As Our Life Goes On

It is oppressively hot and humid today. I don't function well at all in the extreme heat. Staying inside and catching up with some light housework is about all I care to do.

The windows in our home are over 60 years old and they are still in good condition. We do have to keep them caulked and painted regularly to keep them that way. We use one large capacity slider window air conditioner to cool our home. We are not into being cold so the upstairs window is where the unit is installed. It dehumidifies the air in the house and if the temperature is around 70 to 75 degrees in the house on a very hot day we don't feel uncomfortable at all. We suffer badly when we visit homes where the air conditioned temperatures are kept around 60 or 62 degrees. We do keep sweaters in our cars in case a friend thrives on the cold temperatures and we have to make a visit. Russ is shown in the pictures above doing one of the jobs he does not like. My job was to watch in case there would be an accident. Thankfully that did not happen. The air conditioner is installed just in time for the hot weather today.

Look carefully at the top of the front fender. That tiny toad really liked the heat from the car because it did not move when Russ and a neighbor went to work checking some things out under the hood of my car. They watched carefully so they would not lay their hands on the toad but they did have their hands very close and it did not move. Our neighbor Harold who is working on the car is one of the twins that lives just down the road from us. The twins, Harry and Harold,  are in their mid eighties, eighty-six to be exact. They used to drive identical trucks and cars. I was not good at telling them apart when I saw them individually back then. I always waved at their brown trucks as they drove past my home. Then I wondered which one had driven by. They supposedly are not identical but they look very much alike. I could always tell them apart when I saw them together. As they have aged there are more differences apparent and I know who I am talking to when I see them singly. Cozy

Click picture twice to enlarge. The Hartville Flea Market was HUGE today. There were more people at this pre-Memorial Day special than I have seen in a very long time. We got there fairly early so a good parking place was secured. We took our travel van as we prefer to have our own bathroom when the crowds are so large. The produce selection was great and large fresh red radishes that were grown in Hartville caught my eye. These radishes will be included in a fresh vegetable platter that I will serve tomorrow. I will prepare a colorful red, white and green selection of veggies to honor the holiday. Perhaps a blue cloth underneath the platter will add that color. I have been searching for another small birdhouse and today I actually found just what I wanted. There were plenty of new birdhouses at the market but none of these suited me. They were too country cutesy and some were entirely too big or too heavy. When I spotted this plain old house I asked the price and found that it was

Click on pictures twice to see enlarged pictures My husband called me from his workplace late yesterday afternoon and told me to come down to see this new baby. It was in the tall grasses of the rough on the golf course. I hope it keeps hiding as there is a resident population of coyotes also living around the golf course area. A doe was seen very recently chasing a coyote. It may have been protecting a young one. The tiny White-Tailed deer can weigh 6 to 8 pounds at birth. That is no larger than an human baby. This tiny deer in the picture is much smaller than it looks in the pictures and many have been only hours or days old. We quickly took the pictures and hurried away so as not to stress the little one as it laid down flat in the tall grass to hide from us.

This super wet weather has caused a lot of mushrooms or toadstools to sprout up. The type shown in the pictures grows under our tall pine trees every year. That is the same fungus in the pictures but one picture shows the mushroom after it opened. There should be some tiny elves somewhere as this is the classic style that seems to be depicted in many books featuring the fictional characters. The yard has more water than has been there in years. It is just so wet and very soggy. The magic that we would like the most is for the heavy rains to stop for a while.

The Weigela was planted by me a few years ago. It has multicolored flowers but I wish they were all the darker rose color. The mixed colors and variegated leaves make it a pretty shrub however. I am really not sure if this flowering shrub was in the woods behind the house when we moved here over 40 years ago or not so I have to guess that it is here by chance. The pretty Columbine flowers that sprout up at various places around the property are here by chance because I never planted any in the garden or yard. There are various colors and the graceful drooping flowers are very pretty this year.  By chance birds deposited the seeds for the wild blueberry plant that grows at the base of an old wild cherry tree. There are plenty of little fruits developing. These blueberries have rather sour taste and they are quite small but they add a lot of flavor to a fruit salad. The ferns in the picture just started growing in some of the areas around our property by chance but I planted t

 Our area escaped the massive storms that hit other parts of Ohio last night. We traveled to North Canton today to visit with a friend who had been in the hospital for some time. It was good to see him at home recovering. We have missed his drop in visits. The visit made the afternoon fly by.  I think that the pictures reveal that there was actually some sunshine today. A trip around the yard which is saturated revealed some newly opened flowers and a butterfly on the chives. The Allium is almost fully open. I was hoping that the bulbs would divide and send up more flowers this year but that did not happen. More storms are expected this week so yard work must be done when the sun shines.

 This picture was taken in December but it does show the vehicles that are featured in this blog. The vintage 1974 International Harvester Travelall on the left in the background has been a very reliable vehicle. We have had the 1981 dark green Suburban for about 25 years and it has also had a great record of reliability. On Saturday Russ and his friend Richard decided to go to Pennsylvania.  Richard would be driving so Russ only had to go to Edinburg to ride with Richard. Russ hopped into the International early in the morning and took off for Edinburg. I left home soon after that to go to a flea market so I remained blissfully unaware of any problems until I returned home. When I returned home both the International and the Oldsmobile were gone. This confused me until I read the notes left for me in the house. The International had started to sputter and cough within 5 miles of the house. He was able to get it to our son's house. He gave our son an early morning wake up cal

A lack of sunshine has caused the chives to stay closed for a long time but the pretty purple flowers are now opening. I measured the chives in front of the house and they are over two feet tall.  They look like a giant version of what usually grows in my gardens. The extra moisture from the unending rain has made all of our plants reach extraordinary heights. Certainly I need to preserve some of these chives so that we can enjoy the flavor in our soups and other foods all next year.

  Sometimes we can make inappropriate responses to sights we see. I certainly am guilty of this. It was a warm and sunny day for the Hartville flea market today and it was just packed with people.  It was warm enough for shorts and short sleeved shirts.  There are ways to dress for shopping. This would include a hat to shade your eyes, a long sleeved shirt to protect your arms from early season sunburn, comfortable shoes,  a fanny pack for your money so you can use both hands to examine your finds and perhaps a shoulder bag to stash your packages for carrying. I was lucky today because I did not have to observe the sight at the market that I really dislike the most. A large flea market in Pennsylvania has a lunch room in the fire hall. One day we had just seated ourselves next to each other on the same side of one of the long tables to eat our lunch. There was a man seated with his back to us at the table next to ours.  We were greeted by the sight of about 5 inches his butt

There seems to be a great deal of the Ajuga ground cover growing in our yard this year. The plants are taller and more lush than usual due to the amount of rain that has fallen. Today was a good day to transplant some of the ground cover plants to other places in the yard. The ground is saturated so the plants are easy to remove from the ground and the soft dirt yields easily to the shovel for transplanting. A couple of dry days with sunshine should dry some things out but the picture below shows the tracks from the old yard tractor. Only some areas of the yard are being cut off today. Perhaps these areas will dry off more before the next rain falls. The grass is getting quite high in some spots. 

May Apple Blossom Sweet smelling Russian Olive Deep Deer Track The mud splashed up onto my bare legs as I dared to walk around the yard in my shorts today. I know that 65 degrees does not seem terribly warm but I thought it was time to wear the shorts anyway. The deer are making very deep depressions when they travel through our yard. This can make the mower bounce around a lot. We have not been able to mow a second time as it has rained so much that the yard is mushy mud. See picture above. The May Apples are blooming as are the fragrant Russian Olives. A sweet odor is in the air. The sun in shining and this put me in a very good mood.

Gray skies crowded out the brief spot of sunshine that brightened our day and our moods. I was lucky to get a quick walk around the yard before the skies turned loose buckets of rain. Our gutters overflowed making a curtain of water along the front of our porch.   Our home is in the Great Lakes watershed so the runoff from the water that falls here on our yard goes to Lake Erie and then eventually into the Atlantic Ocean. It is hard to imagine that even one drop of the water that fell on our roof could possibly flow over Niagara Falls and then end up in the Ocean. The foliage on the Solomon's Seal Plant is very lush this year.

As I dodged the many deep holes in the entrance and parking lot of this older shopping plaza in a nearby town I wondered how much longer it will survive at all.  A major grocery chain store was the anchor store a few years ago and the plaza seemed fairly well occupied. When that store moved to a newer plaza the number of stores in this plaza started to decline as did the condition of the parking areas. There are only a few stores left in the plaza at this time. The Walmart was across the street next to this plaza. A newer larger Walmart was built about a mile down the street. That has caused even more of the stores to go out of business or move. The owner of this declining plaza probably can't afford to fix the parking lot but one of my favorite thrift stores is still there. I will just continue to find my way in around the deep holes and heaved pavement areas.

I'll have to admit that it may not take too much to make me happy. How could I look out on another dark rainy and very cold day and have any degree of happiness? When I looked out of the kitchen window first thing this morning I saw a tiny bird fly by the window and light on the wires just outside. It was a wren. I could hear the other birds singing but the wren was not quite ready to burst forth into song. I do hope it chooses the birdhouse just outside of out back door. Hearing the wren sing every morning never fails to start my day right. Russ cut more firewood and the wood stove is warming our home again. There may be a dry warmer day with no rain next Saturday. That is a hope to hang on to.

Lots of water! A dark cloudy sky. Our small building is in a puddle of water that now goes under and around 3 sides of the little shed. The puddles have extended further out into the yard after last nights rain. Every step in the grass makes a squishing noise as there is water laying on top of the soil. The extra wetness has caused the mosquito population to burgeon. Our garage is full of the nasty blood suckers and they seem to sneak in the doors when we open them to enter the house. I have not been awakened by one of the insects buzzing around my head yet though. There are lots of wetlands around this area and the mosquitoes can probably hatch out of the many puddles that are now in the yards and ditches.   It may be necessary to use repellent when going outside for the rest of the year. Rain is forecast every day for the next week.

The yard was just drying out before another round of rain came through and rain is expected on 9 of the next 10 days according to the latest weather reports. We should keep in mind the people who have lost their homes and possessions because of the terrible flooding.

It was extremely windy and rainy during the rainstorm late yesterday. We found this near the bottom of some of our very tall trees. We sure were glad there were not a group of baby squirrels laying on the ground with the nest. It is almost too wet to work around in the yard again but since it is supposed to rain every day until next week I will grab my rain gear and just do it.

 It would be rather boring to walk around my yard and see only chemical laden carefully manicured grass. Our park-like lawn includes ground ivy, spring beauties, moss and many other plants. The moss looks soft enough for a nap but there are too many bugs down there.