Weekend happenings

 Right now I think I'm *way* more exciting during the weekend. 

If you can call cleaning a car exciting. 

At least once a year I clean my hubby's vehicle. It's either a birthday gift or Father's Day gift to him. 

It usually doesn't last too long, given the line of work he's in.  But, for at least a few days, he can ride in a clean, sawdust-free car. 

That's what I spent Saturday afternoon doing.  By the time I was done, I was tired and was glistening just a wee bit. 

Then I was able to come in to the house to a tasty supper: smoked ribs.  Yum! 

We haven't had ribs in forever so this was a treat!

Bet you can't guess what I did after that. 

If you guessed that I settled into my chair and crossed stitched for most of the evening, you'd be correct. 

Other "fun" things on Saturday included working on my Princess Passenger sock while we went to town and picked up supplies for the week.

I also went out to the garden and heard all the bees buzzing while I pondered what plants and weeds to rip out. I ended up ripping out very few.  The bees seem to really enjoy the violas, so I left most of them, despite them looking a bit ratty. 

We also looked for a "new" spot to set up for hunting. We are going back to the beginning, so to speak, and put the game cam out where we used to hunt, to see if any critters were still traveling through. 

I was also entertained by the hummingbirds and the young hens.  A few of the "babies" of the flock figured out how to get on top of the open air coop and they were hanging out up there. 

Oh yeah, I made a batch of "Cozy Autumn Wild Rice Soup," which turned out really good.

Sunday the weather switched and it was humid out.  We checked the game cam and saw critters moving through so we spent a few hours out in the back 20 setting up a blind.  

By the time we were pretty much done with the set up, I was done with the day. Temps were in the upper 80s and so flipping humid.  I was going in slow motion, and felt itchy, moist and uncomfortable. We sweat off the bug spray and the mosquitoes found us irresistible. 

I may have been a wee bit cranky, too. 

After going in the house and cooling off in the air conditioning it was decided to stay in for the rest of the day. 

 Sunday afternoon I finished off a bobbin I was spinning and had a ply party. 

I'm not bothering to count yardage yet.  

When I have a decent amount plied up I'll give it all a soak and start counting yardage.  Plying took longer than I thought it would. 

Then, while watching "Columbo" with my man, I worked on the "One Piece" cross stitch. 

Over 300 stitches. 

Monday morning started off with a mild bang. My husband was taking the truck to work and the battery was dead ... stupid battery. 

It was moist out again. The grass was soaking wet and the air was like you were walking through a mist. 

There was a frog hanging out on my window this morning.  Fun! 

Work was kind of chaotic and made worse by all the alerts and notifications I was getting via emails, texts and such.  I ended up putting everything on silent for an hour. Then I was stressing because I couldn't find an article I thought I had laid out on a page last week. ... Turns out I hadn't. Ugh ...  It felt like such a Monday. 

I was pretty happy to punch out at the end of the day. 

My son *begged* for a specific soup to be made. He's feeling poorly and I guess only mom's hamburger soup will heal all that ails. 

For "real" supper, though, I smoked pork chops. 

Ooo, they turned out good.  There are no leftovers. 

It has the makings of being a busy week. Tonite there is chance of thunderstorms going through.  This doesn't surprise me because it's SO miserable outside. I feel really bad for the hens. They are panting and looking miserable. I made sure they had plenty of water and their favorite spot to be when it's hot out is under the deck. They appear to me moving slow today, too. When I saw the rooster coming out of the woods with one of the hens I realized I haven't had any good chicken stories.  Pity.  I haven't been outside enough.  Cause, you know, the weather this summer. 

Next weekend is Labor Day weekend.  Where did the summer go? I feel like I say that almost every year now. I'm looking forward to the long weekend.  And then, just maybe, the weather will behave until the snow flies. I have accepted the change in the seasons now, even though we are having season-appropriate weather. 

If we were having coffee ... the end of July

 This type of blog post is for when I have a lot of little things I want to share, or when I feel the need to catch up. 

So, grab your coffee/beverage of your choice and join me. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd say I took a nap.  Well, not really, but this is what I tell myself that I did when I laid out on the hammock during my lunch hour today. Even though I had bug spray on I felt little insects bumping me and the chickens kept making noises. 

It must have done me some good, though.  When I was laying there, trying to focus on one thing and relax, each time I felt it was necessary to swipe away a (most likely not even there) insect my limbs felt heavy. Not from the heat either. 

Sidenote: My jerk of a roo may have his days numbered.  You can see him in the background of the photo above. 

"Why?" you might be asking.  Well, cause he's a jerk. For some reason he has decided he hates me and he didn't do his job this weekend. More on that later. 

Back to it: Can I whine about the weather again? I feel like I'm such a broken record about it. I've been in a bit of a funk the last several days, give or take maybe a week. Or a month. I've been trying to put my finger on it and it dawned on me that this is the first summer in a very long time that I haven't spent a lot of time outside.  Thanks to the weather. Maybe I've said this already.  I don't remember.  I'm getting older and the brain ain't what it used to be. 

So I have been trying to remedy this. Spending more time outdoors, I mean. Course now the weather is quite warm and moist. Currently the temperature is 87 with a real feel of 97. Last night when I went to close up the coop the air was so full of moisture I felt like I could open my mouth, take a deep breath and drown.

This year I seem to do okay with the warmer weather. I think my internal thermostat has slowed, or something. I can tolerate the heat better.  Don't ask me to do heavy labor.  I do everything slower when it's really warm out.  I do appreciate our a/c, however. Don't get me wrong. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd blather about the garden just a wee bit. The garden is liking the warm weather that we are (finally) getting and things are starting to catch up to where they should be. 

Calendulas in bloom.

Dainty bachelor button at the garden entrance. 

*sigh* I've come to the conclusion (stopped being in denial) that I once again have collard greens in the garden.  This was supposed to be cauliflower.  This makes it three years in a row that I planted collards. I thought I had fresh seeds this year, too.  It will have to be fresh greens for the chickens and Feffer. 

Volunteer ground cherry plant. Plant once and have them forever.  It's all right, I really like them.  I've been seeing baby plants pop up all over the yard.  The chickens see them too and chew them up to bits. I'm not to happy about that. I'd LOVE to see these growing all over the place. 

My pepper plants are taking off! Now they just need to grow me beautiful little peppers. 

Cabbage!  I want to make so much sauerkraut.

Some of our tomato plants. 

Pretty little zucchinis. 

I have cucumbers starting to grow.  I have to remind myself to get out there and water these plants every morning. 

Tomatos! 

Look what I found among the onions and violas.

I don't know if I've ever shared this. This is Furby's final resting place. 

And before you say anything about the amount of little statues on there, I did it to help pretty up the chipboard we put down to ensure nothing came and dug the space up. The squirrels keep knocking those statues down. 

If we were having coffee ... Speaking of chickens ... we had a predator attack on Sunday. I don't know if it was during the afternoon or in the early evening. We lost one of our younger hens.  I still feel sick about it when I think about it.  The predator got really close to the house and snatched her.  Right next to Feffer's enclosure. 

This guy ... didn't do his job. 

The only reason I keep him around is so he'll protect the flock.  I am not fond of him at all and the feeling is mutual. I have to keep an eye on him when I'm outside cause he'll try to sneak attack me. 

Getting rid of roosters is part of having a flock and deciding to have roosters. He's the meanest one I've ever had.  I know it's because I didn't hand raise him. 

If we were having coffee ... Speaking of our boy Feffer. 

Recently I mentioned how he's getting up there in years. My son realized Feffer's age and I think that he realized Feffer's time with us is very limited now. 

He's been spoiling Feffer something awful, ever since. 

My son went out to the woods and brought back patches of moss and all sorts of things that he thought Feffer would like, and help him feel like a "real wild and independent bun."

At least that is what I think.  My son has also been bringing veggie scraps home for him too, Feffer has been getting very spoiled. 

He thinks he's so hidden! 

If we were having coffee ... I had a thought.  Now I forgot it. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd let you know that I remembered what it was. I feel like I'm still in a very boring phase of the year/life right now.  Still not a lot going on, cause I'm not really doing anything. I have a feeling that will probably change in mid-to late August when garden produce starts ripening. 

My hubby and I did do a thing this past weekend. We've taken to watching a few YouTube channels together. About automobiles if you can believe it.  Now I'm not a motorhead or anything and really I have very little interest in car things, but I have been finding some of these channel's content interesting.  So when we are all settled in to watch tv in the evening I pretty much hand the remotes over to him and grab my knitting or cross stitch, or whatever I decide to do that evening. 

All that to say that one of the channel guys has a garage organization system that could make you green and owly. It's pretty nice and even I took notice. 

It inspired my man to want to do something about our garage. We ordered new shelving, pulled  everything down and went through it all and got rid of what we don't use, didn't want, or got trashed from the non-paying tenents who live out there and are very inconsiderate little jerks.  Mice. I'm talking about mice. And chipmunks.  Grrrr. It's a part of living out in the country. 

So, yeah, the hottest weekend of the season so far and we were out there.  Granted, he was out there before me and did most of the work, but I helped with what I could.  

And now the garage looks SO good. There's a place for everything and everything is in it's place.  

It's a much more work-friendly space, and I'm so happy that he's happy about how it turned out. 

This was my project on Sunday afternoon. Sorting through the loose screws, nuts and bolts.  We ordered a drawer organizer and now we know where ALL the things are. 

If we were having coffee ... I'd say "When did knitting needle stoppers become a thing? I mean that in all seriousness. Back when I started knitting I think very few people used them.  Now they seem to be all over the place. I tried using DPN things from KnitPicks, way back when and I did not like them.  I ask because I'm playing the newest episode from Coggie and she mentioned her needle stoppers. 

Speaking of notions ... I got a few new notions.  About a month ago I had a really odd thing happen.  I got a sore nose and I have no idea how it happened.  It was like I got bopped.  My nose was tender enough that it was really difficult to wear the cheater readers for working on cross stitch. So, I decided it was time to get a magnifier that I could clip on to my Hope stand.  I ordered one off Amazon and was not pleased with it.  It was much smaller than I thought it would be. The item description stretched the truth a bit. Back it went. 

Whined to my guy about it and he said something I don't remember and I said "You find one for me." 

He did. 

I am really happy with this magnifier.  It's 10X so I am tempted to give evenweave another try. 

I put an order in with Sweet Autumn Stitch for some new needleminders.  I actually contacted the shop owner and asked if she had any porcupine graphics. All she could come up with was hedgehogs.  They were so cute that I couldn't say no and I ordered them. 

I guess that is my segue into saying that I have been diligently knitting, crafting and all the good things. I'm hoping to make a vlog real soon. I think it's been three weeks since the last one. I have a few things to share.  Just need to get my notes in order. 

Oh, one final thing. Does anyone recognize this bird call?