the early hours of Thanksgiving morning.  Then we had a little rain Monday night.
We’ve had lots of rain today, and it has been wonderful.

The smoke got really bad last week.  Because of the way the wind was blowing we were actually getting smoke from two different fires.  There was a haze of smoke inside at work last week, and at home it smelled like a bonfire.  I was convinced we would be evacuating.  Once again, Nick was the voice of reason, and was right, no evacuation for us.

I ended up going to the doctor to get medications for smoke-related breathing issues.  I’ve had a terrible cough that just won’t go away.  It turns out that it’s due to inflammation caused from the smoke and all of the coughing.  I’m two days into the medicine, and already feel so much better.  Being able to breathe is a wonderful thing!

Our cat, Joey, has asthma, and our vet has had us increase all of his medications, and even added in a few more.  Hopefully now that we’ve had some rain, and the smoke seems to finally be clearing, we’ll be able to taper him back down to his normal dose.

We celebrated my parents’ 42nd anniversary with them the weekend before Thanksgiving.  We brought a cake, and Nick made calzones, which were incredibly delicious.  It was a little weird, because we had to check on the status of three different fires burning near us before we felt comfortable leaving to go that far from home.  Fortunately everything was fine, and we had a good time with my parents.

Thanksgiving went really well.  I got the food to the hospice house on time.  I was really worried about running behind.  I told them I’d have it there between 12:30 and 1:00, and made it about 12:50, so I’m counting that as a win.  Bonus win, I had very minimal spilling on the drive there; just a little green bean juice spilled in the trunk.  Considering the amount of food I took there, I’m counting that as success.  I’m fairly proud of myself for packing it up efficiently.  I saved shipping boxes for a while, so I’d have boxes to put the pans in.  I put everything in disposable pans so there would be no worrying about getting dishes back, and labeled everything to make it easier in dealing with leftovers.  We even remembered to buy paper plates, etc. to take.

I ended up bringing turkey, dressing, gravy, mashed potatoes (made to stand alone, so they wouldn’t necessarily need gravy, and could be a vegetarian option, per Victoria’s suggestion), sweet potato casserole, macaroni and cheese, green beans, rolls, jellied cranberry sauce, whole berry cranberry sauce, two pumpkin pies, a cherry crunch, and a chocolate cake.  I ended up scaling the menu back a little bit, just to make sure I got everything there on time, but I think there was still plenty of food.

The staff was so nice, and kept thanking me over and over again.  They made me cry (in a good way, just by being so nice).  I told them they had just been so kind when GrandMommy was there, and that we really appreciated them.  I cannot imagine doing their job.  They kept saying they’re happy to do it, especially when people appreciate it.  I didn’t stick around very long.  I didn’t want to intrude on anyone’s grief, or get in the way of people trying to work, or eat so they could get back to work.  And I wanted to get out of there before I turned into a total crying mess.  I called Nick’s mom on the way home, and cried to her instead, Like, I said, it was mostly a good cry, though.

Once I got home from hospice, I started cooking smaller batches of Thanksgiving food for us for when Nick got home from work.  I started the desserts on Wednesday afternoon.  I have pictures of the desserts, but somehow managed not to take a single picture of the food before I left with it on Thursday.  We figured out that out of about a 30 hour period I cooked or baked for all but about eight hours of it.  It was fun, but I totally crashed on Friday.

On Friday, the most ambitious thing I did was a little online Black Friday shopping.  I’ll admit, I never even got out of my pajamas.  We ate leftovers, watched a few movies, and did a little online shopping.  It was nice to have such a low-key day.

We put the tree up on Saturday, and had a friend, Cathey, over for some apple cake.  She had gone out of town for Thanksgiving, and we started talking about how everyone had spent Thanksgiving.  We told her about taking food to hospice, and she loved the idea.  Her first husband was sick off an on for years before he died, and she has ended up taking care of a lot of different people over the years.  She has spent pretty much every major holiday in a hospital or similar place at some point.  She said one Christmas when her husband was in the hospital someone had brought in some Christmas goodies, and it just made such a difference to her that someone did that.  So she came up with the idea for us to take Christmas goodies to the hospice house.  We won’t be able to go on Christmas, but we’re planning to go a few days before and leave some Christmas foods.  Cathey makes a lot of the traditional candies and fudge, so will do that.  I haven’t figured out what I’m going to make yet.  I’m open to suggestions.

The tree looks good, and so far Frankie is the only cat really messing with it much.  One of the presents is in a fairly large box, and he’s using the box to stand on to access some of the higher branches (where we put the ornaments we really don’t want the cats messing with), so I think that box is going to end up being moved away from the tree.

We’ve finished most of our Christmas shopping.  I think we have about four more things to buy, and then we’ll be completely finished.  I’ve also finished shopping for Nick’s birthday (he’s a Christmas Eve baby), and am just waiting for a few more online orders to come in.  I’m hoping to finish up all, or at least most, of the wrapping this weekend.  I enjoy wrapping presents, but it seems to take me forever.

I can’t go into details because most of the people I shop for read my blog at least occasionally, but I’m really excited about a few of the presents.  I also know what some people we’ll be celebrating with have gotten for each other, and I think everyone is really going to love their gifts.

So what about you?  How was your Thanksgiving?  How are your Christmas preparations going?  I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving, and that you aren’t dealing with smoke!

Soggy Weekend

Are you getting drenched by Joaquin? We certainly are. It has been raining for over a week now, but it really started to pick up yesterday. I don’t think it has stopped at all today. We certainly don’t have it as bad as the folks on the coast, but there has been some flooding and road closures.

We’ve opted to mostly spend the weekend at home working on indoor projects and watching movies.

I did venture out into the backyard to get some pictures of the mushroom crop that seems to have popped up overnight, and the puddle right off the back porch.

So what about you? Is it an indoor kind of weekend for you?

Just off the back porch.  More and more of the yard is looking like this.

 

 

The mushrooms.

 

 

Not quite what we usually grow in the raised beds.

It's A Gamble

Last week’s CSA box is going to be the last box for a while; at least until August 22^nd, maybe August 29^th.  We’ve had truly insane amounts of rain in our area, and it has destroyed some of the crops.  They’ve re-planted some, and are hoping for the best.  There will still be about 11 weeks (boxes) to go when it picks back up, and they are hopeful that they will go well.

We knew it was a gamble when we signed up for the CSA; that’s part of the benefit to the farmer - that the consumer shares in some of the risk.  We knew that going in, so it’s not as disappointing as it might have been if they weren’t very up front and honest about that possibility. 

I will miss getting our box for the next few weeks.  I like the market that we pick up from, it’s small but neat and kind of quirky.  We’ve also started to get to know the people from the farm a little bit.  They recognize us on site now, and we’ve met their dog when he came to the market with them.  It’s just a pleasant part of the week, and I will miss that for the next three weeks. 

At this point we’re still planning to join this CSA next year.  I haven’t been very diligent in posting pictures of the boxes, so I’m sharing a few of them in this post.  We’ve received squash, zucchini, blueberries, chard, kale, various lettuces, green beans, peas, tomatoes, kohlrabi, beats, and so much more.  I think (assuming my math is right) that even with missing three weeks of boxes it works out to about $24.00 per box, which is more than we initially thought it would be per box, but I think is still a pretty good deal.  The produce is all organic, and it’s extremely fresh.  I still feel like it’s a good value, and we’re definitely eating more vegetables now, which is worth something in and of itself.  Like I said, it’s a gamble, and we knew that going in.  

Another Rainy Day

We are getting drenched here in our little piece of the world.  It has been raining off and on (more on than off) since Thursday night, and really picked up yesterday.  Rain is definitely not one of my favorite things.  I prefer sunny skies with puffy white clouds. However, I am working on keeping a more positive outlook, so I’ve tried to come up with some things that I do like about rainy days.  I managed to think of five, so here they are:

1.  I don’t have to water the garden.  Mother Nature is taking care of that for me today, so no need to drag out the hose and watering can.  That’s one thing off of my to do list for today.  I’m also told that lettuce likes the cooler, rainy weather.  I’m hoping that my pots of lettuce will begin to thrive since we’ve had so much rain. 

2.  My husband enjoys overcast days, and really likes the rain, so he has been very happy with the weather

lately. 

3.  The cats are always incredibly snuggly when it’s rainy.  There’s nothing quite like cuddling up with a purring cat (or four) on a rainy night.

4.  Soup!  Rainy days are perfect for homemade soup.  Tonight it’s chicken noodle soup from the slow cooker. 

5.  Emma looks really cute walking around in her Thundershirt, and it seems to make a huge difference for her to wear it. 

So what about you?  Do you like or dislike the rain?  Are there things you like about rainy days?

Another Rainy Day

We woke up to another rainy, drizzly day this morning.  It has been raining off and on since Saturday evening here.  Fortunately, it looks like our chance of rain starts to go down tomorrow, and it does seem to be tapering off. 

Emma doesn’t like the rain, not at all; apparently boxer mixes are made of sugar, so there’s a chance she’ll melt in the rain, or even just a light mist.  Because Emma hates going out in the rain so much we always put a raincoat on her to help keep her dry, so here are some pictures of Emma ready to brave the rain.  I think she’s definitely hoping for sunny days ahead.

Rain, Roof Woes, and Ready for the Weekend

It has been raining off and on here since Tuesday afternoon; even when the rain stops it has still been gray and cloudy. This is not my kind of weather. It feels like the clouds and gray skies are literally sucking the life and will out of me. I love the sunshine. Sunny days give me energy and make me feel alive. I feel sort of like the solar butterfly light in our front yard; I must have sunshine in order to function.

The other downside to all of the rain we’ve had is that we’ve found out our roof isn’t entirely fixed. The main leak appears to be fixed; that area has been dry this week, but one of the smaller leaks still isn’t fixed. I called the roofing company and they’ll be coming back out to look at it as soon as it stops raining, possibly tomorrow, depending on the weather. The chance of rain seems to go up every time I check tomorrow’s forecast, though, so I’m not so sure they’ll be able to come look at it tomorrow. On a positive note, they returned my phone call quickly, and are trying to come look at as soon as possible; they can’t stop the rain any more than I can. That would be one totally awesome superpower though!

On another (and even more) positive note, it’s the weekend! Everyone definitely seems ready for the workweek to end. I think it’s the rain making the weekly drudgery even worse for everyone. There just seems to be a general sense of relief this morning as everyone is ready for the weekend to get started. Here’s hoping the chance of rain will decrease, and that everyone has a wonderful weekend.