Friday, July 28, 2006

New Shoes and other thoughts

Got a new pair of shoes yesterday. It had been a while, and I needed them badly. They were so comfortable I didn't want to go to bed cause then I'd have to take them off...

Last night we found number 3 son sleeping between his mattress and the 'bunky board' (a small box-spring, if you can call it that, on a bunk bed). I don't know what possessed him to climb in there, but he was soaked with sweat when we found him. He had no explanation. I'm sure it won't be clearer this morning.

Our one remaining puppy (all the others succombed to complications from the "drowning incident" is now staying in a box inside the house. At two weeks, he is pretty big-gaining weight every day. No wonder, he eats for 10 when he nurses. Literally he make sure he hits all 8 stations when he nurses. The kids call him 'Rolly Polly'.

Received an email from my older brother this morning with a poem written by his son 7 years ago (then 10)-just after Dad had died. Must see if I can put it on here....

Is art a child? Steve Riddle discusses. Reminds me of inventors and their inventions. In preparing the patent applications in my days gone by, I was always amazed at how these inventors seemed to treat their invention almost like a child. Yet I think Mr. Riddle and his commentors has it right. (For to the engineer, his invention is his "art"). Art is not so much a child but an expression of oneself.

Jim Manney of People of the Book posts about the patron saints of graphic design. I will have to see what they can do to help us out with bookcovers (see post above).

And finally, Mr. Culbreath has lost some chickens and egg production, but has a bountiful summer garden yield. Might I offer that we never lost chickens to heat (dogs, yes) so he might want to take a look at that. We never lost egg production in the summer due to heat, only due to a change in diet. Congratualtions on the garden. We have taken it on the chin ourselves. Our tomatoes (not big but plentiful) are doing well. But that's about it. No zucchini! No squash or cucumbers, or cantaloupe or anything else. We had a few carrotts, but only planted a few. And we had some lettuce and a head of cabbage. But the stuff which was so easy to grow never had fruit.

Others in the area have had similar problems. But not our immediate neighbor. Fortunately he has kept us in the sweetest corn you have ever tasted, and squash, cantaloupe, and watermelon. He is dissapointed with the size of his melons, due to lack of rain, but they are good.

From Bethany, the small holding in Bethune...Oremus pro invicem!

2 comments:

Jeff Culbreath said...

Sorry to hear about your garden woes. It's hard to believe your zucchini faltered ... we can always count on zucchini even when nothing else grows!

Man, that cantaloupe (thanks for the correct spelling) just keeps on coming. Wish I could send some your way.

It was 113 with very high humidity when the chickens died - almost unbearable for humans. The henhouse is well ventilated, but I had only a small door open at the time. Subsequently I opened the large door to facilitate a little more wind. Considering that one chicken died outside of the house I doubt that was the problem. I noticed that egg production is rebounding with the cooler temps today.

Jim Curley said...

Jeff - I certainly could be wrong about the heat thing. We never lost production in the summer-but I'm not sure we had it that bad. Certainly the telling sign is if production gets back without doing anything else.

Last year we had plenty of zuccini. I've talked to a couple people who know more than us-and they didn't have much this year. They guy who runs a vegetable stand up the road is buying his at the farmers market and reselling because his garden produced nothing-we had some hail in May which could have done the damage.

There's always next year....