Saturday June 25 2022

[IrishIroamed]

Mornin' ladies~~~
Guess y'all are sleeping in, gardening, or doing Saturday chores. Haven't decided what if anything I'm doing today in Vermont. Was a longer day than usual yesterday visiting the Ben & Jerry's flavor graveyard and the Shelburne Museum. I leave here on Monday, so today would be my last sightseeing day because tomorrow would be chore day before the next drive.

Lyn I'm keeping my fingers crossed that Val will allow a companion for you since she took Benji with her.

Have a great day ladies. Sorry i can't remember what else everyone had been doing. I may need some more caffeine.

[Irmi]

Good morning Cheryl and all!

Cheryl, I'm enjoying following your travels. Judy, are you back in states yet? I hope your flight was on time. Shirl, you mentioned that your tomato plants are tall and spindly and mine are as well but there are two tomatoes on each plant. Anne & Karen, your gardens and plants look so nice. Sheila, it's good to hear you've been able to get together with different members of your family and I understand that you have your hands full at the same time. Sue, the pictures of your walk are so pretty. Martha, at least you've been able to keep up with most of your grass cutting. Try to stay cool as well as those of you on the west coast with the miserably hot weather.

Today is Saturday so I need to practice long and hard for tomorrow's service. Have a good Saturday!

[Acadianmom]

Cheryl, what is the Ben and Jerry's graveyard? They quit making my very favorite ice cream, Cream Brûlée. I found a new Peachy Peach flavor of Blue Bell in the pint size at the Dollar Store. I'm not a big ice cream eater so would rather have the small size so I don't get tired of it.

The stretch futon cover I ordered for the sofa in the motorhome came yesterday. It is a great fit but not sure about the color. The sofa is tan and I ordered brown. It looks a lot better than the quilted throw I was using.

I also ordered 2 outdoor Blink cameras. I fought with that thing for 2 hours last night trying to get one camera set up. It kind of works but I have trouble getting back to it on my phone. It's suppose to come on if there is motion but it doesn't. I don't know if I have the courage to install the second camera. I hate technology.

I don't know what I'll do today. Probably not much. It's already 91. It rained for a few minutes yesterday but it didn't even move the rain gauge. The weather channel is talking about something developing in the gulf in the next 5 days.

Martha

[avalen]

Good morning, slept like a rock last night, we had a great storm and I never heard a thing ! Everything is soaked. I have no plans today, at least not yet. There's alit of things I would like to do but don't have the $$ for it. My summer budget is on until I go back to work. That would be July 27 which would make next paycheck second week of August. Pension and ss takes care of space rent and normal bills. See, nothing has changed for me, I scrimp and save to get me through the summer.
God certainly watches over me. It always works out. Y'all have a great day

[OregonLuvr]

Good morning, going to be a couple of super hot days 98, 101, 85 then will cool down to the 80's. I went out and watered my tomatoes and squash really well.
So my good news is I found a group of eye docs that have an office down here from Eugene. I made an appt and went yesterday. Really hard to change from docs and office staff you love to something new. BUT I was pleasantly surprised. The office staff was great. Dr Hunter was awesome. He gave me the option of having one eye done then the other later. I opted to try to have both eyes done at the same time and see how that worked for me since I live so close. Then he put some ointment in my eye that I was not a fan of, not sure I will have that again. So I left and pulled my car into the shade and just waited for the ointment to melt and disappear. My experience was very good so I cancelled my appts down in Medford. my eyes did bug me for pretty much the rest of the day but I could have the tv on and still rest my eyes.

Martha I have 3 Blink cameras. Mine dont come on but I get an alert "motion detected on the back deck" so then I just go to my Blink app and I can look and see what is happening. Barbie I love your little table, very cute.
Time for some breakfast and get dressed.

[Cudedog]

Anne & Karen, your gardens and plants look so nice.

Thanks, Irmi!

My tomato plants are absolutely loaded with (green) tomatoes, nothing like I have seen in the now three years I have tried to grow tomatoes here.

Last year I put in 14 tomato plants, got about 10 pounds (total!) of tomatoes all summer! This year I put in 8 plants, without too much hope (forever the optimist, I guess!) - all have multiple tomatoes - several green ones already quite large (it has been years since I had a large, home-gown tomato - the larger ones seem not to do well in my hot climate).

One plant alone is not very tall - only about 3 feet at the moment (it is a semi-determinate "Early Girl") but it has at least 30 tomatoes, with more coming! LOL - since I couldn't wait, I have picked a few "semi-red" (LOL - mostly green) tomatoes from this plant over the last couple of days - the tomatoes were a bit tart (which is actually one way I like them) and delicious!

I need to do a serious clean-out job of my freezer in order to fit in the (hopefully!) coming tomato bounty!!

Anne

[Cudedog]

Good morning, going to be a couple of super hot days 98, 101, 85 then will cool down to the 80's.

I'll take those temps!

Here is the coming forecast for my area:

Today: 104 (Saturday, June 25)
Sunday: 105
Monday: 103
Tuesday: 100 (a definite chill in the air! )
Wednesday: 98
Thursday: 95
Friday: 91

My crookneck squash is definitely not liking these temps, my other plants seem to be doing ok, at least so far. As for my tomatoes - keeping my fingers crossed, and giving them lots of water!

Anne

[Colliemom]

Afternoon all. Sitting inside as too hot to be outside doing anything physical for the most part. It’s 87° And supposed to go to at least 90. There is a breeze blowing and humidity/dewpoints aren’t high. Got my flowers watered and checked and watered neighbors. Have already been to town foe eggs at Farmers Market, quick trip to Walmart and Home Depot.

Transplanted some Impatiens as they were getting root bound. Growers always put too many in those hanging baskets and so Thty are already filled out when they sell them. End result is root bound plants, but people love the full blooming baskets all ready to go. But then by mid summer they are half dead and heading to the trash can. Better off buying your own plants and making your own baskets. They may take a little longer to fill out but once they do they are beautiful. Impatiens spread and you don’t need more than three or four plants depending on the size of the basket. The ones that I just transplanted had six of them in each Those baskets actually belong to a neighbor. I am keeping them for her until they come back up to their place here. I had them about two weeks ago for a week, and when they left last week to go back downstate she was just going to water them and leave them, and she said if they didn’t make it she wasn’t gonna worry about it. But I convinced her and bring them back over here. They are coming up right after the Fourth of July but they will not be here very long so I suspect I could wind up with these baskets for the rest of the summer. So I’m going to try to keep them going either way. By the time I got done transplanting I actually got six baskets now instead of four.

Sheila, GTNP is probably getting more visitors because of limited access to Yellowstone. Plus tours into Yellowstone are running from GTNP and people are probably using that option too. Yellowstone is k d of encouraging people to not visit this year to keep the pressure down in the park and it’s facilities that are open. Thry are planning to reopen the North loop in a roundabout way very shortly though.

https://idahocapitalsun.com/2022/06/21/ ... -expected/

Barbie, you are right about the generators. It is better to be prepared. The cost of them and having them installed can cart tremendously depending upon what you need and who does it. Actually generators operate on KW (kilowatts) so depending on how much wattage use you have in your home, determines how big a generator you need. Surprisingly, some appliances don’t take up that much wattage. And the other thing is the chances of you running everything at one time is pretty slim. One never knows how long a power outage can go on. In the case of the tornado that hit up here and which severed the transmission line for the power grid that runs down my way, it was 27 hours. Had it been any worse it could have been way longer. If you have a tornado or a severe storm or a hurricane that does extensive amount of damage in your area, you can face a loss of everything in your freezer and your refrigerator which can add up very quickly. Not to mention the inconvenience of not being able to use things in your home if you are at your home. I know people up here who have lost over $700 worth of stuff in the freezer. And most cases insurance will not cover that. Generators have changed over the years and are more energy efficient than they used to be. Basically you are just changing the power grid from power being supplied to your house by a power company for a generator supplying power to your house.The generator I am looking at is a full house standby generator. Because I have natural gas, it will be powered by that.

In my case, a power outage results in my not being able to use anything in my house. Fortunately this time it was summer so I did not need the furnace and the lake not frozen across the, road I was able to go and get water to flush my toilets and stuff because my well pump was inoperable. But I did wind up having to go get ice for my cooler so that I can get the perishable stuff out of my refrigerator. My freezer was OK and I packed some ice in there too but I did lose a couple of bags of frozen vegetables that are on the freezer door. No big deal there. Earlier this spring we had a power outage for about 10 hours and my house was beginning to get a little cool just about the time the power came back on. So I have decided that it’s time to do something before something happens again.

So I guess I will go and work on my little Raccoon Peeper. He’s not getting done sitting there waiting for the paint brush.

[chalet05]

Good morning!

Sue, what a lovely walk! Envy those with tomato plants. Kids planted some so maybe I'll be gifted some. Martha, hope there's no storm heading your way.

Took the Sling to Monica's yesterday. She detailed the inside while I worked on all the ugly black plastic and the wheels - I had already washed and waxed the rest. She'll pick me up a little before 9 in the morning to go meet the shuttle to Sea-Tac airport. Shuttle timing is such that I'll have a long day at the airport before the 7 p.m. flight to Iceland. So today is all about house cleaning and last-minute packing. I return the 10th to Seattle and will spend a couple nights with BFF before taking the train home on the 12th.

[Colliemom]

Have a safe and wonderful trip, Anita.

[IrishIroamed]

Cheryl, what is the Ben and Jerry's graveyard? They quit making my very favorite ice cream, Cream Brûlée...
Martha

Martha~ It's just what is sounds like. It's a fake little graveyard in the factory grounds with headstones, a little ditty, and years the flavor was made. I posted pics on FB, but here's what's on that headstone:

CRÈME BRULÉE

Pardon our French
But we still swear
Our Creme Brulée
Is beyond compare.

So it may not be beaucoup
To late to save
Crème Brulée from
Beyond the grave.

2007 - 2012

[Acadianmom]

Thank you Cheryl. If I ever make it up that way I will have to put flowers on Cream Brulee's grave. lol World Market use to sell a little mix to make the Cream Brûlée custard. I'm always in such a rush when I go to Lafayette I forget to go by and see if they still sell that. World Market is like T J Maxx. When I go there I end up with a bunch of stuff I don't really need.

Anita, have a great trip.

Martha

[JudyJB]

Yes, I am still in London. Fly out on Tuesday morning. However, I have had quite a day and last night. I will try to make it short, but last night after getting home from Jersey Boys, I took my evening pills, and it felt like one was stuck in my throat. Drank water and had a bite of cookie, but it got worse. I had have a big problem lately with constipation, so two things started happening--diarrhea and vomiting, like all night. (Tip: taking several ziplock bags for emergencies are a great idea.)

Anyway, my whole system let loose from both ends, and my stomach was hurting, plus I was exhausted. Had to keep getting up to bathroom and using ziplock bags for vomiting, and every time I laid down I would get nauseated again. Spent night watching British TV and partially sitting up in bed. My thoughts were "Oh, sh_t, I finally got COVID" and by morning was feeling so lousy, I decided i needed to see a doctor. Other issue was I had to check out at noon and change to another London hotel--very stressful. (This trip has been terrific until last week!) Figured in my condition and not wanting to pass on disease, I could not take taxi to next hotel.

So went down to hotel desk at 9 am and told them I needed to see a doctor. They called ambulance and handed me the phone so i could tell ambulance staff what my symptoms were. They said they would get there when they could but had to wait for a free ambulance since I was not really an emergency. I went back to room and tried to rest, but ambulance people (lady and man) came knocking on my door about 10 am. Unlike the U.S., they do not just check vitals and rush you to hospital. They spent over half an hour giving me a complete workup, including blood test, blood pressure, breathing, EKG, and a lot of prodding and poking. (Did not do a COVID test because they said my symptoms did not warrant it, and it would probably not show positive anyway this soon.) The decision was that I likely had food poisoning, NOT COVID.

So, they wrote out notes, gave me copies of EKG, and recommended I go to pharmacy and pick up drug for nausea, plus get a few more COVID tests and do one each day for a few days. They said I was clear to take the taxi to the new hotel, but I should wear mask and be careful about what to eat over next couple of days. I felt horrible with huge headache by now because of dehydration and lack of sleep. Walked to pharmacy, picked up anti-nausea stuff, and retrieved bags from hotel, had hotel call taxi, then checked into new hotel. Too early, but the desk person could see how wobbly I was from lack of sleep, and found me a room in a few minutes. Also gave me a glass of milk and bottle of water.

Cost of the ambulance coming and evaluation??? Absolutely zero!! I was really pleased with that and the fact that they had done pretty much the same workup as an emergency room would have done, but without the long wait and cost!! Compare this to what my experience would have been in the US where they take you to hospital no matter what so they don't get sued.

Anyway, drank a little milk after taking the anti-nausea stuff and fell asleep for almost four hours this afternoon, and I feel MUCH better now, also took a COVID test, and it was negative. Will take one each night for a while, just to make sure. Whew! Went out tonight and got a croissant and a Coke. Am eating and drinking slowly because I don't want to upset my system again. Hard to find bland foods like rice when you are traveling, so this was best i could do.

[cnq50b]

Oh my gosh, Judy. How terrible! I'm amazed you were able to navigate all of this while being sick. Good to know you're able to eat a little now to build up your strength to travel. Rest & take care.

[Redetotry]

Judy, I'm so sorry you were so ill! That would have cost no telling how much here in the states. I hope you are feeling much better now.
Anita have a wonderful trip and send some of the cool air from Iceland this way. It's supposed to be 98 today. I hope all of your connections are all on time.

We had some excitement here yesterday afternoon but it was mostly over before I knew it was happening. I was on the phone in the family room at the back of the house. The windows are low so the dogs can look out. The dogs kept barking and I was on the phone. Thinking they were barking at the neighbors son who is home for vacation I just kept telling them to be quiet and didn't check to see what was going on. When I did hang up and go to the front of the house I saw a fire truck, an emergency ambulance plus another fire department vehicle blocking the road. The neighbors huge brush pile that has grown so it's only about 12' from our bedroom window had caught fire. They had the fire out and were just pouring on more water to be sure no sparks remained. She was very embarrassed and frightened. Apparently they had built a fire in a fire pit the night before and poured the ashes near the brush pile. They soaked it with a hose but apparently a spark remained and by mid afternoon the fire erupted! She said she wasn't going to be fined but I'm thinking there may be a charge for the fire department coming out. Later I saw a few remarks on a local FB group where several people were asking where the smoke was coming from. I think I'm glad I missed the blaze!