Wouldn't Ya Know. . .

 I told you about getting my Suburban back road-worthy again so that I could haul horse and chicken feed and things like that without having to arrange for DH to take me in his company-issued truck since the blue truck got totaled and I no longer had a truck to drive.  We figured that was a good solution, as I could do most of the farm related truck-type tasks in the Suburban just as I had for years before we bought the blue truck.  And any large/heavy hauling we needed to do we could use DH's work truck for--the Suburban, being rather elderly and having lived most of it's 21 years outside, was retired from trailer towing a few years ago after we were advised by the local auto mechanic that it wasn't a good idea to pull weight attached to the Suburban's rusty frame anymore. I believe the descriptive phrase he used was "Swiss cheese".

We thought we had it all figured out: Suburban to do the light trucky tasks, and the EV truck DH had been assigned to drive as his work issued vehicle for the heavier stuff.  We could get along without the blue truck just fine, and didn't need to rush into purchasing a replacement (that will be a subject of a future post, give me a few months and perhaps I'll get it written).

And then, wouldn't ya know, the day after we picked the Suburban up from the shop where it had gotten it's brake issues repaired, DH got an email from the company vehicle department at work.  It was time to turn the EV truck in and get his next assigned vehicle.

Which isn't an unusual thing.  In the past four years, since DH got the promotion that qualified him to get a company assigned vehicle for personal use, he has had each one for six to nine or ten months and then they call that vehicle back (where it gets sold as company used) and issue him a brand new one.  The EV truck came to him late last fall, so really, we were kind of expecting it to get called back soon.

What we hadn't expected, was the new vehicle to be what it is.  DH has been assigned one car, two medium-largish SUVs, and two trucks of varying size so far.  We figured he would get something in that category again: something we could haul stuff and tow a trailer with.

Uh, yeah.  This time, not so much.  He got another SUV, but this one is the smallest one yet (not counting the car, as you can't really tow anything with a car).  Ironically it is the same model of SUV that both Honorary Son and DD2 have as their daily drivers.  Works great for them who don't live on farms or haul anything other than passengers, groceries, and occasionally a small piece of furniture.  Will not work well at all for hauling anything big/heavy and shape-shifting like 50 pound grain bags--I know this because I have tried and the cargo space is so small you have to load the bags facing one particular direction and stack them because you can't fit two side by side. Grain bags don't necessarily stack well; they have a tendency to slide on each other and also come flopping out at you as soon as the rear (cargo) door is lifted. This size SUV also doesn't have the guts (or the labeling) to haul our 16 foot trailer with anything on it--like, say a pallet of baled horse bedding, or even two dozen bales of horse bedding. . .  We know this, because we've known this make of vehicle for the past seven years.

Well, poop.  Guess we aren't getting along without a real truck afterall.  Although, on occassion, it is possible for DH to borrow a truck from the fleet at work, provided they aren't all busy/assigned elsewhere on the dates he wishes to borrow one.  Which is how he was able to haul home all that free oak last week.  He requested to borrow a pickup for a week.  And we hauled all kinds of stuff with it.  Which made for a busy week indeed.

Free Oak Firewood? Yes, Please!

 Last week was a busy week in many ways.  One of which was DH hauling a truckload of aged oak firewood home after work three days out of five.  Those three days were his scheduled in-office days, and this free firewood just happened to be less than five miles from where DH reports to work.  A good friend of his who lives nearby alerted him about a neighbor who'd had multiple large oak trees cut down about three years ago and recently had come to the conclusion that he (neighbor) wasn't going to use that wood after all.  Now he just wanted it gone.

Now, oak has high BTU value, which makes it very desirable for using to heat our home in the winter.  As an efficient burning wood, it also has a high price if you were to need to buy it.  So of course free oak is something worth our while to go get if it's a reasonable distance away, or, in this case, pretty much on DH's way home from work.

In addition to those three truck-beds-ful, he also spent about 12 hours on Saturday running back and forth with our 16 foot trailer getting the longer and/or larger diameter stuff that wouldn't fit into the bed of the truck.  Unfortunately Saturday was a day of off and on deluge rain and thunderstorms, which meant sometimes he had to stop loading and take shelter for half an hour or so waiting for the rain to pass before continuing to load wood.

Still, he managed to bring home three trailers full plus fill the truck bed each time.  His friend came along to help unload at this little place here, and so when DH took the friend back home shortly before dark they unhooked and left the trailer here and just filled the truck bed for a fourth load.

That's a lotta wood.  The photo above is just the three trailer's worth and two truck-beds-ful.  It doesn't show the truckloads from earlier in the week (or later on Saturday) that were unloaded into a different spot closer to where we stack our split wood for the winter.

The picture below shows the truck loads from earlier in the week.  That was smaller stuff that mostly won't need to be split, just stacked.  Or maybe cut into the correct length and then stacked, as some are branches as thick as your arm but six or eight foot long.

DH estimates it should be almost the entire winter's worth.  We'll see. . . once it's split and stacked and we can see how many rows we get on the base made of pallets he and Toad prepped the weekend before, we'll have a better idea of how many heating months of wood he just got for the cost of fuel in the truck and his time.

Not Cheeseballs: A Grandkid Tale

 See these?  These, despite the orange coloring on the package, and being snack-sized bags, are not cheeseballs.

Apparently, to a five year old, who is on a long car ride with her Papa and Amma and eldest girl cousin, on a quick glance, they give off the impression that they contain cheeseballs.

This is a story from our family vacation to Myrtle Beach last month.  K3 and Faline rode with DH and I to South Carolina.  DD1 had packed a bag of 'road snacks' for the girls, all being things that she had recently gotten from her community's weekly free food giveaway for famlies with small children (these sorts of things have popped up during the summers in many communities around us since covid, no income limits on who can get them). You cannot pick through what is offered each week, you are simply handed a bag for each child that you have.  This week snack-type items the bag contained were apples, small packages of baby carrots, little bags holding 5-6 grape tomatoes each, cheese and prezel dippers (like you'd put in your kid's lunch box), and these bright orange and white crinkly bags of small crispy feeling snacks.

Faline was super excited about this bag of (to her) mystery goodies that DD1 had sent with her with the instructions that she (Faline) couldn't eat any of the items until Papa or Amma said that it was snack time.  So excited that we were only about five miles down the road from this little place here, and thirty minutes since breakfast, when Faline started asking if she could have a snack. 

About two hours into our long drive the first day of vacation, DH and I finally told her she could choose one snack from the bag. Faline handed me one of these packages and asked if I could open it for her.  She called it cheeseballs, and I didn't read the package at all, just opened the top and handed it back to her.

Shortly after, from the backseat, DH and I heard this exclamation:

"THESE ARE NOT CHEESEBALLS!!!" said emphatically with great disgust. 

Followed by "How could Mom do this to me?!?"

Which, coming from a five year old. this statement of seeming betrayal was incredibly hilarious.  

And, when Faline handed me back the package that I'd opened for her, I could see why she was shocked and felt betrayed.  The bag did not contain cheeseballs.  It held buffalo-flavored fava bean crisps. BLECH!  Yeah, if I'd been expecting cheeseballs and popped one of these spicy crispy beans into my mouth, I'd be sorely disappointed too.  Especially if I was a kid who couldn't read the package and was going only by the coloring and the cartoony figure on it..

I confess that out of curiousity, I did pop one into my mouth.  Uh, that's a big NO from me too.  Not the bean part necessarily, but the strong buffalo flavoring on it.  I'm not a fan of buffalo chicken or anything else buffalo, apparently including fava beans.  Cheeseballs would have been a thousand times tastier.

Make My Horse Life Easier Tip #11

Clamps!  Also known as grip clips, depending on the brand.

I love these things.  These are the kind that screw into the wall and grip the handles of things, thus holding them in place so they don't fall over.  I have them in my garage (broom, rake, spade), in my mudroom closet (broom, mop, etc), and in my barn (manure forks, brooms, etc.).  It's the barn application that I'm going to talk about here.

I could, and did for more than a year, just lean my barn cleaning tools against the wall.  That costs zero money to do and keeps things relatively orderly and upright.

Relatively.  

Which, over time, was not satisfying enough in the neatness or efficiency departments for me.  So in 2025 I took the clamps I had on hand that I'd originally bought for using in my garden shed (and hadn't yet because that project is still unfinishined, DH having lost interest and forgotten about completeing the little details once the walls, roof and doors were assembled together) and installed them in the barn.

I did use two different sizes, the large and medium, if I remember right, depending on how thick of a handle particular things had.

manure forks (and in the bottom right you can see the head of the extension duster)

the old broom I use for 'sweeping' up the saturated bedding in the pee spot(s) in stalls

There are still a few things, like the scoop shovel I use for wet bedding, and as a dust pan when sweeping the aisle, that get propped against the wall because their handles are super thick and I don't have a big enough clamp, but most items are hung and held in place with the clamps.

So now instead of everything being two or three tools deep and having to daily shuffle things to get to other things, and quite often having something get knocked over or tripped on, I have neatness and ease:

ah, tools neatly hung

It's so much more efficient, and satisfying, to have all the handles in a single layer and be able to quickly grab just the tool I want rather than shuffling through them all leaned against the wall .  These clips/clamps are another example of those little things that don't cost much at all but make life so much better.

I Know That My Suburban Lives

 Apologies to anyone familiar with the great hymn I Know That My Redeemer Lives who might see me as being flippant and irreverent.  That is not at all my intent here.  I love that hymn, which is why the title above, in my head, becomes a song sung to that tune.

I know that my Suburban lives!

What comfort this sweet sentence gives.

She lives, who once was given up for dead;

she lives and I'll drive her instead!

Allow me an explanation.  This is our 2005 Suburban that was my vehicle for nearly 20 years.  She's rusty.  She's got over 302,000 miles on her (original!!) engine and transmission.  

When we ordered Sweet Madame Blue in 2023, the Suburban went from my daily driver to my winter beater.  And then, in May 2025, her brakes started grinding, and DH didn't have time to replace them.  So she sat for a few months.  Then he decided that maybe he'd take her to the local auto repair shop and have them replace the brakes instead of doing it himself.  But it wasn't a priority, so she sat for another few months.  Then it was time for Sweet Madame Blue to go into hibernation in the garage for the winter, and, rather than do anything about getting those brakes fixed so I could drive the Suburban all winter, he decided it was just easier if I used the blue truck as my winter ride.

At one point, January, I think, he decided that rather than fix those brakes on the Suburban, he would just put her up for sale, as is.  We'd gotten a good twenty years out of her.  She's been from one coast to the other with us: Michigan to Florida, Michigan to South Carolina (multiple times), Michigan to Oregon. Multiple other states, even a few locations in Canada. She'd been through four teenage drivers and a (male) driver (and his buddies) who didn't always make the best decisions, and she had all the dents to show for it.  But yet, every time I (or anyone else) turned the key, she fired right up.  She wasn't ready for the scrap yard yet.  She just needed someone willing to replace the little things as they continued to get worn out over the miles and years. (Which, given recent history, was no longer DH.)

So, she sat at the end of our driveway, a for sale sign in her window, all winter and most of the spring.  Finding out that Craigslist now charges for automobile for sale ads, DH declined to list her online with them.  And, since he doesn't do Facebook, he declined to list her there either.  We're out in the country on a side road; we don't get much traffic other than tractors and our other rural neighbors (who mostly all have four-wheel drive vehicles of their own already).  Which means there wasn't much awareness of or inquiries into our Suburban.  One guy (a rural neighbor) wanted to know if we'd trade her for a dump truck load of gravel (uh, no.  Not unless that guy wanted to also give us some cash with that gravel, which he didn't).  But other than that, no interest at all.  So DH finally brought her back up to the house and parked her in our parking area.

And then, in June, he and the blue truck had an intimate encounter with a deer.  If you've been reading my blog this summer, you know how that turned out.  So, once we'd made our final decision on what to do with the totaled blue truck (you can read that here), I looked at DH and said:

"Why don't we take the Suburban in to get her brakes fixed, and she can be my winter beater again this year and I can also use her this summer and fall for hauling things like bags of grain that I used to get in the blue truck?  That way I don't have to arrange for you to go after work (and before the feed store closes) to get that sort of stuff  with me with your company truck."

Wonder of wonders, he agreed with me.  Probably because for over a month he'd found it rather inconvenient to haul farm related things for me.  A week later (because, if you know my DH, he only moves quickly on his own whims), we dropped her off at the local auto repair shop that we've used for more than a decade for things DH doesn't have the time (or tools in some cases) to fix himself.

And now, she's back on the road again!  I don't feel quite so helpless in terms of hauling things, I don't have to make arrangements with DH to go with me buy 50 pound bags of animal feed.  Because, honestly, that was really cramping my style, not to mention fuc messing up my horse training/barn work schedule.

I know that my Suburban lives! 

What comfort this sweet sentence gives.

She lives, who once was given up for dead;

she lives and I'll drive her instead!

Jedi's Progress

Jedi has been here for just over four months.  I am very pleased with his progress since he arrived in mid-April.  When he came, he was skinnier than I had expected (hadn't laid eyes on him in a couple of weeks since K3 and I had gone out for a test ride on him).  He was also way jumpier, tense almost all the time when being handled and didn't seem to know how to cross-tie.

April, a quick picture in a brief moment of stillness in the cross ties 

(at that time he would stand still for up to a minute, as long as there were other horses in the barn with him.)

I'm very happy with his weight gain, he's starting to look round now, and his spine no longer is a ridge that runs down his back.

nice 'flat' spine, not a ridge of bones

He also stands nicely in the cross ties most of the time, even without other horses in the barn with him.  I can trust him to stand quietly for a grandkid to groom him and not knock them over with a sudden jump sideways or forward, and he doesn't ever pull back on the ties.

Early August, he now stands calmly all by himself (no other horses in the barn) most of the time.

Also note how more filled out his body is compared to the April picture.

 He trusts us (me, DH, K3, and lately Faline has started handling him) now and isn't tense around us.  He does still have moments of forgetting to respect personal space--usually when being led out to the pasture--but even those are becoming fewer and farther between.

K3 and I have taught him to longe calmly rather than race around us in frantic circles.  He is learning to take polite contact with the longe line, and also to stay out on the end of it for his circle rather than crowding us or trying to cut through the center with a hugely drooping line that he could get his feet tangled in.

He stands quietly at the mounting block for kids to get on, and Faline to get off.  He still fidgets when I go to mount him, but not as badly.  We're still overcoming old habits and his prior (lack of??) training.

a business-like walk

K3 rides him around at walk and trot, his steering has improved and he hasn't walked (or trotted) through her reins in a while.  His trot, which was so tense and very sewing-machine-like (legs going straight up and down), is becoming more relaxed and longer strides forward with his legs.

K3 riding a long trot stride!

He has improved so much, in fact, that earlier this month I decided he was probably safe enough (trustworthy enough) to try putting Faline on.

Faline, posing for a picture pre-ride.

With me leading him, and DD1 walking on his right side as a spotter, Faline has ridden him twice now, about 10 minutes each time, at a walk.  She's never been on a horse before, so she's a little intimidated by his size and the newness of sitting up on a living thing that moves on its own.  Both rides have been very successful in terms of her enjoyment, and his good behavior.

We are on the right track, for sure.  I believe he will be (probably next year, since I don't see any of the grandkids riding much in the cold weather) a good horse that they all can ride and be safe on.  Which was the whole point of buying him.

Bye-Bye, Blue Truck

 Well, we finally got everything all sorted out with what to do with the Blue Truck after DH hit a deer with it back in late June.  Insurance claim, repair estimates, the insurance company declaring it totaled, do we want to salvage it (buy it back from the insurance company and take market value untotaled minus market value totaled as our settlement), let the insurance company have it (and get a settlement for entire pretotaled market value), if we salvage it do we want to repair it ourselves or pay a body shop to repair it or just sell it as-is to someone else (theoretically getting the same dollar figure overall as if we had let the insurance company have it). . .

There were a lot of scenarios to run through in making our decision.  That took several weeks, especially as we had our family vacation to Myrtle Beach not too many weeks after the deer hit took place.  There was just a ton going on during that time frame and trying to figure out each what if for the Blue Truck's future couldn't always be the front and center thing of conversation between DH and I.  So the calendar turned to August before we finally made our decision and wrapped everything up with the insurance company.

We salvaged the truck.  We did not let the insurance company have it.

DH talked to a few family members in regards to their interest in the truck as is; each of them had expressed, in the past, an interest in purchasing it if we should ever sell it.  Would any of them be interested in it now, knowing what repairs it needed?

Yes.  One of them would.  They didn't care about the cosmetics of the dented pieces that still work perfectly fine.  With no mechanical damage, the truck still operates exactly as a truck should.  They knew someone who, for their labor, would do the repairs on the safety features if the family member bought (new or from a salvage yard) the parts.

But did we really want to sell it?  Or did we want to see what a dealer (probably the one whose collision center had done the repair estimate for the insurance claim) would give us for it as a trade in if we ordered a brand new truck?  Afterall, DH has been rolling around the idea of a new truck, perhaps a three-quarter ton, for a few years now.  Plus, in the Spring, it will be four years since we bought Sweet Madame Blue, and part of DH's 'level' with his employer (and the accompanying company vehicle) requires us to purchase a new (of that brand) vehicle every four years. . . 

After many hours of soul searching (mostly on DH's part, as my opinion could only be given so many times without it starting to feel like a character attack), it was decided that we would not repair the truck ourselves.  Because a) DH really doesn't have the desire to do that stuff--work on auto repairs--anymore, b) lacking desire it would be something to easily put off for months and months and (you get the picture), c) I absolutely refuse to drive it lacking some necessary saftey features--part of the repairs that would be a pain in the ass to do and likely be put off (such as replacing the seat belts).

We decided not to pay a collision center/body shop to do the repairs because other than the seat belts and side airbags, they are easy enough for a person with desire and a little knowledge to do themselves.

We decided to sell the truck, in it's current condition, to the family member who wanted it for the same price as the insurance had deducted as it's crashed value in our insurance claim.  Late last week, DH delivered it to them.

So, bye-bye Blue Truck.  Thank you for your service.  Sorry you met that deer in late June, sorry that we won't be owning you anymore.  Hopefully family member does right by you and appreciates the work you will do for them.

Blue Truck, when it was new

Anansi

In late July, I stopped in my local library to return the book I had taken on vacation with me, and while I was there I saw a tray with about six tiny cups holding baby spider plants.  I also noticed that the library--which is very tiny as libraries go--had been somewhat rearranged in the about three weeks it had been since I was last there.  There was now a big spider plant in a pot in the front window behind the checkout desk, and, I suspected, that big spider plant was the source of the little 'potted' babies.

The tray had a sign that said "Free", and each little spider plant had a popsicle stick in it with a small envelope hanging from the stick that said "Adopt a baby spider plant".  Inside the envelope was a small booklet on baby spider plant care.

Each little (paper, looks like a ketchup cup from Burger King) pot had a small, infant sized wrist band taped around it, and each of those bands sported a name.  Every name was a character in a book, and while I didn't recognize all of them, I suspect they had something spider-related in common.

When I read this one, Anansi, I knew that I would be taking a baby spider plant home with me.  Because Anansi is not only a character in a book, but it is also a song by Raffi.  When my kids were little, we listened to a lot of Raffi. We had many Raffi cds. The lyrics to Anansi immediately popped into my head:

Anansi, he is a spider,

Anansi, he is a man.

Anasi, he is a lazy one,

Do as little as he can. . .

The song goes on of course, look it up if you don't know it (beware, it will stick in your head!).

Yep, that little plant, that Anansi, was definitely waiting for me to show up and claim it.  So I did.  He went home with me, cherished like an unexpected prize.

Once home, I opened the envelope and found the care booklet. Also inside the little envelope, was a teeny tiny certificate of adoption with the plant's name on it and other parts to be filled in by the adopter.  The envelope, booklet and adoption certificate are all very cute and remind me of the little things inside the pages of the Jolly Postman books.  Whomever at the library came up with this idea for rehoming their (unwanted--not enough room) baby spider plants did a brilliant job.

This little Anansi has gotten a new, bigger, more durable pot.  And a place with indirect light.  I had been wanting a spider plant for a while, it's been many years since my last one died (cats?  young children?), and now I have a new baby one to enjoy.

Games Horse People Play

 There are many 'games' that people who spend copious amounts of time around horses are familiar with.  Probably the most well known is "Catch Me If You Can" (which sometimes is also called "Tag, You're It"), where the horse person goes out into the pasture to catch the horse and bring them in (usually to ride, sometimes for the farrier or the vet), and the horse, spying the person from across the pasture comes part of the way to the person, then spins and runs off in the opposite direction.  If the person gives chase, following the horse, this can go on for a long time. That one is one of my most hated games, and I refuse to play it unless absolutely necessary (there are ways to train this out of a horse, but you must be diligent in the process).

There's also "Find the Shoe", in which the horse loses one of their shoes, either by getting it sucked off in mucky spring mud, or steps on the heel of it with the toe of a rear foot while running and wrenching it loose (in which instance it may go briefly airborne).  Either way, there's a metal shoe out in the pasture somewhere, and the person is tasked with finding it.  Over the years, and working and multiple farms with shod horses, I've gotten to what is probably expert level in that game.  It's time consuming, but I can succeed.

Another is "Where's My Halter?",  where the horse, turned out with a halter on either rubs it off on something (their leg, a tree, the water trough, a fence post, the edge of a run-in shed or other building) or entices their pasturemate(s) to play Bitey-Face and pull the halter off for them.  Then the horse person must search the pasture to find the halter so they can put it back on and lead the horse from the pasture back to the barn or whereever else the person had it in mind to take the horse.  I also avoid this one by not leaving halters on during turnout (a few exceptions being if the horse is new and unfamiliar with the barn routine or hard to catch [see "Catch Me If You Can"]).

The latest one I have had the dubious honor of playing (thanks, Tubbs) is "Fly Mask, Or Pile of Horse Poop?"  Tubbs always wears a fly mask over his face when he goes outside, even in the cold weather when there are no flies.  This is because he once had a cancerous tumor on the lower lid of his right eye, which, during treatment of said tumor, left him with light sensitivity and decreased vision in that eye as well as missing a small chunk of eyelid.  So he wears his mask as both protection from bugs and other things that might get into that eye and as sunglasses against the UV rays.

Tubbs, however, would prefer not to wear a mask.  He likes to try to rub his off.  He also has a tendencey to shred them.  A couple of weeks ago, his owner brought him out a brand new mask to replace the one he wore into dilapidation.  The 'old' mask was a light grey color.  The new mask is a stylish black (he's a black horse, so this one, at a glance, blends right into his head).  Unfortunately the mask not only matches the color of his hair, it matches the color of every manure pile in his pasture.

So, one recent evening, when I went to bring the horses into their stalls for dinner, I found Tubbs mask-less.  Which meant, ready or not, I got to play "Fly Mask, Or Pile of Horse Poop?" and try to find his mask in the expanse of pasture.

In the three pictures above, can you tell which black splotch is a pile of poop and which is the fly mask?

If you said the fly mask is in the third picture, you'd be correct.  But without getting up close, it's hard to tell which is which.  Definitely not a fun game when you are searching an acre of pasture.  Then again, none of these games horses like to volunteer their people to play are very fun.  Just another reason horse people are crazy.

A Drive Down Memory Lane

 Or, actually, down Queens Lane, which is the name of the road my paternal grandparents lived on for about 10 years after my grandmother retired from her factory job (Grandpa was 11 years older than her an had been retired for a while) and they moved from Michigan to Southeastern Ohio to be nearer to her family (she was born in eastern Kentucky and had several siblings still living in Kentucky at the time).  For several summers, my brother and I would go spend a week with Grandpa and Grandma at their 'farm', which was two acres on a hill side next to a small dairy farm, and they grew a huge garden.  Our visits always happened to coincide with the peak of green bean harvesting and canning.

But it's been over 35 years since I was last there.  When they moved, and sold it, in early 1992 to be nearer my Uncle in the Akron area because Grandpa had quite bad Alzheimer's by then, and Grandma had never learned to drive a car, I was living in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan with DH as he was working on finishing his engineering degree.  

On our way home from the Myrtle Beach vacation in July, our route took us not terribly far from the little town they had lived outside of.  DH asked if I wanted to detour and drive past their old place, and I said sure!  He had never been there, only heard stories from me about it. That was the piece of land that inspired so much of my desire for my own plot of land in the country with a big garden, and I had so many fun memories of the place that how could I pass up this chance to revisit it?

I knew that their old single-wide house trailer was long gone from the property. The people they had sold the land to had built their own home on it.  But I thought I would recognize the land, the big red pole barn.  And surely the neighboring dairy farm would be a dead giveaway.  Or the small house and metal sided shed that belonged to the neighbor on the other side of Grandpa and Grandma's place.

Nope.  Nope.  And nope again.  Instead of having been built up in the last 34 years (35 since my last visit), the whole area seems to have become grown over and more wild.  Even the narrow road, always about one and a half car widths, had become less civilized.  More of a two-track in some sections than an actual county-maintained road.  The old houses I remembered?  Most of them gone. The chicken man's shack of a house, I couldn't even tell you where it had been. The dairy farm?  Not a building left!!  The big red pole barn at Grandpa and Grandma's?  Also gone. The other neighbor's house and shed?  You guessed it, gone.

The only way I even recognized the place was as we came around a curve in the road, and it began to rise to a hill up ahead.  My whole body strained forward, towards that hill.  My body knew that hill even though absolutely nothing else was how I'd remembered it.  As we crested the hill, my head turned left and I saw an unfamiliar house with unfamiliar small outbuildings, and I knew, I just knew sure as the sun rises in the east that once upon a time, I had swung on a stick tied to a piece of rope tied to the sturdy branch of a tree that grew atop the embankment edging the road.  Right there.  In the early 1980s, a 9 or 10 or 11 year old me had swung out over that exact spot in the road.  And somewhere hidden behind the house that now stood on the hill, my Grandma had been inside the house trailer pressure canning beans, and Grandpa had sat in the shade of an apple tree that no longer existed.  And behind that house trailer, behind that apple tree, on the other side of a field fence that was long gone, in a pasture that now was full of brush and trees,  brown Guernseys once grazed, waiting for the farmer's son to drive around on his three-wheeler to round them up for milking.  Way down at the bottom on the hill, now all in brush, used to be the other neighbor's shed, that if I threw with all my might, I could lob an apple from that apple tree by the house trailer on top of the hill and just barely peg the shed with a satisfying pinging sound.

Everything was both familiar and totally unrecognizable at the same time.

For a good hour or more after that, as we drove, on the interstate again, DH and I talked about what that piece of land had been, who the people had been, how life had been.  It was a great way to pass the time on our long journey home to this little place here.  A place that in many ways, is now what that little two acres in rural Ohio had been then.

(Except I don't swing out over the road on a stick on a rope no more.  I also don't lob apples at other people's sheds.  I do pick and can green beans, and walk in fields, and hear the mooing of cows at my neighbor's dairy farm.  Unfortunately those cows don't graze in grassy pastures, they stand in free stall barns all day and have ground food brought to them by tractor loads.)

New Socks, Underway!

 After finishing my Dad's socks for Father's Day, I took a short break from knitting.  Not because I wanted to, but because there were so many things vying for my time (like prepping the farm for a farm sitter while DH and I were on our big family vacation in July).

However, I knew I wanted to take a knitting project with me on the long drive to and from Myrtle Beach, so two days before we hit the road, I went into my stash of fingering yarn and grabbed out a blue tonal skein.  Why blue?  Because for over a year one of the things on my Want To Make list has been a pair of blue socks for myself.  

At the time I wrote that list, I didn't have a specific pattern in mind, but now I did.  Because in late June I had been working ten minutes here and twenty minutes there on darning some of my handknit socks that had worn holes in the balls of the feet or the heels (or both!) and in that pile of socks to be mended I found my Cadence socks.  

I had knit these socks ten years ago, and they had been darned at least once since then.  Unfortunately, when I gave them a good look this time, I had to admit that they were just too worn out to darn again.  It would be more like trying to knit new heels and soles for them.  And I definitely didn't have the time, talent, or enough of the original yarn left to attempt that.  So I sadly said goodbye to them.

All of which meant that my next socks, my blue socks, would most definitely need to be knit using the Cadence pattern that I so loved.

With my pattern chosen, and yarn in hand, I cast on the first sock.  Knit two rows of the cuff, then packed yarn, needles, pattern, and row counter away in my travel bag so it would be handy on my trip. 

On the way to Myrtle Beach I didn't get a whole lot of knitting time, as we had K3 and Faline riding with us.  I managed to get through the cuff and the first chart for the leg.  I also knit a little (an inch?) off and on while at Myrtle Beach some of the times I was hanging out on the balcony having a breather from all my vacation-mates.

On the way home, it was just DH and I in the truck (Faline rode with her parents and brothers, who were marathon driving straight back to Michigan.  K3, along with Toad and Rascal, stayed in South Carolina visiting their other grandparents--K2's parents) and I got a ton of knitting done.

When we arrived back home, I had the leg about three-quarters knit.

Then it sat for a week, untouched, while I scrambled around trying to catch up on housekeeping and farm work post-vacation.  Recently I have worked on it a couple of brief spells and currently I have finished the length of the leg and am about half-way through the heel flap.  

I have no illusions of any great spans of time to knit on this in the near future.  If I can have both socks done by my own birthday (December), that would be great.  But more than likely I will be setting this project aside later this month and working on a different knitting project instead.

Because Faline, seeing me knitting while we were on the road to our vacation destination, dropped hints in the way that only a five year old can do.  "Amma, I don't have any socks knit by you.  I like pink.  That would be a good color for knit socks."

Her birthday is mid-November.  I have at least one skein of fingering yarn in pink.  If I focus my knitting time on it, I could probably whip up a pair of youth size 1 pink socks by then.

Books Read in 2026: July

 Laughed Til He Died by Carolyn Hart.  Liked it.  I picked this up at the Spring book swap not realizing it was number 20 in a 26 book series!  That said, it read well as a stand alone, although I do think I may have read one of the earlier novels years and years ago.  The main characters felt familiar.  Anyway, this mystery has a quick pace, lots of characters, not gory and also not too cutesy like I find the modern (last 8ish years or so) cozy mysteries to be.

Summer State of Mind by Kristy Woodson Harvey.  Sucked me in right from the start.  While I didn't like how some of the characters behaved (way too rapid met-to-bedroom for me), I did like the story even if it did seem to resolve a little too quickly and easily in the last few chapters.  Compared to most of the book, which had many messy complex things about the characters, the last portion just wrapped up everything too neatly and 'everybody's fine with it' for me to find believable.

The Shippers by Katherine Center.  This is her newest rom-com and it was absolutely the most perfect beach read to take with me on summer vacation.  I loved it.  I devoured it.  I could have easily read it in one continuous reading marathon if there hadn't been family with me to interrupt my reading time.

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson.  This is another book I picked up at the Spring book swap.  I threw it in my suitcase while packing for vacation in case I finished my other book I was bringing along (which I did).  And, while I do like the author's descriptive style, I have to confess that overall the book just felt like it had no real point and I started to struggle with my desire to keep reading it right around page 70 or so.  I kept going to page 120-something and decided to DNF it.

Call It Horses by Jessie van Eerden.  Another book swap find.  I have to admit I just opened it near the end of the month, so haven't read enough to have an opinion of it yet.

A Puzzle A Month

I pick up jigsaw puzzles in spurts.  Sometimes none for months (or maybe even a year???), and then two to four or even five at once if I happen upon a bunch I like for a good (cheap) price.  My 'free' time varies throughout the year, and historically I do only a few puzzles over the course of twelve months, mostly in the cold dark months of winter.  Which means I have found myself with a backlog of puzzles waiting to be put together.  Some from as far back as 2015 according to this Goodwill sticker on one.

I like to do puzzles 'in season' by what their picture is: winter scenes in winter, summer scenes in summer, etc.  Some are harder to peg down the exact season, and those I tend to do if my eye happens to catch that one more than a seasonally recognizable one at the time I am grabbing a puzzle to work on.  Which is how I have 11+ year old puzzles in my stash that still haven't been done (rarely do I do a puzzle more than once, so I tend to give them away after completing them).

 This past winter I put together a big one.  In spring, none.  In late spring I decided that I should, if possible, devote some of my scarce summer free time to working through that puzzle stash.  If I could get one puzzle put together each month that would be a good thing.  Not just for reducing the amount of puzzle boxes I have stashed, but because working puzzles is a relaxing thing for me who has a hard time sitting still if her brain (and hands) aren't working away at something.

In June, I did this one:

And for most of July, I picked away at this one for about three weeks:

This is the one I have chosen for August: 

I find it both entertaining and a bit frustrating to note the difference in price on puzzles from the exact same Goodwill location in 2015 (99 cents) to the 2025 sticker on my August puzzle.  It's not like it costs them any more to acquire them in 2025 than it did in 2015 (ahem, free donations).  Then again, overhead costs (utilities, building maintainence, minimum wage) have gone up a lot in 10 years, so I guess that 'explains' the price jump.  (I'm looking at it in percentage increase--a tad over 131%, rather than simply $1.30 more).

Anyhoo. . . 

Maybe I'll try to keep up this puzzle a month thing for the remainder of 2026.  That would open up some currently used (for puzzles) storage space as well as bring me some tidbits of enjoyment weekly and would move along five more puzzles to new homes by 2027. Win-win, right?

A Pocket Full of Shells

 (My apologies if you will now have "Bulls on Parade" running through your head the remainder of the day).

This month, DH and I took our first family vacation in probably twenty years.  I know we didn't take one in 2007, the year DS1 graduated from high school, and the next year he was in the Marine Corps when we took the other three kids out to Oregon and back roadtripping to (and from) the family reunion hosted by DH's second youngest aunt. So it's been twenty years, or maybe even 21, since DH, I and all four of our children (and population exploded family) went away together on vacation.

We (DH & I) have talked about doing this for a long time, especially in the last several years.  Then, in 2025, on the flight back from taking K3 and Toad to Sedona over Spring Break, DH asked the two of them for ideas of places we could all go on vacation together in the future.  K3 said "The beach!"  Specifically she was thinking of Myrtle Beach, where we had taken her and Toad back in 2022, and her alone way back in 2015 (which she couldn't remember that trip because she was only 3 at the time.)

Which was how this family vacation went from concept to reality in 2026.  DH. Me.  Our four kids.  Their spouses (and DD2s current boyfriend [whom I really do need to assign a blog name to because he's looking more and more like a lifer]).  Nine grandkids (Two-EEs daughter Cowgirl didn't come; at 17 and having been living with her father and step-mother for the last few years she has in the past 8 months or so decided she doesn't 'need' her mother or that side of the family.)  Myrtle Beach.  Four days, three nights, lodging for everyone covered by DH and I. (They were on their own for food, transportation and activity expenses.)

It was chaotic.  I mean, is it even possible for anything involving 19 people, 9 of them children, to not be chaotic?  It was often loud. (NINE children!)  Was it enjoyable?  Do any of us ever want to attempt such a thing again?

YES!  And another YES!  In fact, on the long car ride home, there were texts flying back and forth vehicle to vehicle and state to state (it's about a 14 hour drive for most of us) proposing we do a huge group trip every 2-3 years.  Possible future vacation destinations were tossed around; from mountains to beaches to National Parks.

But back to this current vacation.  I tried to walk the beach every day.  Sometimes at low tide, sometimes at high tide.  Sometimes in the morning, sometimes in the evening.

And it seemed that I couldn't take a beach walk without coming back with shells in my pocket.  Which brought to mind the lyric "rally round the family with a pocket full of shells".  Different context, different shells from the song mentioned above, but it sorta fit.  Lotta family.  Lotta shells.

some of my favorite shells are teeny, but intact

In addition to finding shells, there was 

--swimming, both in the ocean and several of the resort's pools (most of which I did not have my phone for, so very few swimming pictures)

9 grandkids together on the beach!, 

Buck, K3 holding Lucky, Toad holding Octavia, Rascal, Tractor (front), Faline (mostly hidden by Tractor), Sixlet

--kite flying; tiny kites that hardly show up in the pictures although we watched from our balcony other people (adults) flying huge shark and squid kites

--group dinners made in one or both of the suites we stayed in (one 3-bedroom suite and one 2-bedroom suite).  Smoked brisket and pulled pork (the first night, brought from home, smoked by DH), spaghetti and meatballs, make-your-own taco bar (Tuesday!), and white chicken chili with toasted baguettes (which oddly enough wasn't the wrong temp/flavor for a hot humid southern evening and was heartily enjoyed by all ages).

waiting to be called to dinner

waiting again

--kids babysat by aunts and uncles while sets of parents each had a turn at a childess afternoon or evening out.

DD1 in charge of (niece) Octavia

 --general shenanigans

Monkeys on the luggage cart

"Hiding"

Can a 2 year old fit in the cabinet?

Yes, yes he can.

--and even a succesful family picture (which I decided was too many tiny faces to try to make them unrecognizable/anonymous so I could share it online and abide by my own no recognizable faces blog photos rule).  I have plans for that family picture to be enlarged and printed on a canvas to hang on my living room wall before the year is through. (We also have not had a 'real' family picture since before DS1 graduated high school in 2007.  Its been a crazy past 20 years.)

In addition to our mass activities, some family members formed various smaller groups for various outings (I didn't go, so didn't get pictures) such as:

• miniature golf 
• go-carts 
• an aquarium visit 
• a driving range
• a nature preserve 

And while they were gone to those things, I enjoyed some peace and quiet, reading or knitting or beach walking or sitting on the edge of the water just feeling the waves and thinking; and recharging my (introvert) batteries for more group fun!