Dairy Daze...and Now Beyond

 One of the great joys of summer are the melons!   On Friday a neighbor messaged me and said they had a bunch of watermelons and did we want any.  Yes!  Of course!  Ha!  Who can turn down a free watermelon? They also had a pile of cantaloupe too, so I got a couple of those.  Both Gary and I have lots of fun memories surrounding melons. Back when we were kids there was no such thing as seedless watermelon, so almost invariably as kids we ended up outside with a wedge of watermelon so we could spit the seeds out into the yard. We of course would have to listen to our parents telling us to be careful and not swallow the seeds or else we'd grow vines out of our ears! I distinctly remember that my mom would give my dad a large round slice from the center of the melon in a plate and he would sit and eat it with a spoon.  Now, cantaloupe was a different story of course. The ones we got back then weren't huge. I vaguely remember that half of one was ...

 Today I've nothing really much to say, but just wanted to start posting pictures again. For some reason my iPhone photos aren't linked to my Google account, so it won't post pictures on here when I try to blog from the phone. But here I am on the laptop, where my Google account and the accompanying photos on it, are linked to my old Android. Strange, but true.   Ellen will probably flip if she ever sees this photo, but I'm posting it anyway because it brings up many of my own childhood memories.   Where I grew up our lives in the summer centered around gardening; weeding, hoeing, tilling, harvesting, shelling peas, snapping green beans, shucking corn, and watering with garden hoses. There on the North Coast of California, in Humboldt County, it rarely got up to 80 degrees in the summer. I didn't even know what air conditioning was back then. During the summers back then it didn't rain.  Humboldt County is known for being quite wet in the fall and winter, b...

 Happenings from the House of Howard  Ellen has resumed pursuing her interest in playing drums.  Since she has been working this summer she saved up enough money and bought herself an electronic (I think that's what they call them) drum set.  She is faithful to practice every day.  I'm glad she has this outlet because I think it helps with her anxiety and general stress to get in there and whack away at the drums.  She has always loved music, it helps her deal with stress. Since I posted about it on Facebook there have been several people who have mentioned that they had always fancied playing drums, but had never followed through with it. I'm glad Ellen has followed through. It will give her something to occupy her, and something to strive for.   Gary has been super busy working on well repairs the past couple of weeks; seems like almost every day last week he went out to one job or another. I'm thankful he has Doug to help him. They enjoy going ...

 Actually, let's do the vaguely funny first.   Last week Gary and his sister Gail went on a driving tour to Kentucky and West Virginia and a loop around back home.  I didn't want to go this time, I don't do well on driving tours, Ellen had to work, and it just didn't work this year for all of us to go.  So Ellen and I stayed home and had the care of the chickens and Gail's cat. Princess, the cat, stayed in our little cat "habitat" that Gary had made several years ago for this purpose. We parked it in the shade and I made sure to take her frozen 2 liter bottles of ice and place on her shelf to cool her off if she needed it.  She did great.  I kept her food and treats in the house, of course.  One morning I got up and found the bag of cat treats on the laundry room floor; torn open with only 2 remaining.   I had wondered why Smudge hadn't been in to wake me up for her breakfast! Crazy pudgy cat. ************************** This past week, t...

 Life is not all gloom and doom in the House of Howard.  About a year and a half ago in the fall my sister-in-law planted 4 little thornless blackberry starts she'd ordered from a plant/seed company.  She wasn't sure if they were going to survive, but she plunked them into the ground and prayed for the best.  She had to make sure they were covered with netting to protect them from the deer and the ground hogs that wander through.   Last year she got quite a bit off of them, enough to take up some room in her freezer and provide her with a few berry pies over the course of the year.   Those 4 little canes went crazy, put off all sorts of shoots and they are bearing like they are on fire. Her freezer is as full as it can get and I have over a gallon of them in my fridge that I am going to work up into jelly or jam or preserves of some kind this week. Ha! Two weeks ago I'd put up a couple pints of freezer jam with them. They are starting to slow down...

Reading and writing are in my blood, you know.  My mom always told the story of the first night she and my dad brought me home from the hospital after I was born; my dad propped me in his lap and read the daily newspaper to me.  And this continued to be the theme of my early life; being read to. As far back as I can remember we always had kids books in the house, and my mom would read them to me. After I reached a certain age I am sure I wasn't interested in listening to my dad read the newspaper, but my mom read any number of books to me. I can't remember them all, but I do remember every year in school during the book fair I would order a pile of books. One series I remember from elementary school was Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books.  I remember a couple different series by Beverly Cleary; Ramona Quimby and all of her adventures, and Henry Huggins. The Encyclopedia Brown series about a boy detective, those were fun books.  Oh, oh, and I remember my b...