On 10/7/2017 9:48 AM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/7/2017 7:52 AM, Frank wrote:

I finally gave in and retired completely after seeing how bad some
companies were and are still. Stopped writing safety manuals and just
said the hell with it. I'm much happier and much healthier since I
hung up my hard hat. Still have problems from long ago strokes and
heart attacks but still kicking along at age 78. Just got my DNA test
back last night and it is not what my parents claimed. I'm not a half
breed Native American, only less than 1% Native, my folks claimed
more. Of course there was no DNA tests when they were young and just
knew what their parents told them. Dang!

Interesting.Â* I got mine back a couple of weeks ago and it was
unusual. I thought I was half Italian and half Lithuanian but Italian
part is only 20% and rest is central and eastern European. 14%
European Jew which I guess means the tribes of that region that
migrated to Europe.

One daughter in laws sister is into genealogy and is a member of the
DAR.Â* She had the test and found 2% African and demanded her parents
take the test to see where it came from.Â* My daughter in law thinks
this is funny and when I asked her what she thought she said it just
means an ancestor was adventuresome.Â* Our new granddaughter is 1%
African and I told my lawyer son that it is good and would qualify her
as a minority who could become a law professor at Harvard.

In the south of the USA there are probably a tint of African blood in a
lot of people. Could be even from when our family was still in the home
land, overseas. I see nothing to worry about in my bloodline, just
waiting for wife's DNA to come in. Her folks were mostly German and
English so it should be interesting too. My folks and hers have been
gone a good while. I have one half sister still living but in late
eighties and lives in a nursing home now. We haven't spoken in 20 years
or more and there won't be any before we are both gone. I'm hoping to go
to sleep one night and not wake up. I've had enough surgeries, etc. and
am still kicking, well, can't kick, can only walk on flat surfaces, but
I can still get around with my cane so I'm happy. I have about a dozen
canes, mostly bought when we were exploring Asia and Europe. Couldn't
carry a gun so carried a heavy cane. My favorite cane rides in my car
and has several nicks in the heavy lacquer that hides the iron wood. G


I was surprised that neither wife or I had any african trace. Her and a
son had done theirs before me. Her parents were of Greek extraction
born in Turkey. She had told me that I was responisble for the 7%
European Jew in our son and I figured that her family lines were closer
to that area but she was right. I sent my results to my brother and
told him he did not need to get his.

I still have all my facilities but they just do not work as well. I
walked 2 miles this morning but was walking 4 last year. Kness started
bothering me doing it every day. Mentioned that I am giving up hunting
as all I have access to is public land and not being handicapped cannot
hunt the closest stands. Last year I had to walk a mile and a quarter
to reach the assigned stand in muzzle loader season. Also getting up at
3 am to get on the road by 4 and get there by 5 to claim stand drawn in
lottery is no fun. I was almost late getting the stand because of road
construction.

Went to my shooting club yesterday after over 4 months and was surprised
how poor shooting was until I started practicing. Things really get out
of tune without practice. I do have early stage AMD which affects
target accquisition.

Most important to maintain is mental facilities. My father spent 5
years in a nursing home with multi infarct dementia after a stroke. He
died at 88. One of my classmates, the best athlete, just died of
dementia. He excelled in all sports but won a football scholarship to
Maryland and was drafted by the pros. He only spent a year there as at
6 feet tall and only 200 pounds was too small. Could have been head
trauma but I've seen it in a lot of non-athletic friends.

Wife met our new family doctor yesterday and was given dementia test.
She said this morning, "I don't think I needed that test, what do you
think?" Then said, "Don't answer that."

On 10/7/2017 11:10 AM, wrote:
George Shirley wrote:

The boss lady and I turned out the 22 cubic foot freezer after lunch.
Found frozen stuff back to 2012 tucked away into corners. Still good
mostly but it seemed that several bags that were vacuum pumped didn't
actually seal.
Our freezer is empty and clean at this time. We disposed of a fair
proportion of its contents during a recent extended electricity outage.
Moved items we judged to be safe to eat into the fridge freezer when the
juice came back on but left the freezer empty for a thorough cleaning.
In the late 1990's my wife and I did a real-world test of every
counter top vacuum sealer as well as every brand of bags available to us
at retail, OTC and online. The best of the vacuum pumps was Tilia
Foodsaver but I can achieve a higher vacuum using my modified high-end
bicyle pump. More importantly, for practical purposes, 100% of the
heat-sealed bags failed within a few months. Most of them failed at the
"factory" seams; very few failed at the appliance's heat seal. That's
why I use Mason jars. In earlier days, we vacuum-stored some dried and
some frozen foods in Mason jars. Don't do it anymore but still have the
works ;-) Same for pressure canning, although, I dont think we'd use
our present stock of jars for pressure canning.
The last time I used the Tilia Foodsaver was to remove excess fluid
from an overfilled automatic transmission. That would have been 2001,
'02, or thereabouts. I recently sent the Foodsaver to the landfill
because it is dead.
Our foodsaver is still chugging along even though it is almost 20 years
old. Had thought of buying one of the high dollar ones but still keep
the food saver.
Instead of going through the blanching, chilling, etc. preparatory
to freezing stuff, as often as is reasonable, we incoporate garden
produce, AWA some store-bought vegies, into finished or nearly finished
side dishes that are frozen. Easy enough to do as part of regular meal
preparation. We just cook enough of whatever for, say, four (or however
many) instead of just for two. I'm serious when observing that I garden
to eat thaw 'n gnaw! I pay the electricity co-op to let us bypass that
other stuff.
We do much the same when we have large crops coming in and we want to
hang onto the grub instead of passing it along to kids, grands, etc.

But we definitely still have the "works".

Man, I just can't get okra right. Always seem to plant more than is
needed and have way too much in the freezer (most of it the last step
away from ready to fry), not to mention daily new okra but you have to
keep taking it in order to keep getting it. The two "spineless"
varieties that I grow regularly become noticeably less so as the plants
mature at summer's end. I usually plant new okra in late summer instead
of continuing to prune crapped-out bushes. Began getting okra from this
year's fall stand a couple of days back. If winter holds off like it
"should", there'll be okra in the freezer fairly soon. Got mustards
under them doing nicely. Also have late peppers (two varieties of sweet
bell peppers, two of jalapeño, one pepperoncini, two of Tabasco. Most
of them will be diced and frozen immediately, although some of the japs
are frozen whole. Don't know what to do with the pepperoncini but I'm
thinking of using some in a BWB pepper vinegar (called "pepper sauce" in
parts of the South) in the same manner as the jalapeño and Tabasco.
BIL's recipe is fine with me.
Okra, in our climate, grows like the weed it is. Wife dearly loves the
stuff, I eat it french fried in deep oil, or in a gumbo or a soup. I've
seen the woman eat it raw. Yuck!

Hah! We tried that map thing. Keeping the map updated and useful
became an exercise in futility that we sometimes laugh about now, when
we have to put our heads together to try figure out what's where. Now,
it seems that we've sort of divided the freezer into invisible "areas"
into which we pretend to separate foods by nebulous categories.
If I'm the one doing the diving it works, if wife goes in everything
gets jumbled up. I now carry the key to the big freezer so she can't get
into it, otherwise it gets tossed around.

Where I lived in earlier years, we always had citrus including now
antique orange varieties, grapefruit, kumquats, tangerine, tangelo.
Also at times had papaya, mango and guavas. Several successive cold
winters took out the papaya, mangoes, and guavas and significantly
reduced the amount of dooryard citrus. Guavas are coming back in the
phosphate mining areas. Where I live now, we have a sour as hell
volunteer (seedling) tangerine tree that, after years and years finally
gets enough sunshine to produce small sour tangerines, although, my
neighbor insists that its "Clementine" oranges. I don't think the guy
ever has seen and actuall Clementine. From 1977 to winter of 1983-'84
we drove through miles of mature orange groves to get here. The even
colder winter of 1988 or thereabouts not only took out the survivors of
the previous super cold but also the replacement trees. The growers
wisely gave up citrus and now all of that land is planted with pine
trees. The surface water that moderated the winter chill, making citrus
cultivation possible in central and west-central Florida, now is all
gone out the sewers or St. Petersburg, Clearwater and the rest of
Pinellas County, which essentially is not fit for human habitation due
to the absence of fresh ground water. Af course, as long as the yankee
assholes running this and neighboring counties keep selling them water
to flush their toilets, everything's fine, just fine and they all expect
to be dead by the time the water runs out or all becomes salty so why
care?.

The pear tree still has several small pears still getting
a little bigger. Was afraid there would be no pears nor kumquats after
the hard freezes of last January. I would like to put in another fruit
tree but am not sure there is enough room in this small property.
We have no pears, apples or peaches that do well in this climate,
despite past attempts to introduce "improved" varieties that were
purported to be fit for this climate and soil.
Within my memory, folks have tried growing varieties of
blackberries, apples, wine grapes, table grapes, and as far as I can
tell the only success accrued to the folks selling stuff to the farmers.
I have a neighbor with a long history of trying diiferent cultivars
of peaches with no success. They usually get duped into blooming by
warm January and February days only to have the blossoms burned by
freezing temperatures, which can occur at any time during those months.
In addition, the peach foliage simply can't take the summer sun. Sun
scald and leaf curling are chronic manifestations. In the event a few
tiny peaches appear, they're almost 100% (used to be 100% but great
strides have been made....) certain to be infested with the maggots of a
tiny opportunistic wasp which laid her eggs in the blossoms' ovaries.
Sensible folks who've been in this part of the country for any length of
time don't waste their efforts on peaches, apples, etc. but the handy
homeowner stores continue to sell them to somebody, I dont know whom.
The same folks who buy strawberry plants or seed potatoes in the spring,
I guess.

I have the same problem with my wife being suckered by the big plant
stores. Oh yeah, this will grow anywhere. Generally she babies it for a
year and then it gets ripped out. Keep telling her that we have three
fruit trees that will grow here, a fig, a kumquat, and a pear bred by a
local state guy that found it as a cross tree in his orchard. If it
doesn't get frozen in January occasionally we get a good crop from it.
She also plants avocado seeds to see if she can get a tree, nope, a
freeze comes by and they turn into dead bushes. When we lived in
Louisiana I had a cross tree between a lemon and an orange, made huge
lemons and lived through the frosts. Kumquats in Louisiana, kumquats in
Texas, produce like crazy and I like them. I can buy apples, etc. at the
local supermarket cheaper than I can keep trying to grow my own.

Here we are on 10/7 and it's 80F outside, only in Texas.

On 10/7/2017 12:39 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/7/2017 9:48 AM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/7/2017 7:52 AM, Frank wrote:


Interesting.Â* I got mine back a couple of weeks ago and it was
unusual. I thought I was half Italian and half Lithuanian but Italian
part is only 20% and rest is central and eastern European. 14%
European Jew which I guess means the tribes of that region that
migrated to Europe.

One daughter in laws sister is into genealogy and is a member of the
DAR.Â* She had the test and found 2% African and demanded her parents
take the test to see where it came from.Â* My daughter in law thinks
this is funny and when I asked her what she thought she said it just
means an ancestor was adventuresome.Â* Our new granddaughter is 1%
African and I told my lawyer son that it is good and would qualify
her as a minority who could become a law professor at Harvard.

I think it's funny too. Probably most folks including Swede's etc. have
African blood. People are people when it comes to getting it on.

I was surprised that neither wife or I had any african trace.Â* Her and a
son had done theirs before me.Â* Her parents were of Greek extraction
born in Turkey.Â* She had told me that I was responisble for the 7%
European Jew in our son and I figured that her family lines were closer
to that area but she was right.Â* I sent my results to my brother and
told him he did not need to get his.

That's the people are people thing again. Ma Nature is always at work.

I still have all my facilities but they just do not work as well.Â* I
walked 2 miles this morning but was walking 4 last year. Kness started
bothering me doing it every day. Mentioned that I am giving up hunting
as all I have access to is public land and not being handicapped cannot
hunt the closest stands.Â* Last year I had to walk a mile and a quarter
to reach the assigned stand in muzzle loader season.Â* Also getting up at
3 am to get on the road by 4 and get there by 5 to claim stand drawn in
lottery is no fun.Â* I was almost late getting the stand because of road
construction.

Tell me about it, took one of those tests to see how smart you are many
years ago, came out with an IQ of 145, I would bet now that it is half
that now. G

Went to my shooting club yesterday after over 4 months and was surprised
how poor shooting was until I started practicing.Â* Things really get out
of tune without practice.Â* I do have early stage AMD which affects
target accquisition.

I mentioned before, I think, I was a gunsmith, ran a gun shop, hunted
every season, built my own guns from old military rifles, my favorite is
a 6.5 that I built on a Italian rifle from WWII with a new barrel,
stock, etc. Put down a lot of deer and hogs with it. Have five firearms
and a pistol in the gun cabinet near by and just clean them annually. My
grandsons want nothing to do with weapons or hunting so I will probably
sell them one day. Can't walk in the field or woods, can't afford a
hunting lease, don't want to go into public lands during hunting season
since I saw the results in the newspaper. Life is a bitch and then you
die. Old Texas words.

Most important to maintain is mental facilities.Â* My father spent 5
years in a nursing home with multi infarct dementia after a stroke.Â* He
died at 88.Â* One of my classmates, the best athlete, just died of
dementia.Â* He excelled in all sports but won a football scholarship to
Maryland and was drafted by the pros.Â* He only spent a year there as at
6 feet tall and only 200 pounds was too small.Â* Could have been head
trauma but I've seen it in a lot of non-athletic friends.

Wife met our new family doctor yesterday and was given dementia test.
She said this morning, "I don't think I needed that test, what do you
think?"Â* Then said, "Don't answer that."

Mine does that occasionally, I just smile gently and go on about my
business with the smile still on. I haven't had a dementia test, YET.

On 10/7/2017 2:27 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/7/2017 12:39 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/7/2017 9:48 AM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/7/2017 7:52 AM, Frank wrote:


Interesting.Â* I got mine back a couple of weeks ago and it was
unusual. I thought I was half Italian and half Lithuanian but
Italian part is only 20% and rest is central and eastern European.
14% European Jew which I guess means the tribes of that region that
migrated to Europe.

One daughter in laws sister is into genealogy and is a member of the
DAR.Â* She had the test and found 2% African and demanded her parents
take the test to see where it came from.Â* My daughter in law thinks
this is funny and when I asked her what she thought she said it just
means an ancestor was adventuresome.Â* Our new granddaughter is 1%
African and I told my lawyer son that it is good and would qualify
her as a minority who could become a law professor at Harvard.

I think it's funny too. Probably most folks including Swede's etc. have
African blood. People are people when it comes to getting it on.

I was surprised that neither wife or I had any african trace.Â* Her and
a son had done theirs before me.Â* Her parents were of Greek extraction
born in Turkey.Â* She had told me that I was responisble for the 7%
European Jew in our son and I figured that her family lines were
closer to that area but she was right.Â* I sent my results to my
brother and told him he did not need to get his.

That's the people are people thing again. Ma Nature is always at work.

I still have all my facilities but they just do not work as well.Â* I
walked 2 miles this morning but was walking 4 last year. Kness started
bothering me doing it every day. Mentioned that I am giving up hunting
as all I have access to is public land and not being handicapped
cannot hunt the closest stands.Â* Last year I had to walk a mile and a
quarter to reach the assigned stand in muzzle loader season.Â* Also
getting up at 3 am to get on the road by 4 and get there by 5 to claim
stand drawn in lottery is no fun.Â* I was almost late getting the stand
because of road construction.

Tell me about it, took one of those tests to see how smart you are many
years ago, came out with an IQ of 145, I would bet now that it is half
that now. G

Went to my shooting club yesterday after over 4 months and was
surprised how poor shooting was until I started practicing.Â* Things
really get out of tune without practice.Â* I do have early stage AMD
which affects target accquisition.

I mentioned before, I think, I was a gunsmith, ran a gun shop, hunted
every season, built my own guns from old military rifles, my favorite is
a 6.5 that I built on a Italian rifle from WWII with a new barrel,
stock, etc. Put down a lot of deer and hogs with it. Have five firearms
and a pistol in the gun cabinet near by and just clean them annually. My
grandsons want nothing to do with weapons or hunting so I will probably
sell them one day. Can't walk in the field or woods, can't afford a
hunting lease, don't want to go into public lands during hunting season
since I saw the results in the newspaper.Â* Life is a bitch and then you
die. Old Texas words.

Most important to maintain is mental facilities.Â* My father spent 5
years in a nursing home with multi infarct dementia after a stroke.
He died at 88.Â* One of my classmates, the best athlete, just died of
dementia.Â* He excelled in all sports but won a football scholarship to
Maryland and was drafted by the pros.Â* He only spent a year there as
at 6 feet tall and only 200 pounds was too small.Â* Could have been
head trauma but I've seen it in a lot of non-athletic friends.

Wife met our new family doctor yesterday and was given dementia test.
She said this morning, "I don't think I needed that test, what do you
think?"Â* Then said, "Don't answer that."

Mine does that occasionally, I just smile gently and go on about my
business with the smile still on. I haven't had a dementia test, YET.


Forgot about your gun business. Our sons take no interest in hunting
but all have guns as do the married ones wives. One's father in law is
retired and has a thriving holster business. Makes them out of Kydex
and if he cannot get a model for the mold but enough orders he buys them
for his company tax exempt.

Our new family doctor appears very young and probably just follows
latest medicare mandate on the test and I would not be surprised if you
could google up the test and find all the questions and answers.

I like what one elderly woman told me, that her hard drive was so full,
it took longer to retrieve the answer.

On 10/7/2017 6:31 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/7/2017 2:27 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/7/2017 12:39 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/7/2017 9:48 AM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/7/2017 7:52 AM, Frank wrote:


Interesting.Â* I got mine back a couple of weeks ago and it was
unusual. I thought I was half Italian and half Lithuanian but
Italian part is only 20% and rest is central and eastern European.
14% European Jew which I guess means the tribes of that region that
migrated to Europe.

One daughter in laws sister is into genealogy and is a member of
the DAR.Â* She had the test and found 2% African and demanded her
parents take the test to see where it came from.Â* My daughter in
law thinks this is funny and when I asked her what she thought she
said it just means an ancestor was adventuresome.Â* Our new
granddaughter is 1% African and I told my lawyer son that it is
good and would qualify her as a minority who could become a law
professor at Harvard.

I think it's funny too. Probably most folks including Swede's etc.
have African blood. People are people when it comes to getting it on.

I was surprised that neither wife or I had any african trace.Â* Her
and a son had done theirs before me.Â* Her parents were of Greek
extraction born in Turkey.Â* She had told me that I was responisble
for the 7% European Jew in our son and I figured that her family
lines were closer to that area but she was right.Â* I sent my results
to my brother and told him he did not need to get his.

That's the people are people thing again. Ma Nature is always at work.

I still have all my facilities but they just do not work as well.Â* I
walked 2 miles this morning but was walking 4 last year. Kness
started bothering me doing it every day. Mentioned that I am giving
up hunting as all I have access to is public land and not being
handicapped cannot hunt the closest stands.Â* Last year I had to walk
a mile and a quarter to reach the assigned stand in muzzle loader
season.Â* Also getting up at 3 am to get on the road by 4 and get
there by 5 to claim stand drawn in lottery is no fun.Â* I was almost
late getting the stand because of road construction.

Tell me about it, took one of those tests to see how smart you are
many years ago, came out with an IQ of 145, I would bet now that it is
half that now. G

Went to my shooting club yesterday after over 4 months and was
surprised how poor shooting was until I started practicing.Â* Things
really get out of tune without practice.Â* I do have early stage AMD
which affects target accquisition.

I mentioned before, I think, I was a gunsmith, ran a gun shop, hunted
every season, built my own guns from old military rifles, my favorite
is a 6.5 that I built on a Italian rifle from WWII with a new barrel,
stock, etc. Put down a lot of deer and hogs with it. Have five
firearms and a pistol in the gun cabinet near by and just clean them
annually. My grandsons want nothing to do with weapons or hunting so I
will probably sell them one day. Can't walk in the field or woods,
can't afford a hunting lease, don't want to go into public lands
during hunting season since I saw the results in the newspaper.Â* Life
is a bitch and then you die. Old Texas words.

Most important to maintain is mental facilities.Â* My father spent 5
years in a nursing home with multi infarct dementia after a stroke.
He died at 88.Â* One of my classmates, the best athlete, just died of
dementia.Â* He excelled in all sports but won a football scholarship
to Maryland and was drafted by the pros.Â* He only spent a year there
as at 6 feet tall and only 200 pounds was too small.Â* Could have been
head trauma but I've seen it in a lot of non-athletic friends.

Wife met our new family doctor yesterday and was given dementia test.
She said this morning, "I don't think I needed that test, what do you
think?"Â* Then said, "Don't answer that."

Mine does that occasionally, I just smile gently and go on about my
business with the smile still on. I haven't had a dementia test, YET.


Forgot about your gun business.Â* Our sons take no interest in hunting
but all have guns as do the married ones wives.Â* One's father in law is
retired and has a thriving holster business.Â* Makes them out of Kydex
and if he cannot get a model for the mold but enough orders he buys them
for his company tax exempt.

Our new family doctor appears very young and probably just follows
latest medicare mandate on the test and I would not be surprised if you
could google up the test and find all the questions and answers.

I like what one elderly woman told me, that her hard drive was so full,
it took longer to retrieve the answer.
I believe that too, was trying to remember where I put my old family
genealogy and couldn't find it nor could I remember what it was. I think
I know where a hidden copy is on this computer so I will look for it
tomorrow and see if it is possible to get to it. Lost a couple of
computers a while back but managed to get the stuff needed most back, I
think. Here's the old geezer who, as a child and grown man too could
find anything I ever had. I hate forgetting stuff but I guess it goes
with getting older and older. I don't mind getting old, but I don't like
my mind going whacky.

On 10/8/2017 12:07 PM, wrote:
George Shirley wrote:

On 10/7/2017 11:10 AM, wrote:
George Shirley wrote:

The boss lady and I turned out the 22 cubic foot freezer after lunch.
Found frozen stuff back to 2012 tucked away into corners. Still good
mostly but it seemed that several bags that were vacuum pumped didn't
actually seal.
Our freezer is empty and clean at this time. We disposed of a fair
proportion of its contents during a recent extended electricity outage.
Moved items we judged to be safe to eat into the fridge freezer when the
juice came back on but left the freezer empty for a thorough cleaning.
In the late 1990's my wife and I did a real-world test of every
counter top vacuum sealer as well as every brand of bags available to us
at retail, OTC and online. The best of the vacuum pumps was Tilia
Foodsaver but I can achieve a higher vacuum using my modified high-end
bicyle pump. More importantly, for practical purposes, 100% of the
heat-sealed bags failed within a few months. Most of them failed at the
"factory" seams; very few failed at the appliance's heat seal. That's
why I use Mason jars. In earlier days, we vacuum-stored some dried and
some frozen foods in Mason jars. Don't do it anymore but still have the
works ;-) Same for pressure canning, although, I dont think we'd use
our present stock of jars for pressure canning.
The last time I used the Tilia Foodsaver was to remove excess fluid
from an overfilled automatic transmission. That would have been 2001,
'02, or thereabouts. I recently sent the Foodsaver to the landfill
because it is dead.
Our foodsaver is still chugging along even though it is almost 20 years
old. Had thought of buying one of the high dollar ones but still keep
the food saver.
Instead of going through the blanching, chilling, etc. preparatory
to freezing stuff, as often as is reasonable, we incoporate garden
produce, AWA some store-bought vegies, into finished or nearly finished
side dishes that are frozen. Easy enough to do as part of regular meal
preparation. We just cook enough of whatever for, say, four (or however
many) instead of just for two. I'm serious when observing that I garden
to eat thaw 'n gnaw! I pay the electricity co-op to let us bypass that
other stuff.
We do much the same when we have large crops coming in and we want to
hang onto the grub instead of passing it along to kids, grands, etc.
Neither Wife nor I has immediate family within a reasonable drive
and most of mine probably have gardens that would embarrass me, the only
neighbor with whom I'd actually _share_ food doesn't cook, and we
learned the hard way about in-kind donations to food banks and the like
so nowadays we try not to produce large crops. Just enough to feed us,
with a little "extra" for the freezer. Any excess goes into the
compost, which (theoretically) gives another shot at eating it, just in
a different form ;-). If we give it to people (none or whom knows what
actually needing food is or what "poverty" means), it just ends up in a
septic tank!

But we definitely still have the "works".

Man, I just can't get okra right. Always seem to plant more than is
needed and have way too much in the freezer (most of it the last step
away from ready to fry), not to mention daily new okra but you have to
keep taking it in order to keep getting it. The two "spineless"
varieties that I grow regularly become noticeably less so as the plants
mature at summer's end. I usually plant new okra in late summer instead
of continuing to prune crapped-out bushes. Began getting okra from this
year's fall stand a couple of days back. If winter holds off like it
"should", there'll be okra in the freezer fairly soon. Got mustards
under them doing nicely. Also have late peppers (two varieties of sweet
bell peppers, two of jalapeño, one pepperoncini, two of Tabasco. Most
of them will be diced and frozen immediately, although some of the japs
are frozen whole. Don't know what to do with the pepperoncini but I'm
thinking of using some in a BWB pepper vinegar (called "pepper sauce" in
parts of the South) in the same manner as the jalapeño and Tabasco.
BIL's recipe is fine with me.
Okra, in our climate, grows like the weed it is. Wife dearly loves the
stuff, I eat it french fried in deep oil, or in a gumbo or a soup. I've
seen the woman eat it raw. Yuck!
Man, I eat the slimy stuff any way one prepares it; even raw ;-)

....
Sensible folks who've been in this part of the country for any length of
time don't waste their efforts on peaches, apples, etc. but the handy
homeowner stores continue to sell them to somebody, I dont know whom.
The same folks who buy strawberry plants or seed potatoes in the spring,
I guess.

I have the same problem with my wife being suckered by the big plant
stores. Oh yeah, this will grow anywhere.
I think it's just a case of folks in four-season latitudes not
taking into account that in some parts of the country the garden season
starts in autumn and begins tailing off as summertime gets here in April
or May. Certainly, June is far too late to plant anything besides peas
or okra. Most peppers can handle the sun (with some shading) but
they're best started in Ferbruary or March.. Down here, one sees folks
buying strawberry sets, onion sets and even seeds in spring when,
generally speaking, December or January is about the latest many of them
can be put in the garden with any expectation of positive results.

Generally she babies it for a
year and then it gets ripped out. Keep telling her that we have three
fruit trees that will grow here, a fig, a kumquat, and a pear bred by a
local state guy that found it as a cross tree in his orchard. If it
doesn't get frozen in January occasionally we get a good crop from it.
She also plants avocado seeds to see if she can get a tree, nope, a
freeze comes by and they turn into dead bushes.
Hey: If the lady weren't an optimist, you might be living alone and
without that gaggle of kids and grandkids ;-)
I've often thought how quiet it would be if that happened. I've been
with her to long to toss her our or vice versa. She's Catholic, I'm
nothing, she's an artist, my next wife won't be, if any, she's leaves
stuff lying around, I'm a neat freak, but the dog loves both of us.
BSEG Her family women live to be 100, men in my family croak at any
time. I won't ride in a car she drives, last time she took me to a
hospital I wanted out so I could walk there. Still, there's something in
there that won't let us let go, we've been together since we were both
eighteen years old, we fight occasionally and then it's make up time. BG

When we lived in
Louisiana I had a cross tree between a lemon and an orange, made huge
lemons and lived through the frosts.
At his boyhood home in Tampa, FL, my friend of long-standing (and
who now is my nearest neighbor) enjoyed the fruits of a backyard tree
which bore seven citrus varieties. His mother began a series of
axillary bud grafts the same year she&hubbie had the house built. Have
no clue how or where she got the scions or over what period of time she
executed the grafts but by the time we came along, she had produced one
fine tree, I must say.
I've been thinking of trying that on my kumquat, have seen trees done
that way that produce all year.

Kumquats in Louisiana, kumquats in
Texas, produce like crazy and I like them. I can buy apples, etc. at the
local supermarket cheaper than I can keep trying to grow my own.

Here we are on 10/7 and it's 80F outside, only in Texas.
Not so fast, sailor. Same here, too. Not yet 9:30AM, as I type,
and 79° on my front porch. Overnight low of 76° and the humidity's
back. Had a few days of relief after Irma, when less humidity made
things at least seem cooler.

There is one thing I despise, being cold and wet, to much of that
sailing on a USN destroyer way, long ago. That is just misery to me,
now, I stay indoors and watch the cold, wet, rain, heat, whatever. I do
love air conditioning, have memories of growing up in a hot house in
summer and cold in winter. The house my Dad, me, two uncles built from
two old Navy housing units in 1949. I was nine years old and could swing
a hammer. I got out of the Navy in 1960, came home, house had air
conditioning and household heat. Dad told me the first year I was gone
they saved enough money from not having to feed me so they put in all
that stuff. I still laugh at my old Dad even though he has been gone for
many years. We shoved our kids out as fast as we could also. They are
both doing well for themselves so I'm happy.

On 10/13/2017 1:05 PM, wrote:
songbird wrote:

i'm not sure where September went. too quickly
by for sure...
Yep, and October keeps on slip slip slipping into the future, too.
Something et the Slenderette bean bush babies last night. Not a
cutworm; cutworm would have left the tops behind. I'm thinking
grasshopper or, maybe the furry soft-bodied thing that 's eating a
Delinel seedling top over in another bed ;-) Assuming it had walked a
good distance to get there, I left it undisturbed. Got a photo, though.
If I can identify the beast, I'll be more able to determine whether just
to plan on re-planting the Delinels, too, and letting the beast have
its way with these. I mean, everything has to eat. Only problem is
that, if this is _not_ a typically warm autumn, I'm running out of time
for the beans. Been a while since I had to make a fire before late
November but I remember some cold-ass halloweens, too. The weather
already has begun to cool: Right now {13 Oct.12:31 P (13:31)}, it's
86°(F) on my always shaded front porch; overnight low (same location,
same t'meter) was 75°(F).

Here in Harris Cty, TX it is alarming if we get a freeze before November
and, sometimes, December, and, the occasional, "where the heck did
winter go?" We're getting a few mornings with 63F and by noon it's over
90F. I don't miss cold weather but it does kill a few bugs when it comes
in. We're getting more mosquitoes than usual for this time of year and
we still have mosquito hawks thank goodness.

I lived for a short while in Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island as a
young sailor so I don't really care for: A: snow, B: ice storms, C: cold
north winds, going into the far Arctic seas aboard an old WWII destroyer
with only the boilers for heat. It would help kill skeeters, etc. if we
got at least a short frost. G

On 10/13/2017 2:28 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/13/2017 1:05 PM, wrote:
songbird wrote:

Â* i'm not sure where September went.Â* too quickly
by for sure...
Â*Â*Â*Â*Yep, and October keeps on slip slip slipping into the future, too.
Something et the Slenderette bean bush babies last night.Â* Not a
cutworm; cutworm would have left the tops behind.Â* I'm thinking
grasshopper or, maybe the furry soft-bodied thing that 's eating a
Delinel seedling top over in another bed ;-)Â* Assuming it had walked a
good distance to get there, I left it undisturbed.Â* Got a photo, though.
If I can identify the beast, I'll be more able to determine whether just
to plan on re-planting the Delinels,Â* too, and letting the beast have
its way with these.Â* I mean, everything has to eat.Â* Only problem is
that, if this is _not_ a typically warm autumn, I'm running out of time
for the beans.Â* Been a while since I had to make a fire before late
November but I remember some cold-ass halloweens, too.Â* The weather
already has begun to cool: Right now {13 Oct.12:31 P (13:31)}, it's
86°(F) on my always shaded front porch; overnight low (same location,
same t'meter) was 75°(F).

Here in Harris Cty, TX it is alarming if we get a freeze before November
and, sometimes, December, and, the occasional, "where the heck did
winter go?" We're getting a few mornings with 63F and by noon it's over
90F. I don't miss cold weather but it does kill a few bugs when it comes
in. We're getting more mosquitoes than usual for this time of year and
we still have mosquito hawks thank goodness.

I lived for a short while in Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island as a
young sailor so I don't really care for: A: snow, B: ice storms, C: cold
north winds, going into the far Arctic seas aboard an old WWII destroyer
with only the boilers for heat. It would help kill skeeters, etc. if we
got at least a short frost. G

At our age, I don't think we can tolerate as much cold and heat as we
did when younger. Warm climate is better but you need AC. We seldom
get 90 degree days but at start of summer when my AC would not come on I
got a backup portable AC and with power losses I have a backup generator.

I don't like snow much either but at least don't have to shovel it every
week. I remember my first trip to southern California watching my
brother in law cut grass in January.

Speaking of mosquitoes, I hear they are the state bird in Alaska. Who
would have thought that?

I had a coworker from Maine who got transferred to one of our plants on
the Gulf and hated it. Said he just ran from AC in house to AC in car
to AC at work. Twice a year they left the house to the exterminator to
get all the bugs.

On 10/13/2017 2:14 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/13/2017 2:28 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/13/2017 1:05 PM, wrote:
songbird wrote:

Â* i'm not sure where September went.Â* too quickly
by for sure...
Â*Â*Â*Â*Yep, and October keeps on slip slip slipping into the future, too.
Something et the Slenderette bean bush babies last night.Â* Not a
cutworm; cutworm would have left the tops behind.Â* I'm thinking
grasshopper or, maybe the furry soft-bodied thing that 's eating a
Delinel seedling top over in another bed ;-)Â* Assuming it had walked a
good distance to get there, I left it undisturbed.Â* Got a photo, though.
If I can identify the beast, I'll be more able to determine whether just
to plan on re-planting the Delinels,Â* too, and letting the beast have
its way with these.Â* I mean, everything has to eat.Â* Only problem is
that, if this is _not_ a typically warm autumn, I'm running out of time
for the beans.Â* Been a while since I had to make a fire before late
November but I remember some cold-ass halloweens, too.Â* The weather
already has begun to cool: Right now {13 Oct.12:31 P (13:31)}, it's
86°(F) on my always shaded front porch; overnight low (same location,
same t'meter) was 75°(F).

Here in Harris Cty, TX it is alarming if we get a freeze before
November and, sometimes, December, and, the occasional, "where the
heck did winter go?" We're getting a few mornings with 63F and by noon
it's over 90F. I don't miss cold weather but it does kill a few bugs
when it comes in. We're getting more mosquitoes than usual for this
time of year and we still have mosquito hawks thank goodness.

I lived for a short while in Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island as a
young sailor so I don't really care for: A: snow, B: ice storms, C:
cold north winds, going into the far Arctic seas aboard an old WWII
destroyer with only the boilers for heat. It would help kill skeeters,
etc. if we got at least a short frost. G

At our age, I don't think we can tolerate as much cold and heat as we
did when younger.Â* Warm climate is better but you need AC.Â* We seldom
get 90 degree days but at start of summer when my AC would not come on I
got a backup portable AC and with power losses I have a backup generator.
When we were hit in Houston with hurricanes, heavy flooding, etc. I was
happy, live just a few miles from The Woodlands and, as usual, I bought
on high ground, have done that since we were married in 1960. Here in
this subdivision we never lost electricity, a little high winds and 60
inches of rain, we never flooded either, and, as soon as the rain
stopped for a bit, the retention pond behind our home emptied out
quickly. So far, so good, we shall see when the next storms come by.

I don't like snow much either but at least don't have to shovel it every
week.Â* I remember my first trip to southern California watching my
brother in law cut grass in January.
I was eighteen years old when I first saw snow, almost got in trouble
because an Admiral was walking by and saw me playing in the snow instead
of checking into my squadron. At least he was a nice guy. My wife just
finished mowing the small lawn we have. The mower runs faster than I can
walk nowadays so I cook, clean house and wash clothes. Sort of a turn
about but we both like it. We will only stop mowing every two weeks if
we get a cold snap, otherwise, cut the grass, toss in the composter, do
it again in a couple of weeks. Our spring and fall gardens are the same,
still producing.

Speaking of mosquitoes, I hear they are the state bird in Alaska.Â* Who
would have thought that?
I spent a few days in Alaska once, guy told me the skeeters carried his
wife off, thank goodness. G

I had a coworker from Maine who got transferred to one of our plants on
the Gulf and hated it.Â* Said he just ran from AC in house to AC in car
to AC at work.Â* Twice a year they left the house to the exterminator to
get all the bugs.
I know very few people who don't have AC in house and car and also have
fans in the house. If it gets higher than 100F in the house you bring in
more fans and crank up the AC. I just moved ours to 76F, was at 80F, and
I was baking bacon for my wife. Then when she needs bacon she just heats
it up. She loves the bacon on anything. Six lbs of top bacon is now
precooked and in the freezer. Saves time when you want it and takes time
for it to get that way. Cooking bacon makes the dog dance too but she
gets very little of it. That all being said, I grew up in the forties
and fifties in homes without AC. Came home from boot camp and my folks
had AC. Asked why, Dad said after you left we had enough money for the
AC, as if I ate that much. G He was sort of shocked anyway, I left
home at 5'6", weighed 160, came home at 5'8" and weighed 145. Only got
fat again when I married in 1960, now I'm hanging around 206 and am at
5'6" again. Doc says it's because of the couple of vertebrae, one
missing, the other squashed. I think it's old age myself.

I think we're going to have a late fall this year what with all the
strange weather, two hurricanes, etc. I'm sure glad I don't live in
Houston, it's not called the "Bayou City" for nothing, I don't
understand people who want to build homes on water and then gripe when
it gets washed away, particularly this close to the Gulf of Mexico.

On 10/13/2017 4:28 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/13/2017 2:14 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/13/2017 2:28 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/13/2017 1:05 PM, wrote:
songbird wrote:

Â* i'm not sure where September went.Â* too quickly
by for sure...
Â*Â*Â*Â*Yep, and October keeps on slip slip slipping into the future, too.
Something et the Slenderette bean bush babies last night.Â* Not a
cutworm; cutworm would have left the tops behind.Â* I'm thinking
grasshopper or, maybe the furry soft-bodied thing that 's eating a
Delinel seedling top over in another bed ;-)Â* Assuming it had walked a
good distance to get there, I left it undisturbed.Â* Got a photo,
though.
If I can identify the beast, I'll be more able to determine whether
just
to plan on re-planting the Delinels,Â* too, and letting the beast have
its way with these.Â* I mean, everything has to eat.Â* Only problem is
that, if this is _not_ a typically warm autumn, I'm running out of time
for the beans.Â* Been a while since I had to make a fire before late
November but I remember some cold-ass halloweens, too.Â* The weather
already has begun to cool: Right now {13 Oct.12:31 P (13:31)}, it's
86°(F) on my always shaded front porch; overnight low (same location,
same t'meter) was 75°(F).

Here in Harris Cty, TX it is alarming if we get a freeze before
November and, sometimes, December, and, the occasional, "where the
heck did winter go?" We're getting a few mornings with 63F and by
noon it's over 90F. I don't miss cold weather but it does kill a few
bugs when it comes in. We're getting more mosquitoes than usual for
this time of year and we still have mosquito hawks thank goodness.

I lived for a short while in Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island as
a young sailor so I don't really care for: A: snow, B: ice storms, C:
cold north winds, going into the far Arctic seas aboard an old WWII
destroyer with only the boilers for heat. It would help kill
skeeters, etc. if we got at least a short frost. G

At our age, I don't think we can tolerate as much cold and heat as we
did when younger.Â* Warm climate is better but you need AC.Â* We seldom
get 90 degree days but at start of summer when my AC would not come on
I got a backup portable AC and with power losses I have a backup
generator.
When we were hit in Houston with hurricanes, heavy flooding, etc. I was
happy, live just a few miles from The Woodlands and, as usual, I bought
on high ground, have done that since we were married in 1960. Here in
this subdivision we never lost electricity, a little high winds and 60
inches of rain, we never flooded either, and, as soon as the rain
stopped for a bit, the retention pond behind our home emptied out
quickly. So far, so good, we shall see when the next storms come by.

I don't like snow much either but at least don't have to shovel it
every week.Â* I remember my first trip to southern California watching
my brother in law cut grass in January.
I was eighteen years old when I first saw snow, almost got in trouble
because an Admiral was walking by and saw me playing in the snow instead
of checking into my squadron. At least he was a nice guy. My wife just
finished mowing the small lawn we have. The mower runs faster than I can
walk nowadays so I cook, clean house and wash clothes. Sort of a turn
about but we both like it. We will only stop mowing every two weeks if
we get a cold snap, otherwise, cut the grass, toss in the composter, do
it again in a couple of weeks. Our spring and fall gardens are the same,
still producing.

Speaking of mosquitoes, I hear they are the state bird in Alaska.Â* Who
would have thought that?
I spent a few days in Alaska once, guy told me the skeeters carried his
wife off, thank goodness. G

I had a coworker from Maine who got transferred to one of our plants
on the Gulf and hated it.Â* Said he just ran from AC in house to AC in
car to AC at work.Â* Twice a year they left the house to the
exterminator to get all the bugs.
I know very few people who don't have AC in house and car and also have
fans in the house. If it gets higher than 100F in the house you bring in
more fans and crank up the AC. I just moved ours to 76F, was at 80F, and
I was baking bacon for my wife. Then when she needs bacon she just heats
it up. She loves the bacon on anything. Six lbs of top bacon is now
precooked and in the freezer. Saves time when you want it and takes time
for it to get that way. Cooking bacon makes the dog dance too but she
gets very little of it. That all being said, I grew up in the forties
and fifties in homes without AC. Came home from boot camp and my folks
had AC. Asked why, Dad said after you left we had enough money for the
AC, as if I ate that much. G He was sort of shocked anyway, I left
home at 5'6", weighed 160, came home at 5'8" and weighed 145. Only got
fat again when I married in 1960, now I'm hanging around 206 and am at
5'6" again. Doc says it's because of the couple of vertebrae, one
missing, the other squashed. I think it's old age myself.

I think we're going to have a late fall this year what with all the
strange weather, two hurricanes, etc. I'm sure glad I don't live in
Houston, it's not called the "Bayou City" for nothing, I don't
understand people who want to build homes on water and then gripe when
it gets washed away, particularly this close to the Gulf of Mexico.


I can't keep the weight off either and have also shrunk an inch. I
thought a doctor, pulmonologist, cheated me weighing me with my shoes on
but measuring me with my shoes off. Have a new family doctor I have yet
to meet but this month have an appointment with an AMD specialist,
dentist and cardiologist. At our age, going to the doctor and having
tests run are our social life.

My brother lives in lower Delaware three miles from the ocean but wants
to move inland because of the hustle and bustle in summer. Think he is
safe from being washed away.

The joke going around in Puerto Rico is that they believe after the
visits of hurricanes, Jose and Maria, they are due for a visit by the
baby Jesus. (Most should know this but Jose and Maria are Spanish for
Joseph and Mary). My Puerto Rican neighbor told me this. He likes
living off the island out of the hurricane path and prefers cold
weather. Unfortunately they are moving to Flagstaff and he might not
like the 5+ feet of snow they get in the winter.

On 10/13/2017 5:52 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/13/2017 4:28 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/13/2017 2:14 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/13/2017 2:28 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/13/2017 1:05 PM, wrote:
songbird wrote:

Â* i'm not sure where September went.Â* too quickly
by for sure...
Â*Â*Â*Â*Yep, and October keeps on slip slip slipping into the future, too.
Something et the Slenderette bean bush babies last night.Â* Not a
cutworm; cutworm would have left the tops behind.Â* I'm thinking
grasshopper or, maybe the furry soft-bodied thing that 's eating a
Delinel seedling top over in another bed ;-)Â* Assuming it had walked a
good distance to get there, I left it undisturbed.Â* Got a photo,
though.
If I can identify the beast, I'll be more able to determine whether
just
to plan on re-planting the Delinels,Â* too, and letting the beast have
its way with these.Â* I mean, everything has to eat.Â* Only problem is
that, if this is _not_ a typically warm autumn, I'm running out of
time
for the beans.Â* Been a while since I had to make a fire before late
November but I remember some cold-ass halloweens, too.Â* The weather
already has begun to cool: Right now {13 Oct.12:31 P (13:31)}, it's
86°(F) on my always shaded front porch; overnight low (same location,
same t'meter) was 75°(F).

Here in Harris Cty, TX it is alarming if we get a freeze before
November and, sometimes, December, and, the occasional, "where the
heck did winter go?" We're getting a few mornings with 63F and by
noon it's over 90F. I don't miss cold weather but it does kill a few
bugs when it comes in. We're getting more mosquitoes than usual for
this time of year and we still have mosquito hawks thank goodness.

I lived for a short while in Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island as
a young sailor so I don't really care for: A: snow, B: ice storms,
C: cold north winds, going into the far Arctic seas aboard an old
WWII destroyer with only the boilers for heat. It would help kill
skeeters, etc. if we got at least a short frost. G

At our age, I don't think we can tolerate as much cold and heat as we
did when younger.Â* Warm climate is better but you need AC.Â* We seldom
get 90 degree days but at start of summer when my AC would not come
on I got a backup portable AC and with power losses I have a backup
generator.
When we were hit in Houston with hurricanes, heavy flooding, etc. I
was happy, live just a few miles from The Woodlands and, as usual, I
bought on high ground, have done that since we were married in 1960.
Here in this subdivision we never lost electricity, a little high
winds and 60 inches of rain, we never flooded either, and, as soon as
the rain stopped for a bit, the retention pond behind our home emptied
out quickly. So far, so good, we shall see when the next storms come by.

I don't like snow much either but at least don't have to shovel it
every week.Â* I remember my first trip to southern California watching
my brother in law cut grass in January.
I was eighteen years old when I first saw snow, almost got in trouble
because an Admiral was walking by and saw me playing in the snow
instead of checking into my squadron. At least he was a nice guy. My
wife just finished mowing the small lawn we have. The mower runs
faster than I can walk nowadays so I cook, clean house and wash
clothes. Sort of a turn about but we both like it. We will only stop
mowing every two weeks if we get a cold snap, otherwise, cut the
grass, toss in the composter, do it again in a couple of weeks. Our
spring and fall gardens are the same, still producing.

Speaking of mosquitoes, I hear they are the state bird in Alaska.
Who would have thought that?
I spent a few days in Alaska once, guy told me the skeeters carried
his wife off, thank goodness. G

I had a coworker from Maine who got transferred to one of our plants
on the Gulf and hated it.Â* Said he just ran from AC in house to AC in
car to AC at work.Â* Twice a year they left the house to the
exterminator to get all the bugs.
I know very few people who don't have AC in house and car and also
have fans in the house. If it gets higher than 100F in the house you
bring in more fans and crank up the AC. I just moved ours to 76F, was
at 80F, and I was baking bacon for my wife. Then when she needs bacon
she just heats it up. She loves the bacon on anything. Six lbs of top
bacon is now precooked and in the freezer. Saves time when you want it
and takes time for it to get that way. Cooking bacon makes the dog
dance too but she gets very little of it. That all being said, I grew
up in the forties and fifties in homes without AC. Came home from boot
camp and my folks had AC. Asked why, Dad said after you left we had
enough money for the AC, as if I ate that much. G He was sort of
shocked anyway, I left home at 5'6", weighed 160, came home at 5'8"
and weighed 145. Only got fat again when I married in 1960, now I'm
hanging around 206 and am at 5'6" again. Doc says it's because of the
couple of vertebrae, one missing, the other squashed. I think it's old
age myself.

I think we're going to have a late fall this year what with all the
strange weather, two hurricanes, etc. I'm sure glad I don't live in
Houston, it's not called the "Bayou City" for nothing, I don't
understand people who want to build homes on water and then gripe when
it gets washed away, particularly this close to the Gulf of Mexico.


I can't keep the weight off either and have also shrunk an inch.Â* I
thought a doctor, pulmonologist, cheated me weighing me with my shoes on
but measuring me with my shoes off.Â* Have a new family doctor I have yet
to meet but this month have an appointment with an AMD specialist,
dentist and cardiologist.Â* At our age, going to the doctor and having
tests run are our social life.

My brother lives in lower Delaware three miles from the ocean but wants
to move inland because of the hustle and bustle in summer.Â* Think he is
safe from being washed away.

The joke going around in Puerto Rico is that they believe after the
visits of hurricanes, Jose and Maria, they are due for a visit by the
baby Jesus. (Most should know this but Jose and Maria are Spanish for
Joseph and Mary).Â* My Puerto Rican neighbor told me this.Â* He likes
living off the island out of the hurricane path and prefers cold
weather.Â* Unfortunately they are moving to Flagstaff and he might not
like the 5+ feet of snow they get in the winter.
The destroyer I was on hit Puerto Rico about every other month, was a
good port to visit but way to many crooks and other stuff. I used to go
at least once to a little cafe just off the docks, made me think of the
Mexican cafe's back home and the food was good. I smoked back then but
didn't drink, the owner told me I had to go outside to smoke because it
made his food taste bad. I believed him too. Used to suck up a carton of
cigarettes every other day when I was sucking them up hard. My wife said
one day that every time she kissed me it was like smoking, which she
never did. That was in 1992 and I quit forever that day and never even
wanted another smoke. One grandson smokes but never in his house or
anyone else s house. May quit one day I hope. Never was much on booze of
any kind or any of those strange cigarettes either. G

wrote:
songbird wrote:

i'm not sure where September went. too quickly
by for sure...

Yep, and October keeps on slip slip slipping into the future, too.

sure is, and with recent rains not much is getting
done outside that i'd want to finish. i hate being
stuck inside even if i have plenty to do.

family things have taken away the three nicest days
this week. i got one day in on the project. that's
it. grrr!

the hole i'm moving around as i excavate and renovate
had standing water at the bottom of it the other day.
which is a large change from solid clay/sand i could
break a finger trying to poke a hole in. rained again
last night and is due for the weekend. they've even
got us under flood watch. from drought to flood
forecast. 3 inches of rain will put the project on
hold again for some days. at least all this rain
does settle all that dirt i've moved.

at least i did get out yesterday and tried to find
the last of the dry beans that were ready to pick before
they start rotting. the lima beans are growing/flowering
again. i'm still hoping for another two weeks of frost
free weather. 39F is the lowest night forecast for the
next week (so far) for Sunday night. low 40s here or
there. hopefully that won't shut down the limas. we'll
see. they are the only thing producing now unless i
want green peppers. i don't. i have jars of roasted
red peppers i'm finishing off eating.


Something et the Slenderette bean bush babies last night. Not a
cutworm; cutworm would have left the tops behind. I'm thinking
grasshopper or, maybe the furry soft-bodied thing that 's eating a
Delinel seedling top over in another bed ;-) Assuming it had walked a
good distance to get there, I left it undisturbed. Got a photo, though.
If I can identify the beast, I'll be more able to determine whether just
to plan on re-planting the Delinels, too, and letting the beast have
its way with these. I mean, everything has to eat. Only problem is
that, if this is _not_ a typically warm autumn, I'm running out of time
for the beans. Been a while since I had to make a fire before late
November but I remember some cold-ass halloweens, too. The weather
already has begun to cool: Right now {13 Oct.12:31 P (13:31)}, it's
86°(F) on my always shaded front porch; overnight low (same location,
same t'meter) was 75°(F).

yes, the critters gotta eat. deer found a radish
edible. knocked over the other one that was flowering
and making seeds. didn't eat it though. they've
sampled some of the ground cover i planted last year
and left it laying on the ground nearby. so perhaps
that deer won't bother it again. get that times a few
dozen deer and the plant will be challenged. we'll
see. we bought more poles to fix the back fence where
they are coming through and put up the front fence to
keep them from the small cedar trees we transplanted.
so that means less grass to mow out front. yay!
but it also meant losing another day hauling wood
chips (found a local source for $8/yd - which is much
cheaper than $3/bag and the hassle of moving them and
all that plastic baggage). the guy will scoop 'em
right into the back end of the pickup truck in one
shot.

well anyways, hope the critter doesn't raid
everything. we had something eating the beets and
the potatoes. not the greens, but the roots. i am
guessing the groundhogs, no footprint evidence though,
they seem rather smart in that regards. ha...

so i'm awake early, what's for breakfast?

p.s. we've not had the heat on yet, but last week
we almost turned on the AC (which would probably
be a first for Oct).


songbird

On 10/14/2017 6:13 AM, songbird wrote:
wrote:
songbird wrote:

i'm not sure where September went. too quickly
by for sure...

Yep, and October keeps on slip slip slipping into the future, too.

sure is, and with recent rains not much is getting
done outside that i'd want to finish. i hate being
stuck inside even if i have plenty to do.

family things have taken away the three nicest days
this week. i got one day in on the project. that's
it. grrr!

the hole i'm moving around as i excavate and renovate
had standing water at the bottom of it the other day.
which is a large change from solid clay/sand i could
break a finger trying to poke a hole in. rained again
last night and is due for the weekend. they've even
got us under flood watch. from drought to flood
forecast. 3 inches of rain will put the project on
hold again for some days. at least all this rain
does settle all that dirt i've moved.
Send some over here, after two hurricanes and 60 inches of rain a while
back we haven't had much rain lately.

at least i did get out yesterday and tried to find
the last of the dry beans that were ready to pick before
they start rotting. the lima beans are growing/flowering
again. i'm still hoping for another two weeks of frost
free weather. 39F is the lowest night forecast for the
next week (so far) for Sunday night. low 40s here or
there. hopefully that won't shut down the limas. we'll
see. they are the only thing producing now unless i
want green peppers. i don't. i have jars of roasted
red peppers i'm finishing off eating.
I would gladly give you some of our 91F days here in October for low 40s
with some rain.


Something et the Slenderette bean bush babies last night. Not a
cutworm; cutworm would have left the tops behind. I'm thinking
grasshopper or, maybe the furry soft-bodied thing that 's eating a
Delinel seedling top over in another bed ;-) Assuming it had walked a
good distance to get there, I left it undisturbed. Got a photo, though.
If I can identify the beast, I'll be more able to determine whether just
to plan on re-planting the Delinels, too, and letting the beast have
its way with these. I mean, everything has to eat. Only problem is
that, if this is _not_ a typically warm autumn, I'm running out of time
for the beans. Been a while since I had to make a fire before late
November but I remember some cold-ass halloweens, too. The weather
already has begun to cool: Right now {13 Oct.12:31 P (13:31)}, it's
86°(F) on my always shaded front porch; overnight low (same location,
same t'meter) was 75°(F).

yes, the critters gotta eat. deer found a radish
edible. knocked over the other one that was flowering
and making seeds. didn't eat it though. they've
sampled some of the ground cover i planted last year
and left it laying on the ground nearby. so perhaps
that deer won't bother it again. get that times a few
dozen deer and the plant will be challenged. we'll
see. we bought more poles to fix the back fence where
they are coming through and put up the front fence to
keep them from the small cedar trees we transplanted.
so that means less grass to mow out front. yay!
but it also meant losing another day hauling wood
chips (found a local source for $8/yd - which is much
cheaper than $3/bag and the hassle of moving them and
all that plastic baggage). the guy will scoop 'em
right into the back end of the pickup truck in one
shot.

well anyways, hope the critter doesn't raid
everything. we had something eating the beets and
the potatoes. not the greens, but the roots. i am
guessing the groundhogs, no footprint evidence though,
they seem rather smart in that regards. ha...

so i'm awake early, what's for breakfast?

p.s. we've not had the heat on yet, but last week
we almost turned on the AC (which would probably
be a first for Oct).


songbird

I would gladly send you some Houston area heat if we could round it up
and point it. Fall garden is mostly in, wife takes care of that nowadays
and I get to pick the kumquats, they're starting to turn orange and I
need more kumquat jelly and preserves.

George, who can't sleep in, probably because I worked shift work for
sixteen years a long time ago. Nowadays my best friends are costly
doctors, I didn't intend to live this long.

George Shirley wrote:
songbird wrote:
....rains...
Send some over here, after two hurricanes and 60 inches of rain a while
back we haven't had much rain lately.

this is finally restoring the balance here,
but if i were to send it anywhere it would be
to California to put out the fires.

....
I would gladly give you some of our 91F days here in October for low 40s
with some rain.

no thanks! we've had enough of those already.
two more weeks of frost-free weather would be nice.

....
I would gladly send you some Houston area heat if we could round it up
and point it. Fall garden is mostly in, wife takes care of that nowadays
and I get to pick the kumquats, they're starting to turn orange and I
need more kumquat jelly and preserves.

i've never had one, never tasted jelly or
preserves. wouldn't know what they even
looked like other than you just said orange.


George, who can't sleep in, probably because I worked shift work for
sixteen years a long time ago. Nowadays my best friends are costly
doctors, I didn't intend to live this long.

i'd like to sleep in until a bit later in
the morning now that it is dark enough out, but
i seem to have turned into a morning person by
accident. in the older days i'd more likely see
morning by being up all night. now i try to get
to sleep by midnight or thereabouts.

at least i did get the truck moved and the
tiles out of the ditch before they could get
washed into the bigger ditch.

wasn't raining for a while, but the drippy-
drops are back.


songbird

On 10/13/2017 9:19 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/13/2017 5:52 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/13/2017 4:28 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/13/2017 2:14 PM, Frank wrote:
On 10/13/2017 2:28 PM, George Shirley wrote:
On 10/13/2017 1:05 PM, wrote:
songbird wrote:

Â* i'm not sure where September went.Â* too quickly
by for sure...
Â*Â*Â*Â*Yep, and October keeps on slip slip slipping into the future,
too.
Something et the Slenderette bean bush babies last night.Â* Not a
cutworm; cutworm would have left the tops behind.Â* I'm thinking
grasshopper or, maybe the furry soft-bodied thing that 's eating a
Delinel seedling top over in another bed ;-)Â* Assuming it had
walked a
good distance to get there, I left it undisturbed.Â* Got a photo,
though.
If I can identify the beast, I'll be more able to determine
whether just
to plan on re-planting the Delinels,Â* too, and letting the beast have
its way with these.Â* I mean, everything has to eat.Â* Only problem is
that, if this is _not_ a typically warm autumn, I'm running out of
time
for the beans.Â* Been a while since I had to make a fire before late
November but I remember some cold-ass halloweens, too.Â* The weather
already has begun to cool: Right now {13 Oct.12:31 P (13:31)}, it's
86°(F) on my always shaded front porch; overnight low (same location,
same t'meter) was 75°(F).

Here in Harris Cty, TX it is alarming if we get a freeze before
November and, sometimes, December, and, the occasional, "where the
heck did winter go?" We're getting a few mornings with 63F and by
noon it's over 90F. I don't miss cold weather but it does kill a
few bugs when it comes in. We're getting more mosquitoes than usual
for this time of year and we still have mosquito hawks thank goodness.

I lived for a short while in Virginia, Maryland, and Rhode Island
as a young sailor so I don't really care for: A: snow, B: ice
storms, C: cold north winds, going into the far Arctic seas aboard
an old WWII destroyer with only the boilers for heat. It would help
kill skeeters, etc. if we got at least a short frost. G

At our age, I don't think we can tolerate as much cold and heat as
we did when younger.Â* Warm climate is better but you need AC.Â* We
seldom get 90 degree days but at start of summer when my AC would
not come on I got a backup portable AC and with power losses I have
a backup generator.
When we were hit in Houston with hurricanes, heavy flooding, etc. I
was happy, live just a few miles from The Woodlands and, as usual, I
bought on high ground, have done that since we were married in 1960.
Here in this subdivision we never lost electricity, a little high
winds and 60 inches of rain, we never flooded either, and, as soon as
the rain stopped for a bit, the retention pond behind our home
emptied out quickly. So far, so good, we shall see when the next
storms come by.

I don't like snow much either but at least don't have to shovel it
every week.Â* I remember my first trip to southern California
watching my brother in law cut grass in January.
I was eighteen years old when I first saw snow, almost got in trouble
because an Admiral was walking by and saw me playing in the snow
instead of checking into my squadron. At least he was a nice guy. My
wife just finished mowing the small lawn we have. The mower runs
faster than I can walk nowadays so I cook, clean house and wash
clothes. Sort of a turn about but we both like it. We will only stop
mowing every two weeks if we get a cold snap, otherwise, cut the
grass, toss in the composter, do it again in a couple of weeks. Our
spring and fall gardens are the same, still producing.

Speaking of mosquitoes, I hear they are the state bird in Alaska.
Who would have thought that?
I spent a few days in Alaska once, guy told me the skeeters carried
his wife off, thank goodness. G

I had a coworker from Maine who got transferred to one of our plants
on the Gulf and hated it.Â* Said he just ran from AC in house to AC
in car to AC at work.Â* Twice a year they left the house to the
exterminator to get all the bugs.
I know very few people who don't have AC in house and car and also
have fans in the house. If it gets higher than 100F in the house you
bring in more fans and crank up the AC. I just moved ours to 76F, was
at 80F, and I was baking bacon for my wife. Then when she needs bacon
she just heats it up. She loves the bacon on anything. Six lbs of top
bacon is now precooked and in the freezer. Saves time when you want
it and takes time for it to get that way. Cooking bacon makes the dog
dance too but she gets very little of it. That all being said, I grew
up in the forties and fifties in homes without AC. Came home from
boot camp and my folks had AC. Asked why, Dad said after you left we
had enough money for the AC, as if I ate that much. G He was sort
of shocked anyway, I left home at 5'6", weighed 160, came home at
5'8" and weighed 145. Only got fat again when I married in 1960, now
I'm hanging around 206 and am at 5'6" again. Doc says it's because of
the couple of vertebrae, one missing, the other squashed. I think
it's old age myself.

I think we're going to have a late fall this year what with all the
strange weather, two hurricanes, etc. I'm sure glad I don't live in
Houston, it's not called the "Bayou City" for nothing, I don't
understand people who want to build homes on water and then gripe
when it gets washed away, particularly this close to the Gulf of Mexico.


I can't keep the weight off either and have also shrunk an inch.Â* I
thought a doctor, pulmonologist, cheated me weighing me with my shoes
on but measuring me with my shoes off.Â* Have a new family doctor I
have yet to meet but this month have an appointment with an AMD
specialist, dentist and cardiologist.Â* At our age, going to the doctor
and having tests run are our social life.

My brother lives in lower Delaware three miles from the ocean but
wants to move inland because of the hustle and bustle in summer.
Think he is safe from being washed away.

The joke going around in Puerto Rico is that they believe after the
visits of hurricanes, Jose and Maria, they are due for a visit by the
baby Jesus. (Most should know this but Jose and Maria are Spanish for
Joseph and Mary).Â* My Puerto Rican neighbor told me this.Â* He likes
living off the island out of the hurricane path and prefers cold
weather.Â* Unfortunately they are moving to Flagstaff and he might not
like the 5+ feet of snow they get in the winter.
The destroyer I was on hit Puerto Rico about every other month, was a
good port to visit but way to many crooks and other stuff. I used to go
at least once to a little cafe just off the docks, made me think of the
Mexican cafe's back home and the food was good. I smoked back then but
didn't drink, the owner told me I had to go outside to smoke because it
made his food taste bad. I believed him too. Used to suck up a carton of
cigarettes every other day when I was sucking them up hard. My wife said
one day that every time she kissed me it was like smoking, which she
never did. That was in 1992 and I quit forever that day and never even
wanted another smoke. One grandson smokes but never in his house or
anyone else s house. May quit one day I hope. Never was much on booze of
any kind or any of those strange cigarettes either. G

I quit smoking in the late 60's. I met Prof. Louis Fieser who was on
the surgeon generals committee that said smoking causes cancer. In the
20 minutes I spoke with him, he smoked 4 Lark cigarettes. He thought
the charcoal filter would protect him. He got lung cancer that same
year, 1965, but did not die until 12 years later at age we are at now.
Don't know if he quit smoking after his surgery.

They thought I had lung cancer 18 years ago but it was lesions caused by
a pulmonary embolism which was later removed. Got the zipper for that
surgery and scars from the exploratory lung surgery prior.

Lungs checked out again this year when they looked at them because of a
cough I developed. Damn cough was due to lisinopril blood pressure med
and went away with new med. I still went under exhaustive evaluations
with a couple of CT scans and a pulmonary function test. I was
completely cleared of any problems with lungs.