Thankful Sunday--June 5, 2016

I am thankful for the simple beauty of a rose.

Birthdays, Veggies, and Cicadas

or Three Days Last Week

Day 3

Theo celebrated his birthday. After the Carnivores ate a birthday meal consisting of a lot of meat, we all went on a hike. Theo went with a full pack because he is training to go backpacking again.

We saw deer. I like seeing deer in the woods better than by my front door.

Even though wild rose can completely take over an area, it was pretty to see as we hiked along.

The trail went through some low areas where we saw a lot of skunk cabbage and Jack-in-the-Pulpits. This one was about 2 feet tall--much taller than the ones in my backyard.

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Day 2

The day before Theo's birthday, Uncle Billy and Aunt Martha invited us over to share in some of their harvest. Their shared bounty was served with Theo's birthday meal (where we actually had more than meat. I needed something to fill up on.)  :)

Most of Uncle Billy's asparagus is gone, but we were still able to get enough for a meal.

Aunt Martha shared some of her collards with us. I cooked them in the slow cooker with sausage. 

We have been eating the broccoli in salads.

The cauliflower wasn't quite ready to harvest, but I just had to take a picture of this beautiful head.

While Aunt Martha and I were in the greens patch, Ward was picking strawberries. There's nothing like a sweet berry straight from the vine. And we all had some straight from the vine.

Uncle Billy has grown the biggest radishes I have ever seen. Notice the quarter for scale. Instead of eating the whole radish like I'm used to, we ate slices from them. Per Lili's example we cooked the radish greens with the collards.

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Day 1

The day before our harvesting, Aunt Martha and I were in cicada country where we were visiting my mother. In some areas they were so loud, they literally hurt my ears.

The noise comes from the males trying to attract a female. I don't know if it's true, but I read that they may be attracted to you if you are running a lawn mower because they think that it's another cicada. That's how loud they can be. I still find them fascinating. but I will leave it to someone else who is actually in the middle of this hatch to tell you more about them.

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So there you have it. Three days last week.

A Second Look

The constant rain has turned into just showers and the lower-than-normal temperatures have turned into hot and humid days. Summer is here. Most of the plants have been happy with both situations. For instance, yesterday I noticed in one of the beds the weeds were three feet tall. Last time I looked, I didn't see any. And the foliage on the day lilies is especially vigorous (what the deer haven't eaten). We'll see if the blooms follow suit.

The azaleas and rhododendron are done blooming, but iris continue to bloom in new places. Many other plants are forming buds, but haven't flowered yet. All of the baby birds are out of the nest boxes and I have cleaned them out. The sparrows and wrens had already started rebuilding. I hope the bluebirds will come back.

Here are a few things I saw this week 

during a Second Look.

Iris

Pansy

Iris

Spirea

Pansy

Iris

Yellow Star of Bethlehem

Iris

Rozanne Geranium

Tulip Poplar

Onto Fingers

or The Interesting and the Strange

A few weeks ago, I did a couple of posts about toes--specifically, pedicures. Well, now it's time to give fingers some equal time.

I read something recently about fingers that I found very interesting. It concerned the prune-like fingers you get when you've had your hands in water for a long time. Apparently if you have nerve damage to your fingers, the skin on them won't wrinkle when it gets overly wet. This knowledge has been around at least since 1936 when a journal article was published about a case involving a young man who had the nerves to some of his fingers cut but not others. And you guessed it, the ones without nerve connections didn't wrinkle when wet, but the others did.

So how does the prune-effect happen anyway? Well, I'm not sure that I understand it all, but it is something like this. We have sweat glands in our fingers. Not only does water come out of those, it also goes in. When there is extra water absorbed, they expand. The nerves sense this and tell the small arteries in the fingers to contract which results in wrinkles.

Source

Now I found the above bit of information really interesting. However, I find the next bit of information about fingers just strange. In Hong Kong, they have nail polish that tastes like KFC chicken. There are two flavors--regular and hot and spicy.While the idea of licking my fingertips all day is gross to me, I have to admit that to have nail polish that tastes like fried chicken and is "finger lickin' good" is a brilliant marketing scheme.

Apparently, Hong Kong doesn't have the market on edible nail polish. There is a company based in California that sells edible nail polish for kids. It's called Kid Licks and was founded on the basis that kids put everything in their mouth anyway, so might as well have some fun and paint their nails. They have three colors: Beet Red, Sour Carrot Orange, and Barley Grass Green. They are made from organic, non GMO ingredients and can be removed with water. In fact, if your kid puts their hands in their mouth a lot, they won't last very long. This product just seems silly to me, but I, myself, rarely have a manicure, so I'm not sure how to judge.

What do you think about this world of finger news?

Stay tuned for the next in the series of strange (to me) body things, when we move on to faces.

We Were on Vacation

or You Can Go Home Again

I just got back from visiting my mother in a long term care facility in my hometown. I went with Aunt Martha and we played the vacation game during the trip. That meant that since we were on vacation, it was okay to splurge. For example, when we were looking for something sweet to eat and couldn't decide whether to get cookies or ice cream, we got both. Because we were on vacation.

I got a chuckle seeing the hummingbird feeder at my mother's
place hanging on an IV pole. Notice the walking path
in the background.

We stayed in the house we grew up in and watched TV, played games, and stayed up late. That was okay. Because we were on vacation. And when we were visiting our mother and needed a little break or just wanted to have some fun, we took a walk around the track there--multiple times per day. Because we were on vacation. Sometimes we even convinced our mother to go with us.

And when you're on vacation in your home town, you definitely do things you might not do other places when you're not on vacation. Here is an example.

My mother asked us to take her watch into the local jewelry store to get a couple more links put in the band because it was too tight. The next morning,  Kevin, the jeweler, fixed the band and put in a new battery for no charge. He asked about my mother and also told me that he had worked summers with my father. As we were talking, he asked if he could look at the prongs on my ring. He said that three were broken and if one more broke I would lose the stone. So I left it with him to be fixed.

Later that day, I decided that I wanted both my wedding band and engagement ring to be resized, so I left both rings with Kevin.  Aunt Martha and I got silly and picked out a new wedding band for me to wear while I wait for the originals to be fixed. Because we were on vacation.

But the story doesn't stop here. I stopped in one more time to ask about the engraving on my band and met someone who went to school with my older sister, Mary Ellen. I found out that he is a master craftsman who makes knives. He offered that the next time Ward comes to town, he'd teach Ward to make a knife. I took down his name and number and promised to call next time we were in town. On vacation.

Going home again is often hard because things change. My father is gone and my mother can no longer live at home. Sometimes that makes me sad. But those are things I can't change. So, I try to not think of these visits as going home again, I try to think of them as a vacation. A fun vacation to a familiar, comfortable place where everybody knows my name. And when I think of them that way, I can go home again.