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* 4 'Minos' hyacinth, which is a dark purple
* 25 'Oriental Beauty' Dutch iris, which is an amber/orange/rose/purple iris, hard to describe, but oh-so-lovely in spring

Both purchased at Lowes, and both planted in the new beds at the east end of the garden.

Bulb planting will be complicated this season, because I dug oodles of daffs and lilies (colors/varieties unknown) at D's last month, and I can't remember where they all ended up. Except that the places that look like obvious spots for daffs and lilies are most likely already planted. Silly hobbit.

Children permitting, this morning shall also include moving my 'Twilight Prairiblue' baptisia, and the big clump of scullcap, because they're too big for their spots.
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I finished an afghan before breakfast today. Granted, we were moving slow today, and breakfast was a little late, and I didn't have much left to knit. And I still need to weave in all the ends (bleh), but it's done.

I've been telling everyone who asked that I was making this blanket for me, because every blanket I've made for our household for the past 4 years has been commandeered by The Miss. In the winter, she sleeps under all of them, a nest of blankets and teddy bears 3' high, with a giggling little girl underneath it all.

So naturally, as soon as I shake out *my* finished blanket, she's all over it. The conversation has gone something like this:

The Miss, petting blanket almost possessively, "oooo, pretty blanket"
Me, "thank you sweetie. This is mommy's blanket"
The Miss, cuddling blanket with both arms and most of her face, "I like this blanket"
Insert two attempts to carry said blanket off to her nest, and several repitions of "this is mommy's blanket". That's the summary of my morning.

Guess I need to gather another pile of leftover yarn and start another one real quick, that I can tell her will be hers.
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Talked to Sis this evening. She managed to move Nephew's appointment with the neurosurgeon up to today. Nephew has a mild concussion and some soft tissue damage that they're watching, but he's off of cognative rest as of this afternoon, but no sports/physical activity for a week. Maybe longer, depending on next week's exam. He's likely out for the rest of the football season.

I flat-out asked Sis if she'd reported The Ex for abuse and neglect, and she said no. Between the boys' unwillingness to testify against their dad, her lack of money for a lawyer, and the SRS's tendecy to blow off reports from her as being "just another bitter exwife"......

Sis did say that her boss is trying to help her find a pro-bono lawyer who'll take on The Ex. For this doctor bill, for the insure he won't pay for (despite court order), for defying another court order to not drink in front of the boys.........

*sigh*

My mom says Nephew is afraid of his dad, and doesn't want to hurt his feelings, despite being his dad's favorite punching bags. I'm rather afraid that someday soon, The Ex will hit/poke/verbally abuse Nephew one time too many, and Nephew's gonna haul off and hit him. Hard--Nephew has 4" and 30 lb on him already, and he's not 14 yet.
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Talked to Sis last night. She was just getting home from taking her eldest to the ER, after a couple days of problems. Nephew had had an accident on a four-wheeler at his dad's on Saturday, and his father refused to get medical care for him.

The ER did xrays and a CAT scan on Nephew, and he's on strict bed rest (not just no school or football practice, but no tv, books, radio, or even loud voices) until he can be seen by a neurosurgeon tomorrow. And no meds for the headaches etc, because they might aggravate the injury.

Sis told me she had an ugly fight on the phone with her ex, which summed up to "you"re making my son a sissy by coddling him with doctors."

*sigh*

To compound all this, Sis can't afford medical insurance, and her ex, while under a court order to included the boys on his Army insurance, has never done so. She said she's taking this to her lawyer as fodder for the ongoing custody battle; I can only hope she'll actually follow through. I'm afraid her ex has gotten away with an awful lot over the years, simply because she was too overworked and stressed to fight for herself and the boys.

Anyway, more when I know it. Or when Sis has calmed down enoguh to get words out.
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We're finally having fallish weather so we're inspired to cook fallish food. Tonight's dinner: "what do we have in the house" soup......
* pull 1 carton each turkey stock and veggie stock out of the freezer, thaw, plop in crockpot
* chop 1 onion, sautee in olive oil with 2 generous spoonfulls of chopped garlic, melt a couple tablespoons butter on top (because that was in the fridge and needed used), put oniony mixture in crockpot
* wash and chop 2 average spuds, add to pot
* wash and chop 2 big handfuls of baby carrots (or whatever you have left in the fridge), add to pot
* chop leftover smoked turkey drumstick (purchased at Renfest last weekend), add to pot
* trot out to garden for a sprig each of rosemary and sage, and two of thyme, rinse and add to pot
* turn crockpot up to high now that it's mostly full
* bask in the glow of dinner in progress

There will be mushrooms and yellow squash added too, later this afternoon, so they don't get overcooked. There's just enough salt in the smoked turkey that I won't have to add any to the soup (the stocks were prepared sans salt, for more flexibility).

And there will oatmeal bread, for dipping in soup.
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Another call from Sis. She had a call from Cousin today, who said that Sperm Donor turned up in the VA hospital in Amarillo, Tx, sometime this week. No idea how long he's been there, or what he's in for, or who admitted him, but at least he's off the streets for a while.
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No word on the Sperm Donor; I assume this means he's still missing.

Mom had a list of places he could be, to try to distract Sis from the image of his dead in a ditch somewhere. Including off shacked up with some chick he found at a bar, which I find (a) disgusting, given his appearance and smell last time I saw him, and (b) rather unlikely, given that he's drinking rather more since the last time I saw him.

I guess, I don't really care where he is, except that it upsets Sis to know he's missing. I just hope he hasn't killed anybody by driving drunk, on the way there.
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Well, a handful of messages, and a couple calls, to bring me up to date. (And I need to remember to call Mom in an hour or so.....)

According to what Cousin told Sis, Sperm Donor is missing. Has been since Friday, or so his busybody neighbor says. The truck he's been driving (sans driver's ?icense or insurance, and likely sans registration) is also missing.

Sis is rather put out that Cousin keeps calling her about this, because all Sis can do from her home is call the police in Texas and file a missing persons report. Which they're not taking to seriously, she says. And Cousin is perfectly capable of doing that, if she'd just engage her damn brain.
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Talked to Mom for a bit this morning. The upgrades on her house have begun, and she's pretty cheerful. The first thing finished is a new front door and storm door, that locks, and stays closed without being tied closed with a jump rope. She'll also be getting windows, and siding and gutters on her house.

Also, Mom's got 172 working days until retirement. She's pretty cheerful about that, too.

Mom said that the fallout from Sis calling the cops on Sperm Donor was minor, at least up here. From. What she was told, the cops got there when he was having a less drunk than usual day, and they managed to talk him into paying his water bill, so he'll at least have that. After the cops left, he called Crazy Aunt Cathy and bawled her out for reporting him, so she called Cousin to complain (because she thought Cousin had done it). Cousin called Sis, and thanked her, saying she wouldn't have thought of that. Sis told Cousin how to get him involuntarily commited (again), and reminded Cousin that Sis and I have been disowned, and he's not our problem. Cousin still has some spine, so she might follow through. *shrug*

It's still raining here, just a little. The radio said it'll be past us by noon or so. It's dropped about an inch since it started yesterday, slow and soaking, which is fabulous. And there's a chance for more rain next week. After this, rain seems ...possible, again.

We got D moved this week, and she handed over the keys to the old house Thurs morning. She's sad about that, and a little bitter, but she's excited about doing up the new place just the way she wants it. We didn't get everything out of her garden, but we did get her favorites, and the thing's that'd be hard to replace. She's already replanting at the new house. I'm babysitting a couple bed's worth of perennials for her, to move when she's ready for them.
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Rain!!!!!
Real, honest-to-gods rain, enough to wash down the windows and soak into the soil. Almost a quarter inch so far, which, sadly, is the most rain we've had at one time since mid-May. They're saying we might get an inch of rain out of this storm. *crosses fingers*

This morning, I planted lilies and iris and daylilies that followed me home from D's garden on Wednesday afternoon. She was spending this morning at her new house, trying to plant everything that we dug and sent to the new place. As of 11am yesterday, she is officially out of her old house. Her husband's kids now have custody of it until it sells (which is likely to be a mess).

With the drought, and the return of highs around 100 degrees, my garden looks pretry shabby. I've still got some zinnias, and morning glories, and one blue salvia in color, but the rest has dried up.
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An update on the family business, and another phone call from my sister....

"You should know, I did something that's probably going to call fallout" she says.

Sis called the police in the town Sperm Donor lives in, told them the situation, and sent them to check on him, and hopefully forceably detox him.

She means well. Still not sure it wouldn't be kinder to leave him to the fate he's chosen.
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All of the worst family escapades start with "so, I got this call from my sister this morning....."

Today's excitement: The oldest daughter of Crazy Aunt Cathy called Sis to ask Sis to send money to The Sperm Donor. Because according to his do-gooder neighbor, The Sperm Donor is sitting in the dark, in a house with no running water or electricity*, drinking up his monthly aid checks. And Cousin With No Sense thought that if The Sperm Donor's daughters would just help him, he'd be better.

What. The. Fuck.

Sis told Cousin With No Sense to call her when he's dead. (Go Sis!) Cousin apparently thought that that was an unreasonable response, which just boggles me. Why is it reasonable for us to send resources we can't spare to someone who never supported us, and who chooses not to support himself?






* The busybody neighbor told Cousin (or her mother**) that Sperm Donor's utilities had been shut off a while ago, because he'd stopped paying his bills.

** I suspect that this is actually coming through Crazy Aunt Cathy, who has finally figured out that Sis blocks her calls.
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Got the kids on the bus, fetched the mail, have dough for English muffins on the first rise, have currants plumping for American-style muffins*, and am contemplating a batch of soft pretzels. Because that thing about not shopping when you're hungry applies to reading cookbooks, too.



* Miss Marple says "they're not muffins at all. Just tea cakes, with raisins in."
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Haven't had much worth updating recently. It's been hot, and very very dry, and we've been busy, but not interesting.

The garden is down to only the hardiest things blooming, and the rest dormant or limping along. Zinnias, morning glories, a few marigolds. The perennials are mostly dormant; the daylilies are completely dormant, down to dead leaves. It's quite sad. Oh, the maypop is still blooming, mustn't forget that....it's 12' up the tree, silly thing, but I've been watering it. D's mystery clematic is blooming, a tiny, white, four-petaled flower, like virgin's bower but more delicate. Once D get moved and unpacked, I need to borrow her clematis book and try to look it up.

Still haven't mowed. Might, in a week or two; the north field is a little shaggy with lespedeza and queen anne's lace. Even those are only knee high on me, so it's not urgent.

Went to Mom's last weekend, for a quick visit before we all went back to school. Her first day back was Wednesday, same as for my kids. We had a good visit, and By and I got her yard pruned for her, and a neighbor hauled the mess off. We brought Grandma over for one day, so she could see the kids, which was nice.

Mom's really looking forward to being retired at the end of this school year. She's counting down the days. She'll be just as busy, I think, but she'll be busy in the ways she chooses, and away from all the politics of education policy that's been wearing on her the past few years. There are substitute and full-time teachers at her school already circling for her job, some of them rudely so. Jobs are always scarce out there, but she'll be glad to be out of that.

The monsters are in the afternoon section of preschool this year, still 4 days a week, and still on the bus. They were thrilled to see their teacher again, and seem happy about the bus rides. It's taking a little adjustment; their school times is when they used to take afternoon naps. So no naps most of the week, and short ones on the weekend. On the up side, we've moved bedtimes earlier, and they're going to sleep with less fuss.

D has to be out of the house her late husband built by the end of the month. She's starting to panic about getting everything done, naturally. Especially moving the things she loves out of the garden....the dry hard ground makes that slow and difficult. By's going over there today, to help her with stuff in her late husband's workshop. I may or may not go over, depends on how long his part takes. She's got someone who'll take stuff to the new house all week, if she'll pack it and have it ready. And that's great, except she's still got to do that, and then unpack and put it away at the new place.

She's got a contractor lined up to do repairs and some updating on the new place, but he's giving her a runaround about getting prices in writing. He's not good at showing up when he says he will, either; the work should have been done by now, by the original schedule he gave her. I'd be looking for another contractor by now, but I know she's short on time to do that sort of chore, so she's kind of stuck.
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We have already matched July's rainfall total....a whopping 1/10th of an inch, a week ago, and this morning. Nowhere near enough to make the grass grow, but it'll be greener for a day or so, and that'll be nice.

After a frightful water bill, I'm going to cut off watering most of what I had been, and just let things go dormant. I'll keep up the new things, but not as often, and the pots will still need to be watered daily. A couple pots are just mints, potted to be fluffy greenery on stands; I should just the
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Must remember, the monsters notice EVERYTHING. I hadn't thought they were paying attention when I was taking measurements this morning, but they were. They got into my drawers of doll-making things, and now The Miss is "measuring" her brother (back of neck to wrist, very proper) with a length of green and black trim. *shakes head*
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The Boy is 40" tall and 39lb, The Miss is 42" tall and 39lb. We're waiting for the nurse to come in with The Miss's vaccinations. The Boy gets his in 10 days, after he's done with meds for an ear infection. So we get to do this all again, bleh.
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Today's canning adventures brought to you by the letters F and S, for Fall Harvest Jam, and Sugar-Free Peach Jam. The fall harvest jam has peaches and pears, apples and oranges; the sugar-free peach is just what it says, nothing fancy, for the lady who gave me peaches.

I've cooked down and jarred 2/3 of the fall harvest jam....it makes enough that it won't fit in my favorite jelly pot, and the stock pot tends to make it burn before it gets up to temp, so.......It is a whole lotta tasty.
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Last jars of peach butter are in the water bath for sealing now. That made 15 jars, so I've got a total of 28 jars of peachy stuff canned to far, and I'm down to the bottom third of the first bag of peaches.

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