Cool!

The weather has cooled off, maybe for the rest of this year. The high today is supposed to be 66*. It isn't supposed to get back up into the 90's at all, at least the weather guessers are saying that.
I still have okra, tomatoes, and peppers in the garden. Okra picking is still daily, but is slowing up, some.This is our first year to grow okra, and it has been the easiest crop I have ever had to take care of. Many of my plants are over 10 feet tall, some have to be 12 feet tall.
My hens are producing at least five eggs a day. One day I got SEVEN eggs from eight hens. Most of them use the same nest box! One just drops her egg in random places- I know it is the same hen, as her eggs have a small mark on each one- a light banding the other eggs don't have.
In my egg bounty, I have been trying to use as fast as they can lay, but it isn't really happening! I made "pickled eggs" for the first time. They are... different. Up until now, I don't think I had ever eaten a pickled egg. I am also pickling okra. This, too, is a first. My trial batch was a hit, so I have about a dozen jars put by now.
I am looking forward to the Taylor Family Reunion this weekend. Mr C has decided to stay home and look after the birds and beasts. I will be taking along chicken, potato salad, and some auction stuff. I think I am EXPECTED to bring jellies to auction! If I get my round tuits taken care of, I will take some hand made stuffed kids toys. None of my grands will be there this year, (as far as I know) but maybe some great nieces and nephews will come.
Our annual Ohio trip is towards the end of October.
Sam may (or not!) be in Germany then. He is waiting news of when our friend is having his surgery scheduled before buying his ticket. Dan may be holding down the fort all alone. (If Sam's trip and ours coincide.)
Oh dog! Jaffa has spied the groundhog in our yard.

He is going crazy with trying to get it. I have let him out a couple of times, and he runs around barking and digging where ever he last saw or smelled it. He is wandering now from front door to back with a whimpering beg whine to go out. He does NOT NEED to go out. Last year he actually caught and killed one.
Well, may your day be blessed and your every need met. Thank you for reading.

Poetry

I have been looking for where I *thought* I had published Daniel's poem before on my blog. I couldn't find it.
So here is:

"Katahdin's Call" 

by Daniel "Folklore" Coder

The rain was cold. 
the wind was bold.
But my heart it told,
of a mountain to the north.
I had traveled far
 and nothing could bar me
 from the place I hoped to see.
The days I spent
 nor the miles I went,
 the cold, the heat, the rain.
From Georgia to Maine
the call was the same:
Katahdin come to me

When the trail turned dry
 my spirits ran high.
for the sun it shone
on the place I'd known,
the place that had called to me.
I turned then
to the places I'd been.
though all I saw
(for the trees were tall)
was a path scattered with leaves.

I could clearly see,
 despite all these,
 a part of me had been left behind.
With the people I met
 and the places I slept,
the towns, the shelters, the streams.
And I knew then what the call had been;

"From Springer true
 you have traveled through
mountains, swamps, and plains.
Despite it all that would have you fall,
you pressed on and on to see
 a mountain to the north,
a mountain that had called to thee.

"I am a call to all,
 who would see it all
from Georgia's pines
to Maine's shore lines
and everything in between."

I turned then,
and started again
up to Katahdin's Sign.
and I wondered then,
 if ever, when?
 I would come this way again.

********************

This is how it is saved in my computer. It has been re-written and worked on some, so I don't know if this was its last form. 

Winding down the summer

It is almost the middle of September, and I am SO ready for the first hard frost. Kill the ragweed! Kill ALL the ragweed! I will hate saying goodbye to all our good garden produce, but it's terrible trying to breathe through the pollen fog.
Yesterday was my grandson Gavin's 12th birthday, and my brother Robbie's birthday. (I think he is now a double nickle!)
Coming up soon is the Taylor Family Reunion. This year it will be at the Cypress Campground Pavilion at Beaver's Bend State Park. A potluck lunch will be held around noon, followed by the annual auction fund raiser. It will be a silent bid auction.
I plan to be there! It will also be a great time to wish my Mom a happy 75th birthday- her birthday is Oct. 4th.

One day last week, I just couldn't stand our bathroom any more. The zillion holes in the plastic coated wall panels.

The industrial steel towel rack.

 The grimy, horrible sink that I just couldn't scrub clean. I jumped into a bathroom mini- makeover.

 I primed and painted. On a trip to get paint, I found a brand new faucet on clearance... I had intended to get a new faucet when I got a new sink, and had priced their least expensive at $28. That was for the nickle plated twin to the one here. The clearance faucet was regular $89, and I got it for $22.
I needed sink measurements, so I didn't buy a sink- me wanting the off-white (bone?) and they only had bright white in stock.
I got home all happy happy happy! I spent the better part of two days priming and painting.
Mr C got home after I had painted, and asked how much longer it was going to take ~ He saw I had "primed".
Uh. It's painted. In two different shades, one is semi-gloss satin on the walls. The other is cabinet paint in gloss. He couldn't tell. And the colors were side by side on the color card, so they ARE very similar. I called them light grey, but they are a very pale green. And he wasn't thrilled about the faucet. And he doesn't want to replace the sink... He scrubbed all the grime off it for me.
 I said I was OK with not getting a new sink if he could get this one clean. Well, it's clean.
 (Why didn't *I* think of using heavy duty scotch brite and a brass wire scrub brush? Hmm. Maybe because it's a PLASTIC sink?)
I spray painted my industrial steel towel bar and toilet paper holder. And the light switch and outlet covers.

My arm went into revolt, so I haven't finished my painting. I need to do the upper trim around the room, and the little triangles of wall above the panels. Probably two, half hour chores, as it will take two coats. But not until my arm is better, or someone else does it for me. I guess my new faucet will stay in its box until my scrubbed plastic sink grows so horrible even Mr C can't stand it. Myself, I am happy with the fresh coat of paint!

Sam is supposed to put in a new light fixture above the mirror, and replace the worn-out outlet by the window. When he has time. (So I just put the painted cover back on!)

Star Time Pondering

Last night, I went out for some much needed "Star Time". I sat in a camp chair as the first stars of the evening sky appeared. Layer by layer, the veils of darkness deepened the night sky, and I saw more stars.
It always makes me feel so insignificant, sitting out under the stars. Thinking about the workings of the brain of an ant, to the vast reaches of all the stars... places and things we cannot fathom! And God created it. All of it.
Sitting under the stars makes me feel connected. To those who came before me, and to those who will come after. My (how many times great?) grandmothers in Scotland, three hundred years back. The grandchildren my grandchildren will some day bear... They saw, and will see, the same stars, the same moon.
I saw a meteor streak briefly across the sky. How many people also saw it? Who else may have happened to be looking in that same direction, at that same instant the fiery stone burned through the atmosphere above? Maybe a few people. Maybe no one but myself saw it.

Like our own time here on earth, mortal beneath the stars- we are insignificant in the face of galaxies and eons. And yet, we do matter... and matter greatly to some people. Our unique selves touch and interweave with one another, marking our places for a little while.