You Know You Need Rest When...

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1.  On the way to take your man-child to Man Class, you have pillows in the back seat so you can steal a nap in a parking lot somewhere...

and

2.  The policewoman who pulls you over for speeding over roads on which everyone is going the same MPH, but you happened to be the one passing by when she flipped on her radar, asks you if you are on drugs because you look just, well, awful.  

Ah well, no matter!   I am achieving yet another first adventure.  I am writing a blog post from a McDonald's booth.   I have a wadded up red and white paper bag in which lies an empty French fry holder just to my right, alongside an icy swig of caffeine, and to my left is a lovely bouquet of white daisies.  I just reached out to see if they are real and sure enough!

I did bring along a book in case I feel like reading.  "The Biblical Flood and the Ice Epoch".   A VERY cool read, if I do say so.  But I'm pretty sure this will keep me busy.

I had half prepared a post about our annual winter ballet production.  But I sort of got carried away with the photos.   My long term blogging friends are well aware of this weakness I have for telling a story with images. So now I am trying to decide how to whittle down over a hundred photos to less than a dozen.   Eeny-meeny-miney-mo...

Instead, I will bludgeon you with a few photos of Michael, the man child.   You haven't seen a lot of him lately.  Actually, neither have I.   He's rather busy with adventures of is own.    Well, OK.   It's true I do see a lot of him, but it feels like I don't as I have to frequently share him with all his activities.   

He has taken to making some humorous videos.  Here is a self portrait while explaining 'hats' to the world.



Flipping out in gymnastics with some friends.



All dressed up and ready for both weddings and office cleaning.  What a versatile young man!



A mobile video.   This one on the subject of strange things that happen in parking lots while waiting for your mother.



At a Seder dinner we celebrated last month.



He asked for gift certificates to the local Home Improvement Center to begin his collection of quality tools.  He is very happy to have two nice chests (semi) full of tools with lifetime warranties.  Those are expensive so it didn't go as far as filling them, but he's got a great start.



Wish I could show you his belt ceremony from martial arts earlier this week, but I missed it.   I was sleeping in the car outside....

However, he is doing really well at it.   He is enjoying all sorts of violent things lately.   All that testosterone, you know.

This is not Michael.  It's one of his friends who kindly posed for some portraits for Michael's photography class while they were out and about.  But this is often how Michael looks; blended into the local surroundings, wearing lots of ammo -  and a huge grin.



OK.   I should be getting a text any minute now, giving me an estimated time of departure for going and picking him up.

Grateful for caffeine these days,

~Faith

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Dr. Eggplant and Mr. Cultivation

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A beautiful day! No sun, but the drizzle stopped this morning, I got a call from one of my sons, and we had a really nice visit here at the farm with lovely friends.

Today was to be a day of catch up work and, I suppose it was, in a way. Except the only thing we caught up on was cultivation and more cultivation.

The steady precipitation we've gotten over the last few weeks has managed to occur on pretty much every block of time we had available to do much work outside, so cultivating has not been steady.

When you can keep up on it, it goes quickly, but if your weeds have taken root, you have to go deeper and you run into rocks and you have to clear them out, and you break cultivators.

Fairly early this morning I was going around the corn hills...










...and the old wood just snapped. We toyed with the idea of buying a powered cultivator, but that was when we thought it might be 50 dollars. Upon looking them up online, we discovered they were several hundred dollars. So off we went to the home improvement center to buy a replacement handle, an additional cultivator so Michael and I could work together when needed, and a little spiky thing that fits between plants so we don't have to get on our hands and knees to work there.

Here is a tip on how to replace a handle on your garden tools. You place the metal working piece into the hole at the end of the pole, then pound in with a hammer until the metal cuff is bent out and fits snugly. Don't bend your tool, use some sort of metal implement such as a big screwdriver or something to lay between the tines and pound on that with the hammer.






The eggplants are about done in by those flea beetles. I looked for large plants in town, but they were almost 4 dollars each. That, along with all the labor to grow them, puts the price per fruit pretty darn high, in my opinion. I bought new seeds instead, but the same will happen again. So I purchased ONE eggplant...






... and put in under a jar to see if the flea beetles would find it. They did not, at least all this first day. I can't leave the jar there on warm or sunny days, it will be baked eggplant way too soon. But I hope my wee brain comes up with some sort of brilliant idea to protect them.






I don't buy a lot of eggplant, but I have a garden, and I'm going to grow them! Because that's what gardens are for.

I can smell the Parmesan, Italian seasonings, and bread crumbs in the oven already.

Faith

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