Trapped

I have been bothered by an annoying woodchuck all season.  It ate up half my garden and destroyed numerous of my most treasured, and expensive, perennials.  He lived happily under our sun porch, his burrowed hole plainly visible. At the block party the other night, I mentioned the beast.  A couple who were visiting the lady across the street offered to loan us their trap. They said we could even return the trap to them with the critter in it, which was quite generous!  They live way out in the country. We borrowed it and put it out on Monday.  No signs of the woodchuck anywhere on our property all week.  We had just about given up hope.

Early evening Friday, I was out cutting off dead flower heads, and lo and behold, there stood a woodchuck in middle of the trap.  I was so happy, relieved, thrilled, giddy.  You cannot imagine what a joyous and bubbly person I became!   The couple who loaned us the trap were the children of the lady across the street, who is away.  They said they would be at her house often this week.  I saw a car there, and went to tell them of our good luck.  It was the grandson who answered the door, not Bob or June.  I learned that the couple would be occupied at a sale all day Saturday, and I knew we would be gone all day Sunday.  So, we called June and Bob and decided to deliver the cage immediately.

Gerry insisted on going in the Smart Car.  I was horrified at being in that tiny little car, eye to eye with my worst enemy,  a caged animal just one foot away from me.  He assured me it would be just fine.  Still, I was creeped out, and made him cover it with a tarp.  He laughed.

It was the biggest event of my week to be able to humanely dispose of that animal.  (That is really only because I don't own a gun and you can't shoot one in the development where we live!)

Contentment

I must say that these days I feel a deep sense of contentment.  The more time passes, the older I get, the more this seems to be true.  It is, of course, a completely new experience for me.   During the years I was actively parenting, there was always some family concern, some event, something that had to be done, running from this to that, demands to be met.    During the years that I was working full time in ministry, there was some church concern, or statistic, or meeting, or tradition, or financial situation, or parishioner's need always pressing down on me.

Now, I don't feel pressing needs, or the drive to get things accomplished.   Rather, what I mostly feel is a lot of joy in the moment.  After feeling a great deal of restlessness for many years,  my greatest hope for my life was to achieve serenity, and I think I've got it!   I know, of course, that a state of contentment or serenity is a temporary thing, and can vanish in a heartbeat, as concerns press down, or something happens, or life changes significantly.    And it will.

But for this moment, this summer, there are many pleasures.  I love a cool evening breeze. Reading a good book. A workout playing tennis.  Visiting with family and friends.  Meeting new people.   Corn on the cob.  Watermelon.  Flowers.   This week I am enjoying a double bunch of my favorite flower, gladiolas.  

Life is lovely.  I am content.

 

Block Party

Our neighborhood association planned a block party for yesterday.  Due to extreme heat, it was moved to 6:00 p.m., with the hope it would be cooler.  I learned for the first time why it is called a "block" party.  I always thought that was because it was for the people on your block.  Rather, it means you block off the street.  Our group of houses were chosen because you could park a car across at the side streets, and anyone who needed to could go around, but this area was blocked off.  While there had not been a designated house,  ours ended up getting chosen, because there was some shade in the front yard in which people could sit more comfortably. The sun was brutal.  Also, our driveway is the only one that is flat, so it was better for tables and grills.  So we ended up "hosting" a large party,  without even knowing we were going to be doing that!

Thirty people had responded that they would attend.  But as the evening progressed, more and more people showed up.  Counting children, there were probably more like sixty to seventy people wandering around.  Not all came for dinner, but some came after the eating time.  It was really cool to get to meet our neighbors, who are all ages, from seven or eight months to eighty seven!  They are also from everywhere, Poland, Ireland, India, China, etc.  They are veterinarians and professors, business people, counselors, retirees.

The kids really enjoyed the 'blocked off street', and brought out all their riding vehicles of every sort,  little wheels, big wheels, a motorized plastic car, and so forth!   We all enjoyed getting a chance to interact with one another.  Several of us have not lived in the neighborhood for very long, so this was a special treat.

There was more food than you could possibly imagine, and quite a bit of it was ethnic food from home countries.  The baklava was out of this world!  Of course, there were hamburgers and hotdogs, too.  The only bad part of the evening was the suffering from eating too much!

The best part was,  everyone who brought a table, or chair, crockpot or cooler,  grill or dish, also took it away, so there was essentially no clean up!   This was the easiest party we've every given,  and we didn't have to really do anything at all, except enjoy it!

Grand Canyon East

Lechworth State Park is called the 'grand canyon of the east', and I can see why.  Amazing views of the canyon, the winding Genesee River,  the panorama of hills and valleys, and the waterfall.  Today was our trip to see the sights there.  I've never been.  Gerry doesn't think he has been either.

With today's record temperatures of 100 degrees and above, it was a good day to spend in the nice air conditioned car,  which is where we were most of the day.

We did hike one of the trails, but we were in the shade the whole time.  We are enjoying our "day trips" this summer seeing sights within a hundred or so miles of where we live.

Traveling there we went the southern route, and traveled through many small towns we had never heard of before. New York State if largely rural!  Traveling back, we took the northern route, or the thruway.  The one thing that go lost in this process was eating.  By the time we pulled over at a thruway rest stop, it was three o'clock and I had not eaten in seven hours.  Next time we'll have to do better.

  The rest of the travel list is as much about seeing people as it is about seeing places.   There's Long Island coming up, and Vermont.  There's Buffalo and Silver Lake.

Summer is over half over!  But after a day like today, maybe that's not such a bad thing!

Domestic Chores

As odd as it probably sounds, I enjoy domestic chores.  That has not always been true.  But it is true now that I am retired.  I probably should say that I definitely do not enjoy all domestic chores  (certainly not floors).  I don't mind washing dishes.  I don't mind folding laundry.  And I don't mind ironing.  I remember once, some years back, a dear friend of mine telling me that she actually enjoyed ironing.  I was shocked.  But at the time, I was working very hard professionally, and had little time to enjoy such an ordinary, mundane activity.  In fact, back then, rather than iron my husband's shirts, I would stand by the dryer while they tumbled and take them out one at a time and hang them up, never giving them a chance to fall to the bottom and wrinkle.  Now I totally understand how my friend could have enjoyed ironing!

But what I really love most of all is cooking. It is a necessary domestic chore, something that is useful and needed every day.  There are endless creative dishes one can prepared. One does not have to stick with any one particular style, but can change their eating style many times over. Growing up in the south, food was often fried, and usually sweet. There was a period of time when the kids were growing up when there was a lot of pasta and casseroles and pizza.   Now, I do none of those things. We eat very simply (salads, meat, veggies, olive oil),  but the possibilities and combinations are infinite. Our foods are all largely healthy (with the exception of Gerry's daily apple fritter).

Just today I created a personalized category on my Google page for Cooking/Recipes.  There are millions of recipes on line. I used to rely heavily on cookbooks, then the Food Network.  Now, I tend to find my recipes on the internet.  

Come to think of it, the same thing is true of "news".  I used to rely on the newspaper and evening news.  Now I can read it all day on Google.  Oh, what a Google world it is!

Same Author

I am so surprised to learn that I can read a book by my "favorite author" and not like it at all.  I have read three or four of Jodi Picoult's novels, and each was a spellbinding page turner (My Sister's Keeper).  So when I got this one at the library, (Songs of the Humpback Whale)  I was sure that it would be a delight.  In fact, it has been a big disappointment!

It is just as hard to describe as it was to read.  The tale is told through the eyes of five different characters.  There is one narrative in there somewhere that is slowly progressing,  but it is hard to follow that, because as each person tells the story, there is backtracking, and also flashbacks.  The progression of the central tale is just too confusing to follow!  The revelations that help you to understand the reasons why things are the way they are come from the flashbacks from the characters' earlier lives. So, odd as it sounds, there are flashbacks embedded within flashbacks.

I guess the lesson here is that even a really great author can produce a dud once in a while.  I consider this one a dud, even though it was on the NY Times best seller list.

I went twenty years (ministry years) without reading much fiction.  It has taken a while for me to get back into it.  (I was too task oriented) Fiction has currently found its way back into the central fabric of my life! As a child growing up in small towns, reading fiction was the main course of my existence!  The library is the epicenter of that world!

Demolished Garden

      I am so sad and frustrated, watching my lovely garden being demolished each day! At first, I thought it was a bunny rabbit.  But three times now I have now seen a woodchuck scurrying out of the garden into the bushes.  The lettuce, which was lovely and large, is completely gone, down to the roots.  The newly planted swiss chard has disappeared completely.  Each day, another cucumber plant bites the dust.

If I had a gun, I would sit and wait for the critter and shoot it!  I did go to the farm store to look at de-crittering options.  The animal trap was quite expensive.  I wasn't sure that just any critter poison would work, so I gave up that idea.  Now, I just weep a little each day to see my beautiful vegetables being consumed by an ugly woodchuck.

Worse yet, it ate off all the leafs of my climatis plant, which can never get enough of a start off the ground to produce a flower!   I have tried so hard to grow a climatis plant;  now I think I am just going to completely give up on that.     At a previous house, I had a beautiful purple one.  I still miss it!

The woodchuck does not seem to like tomatoes.  Perhaps I will manage to have some tomatoes.  Actually, I do believe I am going to have more tomatoes than we can possibly eat.  The tomato plants have pretty much filled up the garden. The good news is that there should be three different varieties--small red, larger red, and small yellow.

So far, tucked underneath the tomato plants a few acorn squash plants are growing, as well.  I've never grown those before.  I hope to see at least one make it to maturity.   My fingers are crossed!

Sights

Central New York is filled with many beautiful sights, not very far from home.  We went to see a couple of them today.   The first was Tinker Falls, a quarter of a mile hike off the road, back along the path.  The views along the pathway itself were worth the trip.  To actually get close to the falls, some of the hiking up rocks was a bit slippery and treacherous.   We were very cautious not to have any mishaps.  It was too remote for even a helicopter rescue. But the sights were certainly worth the effort, though not much water was running today.  I'm sure it would be much more impressive in the spring, with rushing waters.

                                                     

After that little journey, off we went to the Lavender Festival.  The place was packed with many sightseers.  We saw some folks we know from Cortland, and also from Syracuse.  The location is about halfway in between.  The "festival" runs for two days in July, when the farm is open to the public.   There is lavender cutting, cooking demonstrations, artisan vendors, and every lavender scented product for sale.   I was envisioning fields and fields of lavender growing, but actually the lavender beds were all pretty much in an extensive front yard.  Even so, it was quite lovely, and certainly smelled delightful.

I'm glad we are taking in some of the interesting things to see this summer.   This is much more our type of traveling than going to Africa or France.   We can be home in the afternoon in time for a good vigorous and competitive game of tennis!

We have other journeys planned for the next six weeks or so,   but many of those involve family and friends, more than sights and leisure.

It could not have been a more beautiful summer day than this one.  Blue skies, a slight breeze, sunshine---absolutely perfect!   How glorious is Thy creation in all the earth!

Dinner Parties

Since I retired and we moved into this house, which is perfect for entertaining,  I have had a significant number of dinner parties.  There was never much energy for that during my child rearing and working years;  most dinner parties happened at church.

Recently, Gerry wanted to invite two particular couples from his department, so we had a "faculty" party.  Now when I have a dinner party, I work very hard for everything to be just perfect, and perfectly delicious.    That involves planning, shopping, chopping, mixing, baking, preparing, cooking, cleaning, etc.  At the very least, it takes about two full days of preparation.  Since my kitchen overlooks the living room,  I like for the kitchen to be perfectly presentable, and so there are no cooking or preparation dishes or pots visible by the time the guests arrive.

Early on in our marriage, which we always wanted to be a partnership,  Gerry just naturally gravitated toward doing the clean-up, which seemed the fair and thoughtful thing to do.  I did not "train" him to do that.  He always did it naturally,  which of course, I have always appreciated.  I do notice, however, that when he starts to clear the plates when dinner guests are finished with their meal,  guests of our generation always react with shock and awe,  as if he is doing something absolutely monumental.   "Wow, can I take him home with me?"   All the signs clearly indicate that their husbands are not helping with the clean-up.   We do have a dishwasher, so a great deal of the cleaning means putting the food away, and the dishes in to the dishwasher.    They were doing so much oooing and ahhhing about him clearing the table, I'll admit that the thought did enter my head:  'Why, I've been doing dishes by hand while preparing for two days!"    But because it was him, it was worthy of great admiration.

He is an exceptionally good helper and husband, I'll be the first to admit.  Our daughter and her husband (twenty somethings)  do all kitchen work together, including the chopping and cooking.   So, I'm sure the surprise over Gerry is very much a generational thing.   It would make me very happy if all the other husbands of a certain generation would help their wives, too!

Come on, fellas, do your part, so that Gerry will not be such an anomaly!

Longer Hair

I've been cutting my own hair since I was nineteen!   It had grown out one year in college;  I suddenly and desperately wanted it shorter.  I asked a friend to cut it, and she obliged, with a buster brown bowl cut, which meant that I had to figure out how to correct that, and did!   I've had basically the same haircut for most of my adult years, except for a few times of letting it grow longer.  The last time was when I was pregnant with my second child, 40 years ago.   I wanted to be able to put it in a bun on the top of my head.   I got it there, but since it is thin and fine, it would not stay.  (I didn't know about mousse back then, or maybe they didn't even have it),

It's not that I like myself in longer hair, or think I look good.  Neither of those is true.   But letting my hair get a little longer is something I have the ability to do.  There are numerous other physical features that I cannot change, (short of major surgical interventions),  but my hair grows by itself.  It is the change that interests me, more than the hair itself.  In order to have a different style,  I would have to let my hair grow considerably longer to accomplish that.  I've always dreamed of the style pictured here.

Since I am in the habit of cutting my own hair,  whether this urge to grow longer hair will last for one more day, or a few more months is completely unpredictable.   I do know that it will be temporary. All the in-between stages of growing between one style and the next are a major pain!   I've never managed to last very long in that in-between place, which drives me crazy.

Who knows where this will go?   Probably not very far!