How Much Pickle Juice???

Some time ago I mentioned having leg cramps to niece Chrissie. I’ve had them off and on all my life, but they seem to be more frequent now. I heard that the potassium in bananas was a good antidote, and someone said drinking plenty of water should also help. She said with conviction, “Drink dill pickle juice.”

Dill pickle juice? Yes. I thought to myself, “And who would get up quickly in the middle of the night to bring me any kind of juice? No one!” I wouldn’t have been able to wake either John or David, and now I live alone. Dog Kacey doesn’t count from a practical point of view.

Her latest story was that husband Chris was practically levitating over the bed, in extreme pain from cramps. I presume she fetched dill pickle juice for him, because he drank some and almost instantly the cramps went away. It sounded miraculous. I believed her enough that when I fished out the last of the pickle slices, I put the jar back in the refrigerator. I was highly skeptical that I would walk the length of the house to get it, but it was there just in case.

Early this morning a cramp began in one calf, and before I could move, another started in the other leg. Hmmm. If I got up, would Kacey beg to go out? It was still pitch black outside. I tiptoed to the refrigerator, and with the door still open, took three small sips of pickle juice. Was that enough? The cramps were gone, perhaps before I opened the jar, but this could ward off another round. I shrugged my shoulders and tiptoed back to bed WITHOUT WAKING THE DOG!!! That was a miracle in itself, but I went back to sleep and had no more cramping.

The pickle juice stays. It stays right on the top shelf where I can’t miss it, even in a foggy state.

You Dunce!!

I looked for my favorite garden clippers for days. That is the tool that I always pick up when going into the garden. A weed digger or loppers are meant for specific things, whereas clippers are useful every day. The unloved clipper worked in a pinch, but it didn’t open easily and did not fit my hand as well. Every day I looked for the one with green handles, knowing I was the only person who had used it. It should have been visible on a stone or with my gloves. I was resigned to the loss, wondering if maybe I had tossed it on the burn pile along with small branches.

Finally, when struggling to get the lead detached from Kacey’s harness, I spotted the prized tool. If I hadn’t had dirty gloves on, I would have smacked myself on the head. You dunce!! You said you’d remember where you put them. I can’t trust you to keep track of anything! I do remember I was struggling with too many things, and this seemed like a logical place to leave them for a short while. That short while was agonizingly long!

I’ll show you how it looked when I spotted it.

If I had looked at the grill from the side, I would have seen it quickly. It was at Kacey’s eye level. Just the day before I had cleaned the yellow pollen off the top of the grill. My hands could have touched the handles several times, but they remained invisible to me.

Waterfall Restored

Neighbors Jeff and D came over to put the slate pieces back that had been in disarray for years. There was a brief postponement because of an unidentified problem with the pump, so we were all aware that certain places had to be kept accessible. The most exciting time was D’s talking about her dislike of spiders because they hide under stones. Within minutes she picked up a slate and showed me the black widow spider on it. I had never seen this poisonous creature before and had no idea I was harboring such a thing in the garden. With spiders, you know there is never just one. *shudder* It escaped. *shudder*

I wanted to record Jeff’s work and took a quick series of photos that I named Decision, Placement, and Satisfaction.

The pair worked quickly and had finished in about an hour. I am so pleased to have that mess cleaned up and the waterfall shown to advantage once again. Later I glanced out of the kitchen window and stopped to admire the scene, something I will now do frequently. I will hear it every time I eat a meal on the porch.

I promised to provide a video with sound, and here it is.

A couple of hours after the work was completed, a large storm system moved in, complete with with thunder, lightning, hail (where Joyce works and at Logan’s school), and torrential rain. Lightning continued almost 24 hours, along with some rain. This is the longest rain storm I’ve ever experienced. As soon as Kacey went out the next morning, I unplugged the pump, which had quit working during the night. After the sun came out I pulled up the pump and cleaned the debris away from it before plugging it in. When that didn’t work, I checked the reset button on an outlet on the porch. A tiny red light was glowing. All I had to do was push in the button and plug the pump in again. I don’t remember how I knew a reset button was there, but it certainly saved me a lot of time and anguish. [These days most rooms in the US that have water going to them have a test and a reset button on an outlet as a safety feature. Water and electricity don’t play nicely together.]

Soap Miser

I have used half a bar of extremely beautiful soap. I don’t remember the name of the fragrance, but it smelled sweet and clean. The bar was in my bathroom, so I probably used it only five times a day. (The most constant use of soap is in the kitchen.) There were a swirl of colors that lasted to the very end. Since I had cut the bar in half, there are months of pleasure yet to come. I laugh at myself for being quite stingy, but here is the proof – the end is a mere speck that finally broke in half. While not ready to buy more, I have looked at soaps in local bath and gift shops. None of them looked as pretty or smelled as delicious.

Daughter Lise gave me this wonderful soap. She tried several items and let me have this one. The creator was none other than her best friend from high school who now lives in the Adirondack mountains in New York.

Lise will be surprised to read about this on my blog. She gave me the soap months ago and would not have expected half the bar to last so long. It brought me lots of pleasure, so thank you again, Lise.

If you’d like to see the soap shop, click here.

Not Driving in Rain

When I began to drive again in March, I said I would not drive after dark and not while it was raining. The rain almost caught me today. It was raining early in the morning, but when it stopped, the sun came out. I assumed it would continue to shine, so it was a surprise when sprinkles hit the windshield as I drove to town. It didn’t amount to much. I walked into the store, went to the right and shopped for fruits and vegetables. All of a sudden I heard a loud, sustained noise coming from the far end of the store. It sounded like a giant vacuum as wide as the store coming toward me. My eyes darted about to check other people’s reactions, but no one seemed to notice. It reached the ceiling above me, and I realized it was heavy, heavy rain beating on the flat roof. There was one loud thunderclap amid the downpour. I continued shopping, checking the radar on the phone before I went down the last aisle. The rain hadn’t quite cleared where I was. Surprisingly, it had stopped raining and didn’t begin again until I was home.

I noticed this morning that the water level in the bottom pool of the waterfall had dropped dramatically overnight. One hose was still working, but the other had stopped. Thank goodness I saw it and unplugged it before shopping! When things had dried off a bit, I looked at the junction where the hose splits in two directions. I assumed that is where the water leaked, but it was dry. Adding water to the pool and turning on the pump again, I saw it was working normally. Half an hour later it wasn’t. I turned the hose toward the garden and pumped the water from the lowest pool. There were globs of stringy things that had fallen from a tree hanging on the pump. With everything cleaned and back in place, I started the pump again. It seemed to be working perfectly, but I unplugged it before dark, not willing to risk a repeat during the night. I’m still wondering how so much water escaped without leaving evidence.

Fallen Angels and a Phantom Fire

As I moved a chair, I saw something dark on the floor behind it. It was my precious painting of three angels by neighbor Shawn! Every once in a while there are unexplained noises in the house, and this was probably one of them. I have no idea when or why it fell off the wall. Thank goodness the painting and the glass looked fine! There was a small chunk of the frame beside it, which I should be able to glue in place. I carefully hung it back on the wall, hoping it won’t fly off again.

A little while later I settled into a chair opposite the angels and opened the iPad on my lap. When something moved above it, my eyes flew to the fireplace. It looked like the fire was burning. In fact, there was a real fire there! What??? I didn’t turn it on. No one else had been in the house for days. As I got up to turn it off, I realized I must have hit the large white switch below the angels. Being careful not to knock off an angel on the mantel, I must have touched it with my shoulder. At least, that was explainable!

Keeping Ahead of the Dog

All I had on my agenda was changing the duvet for the season. David helped me last time, but I was able to do the burrito change by myself without looking at the video. Yay! I rolled the duvet up, turned the ends inside out, and unrolled it, leaving the duvet lying on top of the cover. Reversing the procedure with lighter materials, I made the bed again. I wouldn’t be surprised if I took 1,000 steps going from one side of the bed to the other. I have only one sheet designated as Kacey’s cover sheet, keeping her fur from getting to the duvet. While it was being washed, I barricaded her from getting on the bed.

I felt I had done a good day’s work, not knowing that a crisis was about to unleash itself on me. Kacey asked to go outside. I hooked her to the line from the stake and retreated to the back porch to get out of the light drizzle. She didn’t seem to notice the rain and eagerly traced some animal’s scent. She suddenly froze in place, intently watching something on the street. In a split second she was running at full speed. It took a second for me to realize she was out of sight, leaving a broken collar and bent stake behind. I told Lise on the phone that I had to go quickly. I retrieved the collar and saw that the plastic catch was broken. On the way through the house, I picked up a leash and my rain jacket before stepping onto the front porch. To my utter astonishment, Kacey was standing in the front yard!! I was sure she would bolt as she did the last time, heading up the mountain. Joyce caught her that time. I called Kacey, and she immediately came to the porch. Whew!

I had to think ahead, though. She would need to go out again, and she had to be tethered. I texted David to ask if he had another collar here. He replied right away, saying he would go out and buy a collar if necessary. There wasn’t an extra collar, but he said there should be a harness on the porch. I fetched two, took a photo, and he suggested the easier one to use. Thank heavens he could write out directions for putting it on her! I sent another picture, and he said that was correct. When I looked at the photo later, I thought Kacey looked untidy with her fur disheveled. It’s certainly the way I felt!

As much as I wish we weren’t always connected to our phones, I certainly was happy that David was available to help me immediately.

Everyday Fun

I had just dumped a pile of sticks and leaves on the burn pile when I heard flapping wings. I was facing the right way to see two ducks swoop down from the pasture and fly under the lowest limbs of the old oak tree. That put them almost at eye level, only a short distance from my head. They flew over the back yard at the end of the street, landing near the creek. Perhaps they were the couple that I watched walk through our neighborhood only days ago. They have been hanging out in Shawn and Bob’s pond. Shawn said they wanted to watch the ducks, but a couple of nesting robins screech at them every time they go out on their deck.

The forecast said rain would come about the time I would finish walking. Scratch that, I thought. I threw on walking clothes and went straight into the garden. The waterfall had been perfect the first day, but I fiddled with two stones the second day, making it leak about an inch an hour. The pump would have been sucking air if I had left it going all night. I used two pieces of slate to change the slant, and I think everything is going to be fine. A few sprinkles hit my head, so Kacey and I went inside. The sprinkles were an empty threat, because it never did rain.

Kacey accidentally locked me out!!! I stepped outside to get the lead hanging on the stair rail, and the dog dropped a soft plastic toy right inside the screen door. It was a perfect door-stopper! Before panic could set in, I reminded myself that I could walk around the house and use a code to get in the front door. Whew! Thank you Lise for getting me a fancy new lock.

I wonder if any of you move an object to an unusual place to remind yourself to do something later. It’s much quicker than writing a note. I’m finding it amusing that I now have to really think to follow my direction. A number of times I have forgotten to clean the bathroom on Friday, so I moved a washcloth to the other end of the rack. When I was ready to shower, I wondered for a second why I’d put the cloth there. Oh! Yes! Clean, then get cleaned. Fast forward a few years, and someone might ask me why the rocking chair is facing the wall or the bed pillows are pointing upward. Hope I’ll remember.

May Day!

I don’t normally celebrate the first day of May, but I opened the waterfall this morning. As I write this, I’m sitting on the back porch where I can see AND hear it. John built it for me a year after we moved here, helped by grandsons David and Nathaniel. Two years ago brother Bob and wife Beth helped me clean the pools, as well as choose and install a new pump and new hoses. Last year Chris Pollock connected the new hose to the splitter. As you can tell, this has always been a family project. This year I spent a part of a morning raking the leaves out of the water, and another morning bailing out the pools. Today I checked the pump, filled the lowest pool, and let the pump fill the rest. Soon I will see if neighbor D.’s offer still stands of putting the decorative slates back where they belong. She is an enthusiastic volunteer landscaper and says she enjoys working with stones. I would never be able to do what she does.

The Cross was Slammed!

Neighbor Logan (13) and I were in the living room when we heard a loud noise. He looked quickly and said it was the back door slamming. I didn’t think about it again until after he went home. What a funny sight to see the balloon in a strangle hold! It was in the wrong place when a draft caught the door. The cause was good weather – warm enough that I had left the back door open. Lise gave me the balloon for Easter, and I’m glad it wasn’t damaged. It seems appropriate that one of the hymns in the service today was Lift High the Cross. This cross was able to float again.