Friday bullets, July 31, 2020

A Friday with absolutely no obligations and decent weather. How often does that happen? Not nearly enough, that's for sure.

• My garden is doing well, if well means growing a bit out of control. The early greens are done and I need to pull them and replant. I have beets I need to pull and pickle and I'm just staying ahead of the green beans. There are four or five little tine watermelons started, but I can't find a single pie pumpkin. The zucchini are starting to produce a bit more and the tomatoes are just now starting to ripen. But really, lets talk about cucumbers. I'm picking cucumbers every day. I think I have picked all the cucumbers that are big enough. Then, the next day I go out and am able to pick these.

These are monster sized cucumbers. Do you see the bottle opener for size comparison?

Here is the current pile of cucumbers from yesterday.

• The okra, perhaps taking a cue from its next door neighbor the cucumbers, has decided to try growing to monstrous size as well. I had no idea that it was ready to grow pods and was rather surprised to find so many today.

I planted both red and green okra. The red okra looses its color when cooked.

• The flowers are also doing well. Look at the back of the shed.

The clematis is just about ready to burst into bloom. It looks just as I imagined it would when I planted all of this three years ago. It took that long for the clematis and black-eyed Susans to get established.

• We took some children to a park to play a bit this afternoon. While they played, I finished the book I was nearly done with. It was The Gown, supposedly about the women who made Queen Elizabeth's wedding dress. When I read that description, I envisioned a lot of detail about the designer who came up with the design, the process of creating the dress, and the actual women who made it. Instead, there was a tiny bit about the embroidery on it and a whole lot of second rate romance involving fictional people. It was not at all what I imagined the book to be about, and by the time I figured it out I was too far along to just put it aside. It was kind of a relief to finish it, though.
• L. has been on a huge reading binge this week. Every time I see her she is reading. I asked her how many books she has read this week, and after thinking a bit, put the number at eight. It is difficult to keep her in books, and I am relieved the library is open.
• I mentioned that D. had lost his job at the library due to the page positions being cut. But... he was then hired as an actual clerk so he still has a job. Plus, he is the first high school student they have hired as a clerk. He was pretty happy both because it is nice to have an income and because it was a huge compliment.
• I have spent the past two weeks working on getting a commercial equine liability policy. I had this idea that teaching horse classes to children would be fun. The reality is always far more work than the idea, though. But I have it all sorted out and am going to be offering classes for children teaching them about the basics of horses... safety, breeds, colors, grooming, tack, etc. I am also able to offer beginning riding lessons, though without an arena this becomes dependent on the weather. I'm kind of excited. I just hope I get enough students to cover the cost of the insurance, because... yikes!
• Bristol likes the new door guard. She also likes to grab the hay stacked to the side, so we can't open the door all the way.

• I've canned 9 more quarts of dill pickles and 6 pints of bread and butter pickles. 
• Those six pints of bread and butter pickles only used up two of the enormous cucumbers that I picked.
• I don't understand why public school parents, pulling their children out of school due to a pandemic, seem to think that homeschoolers and their activities are somehow immune. Because otherwise why would they think that our co-ops and activities are running as usual?
• I need to make more masks. I do not want to make more masks.
• B. passed his EMT licensing exams this week.
• We had R. and H.'s neurologist appointments earlier this week. It went well, and the doctor is extremely happy with how they are both doing. She commented on the extreme difference she saw in them from when we first started going to her (right after R. and Y. came home). It was nice to hear that she saw such a marked improvement because we don't always see it living with her.
• The filter for the pond has finally shipped. This is last piece that was needed before we can begin doing plantings around it in earnest.
• Star Trek: the Next Generation, season 2 arrived at the library today for us and D. brought it home. There was much rejoicing, and two episodes have already been watched.
• There are some days when I wish I had fancy letters after my name so people would take me seriously other than seeing me as just some homeschooling mom.
• Nefertiti is happy. When I bought cat food for her the last time, I made a mistake and bought turkey flavored. This was clearly wrong in her opinion. We got her to finally finish it by putting in a very small scoop of wet food and mixing it up each night. I was able to buy a new bag this past week and bought the salmon flavor. This is the correct flavor and she has been happily eating all her food without any added incentive.
• Java's nose seems to be healing well. The vet wasn't sure that the bit that was hanging off would be able to be saved, but so far it has not gone necrotic. With stitches both outside and inside her nose, I think I may just let the vet remove them and not try to do it myself. 
• R. tried hanging from the chin-up bar for the first time this week. Before she would not lift her feet from the stool to hang, and if we tried to do it for her she would scream. Amazingly, she was willing to try to lift her feet from the stool and actually hung by her hands for a moment. It wasn't long, but it was still a victory.
• Under the category of things you don't anticipate when you have older teen or adult children living with you. You go to the mailbox and see a package inside or a package arrives at the door and you get all excited because for years and years you were the only one ordering things, so it must be for you. But it's not, because you have other people with incomes and they order things, too. It is so disappointing not have the package be for you.

And with that I will say good night. Have a good weekend everyone.