No one else interested in starting one? Okay, I will again.

My life is the same old, same old. Yard work, getting stuff put away from summer and getting out the winter stuff, exciting things like that.

So, should we close this forum down? Seems to be little interest in it any more. Anyone else alive out there?

-- Anonymous, October 20, 2002

Answers

Forgot to mention, I recently finished reading Mike Moore's book, "Stupid White Men (and other sorry excuses for the state of the nation)". It was interesting; I recommend it, though it must have been in the publishing process before 9/11. That fact made it seem a bit "out of synch" or something; also, I found it hard sometimes to decide when he was being merely humorous or being sarcastic or just off on a rant. Perhaps a flaw in my perception . . .

-- Anonymous, October 20, 2002

Hello there. Yep, it's true, the swimming pool has a leak and I'm sure not going in there to find it! Anyone have a wetsuit?

Doing a couple of things. Someone who was going to do some excavating for me so I could expand my goat barn doesn't have the time so I have to find someone else. I'll need to get it done before the kids come or I won't have enough room.

I dug holes for the shed that's gonna look like an outhouse. My son doesn't like that idea but I think it will be cute. We are going to put the pool stuff in it. I just have to have the lumberyard drop off the wood I'll need.

Still working on those levels in back. We moved a patio of rocks and will be putting down topsoil, seed, and hay tomorrow (if it doesn't rain)

The library keeps calling me because my name comes up on the list for Shelter of Stone. I decided to read the seris over so I'm only at Mammoth Hunt right now. Guess I should tell them to take me off the list. Seems there aren't as many people waiting to read it anymore.

I have a new name of "number one recruiting mom" for my son's school. We are trying to get people to know about it since it's still so new. If we don't get enough interest, they may close it and that would be a real shame since there isn't anything like it around.

Well, that's the update on me. Who's next?

-- Anonymous, October 20, 2002

I'M here!

I just got back from camping. Mr. S. and I took the new motorhome for its inaugural (at least for us!) camping trip. Pretty fun! The overhead bed is actually comfortable. The weather was fairly warm, but foggy....looking out onto Puget Sound was very Zen-like: the sky and sea were the same color, and there was no line of demarcation to where they met. Also, the arbutus and cedar trees were fog- shrouded. I love how that all looks! Mom didn't join us as she has come down with a case of shingles...yikes. She went to the doc's and got some Rx for it. Hope it helps, and hope she's on the road travellin' with me soon.

I also cleaned house (so to speak) late this afternoon...I'm going to have to break down and get a new vacuum. I'm a lousy enough housekeeper that having good tools is a must. Anyone have any recommendations for vacuums?

Supposed to be sunny here again all week. This El Nino thing is weird! I hear the midwest might get serious snow pretty soon.

Please don't shut down the forum. I am concerned that folks are not participating much either, but I think when the weather closes in on us, we'll be glad we can still talk to each other. I'm afraid I have some peecee virus (a klez version), so I don't want to just email folks off the forum. Does anyone have any idea (I know there's another thread) about cleaning up after Klez? btw, is anyone getting spam from LOLFUN? I'm getting bombarded with utter crap. I also have a suspicion about who it might be (which will remain my own personal opinion).

Have a good week!

-- Anonymous, October 20, 2002

Sheepish, I'm not going to arbitrarily shut down the forum. It just seems to me that there are three choices: Let it die on it's own, put it out of it's misery (close it), or . . . . MORE participation! Not that I have anything to brag about lately -- I've not been posting much. Just trying to bring it up and see what response there is. Not posting anything is a response, too, folks! :-(

-- Anonymous, October 20, 2002

Just finished up my third weekend in a row at work and was looking forward to three days off - lots and lots of plans: finish cleaning up the garden for the winter, burn off some foxtail, pick up the walnuts in the east side yard, plant the clearance bulbs I bought at Wal-Mart, yada yada so forth so on - when the boss called whining. Another call in - at least it's a different nurse THIS time; so I'm going to drag my butt in for an 11-7 tonight - and it's a full moon tonight. Though I don't know where we would put any more patients without putting bunk beds in the rooms! Seems the world is chock- full-o-nuts lately - world events exacerbating the normal daily bullshit, I guess. I reckon I should just shut up and be grateful that I have a job; but I will admit to leafing through the Medical Wanted ads in the Sunday paper with a bit more than casual interest. Thought about posting the one from a nearby hospital that is offering a $5000 sign on bonus in the staff bathroom...

I've been ratholing a bit of my OT $$s away in a fruit jar in the back of the panty, of all places - easier to get to this time of year than a can buried in the flower bed! - planning to use it toward some fruit trees and other permanant things for the garden. I've been spending a bit of time trying to work up a design for expanding the garden area out to the east (into the berry patch). Just can't come up with anything that I really like. I want to put out 16 dwarf fruit trees; and somehow place one of those small barns in the orchard for a combo chicken house/tool shed/outhouse (with bucket, not pit). I want to be able to rotationally graze the chickens in the orchard; and have good access to the berry patch and garden for post season gleaning as well. It's got to be close enough to the house for easy access, but far enough away that Pop can't smell the chickens (picture my eyeballs rolling!), and it can't shade the rest of the garden. Then I need to fit in an area for 4 long raised beds for tomatoes and pole beans. At least 4. And I'd like a fire pit (tractor tire rim with stones cemented around it) with permanant benches around it. Since I didn't get my pond in yet; I could move it and put some more raised beds where it's at....guess I've got all winter to plan!

Got a Thompson and Morgan seed catalog in the mail last week, but didn't see anything that piqued my interest. I'm thinking that I'm going to go mostly to open pollinated seed next year, so that I can do some seed saving. Which means fewer varieties. No, really! I've been kind of disappointed in a lot of the tomato varieties that I've tried lately; so maybe I just need to find some good ones and stick with them. Guess I need to join the seed saver's exchange.

I'm still thinking about expanding the perennial bed by leaping it over the sidewalk - every time I mention in, Pop gives me that one- eyebrow-raised-one-down-evil-look! I try to tell him that the perennials will need thinned next year anyway....maybe if I just have a load of woodchips dumped in that piece of yard some day while he's in swilling coffee with the other old fellers, I can get 'em spread out before he gets home; and then it'll be a done deal. Y'think?! What kind of flowers would look good in front of/surrounding a blue spruce tree - southern exposure?

The weather has been pretty nice here lately - cool, but nice. The trees are turning but there isn't nearly as much color as there was last year. I've not had much chance to walk down near the woods, but I know that our walnut trees in the yard had a scant crop this year; so I wonder how the hickory nuts and acorn crop did. Came home from work Sunday morning early to see 4 deer standing at the far edge of the raised beds, nibbling on my swiss chard - Hubs didn't believe that they were that close to the house until I took him out and showed him the hoof prints. I don't mind sharing with them at this time of year; but if they start trimming my (as yet unplanted) fruit trees or the garden next spring, we're gonna be talking Bambi burgers! They've got acres and acres of woods out there to forage in; plus they can glean the fields. We always plant several strips of wildlife plots at the edges of the farm, so they shouldn't be too hungry - heck, maybe they just wanted some salad to go with their dinner!

Still didn't get the wheat in - got a pretty good rain late this last week and the ground is still pretty wet, so we'll try a bit later on. Uncle Ivan and I are holding our annual weenie-roast this weekend - after last year's deluge during the week before and the day of the weenie-roast; I suggested maybe we ought to hold off 'til after we got the wheat planted, but this is my last weekend off in October, so I reckon we might as well chance it! Mmmmm - ash covered weenies and baked beans and s'mores - does life get any better'n that?!

Uncle Ivan brought down another tractor - an IH "B" model this time - and a seed cleaner, this past weekend. We're going to get our wheat seed from a fellow that saves part of his crop for seed, so it ought to be acclimated to this area if nothing else. I'm going to be looking for some metal barrels with lids to use for storing it after harvest next year; to use for part of the feed for the chickens. I can feed it whole, or sprouted for greens to help egg production and health in the winter months. I'm thinking about going to banty chickens (Unc's are awful cute!) for eggs rather than the heavy breeds that I have now - better at foraging, and better to reproduce themselves as well. I guess we're going to raise a couple of sets of broilers next year as well - pasturing them. The Amish have opened up a processing plant up in Uncle Ivan's home town; and they do small lots, so I won't have to do the butchering. Guess I'll run one set in the spring and one in the fall - 50 ought to be enough to last us, I would think. Contemplating turkeys, as well (am I being foolish, Marcia?!)

Still haven't found all the info I need on starting up a worm bed - I know I printed off a bunch of stuff one time; wonder where I put it?! Not that I've found the time to get all that junk out from under the kitchen sink anyway! Boy, I sure am looking forward to "gaining" that hour when we turn the clocks back! Wouldn't it be nice to actually have an extra hour!

Well, I reckon I'd better go pop the corm muffins in the oven - Pop and Hubs have been clamoring for vegetable soup, so I made up a pot this afternoon. Went out to the freezer looking for a roast to put in it, couldn't find one; so I brought in stew beef instead and cooked it up in the pressure cooker. Worked pretty well - if they didn't charge more for it than they do roast, I'd probably use it all the time! Guess I better stop at the butcher shop tomorrow and get me a few more roasts for the freezer - and maybe some Italian sausage too; tortallini soup sounds awfully appealing! Mmmm - and some breakfast sausage too - I like to fry it up and mix it and some grated cheese in to biscut dough and bake them up. Dang, I must be hungry - guess I'd best go get them in the oven so we can eat!

You folks all take care this week,

-- Anonymous, October 21, 2002

Yeah, there's Polly again, making me feel like pond scum....

Checking back in...I'm now beginning the sixth week of Hacking Up A Lung (Or Two). This thing will just not let off. Went in to the clinic and they said "You have a virus (not a computer one, got rid of that finally) -- you can't have any antibiotics." They gave antibiotics to the guy who gave it to my mom who gave it to me.

Still hacking (and other unpleasant things) 5 weeks later, they give me antibiotics.

That's five weeks that I've lost in time. On top of that, winter has arrived. Yup, it is a whole month early, but there are about 4" of snow out on everything.

Spring was 3 weeks late, winter is a month early, and I lost 5 weeks in between. Produce rotted in the garden, unpicked, unprocessed. If this were true frontier living, we'd starve this winter (altho there are plenty of deer to kill...except for the CWD).

I managed to yank the dead stuff from the garden and get it into the compost bins, but I only got one bed spread with finished compost and mulched with leaves before this came down. Just don't have the stamina with this cold/virus/cough/thingie.

I finally thought I was strong enough to drive to Madison (and non- contagious) with the Dog to have her checked at the vet school. Basically, they gave the verdict that A. She's blind (no fooling! What tipped you off?) and B. They don't really know why. Not detached retinas that was the first diagnosis, more likely SARDS and possibly the beginnings of Cushings, which this breed has a predisposition for. And not much to be done about it.

It was nice going to the big city for a few days(Madison is nice, as cities go). For one thing, it's like going three weeks back in time (warmer) to go down there, and the hotel that I stay at is still marginally in the country (altho it is creeping around it at a horrific rate), but enough so that I was comfortable and it wasn't road noisy. I actually got to do a little shopping and forgot to watch world news for a few days, which was a BIG vacation to not think about it all the time.

I still have a lot of stuff undone outside. I may have to scrape off the snow to finish spreading the compost and fee up the bins before everything freezes solid, but being under 4 inches of snow, that should slow it down a bit. Looks like I'll be heeling plants in again, even tho I finished the beds in some cases, but now the plants I was going to move have gone dormant and I can't FIND them. So it waits til spring.

Really and truly, when I look back over the summer, I did accomplish a lot of things. I could have gotten more done -- I could have finished barking the paths, but I was out of chips. Stuff like that. I DID lay out some garden paths (the woodland garden), barked some areas, made large additions to my perennial beds (neener, neener, Polly!, even got in spring bulbs before the snow flew. Not all of them, but about half. If the snow subsides, I may get the rest in, otherwise I'll pot them up, chill them, and grow them indoors and then put them out in spring. I started landscaping under and around the big Box Elder in the back yard, where the pool was pulled out. I want it to eventually be a patio area in the shade (the tree is huge and old -- almost looks like something out of amovie set) -- but I didn't get to putting in the flagging this year, nor hiding the propane tanks somehow, or removing the old water pipes....to say nothing of not getting the roses and daylilies put in where that sink hole opened up. But I got in all the ferns, hostas, bleeding hearts, columbine, Bluebells, and even some of the daffodils. I got in the June berry hedge too this fall, so that's something.

When I think about it that way, I also established blueberry bushes this year, and at least I got my potatoes out of the ground before it froze. And I got in two new cultivars of elderberries for cross pollination, and I think I just might have saved the Cornelian Cherries by mulching them with rabbit and guinea pig poop! Next spring should tell. I wonder if the little self-fertile plum tree will make it? And I even got three apples from my trees this year. Thrills and riches.

I got up a cold frame before the weather radically changed, and there is a crop of parsley growing in there for critter food. We'll see how it goes. I wanted to do a second one for radishes, carrots,a nd lettuce, but I just plain ran out of time. I didn't get out the winter radishes, but I mulched them under straw, put on a frost blanket, and now it's snowed, so they may still be edible under there. I planted Rose Heart, which look sort of like a long turnip in shape, and are green outside, and rose-red inside. If you slice them from crown to root, it makes a perfect rose heart, hence the name. I want to try making Hot and Sour Radish Soup with them -- I love Hot and Sour soup, but I'm not a big radish fan, so I decided to give it a try and see if I like radishes that way. (they're so easy to grow after all and you can feed tops to critters)

And getting back to taunting Polly some -- once those deer know where your garden is...FORGET IT. They'll be there for All You Can Eat Salad Bar regularly. The darn things come up to my fence (8 feet high) and stand there at the gate like a dog waiting for someone to open the door and let them in. They stick their heads through and barber off my rosebushes that are planted 4 feet away from the fence (did someone interbreed giraffes with our deer herd?). Our local dogs are no deterrant -- one was stomped by a doe this spring and got 2 broken ribs. The dog's owner came out and broke it up, or likely the dog would have been dead.

A Plague on those 4-legged locusts, I say! Oh wait, there IS one...CWD....

-- Anonymous, October 21, 2002

Oh, and I grew TWO pumpkins this year! One is the size of a smallish cantaloup, the other is the size of a somewhat large cantaloup, but shaped like a Delicious apple!

I didn't plant pumpkins -- these are compost bin volunteers. When I try to grow them, I don't get any -- and here it is, a short year even, but I've still got orange pumpkins (picked before the freeze, they were green but turned orange indoors).

I suppose I MUST carve them for Halloween, no matter how small. And then cook them. It only seems proper to celebrate their accomplishment.

-- Anonymous, October 21, 2002

I'm now beginning the sixth week of Hacking Up A Lung (Or Two)

I really hope I don't have the same thing that you do Julie. I probably should have stayed home another day but I know my boss would have a fit so I went in to work. My week is so messed up, since I basically did nothing but sleep Thursday thru Sunday I feel like today is Thursday instead of Monday. It's going to be a long week! At least the cold medicine makes the day a little more pleasant. I have to give an hour-long presentation to some big-shot visitors from our German office on Wednesday and I still have no voice, it could be interesting. It's all on Powerpoint, maybe I'll just put the slides up and let everyone just read them. :)

Keith is off gaming tonight and I'm home alone so I thought it would be a good night to get in a chick flick. I started to watch "Moulin Rouge", but watching a movie where one of the main characters dies of TB may not be such a good idea when you have a cold. Everytime Satine would start coughing it would make me start coughing too. At least I'm just spitting up lung slugs instead of blood. :)

-- Anonymous, October 21, 2002

Julie and Sherry, you poor things! "Hacking up a lung" is going around down here as well; tho I have managed to aviod it so far. You can tell it's bad when the patients are offering the nurses cough drops! It sure is miserable to deal with - y'all surely do have my sympathy. Keep hydrated - makes it easier to hack up the lung bits.

Four inches of snow!! Wow! I've taken Jes trick-or-treating a couple of times when it was spitting snow, but we usually have to wait 'til around Thanksgiving to see the white stuff. I've not had time to look at the US weather lately, so didn't even know that it was starting in on winter 'til I read your chat, Julie; but then Carl the Security Guard said that it's hitting the Dakota's pretty hard right now too. BBRRRRR!!! Don't need none of that here for a bit - I've got too much to do outside yet this fall!

So, instead of going outside and doing any work today; I baked a pan of chocolate chip muffins and went out and sat on the porch glider and scarfed muffins while reading a trashy book! I told myself that I was working on planning that perennial bed and the other new beds; but I lied! Like a rug, even. I'm really big into denial lately, for some reason! That; and just totally pretending that I don't get whatever people are trying to tell me. Hey, works for me!! Boss still needed coverage on the floor, but I told the House Officer that I had to stay home and clean my bathtub instead...sounded like a reasonable excuse to me!

And speaking of Halloween and denial; the Rhode's Bread Dough web site has a cute recipe for making mummys out of frozen bread dough. (De Nile - get it? Yuk, yuk, yuk!) I'm thinking that they'd look even creepier with some cherry jelly or cinnamon sugar spread on the "wrapping" pieces before they got folded over. I think it's rhodesdough.com; but if anyone can't find it and wants to see them; I can send you the e-mail copy they sent me. They use a whole loaf of bread dough to make just one mummy, but I thought little ones would be cute, too. Hmmm...I gotta work the night before Halloween at work; maybe I ought to bring in a basket of goodies!

Well, rats. Guess I'd better get up and go make another pan of muffins - Jes just called and is heading out for a cash infusion; MD appt. tomorrow. Since the critters and I managed to eat 4 of the 6 muffins that the mix made; I'd either have to hide the rest or make her more to take home with her. She does love chocolate chip muffins! I must be in muffin mode; and cupcake mode too, for that matter; I've been baking them about every other day. Got some wrinkly looking apples sitting on the table - how's an apple struesel muffin sound? (I'll let you know!)

Gotta go, take care,

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2002

Hi all,

One thing that I have noticed on the forum (maybe I'm the worst offender in responding/not responding) is that sometimes folks post a question or two and then never get any acknowledgement that they even asked it..

Or maybe I should just take the hint (!) and stop asking questions...

8-)

-- Anonymous, October 22, 2002

Nothing all that exciting going on here. Still trying to make progress with our school work.

I don't know if I mentioned it before, but Jim and I started a weight training program caled Body for Life. We're in the midst of our 7th week of a 12 week challenge. It's been a lot of hard work. We changed our routine around at the end of last week and started doing lunges. When we started the program I wasn't strong enough to do them. Well I did them Friday and I found it difficult to even sit on the toilet over the weekend! My muscles felt like they had been through a meat grinder! Today it's time to do them again. I'm sure I'll be sore but I sure hope it's not like it was this past weekend. We've been taking front, back, and side view pics every 2 wks. I am starting to see minimal results. But all the BFL people say you won't see the BIG changes until during the last 4 wks. It's difficult to work so hard for so long and not see big things happening. But I'm determined to stick with it till the end or I'll never know what my results will be. Then you take a week off and start all over again for another 12 weeks!!!

I think Sheepish may be on to something about the forum. I have felt very discouraged at times when I have responded to something and then felt ignored. The exception was when we talked about war with Iraq. I did get a response when I didn't agree completely with most of you. Then when I came back to clarify and make few more points, I was ignored again. The conversation went on just as it had been without any recognition of my having said a word. But I still enjoy reading what you all have to say about things. I'm not angry about it. But it does tend to squelch my participation.

-- Anonymous, October 23, 2002

So Denise, do you and hubby belong to a gym or do you have weights at home? I used to have a Nordic Trac ski machine that I really liked but I lost it in the divorce and never got around to getting another one. (BTW, thanks for your response to my private email. I got it just as this crappy cold hit so I haven't been on the computer much to write back)

I'm still toying with the idea of doing the Atkins diet or something similar. I've got to get rid of this cold first. The wellness center at work is doing a free cholesterol screening on Nov 7th, in addition to the cholesterol they also do a basic chemistry panel, CBC, triglycerides, and thyroid panel. I'm going to see what my results are and maybe that will give me the final push I need to make a decision. I would be nice to get rid of this belly though, it's kind of a drag to have to hold it out of the way during sex. ;-)

Since I'm usually not on the forum during the weekends I sometimes find that by Monday the conversation has wandered off on some other tanget and I've lost my train of thought so I don't respond to some of the questions and points that were raised. I do hope that this forum will continue because I sure wouldn't feel comfortable talking about my belly getting in the way during sex on the bigger meaner forum!

-- Anonymous, October 23, 2002

I thought I would check in before heading off to meet Jim at the gym. We used to work out a lot when we first met and tried to do the at home gym routine but due to lack of space it was frustrating. Also it's a lot easier to change the weights at the gym than it is at home. We spent too much time changing and rearranging in order to get a workout done. So we've been meeting at the gym at lunch time.

I can identify with the belly thing. Although mine has gotten much smaller, it appears that it will be the last thing to go completely. It's being stubborn and hangin in there for dear life.

Atkins was definitely good for me in the beginning. It got me on the right track with my eating. But I think even the maintenance level of carbs is way low for someone who is active. I changed to BFL nutrition 2 weeks into this challenge. So far so good. It would be considered a moderate carb diet and suits my needs well at this time. But I am very thankful for Atkins giving the jump start it did.

I think it's a good idea to get that screening done.Let us know the results if you want to. I hope you start feeling better soon.

-- Anonymous, October 23, 2002

Sorry, Denise, I really should have been the one to respond to your post -- since it was in response to something I posted! That thread really put a crimp in my mood. And it might have caused more people to leave (?).

In a way, it seems rather ridiculous to post a response of "I have no clue" to a question, but on the other hand, it is nice to at least get that kind of response so that you know someone READ your question, they just can't help! So, I guess we could make the effort. The few "we" that still seem to be here and read this, I guess. I wonder where EM is . . .

Well, I wrote a whole long post about MY eating changes, and it got so long and involved, I decided to start a new thread. So, if you're interested, check it out here.

-- Anonymous, October 23, 2002

I'm here, Joy..........I cannot post tonite; our hearts are shattered in a million pieces. I have not cried so much in years.

Tomorrow we will join ourselves together with others in a march in St Paul against the stinking idea of war. I pray the turn-out is huge; Paul would want us all to be there, and carry on his sacred work.

Peace,

-- Anonymous, October 25, 2002

Sorry, EM, and a big hug to you! I was just starting to find out about his career, and now he's gone! I was shocked when I heard it on the news this afternoon.

There are some peace rallies in Madison tomorrow too. I might be able to get down there to one or the other.

{If anyone doesn't know, Paul Wellstone, one of the Senators from Minnesota, was killed in a plane crash today, along with five others, including his wife and daughter.}

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2002

EM,that IS very sad. I'm sorry to hear about it. Please accept a hug from me too.

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2002

Earthmama,

My heart goes out to you and all of your brothers and sisters there. The world has just lost a very decent person. I'm sorry too.

-- Anonymous, October 26, 2002