Thankful Sunday--August 31, 2014

I am thankful for 

sweet potato blossoms.

I don't like sweet potatoes. I'm not even going to pretend that maybe they're alright if they're cooked the right way. My mother used to make sweet potato pie when we were kids and that didn't do the trick. They were still yucky. I didn't like them as a kid, and I still don't like them as an adult. But I have a new appreciation for them.

I was visiting Miss Landers yesterday and looking at her garden. I noticed what I thought were wild morning glories and told her she should be careful because they can really get out of hand. Then she told me that those were not morning glories but the blooms on sweet potatoes. This was news to me because, goodness knows, I had never tried to grow them. It turns out that sweet potatoes are in the same family as morning glories and that is why the blooms look the same. And the delicate blossoms are beautiful.

I am thankful for sweet potato blossoms because they will be the first thing I think about now when I hear sweet potatoes instead of those long meals as a child when it took me four glasses of milk to finish the one spoonful of sweet potatoes that my mother made me eat.

A Second Look--August 27, 2014

While there are still flowers blooming, most things are starting to look a little ragged.  Some foliage is turning brown and what once were large vistas of flowers are now just a few here and there. Fall is definitely coming. The birds are still abundant at the feeders, but that population should be changing in the next month or so as the migration south begins. I am going to be especially sad to see the hummingbirds go. While we have seen them every year around our lilies, this has been the first year we have had a feeder right outside our window to watch. Their little bodies and humming wings continue to amaze me.

Here are some things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

Praying mantis on Blackeyed Susan

This is one of a couple of day lilies that are still blooming.

Little bees are enjoying the balloon flowers that continue to bloom.

Late spring we planted a spindly tomato plant in a pot by our back door. It just now producing its first tomatoes--but they are beauties.

I cut back the Rozanne Geranium and it is now having a resurgence of blooms.

I thought that this caterpillar was heading for the grass until I took a second look and saw ants foraging around it. Then I wasn't so sure that it was heading anywhere anymore.

Most of these birds should hang around for the winter. (L-R Carolina wren, chickadee, mourning dove, downy woodpecker, goldfinch, cardinal

Today...

Today, I'm going to drink more water.

Drinking the recommended amount of water has always been a problem for me, but I'm trying to correct that. Do you drink easily and often like the males do in my family or do you struggle to fit in all in like I do?

Thankful Sunday--August 24, 2014

I am thankful for an abundance of tomatoes.

 
This is the time of year when gardens have been producing for a while and there are extras of many things. I am thankful that that is happening with tomatoes and I had enough extra to make some salsa. Yum!

A Second Look--August 20, 2014

Here are a few things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

Ward especially liked the Fibonocci spirals in the middle of this sunflower.

This wheel bug was about an inch long.

We had a good rain and a whole new group of mushrooms sprung up.

Along with the mushrooms, this bright orange fungus grew this week.

The dark coloration around this squirrels mouth and arm is different from any I've noticed before. I don't know if this is normal or the squirrel got stained trying to remove the hull from a black walnut. :) I'm going to start paying attention to see if I notice this pattern on any other squirrel.

The goldfinch are at their absolute brightest now.

Happiness and Mindfulness

Seems to me that there is a lot of talk these days about happiness. Whether we're happy or whether we would be happier if we only emphasized the "right" things in our life instead of the "wrong" things. Whether we're happier today than we were in yesteryear. I think one reason* there is so much talk about happiness is the definition different for everyone. Also, happiness is a complex concept and one that's hard to define and measure. But despite these complexities, there are people out there who are trying to understand and define happiness in a scientific way.
 
One of these people is Matt Killingsworth. He developed a happiness app and is collecting data about people's moods and correlating them with what they are doing. From his various findings, there is one thing that is consistent from the study. People are happier when they are fully engaged in what they are doing instead of letting their mind wander. That was true even if they didn't like what they were doing at the time. Apparently the reason for this is when our mind wanders, it usually goes to negative places and focuses on things we are worried about. And when we're worried, we're usually not happy.

Unfortunately, I'm normal in this way. After learning about Killingsworth's research, I noticed that while I was mowing, I was spending a fair amount of time with my mind wandering to worrisome thoughts. The same thing happened later while I was taking a walk. I knew I was the worrying kind, but I didn't realize how much idle worrying I actually do.

image source

So I wondered if there was anything I could do about this. I concluded that I am going to try to practice more mindfulness. I am going to try to be fully present in whatever I am doing and not have my body busy doing something while my mind wanders off to worry. When I'm mowing, I am going to listen to the sound of the mower and notice the plants I am cutting. When I'm walking, I'm going to notice how long my stride is and how my arms are swinging. And with enough practice, maybe I won't be the typical person anymore. My thoughts will stay in the present instead of in the future worrying. And just maybe, I will finally understand what the Buddist monks have known for a very long time--mindfulness is an important key to happiness.

(Okay, to be truthfully honest, I've gone through this phase before with only minor success. It takes a lot of work to retrain a lifetime of rapid fire, worrisome thoughts. But I'm gonna give it a try.)

*I think another reason there is so much talk about happiness, is that we are dong very well as a whole. We have most of our basic needs met, so we have the luxury to think about things such as whether or not we are happy.

Thankful Sunday--August 16, 2014

I am thankful Ward is home.

As many of you know, Ward was gone for the last week or so on a backpacking trip in the back country of Yellowstone National Park. While I enjoyed my time alone, I am very happy he's back. Below are a few pictures from his trip where he saw mountains, meadows, waterfalls, geysers, lakes, and bubbling streams.

 

Food Waste Friday and True Food Confessions-Aug 15, 2014

It's time for Food Waste Friday, when the Frugalgirl encourages us to post pictures from the previous week of wasted food from our household. This accountability hopefully will help us to be more careful with our food and maybe save some money. Also, I am using this public forum to encourage us to eat out less which includes better meal planning. You can follow how we are doing in this endeavor by reading True Food Confessions. Occasionally, if our eating is going okay, I'll talk about some other food topic.

This Week's Food Waste

None

At least none that I could find with a quick look in the refrigerator. However, the proof will be in the pudding this weekend when the fridge gets a good cleaning.

This Week's True Food Confessions

 

I had this chopped salad for at least 3 different meals.

Ward has been away for the last week and a half and during that time, I really didn't worry too much about food. When I was hungry, I ate whatever I could find. However, when I thought about it, I realized that I hadn't done any cooking while he was gone--meaning that I didn't turn on the stove, oven, or any other cooking device. And that shouldn't come as a big surprise to anyone who reads here regularly, so I don't know why I was kind of surprised when I figured it out. It's not like I gravitate towards cooking on any kind of voluntary basis usually.

So what did I eat? I was lucky that I had several fresh vegetables on hand to use in various ways. I had sandwiches with tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, lettuce, and onions and sometimes cheese. I had mustard and cheese sandwiches with onions. Sometimes I had meat with my lettuce, onions, peppers, and tomato sandwiches. To change things up, other times I had a bowl full of diced tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions with Italian dressing. Other times, I would add cottage cheese to this. I don't know if you're seeing a trend here, but except for my bowl of cereal at breakfast, I had onions at every meal. You see, Ward really doesn't like onions--especially the smell of raw ones. So while we do have onions occasionally, I try not to have them around too much. I took advantage of this time he was away, and ate onions to my heart's content. 

Now that Ward's back, I might turn on the stove again. Maybe.

Until next time....



 

A Second Look--August 13, 2014

Here are a few things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

This flower is courtesy of the birds. They are randomly popping up in a lot of places.

This is the third kind of hosta that has started to bloom. The others are almost done.

The surprise lilies are right on schedule this year. Not much of surprise, I guess, but very welcome.

It was getting dark when I took a picture of this balloon flower.

The baby wrens have flown from the nest. It was about a month from the time the eggs were laid until they left.

This nest box has housed successful broods of bluebirds and wrens with sparrows fighting and losing for a chance to use it in between. The wren's nest is on top of the bluebirds nest.

I'm seeing more deer recently in my yard. This one was standing guard for two does and two fawns.

This baby bunny was laying very still in the grass. I don't know where the mother was.

Vampire Electricity

There is a lot of discussion these days about vampire electricity--electricity that is used by an appliance or electronic device when it's not in use but plugged in. These can be things like the digital display on your coffee pot or your phone charger. Most of these discussions can be quite alarming when you see the statistics they list of how much electricity these objects use both in terms of your budget and the carbon footprint. However, the articles usually give one grand number without going into the specifics of individual devices. So recently when I discovered that Miss Landers had a Kill-a-Watt gadget that measures electricity usage of things that plug in, I had to try it. I used it with a few things around the house to get a feel of how much electricity they were actually using. I measured each object for 24 hours and here are the results.

Item	KWH/24 hours	Cost/month	Cost/year
Toaster with display	0.02	$0.07	$0.87
Outlet only	0.03	$0.11	$1.30
Lamp-off, plugged in	0.03	$0.11	$1.30
Coffee pot with display	0.04	$0.14	$1.79
Computer Monitor	0.36	$1.30	$15.55
Laptop-large	0.47	$1.70	$20.30

As you can see, the lamp (turned off), the toaster with a digital display, and the Kill-a-Watt device itself all consumed negligible amounts of electricity--0.02-0.03 KWH/24 hours. I'm assuming that that may be in the margin of error of measurement, but I don't know for sure. The coffee pot display only consumed a little more with 0.04 KWH/24 hours. (None of the above items were in use during the measurement. They were just plugged in.) However, the monitor and laptop did use noticeable amounts of electricity although a lot less than I thought they would. I didn't measure only when they were turned off, but all of their use during a 24 hour period. The monitor is in use quite a bit, but does go into a power saving mode at night. The laptop is from Ward's work and is quite large and old. I'm sure that many newer ones and certainly tablets use less electricity than this one. However, that's what we had. Even with their heavier usage, the monitor and laptop consumed less that 1 KWH in a 24 hour period.

I then translated this usage into what it meant financially and that was a lot harder than I thought it would be. I assumed that I would just be able to read the charge for a KWH off of my electric bill, but it's not so simple. Besides that number, you also have to add in the additional costs that you pay every month. I ended up with $0.12/KWH as a reasonable estimate (only about half of that number is actual electric use). Rates vary across the country, so you may be paying more or less for your electricity. What I saw was that even if I leave all of these objects plugged in for a year, they're not going to break the bank.

I had a lot more measurements planned, but Theo took the device back with him one weekend. He wanted to measure various things in his apartment trying to see if he can cut his budget any more--mostly if there is a more efficient way to cool things. When I get it back, next up will be the TV. It's an Energy Star one and is supposed to only cost $6.00/year to operate (plugged in all of the time, 5 hours/day on.) I'm interested in that one in particular because it is supposed to be one of the bad offenders of drawing phantom power but the $6/year doesn't suggest that. We'll see.

Until next time...

More general reading and tips on cutting back on your electricity use:

http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/vampire-power3.htm

http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/columnist/komando/2012/10/26/komando-electric-bills/1649195/

https://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=about.vampires

Thankful Sunday--August 10, 2014

I am thankful for my cats.

Annie and Lucy relaxing with me.

Ward is away for the weekend, but I'm not lonely because the cats are always ready to spend time with me. :)

Compromise

The neighborhood I live in has mostly two acre lots where the houses sit near the front of the lot close to the street. This creates a big backyard and a smaller front yard. There is variability in how the lots are used, but most have some kind of landscaping around the house with the rest being trees and fields. And while our neighbor's yard is somewhat typical of this, it has been interesting to watch it evolve over the years.

From this aerial photo, you can see the spirals in cut into the yard.

When we first moved in, the husband and wife had already decided that the front yard was hers and the backyard was his to do what they each wanted. She was a member of the garden club and had nice flowers around, and he was a member of the natural-look club and had a lot of unmowed areas around. Interestingly, amongst all of the tall grass, he had mowed a spiral pattern in the back which he used as his walking path. With his tall grass, he said that he was trying to create more wildlife habitats. I don't know if this was his real motivation or if he didn't like mowing, but whatever it was, he created a great place for the kids in the neighborhood to play. The spiral maze, along with a huge mulberry tree with branches bending to the ground, made their backyard a favorite place for Wally and Theo and other kids to run, hide, and have great adventures. Luckily, the neighbors were okay with this.

As time went on, the back was not mowed as often, and I noticed that an area in the front was not being mowed either. That was because the husband had decided that he liked to watch the tall grass sway in the wind as he looked out his front window. The wife, wanting to keep things neater, would go out and surreptitiously pull some of this grass, hoping that this new area would not become overgrown like the back. It went along this way for a couple of years until she gave up and decided to enjoy the tall, swaying grass also.

The wildflowers in the front yard.

Health problems and kids moving away from home cut back on their mowing even more. The back gradually lost its circles and the tall, grassy patch in the front became bigger. Eventually, the back became filled with brush and was unused. (Except for the time one of the now grown up neighborhood kids used it to grow marijuana. That was an interesting time with helicopters and Federal agents.) Now the husband had truly created a wonderful habitat for animals, but the wife had less area to showcase her flowers in the front.

However, this year I think they finally came to a compromise that suited both of them. The wife has planted wildflowers in the front yard in the tall grassy area, and the husband now has a yard that is certified as part of Maryland's Wild Acres for wildlife.  From my perspective as a neighbor, I think they have come up to the perfect solution to their differing styles. I am really enjoying the bright blooms of the wildflowers, and I am also enjoying the wildlife that spills over into my yard from their happy homes in the husband's backyard.

Sometimes it takes a while, but there is usually a compromise to be found in all situations. My neighbor's yard is a friendly reminder of that for me.

A Second Look--August 6, 2014

Here's what I saw this week during a Second Look.

I'm starting to get large holes in my basil. This katydid may be partly responsible for that.

On the same basil plant, this small praying mantis was hiding under some leaves.

The bees always love these celosia plants as do the ants. Notice the black spots (ants) at the base of the whitish bloom in the right of the picture.

Unfortunately, the Japanese beetles are also enjoying the day lilies. I managed to get this one off before it did too much damage.

Asparagus berries. I used to have wild asparagus growing several places in my yard. I assume it was "planted" by birds. A few years ago, I dug it all up and planted it in one bed. There's not enough to eat, but they are beautiful plants with  frilly leaves and red berries.

The wrens have just about grown up.

This is the first fawn I've seen in our yard this year although it may have been helping to eat some of our plants when I wasn't looking.

Thankful Sunday--August 3, 2014

I am thankful for family and friends.

Some of the family and friends I spent the weekend with.

This weekend I went to a family reunion and caught up with family and friends. A good time was had by all, and I enjoyed three kinds of deviled eggs, played cornhole, and learned that my paternal 4th great grandmother was a famous Indian fighter.

Details, details:

• Not only did I enjoy three kinds of deviled eggs, I had a slice of a Twinkie Cake--chocolate cake with cream filling topped with chocolate icing. I guess it could be more appropriately named, a "Hostess Cupcake Cake" but whatever it was, it was good. :)
• Yes, I did win the cornhole game I played because Ward was my partner. Let's just say that I am a little wild with my throws and not a big scorer.
• My 4th great grandmother was born in England 1761 and after coming to this country she was kidnapped by Indians and all of her children were killed. After a period in captivity, she made it home to her husband. Then she had some more children of which I am descended from. Apparently, she was famous and has been written up in several books, but I had no idea she existed until recently. Now I have stories about my brave grandmother to go with stories about my great, great uncle's moonshine business. (However, I guess that business took a certain kind of bravery too.)