A Few Updates

* The rodent-hunting scores stand thus:
Toni: 2
Andy: 1
Theo: 1
Calisto: no mice, but one grasshopper

To be fair, the two voles I have killed were both killed by sheer accident, so I think I'm going to rule out "Zookeeper" as a potential career.

* Today is our THIRD wedding anniversary, and I'm hoping to celebrate by NOT chasing voles or canning.

* I finally grew a spine and sent an email to the person we had to dis-invite from Soup Night. I thought Lori made a good point in the comments--if it were me, wouldn't I want to know why I was no longer invited? Ideally, I would have tried to do it face-to-face, but with this particular person, I have never been able to get a single sentence in during any "conversations," so it was email or nothing. I tried to be as polite as possible, and mentioned that both Andy and I have read & reread How to Win Friends and Influence People, and that it really helped us with social skills, though I realize neither of us would be an expert. So far our house has not been toilet-papered, so that's good.

* I have NO intention of becoming a political blogger, nor do I wish to suggest that people are not free to disagree with our president or with anything I have said. I support our president but do not actually agree with the health care bill as written, so I have written to my elected officials with my suggestions because I do not believe in complaining without trying to change things. I even suggested that we have to accept that there will have to be some element of personal responsibility added to our health care system. As you probably know by now, I am a BIG proponent of personal responsibility. I also believe there are CAPITALISTIC reasons to reform our healthcare system--companies are going to move more & more operations overseas if they can't afford health insurance for their employees, and small businesses can't compete for the best employees because they can't afford the insurance that larger companies can provide--so there are MANY issues to address in this debate. However, I feel the biggest issue right now is that we have to take a stand against our growing tendency to shout slogans instead of thinking. "It's socialism and socialism is bad" is neither a logical argument nor anything but a statement of OPINION. Opinion is a VERY different thing than a FACT. There are sides to EVERY issue and I will continue to take a stand for the right for all sides to be heard. I wish more people would.

* My progress on my 100 books goal came to a screeching halt recently with The Mysteries of Udolpho. It is one of the first "Gothic" romances and probably the biggest one, and it's a type of literature I'm not familiar with--except by the spoofs we now do of such things. I wanted to know the actual source, so I am slogging through this book, but I'm really struggling with it. I just don't think I'm the sort of person for a book where someone is sighing or has a tears springing to his or her eyes on every other page. It makes me wonder whether it's just me or if maybe it's hard to be that sentimental in the modern world?

* My late-season allergies are back, so I'm breaking out in a rash and sneezing everytime I work on the garden. I understand that sneezing is my body's way of getting rid of a foreign substance, but what the heck do hives do for me?

* People might think I'm a bit of a nut when I can a bunch of tomatoes, but they regard me as a domestic goddess when I can roasted tomato-chipotle salsa.

* We have a jar and a half of dried tomatoes, a full jar of dried bell peppers, and 2/3 of a jar of dried Anaheim peppers. Let's face it, I'm having a terrific time playing Laura Ingalls Wilder.

* As of tomorrow, it will be one year since I lost my job. Having less money matters only slightly. Having more fun and more time for our friends and each other matters much, much more.

* Theo doesn't like the new dust-free litter and has chosen to use the garden instead. I'm okay with that, but I try not to think about it when I harvest potatoes.

* The Farmer's Almanac said strawberries are really heavy feeders and that one should move them every few years. I've planted peas inbetween them and keep adding compost to the bed to see if I can improve the soil that way.

* I'm trying to keep really good records of my gardening now, because it turns out that just rotating "crops" isn't enough. Peppers and tomatoes are related, so they can't be planted where the other one grew the year before and the same with onions and garlic. Everything except peas and beans seems to be "heavy feeders" so I either need to find another legume we want to grow or open a vegetable stand to deal with next year's pea and bean harvest.

* Remember how excited I was about the multi-colored carrots? They didn't really grow. I got a few small scraggly white carrots, but they mostly just developed tops with a tiny yellow carrot underneath. The plain carrots I planted were fabulous, though if I'd known I was going to make carrot-bourbon jam I would have planted another row or two.

* Remember when I said that we assume we needed two tomatillo plants so they could cross-pollenate? It doesn't say that on the tag or on any gardening websites I've located yet, but a few people have said so on their blog, and since we have had flowers all summer without tomatillos, we assumed this must be the case. And NOW we have two tomatillos--or at least the paper husks of two. So.....? I think we'll still plant two next year on that assumption, but I guess it is still just an assumption.

I think that brings everything up to speed here at Chateau Sutton-Goar. We will be going to the mall later this week to buy each other our customary anniversary perfume/cologne. We decided before we got married to buy each other new cologne or perfume on each anniversary (and for our wedding), and it's been quite a fun experiment--and we smell really, really good, which probably helps in a marriage.

:)