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Sunday, July 5, 2009

'Taterz 'n Sparkly Thangs!

Wow… this past week has been like a roller-coaster. Living some of it was more than enough. So, I’ll just pass by that and move on to the better things. Dwayne and I got brave Friday evening. We decided to go snoop in the potato plants and see if we could get lucky. Took a bit of digging – but look at what we had for supper that night! Cleaned those puppies up and spoiled ourselves with a choice that would make any doctor cringe. Peeled and sliced them up for a skillet plum full of fried potatoes! They were absolutely delicious, too! Went out and cut some of my chives to throw in with them. Wow! I was amazed. Last time I remember growing potatoes was when Ray and I put a garden together on the side of the house where Claire and Armando lived next door. And I don’t think we did that well with those plants. These we harvested were only from one plant. Not sure we got all that were there. And we have a whole row to harvest. We’re supposed to be able to leave them in the ground for best storage until we need them. Considering the size of those two big ones – not sure if we’ll be able to do that. But we’ll see. The amount of rain we’ve had this year gave reason for the Ag Extension Office to warn everyone about increase in problems with bugs. They’ve been right so far. Our beautiful corn has been threatened. I spent one morning drizzling mineral oil down into the silks of the ears. A couple days before that I had to spray the entire plants with an organic 3-in-1 to ward off ants, whiteflies and aphids. It was impossible to avoid over-spray because of the height of the corn. I didn’t just stink by the time I finished. It smelled like the Texas City Dike around the garden by the time I finished! That crap has fish oil in it! After having several guys approach Dwayne about whether or not we had plans for July 4th, we decided to accommodate. Several hadn’t made any plans. Well – apparently they found something to do. We had a no-show. Really sad, too. See the plastic bag in the photo of the potatoes? Best brisket we’ve cooked so far! We are lucky enough that we live in Loudon County – which allows us to buy and shoot our own fireworks. Dwayne and I spent time going back and forth between the front and back porches watching all the fireworks. It was awesome! Unfortunately - Zucker and Spinner did not feel the same. Spinner made a Bee-line for his carrier as soon as the first big bang went off. Couldn’t help laughing about that. The crazy cat usually fights me when it’s time to go ‘nite-nite’. Zucker ran for the hallway. Both were cases of rattled nerves. Dwayne is down in the basement putting my putt-putt back together. Noooooo… it’s not fixed. He’s going to trailer it to the shop to have them overhaul the transmission tomorrow. I get two blessings of relief in one, here. The putt-putt will be running again, soon. And God willing – we can focus on saving money for the wood-burning stove – finally. Dwayne says he is supposed to begin graveyards in August. And it’s going to suck even worse than ever before. He’s back to four days off – which will mean he’ll actually only get two days off to take care of things around the property – maybe. And he now pulls the shift for five months instead of four. Sean informed him that he wants supervisors to now be paid only eight hours of holiday pay when the holidays come on their days off. He’s already taken a five-percent cut in pay. And they lost their bonus checks a few years ago. We’ve had to contact the bank about re-financing the house under the recovery act. They’ve offered to do a simple loan modification to reduce the interest and the monthly notes. For me to go to work would be totally fruitless. We have hit over 9.5% unemployment around our area. The jobs are just not there. Supposedly – there are a few large companies coming here to provide jobs. But some aren’t even scheduled to begin hiring until 2011. What are people supposed to do in the meantime? More lay-offs and company closures are occurring by the week while everyone waits. All the more reason for Dwayne and I to focus on setting this place up for saving money at the grocery stores.

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Sunday, July 5, 2009

'Taterz 'n Sparkly Thangs!

Wow… this past week has been like a roller-coaster. Living some of it was more than enough. So, I’ll just pass by that and move on to the better things. Dwayne and I got brave Friday evening. We decided to go snoop in the potato plants and see if we could get lucky. Took a bit of digging – but look at what we had for supper that night! Cleaned those puppies up and spoiled ourselves with a choice that would make any doctor cringe. Peeled and sliced them up for a skillet plum full of fried potatoes! They were absolutely delicious, too! Went out and cut some of my chives to throw in with them. Wow! I was amazed. Last time I remember growing potatoes was when Ray and I put a garden together on the side of the house where Claire and Armando lived next door. And I don’t think we did that well with those plants. These we harvested were only from one plant. Not sure we got all that were there. And we have a whole row to harvest. We’re supposed to be able to leave them in the ground for best storage until we need them. Considering the size of those two big ones – not sure if we’ll be able to do that. But we’ll see. The amount of rain we’ve had this year gave reason for the Ag Extension Office to warn everyone about increase in problems with bugs. They’ve been right so far. Our beautiful corn has been threatened. I spent one morning drizzling mineral oil down into the silks of the ears. A couple days before that I had to spray the entire plants with an organic 3-in-1 to ward off ants, whiteflies and aphids. It was impossible to avoid over-spray because of the height of the corn. I didn’t just stink by the time I finished. It smelled like the Texas City Dike around the garden by the time I finished! That crap has fish oil in it! After having several guys approach Dwayne about whether or not we had plans for July 4th, we decided to accommodate. Several hadn’t made any plans. Well – apparently they found something to do. We had a no-show. Really sad, too. See the plastic bag in the photo of the potatoes? Best brisket we’ve cooked so far! We are lucky enough that we live in Loudon County – which allows us to buy and shoot our own fireworks. Dwayne and I spent time going back and forth between the front and back porches watching all the fireworks. It was awesome! Unfortunately - Zucker and Spinner did not feel the same. Spinner made a Bee-line for his carrier as soon as the first big bang went off. Couldn’t help laughing about that. The crazy cat usually fights me when it’s time to go ‘nite-nite’. Zucker ran for the hallway. Both were cases of rattled nerves. Dwayne is down in the basement putting my putt-putt back together. Noooooo… it’s not fixed. He’s going to trailer it to the shop to have them overhaul the transmission tomorrow. I get two blessings of relief in one, here. The putt-putt will be running again, soon. And God willing – we can focus on saving money for the wood-burning stove – finally. Dwayne says he is supposed to begin graveyards in August. And it’s going to suck even worse than ever before. He’s back to four days off – which will mean he’ll actually only get two days off to take care of things around the property – maybe. And he now pulls the shift for five months instead of four. Sean informed him that he wants supervisors to now be paid only eight hours of holiday pay when the holidays come on their days off. He’s already taken a five-percent cut in pay. And they lost their bonus checks a few years ago. We’ve had to contact the bank about re-financing the house under the recovery act. They’ve offered to do a simple loan modification to reduce the interest and the monthly notes. For me to go to work would be totally fruitless. We have hit over 9.5% unemployment around our area. The jobs are just not there. Supposedly – there are a few large companies coming here to provide jobs. But some aren’t even scheduled to begin hiring until 2011. What are people supposed to do in the meantime? More lay-offs and company closures are occurring by the week while everyone waits. All the more reason for Dwayne and I to focus on setting this place up for saving money at the grocery stores.

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