August 11, 2020

I decided one of the problems with my planters is there just is not enough soil in them to let the plants grow healthy root systems.  Melissa’s sister is moving and selling her house, so she is trying to get rid of unwanted items.  One of those items was a 50# bag of potting soil.  She was going to throw it away, but Melissa grabbed it for her succulents.  It is not meant for them, and she would have had to mix a lot of additives to the soil to make it work, but she took it.  When I found out I asked if I could have it for my containers.

Now that I have the soil, I went out this morning to add it to the existing containers.  I started with the bench planter.  I figured I could remove the existing soil, reline the container, and then refill it with the additional soil.  Wrong!  When I started removing the soil, I was surprised by how much soil there already was.  I also saw the bottoms of the planter had rotted out on both sides.  This was not too surprising as they were built by Melissa’s father over a decade ago.

I was also surprised by how simple yet intricate the design for the planter was.  He had been a cabinet maker his whole life and knew how to put wood together.  I made some mental estimates on what it would take to rebuild the planter and took off for the local hardware.  I figured I would just browse the wood stacks, select what I need and be done.  Wrong again.  I needed to order inside and then drive through the storage shed where they would load the wood for me.  Turns out they did not have what I wanted.  I think Jerry must have custom cut and trimmed the wood in the shop he had behind our house.  I bought something close, but I will probably end up rebuilding the entire planter.  At least I understand the design.

THOUGHTS:  It seems the easy task I start out on always ends up being a larger ordeal.  You would think by now I would have learned that simple reality.  Most of the wood I purchased will not be usable on the old planter.  I think I can use some of it to rebuild, but most of it will end up in a new planter that can sit on the deck alongside the old one.  The task of starting difficult conversations appears simple on the surface.   What I have found is it has become more work than I expected.  These conversations are popping up all over the internet and on TV.  They take work to start, but persistence to continue.  We need to realize this has always been a lifetime pursuit for each of us.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 10, 2020

I have mentioned that Melissa and I have changed the way we eat during the last eight months (yes, even before being locked down).  This includes eating more vegetables and preferring leaner cuts of meat.  We are also trying to cut down on fried foods.  When we do fry, we try to use a small amount of olive oil or even the olive oil sprays.  These are not only less calories, but I have read the vegetable oils are bad for you.  The unsaturated fats found in vegetable oil oxidize when they are heated, making them more dangerous to body tissues.  They can cause inflammation which is a known risk for making blood-vessel plaques unstable.  At times enough to cause a heart attack.

Since the closure of restaurants earlier this year we have been making most of our own meals and only eating out occasionally.   Often when we do eat out it is to return to the restaurants and the foods we used to love.  We dropped by one of these haunts on the way home for some Southern fried catfish.  They have been either closed or serving takeout only and are located 40 minutes from where we live.  Now the dining room is open, with masks and at half capacity.  I noticed another change in the updated sign along the street.  For as long as I can remember it read The Catfish -ole.  I guess they had time to put the “H” back on and repaint the sign.

I opted for the fried clams, but Melissa went with the small catfish platter.  This came with all the trimmings, dill pickles, sliced red onions, coleslaw, pinto beans, hushpuppies, and french fries.  Both of us had trouble with our stomachs in the afternoon.  I commented that I had also had problems after eating a fried Ruben last week, and Melissa said she can now only eat certain things without having problems.  We both realized what was causing the problem was the amount of grease found in the restaurant food we loved.  This used to be a favorite staple, but it now seems to come with consequences.

THOUGHTS:  In college I read an ethnologist’s book on the time he spent with the Inuit’s in Northern Canada.  They primarily subsisted on caribou meat.  The others lavished the fatty parts of this meat, but he stayed with the leaner cuts.  After living among the people for several months he found himself getting sick.  His friends took a can of caribou fat and melted it on the fire.  He drank this down ravenously and got better.  It seems caribou store vitamin C in their fat and in the frozen north, there was nowhere else to get it.  This is like the limes kept on old sailing ships to prevent scurvy.  Customs can be quite different between cultural groups, but when we listen and learn we often find there is a good reason.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 8, 2020

I have written about the Hosta that sit on either side of our driveway up against the garage.  One of the two had really flourished.  It bloomed early and the plant was full and lush.  I did have some early pests gnawing on the leaves, but a sprinkling with Sevin took care of that.  You can imagine my surprise when I came out several days ago and the plant appeared to be dying.  The leaves had yellowed and turned brown.  I could not see any pests on the leaves and could not understand why it was dying while the others continued to do well.  When I checked on it yesterday it was completely gone.  All that was left was a small hole amid the mulch.  That is when I knew the cause.  Moles!

When I lived in Wichita, I had a mole invasion in my front yard.  I tried everything I could think of to get rid of them.  Some suggested the best way to get rid of moles is to set mole traps.  These are like underground mouse traps and will kill the moles, which can then be disposed of.  I was not too keen on killing the moles.  I did not want them dead, just gone. I finally hit on mole stakes.  These were battery powered stakes that sent constant vibrations into the surrounding ground.  This discourages the moles from setting up in your yard.  It worked for me because most of them left.  They moved next door to my neighbor’s yard.  I finally resolved the problem when I sold the house.

Melissa said they had problems with moles occasionally in the past.  I noticed them when we moved in that first summer but did not pay much attention.  Since I have been spending more time caring for the yard, I have seen more activity.  I asked my neighbor if he knew how to get rid of moles and he said his father always used the pinwheels you can get in toy stores.  He did not know if they worked, but his father swore by them.  I purchased five of them and placed them around the yard.  I am still seeing runs and now my Hosta is gone.  Time to buy some more stakes.

THOUGHTS:  I again checked online about getting rid of moles and found the only sure method is spring-loaded traps.  I do not like to kill things if I can find a way to peacefully coexist.  The squirrel in my bird feeder and the moles in my yard all have a purpose in maintaining proper ecosystems.  While they can be destructive, they provide a necessary balance.  Just as they adapt to the changes I have made in my yard and garden; I need to adapt my actions to their increased activity.  It is part of learning to live together.   You would think that would be a good lesson when interacting with people as well.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 7, 2020

Last night we had a storm that brought flooding to our yard.  When I checked the totals, we only got a little more than a half an inch, but it all came in a 20-minute period.  The result was the ditch behind our house was overflowing into the neighbor’s yard and the low area in our front yard had a stream of running water flowing toward the drains.  We have had some big rains, but this was he most intense since we moved here.  Our gardener friend said her yard was looking the same with water flowing, although it did not impact her vegetable beds.

Several months after becoming the director of a conference center in Kansas we got what was described as a 500-year flood.  I checked on the rising water several times during the downpour.  The water submerged the road and cut the camp off from the nearby town.  Luckily, our house was on a raised section of land as everything around us was under water.  I had checked on the conference center at 11:00 pm the night before and then went in early the next morning.  The water had subsided, so I felt safe.  As I unlocked the door, I saw small pools of water on the tile.  When I stepped on the carpet, I felt the squish.  The water had risen to about two inches inside the building (from marks on the walls) and then quickly dissipated.  What a way to start.

While the rain falling in the area does raise the water level of the Arkansas River, its impact is felt downstream and not her.  The problem we had last year is the large amount of rain that fell in the Wichita to Tulsa area.  This was too great for the land to absorb and ran off into the creeks and streams, which all deposited into the river.  This quickly filled the reservoirs and forced the Corps to release the excess into the already swollen river.  The Arkansas River rose to a record 40.79 feet and flowed at an estimated 570,000 feet per second at the Van Buren gauge.  The river at its height affected hundreds of homes and thousands of residents in the region and cost Arkansas and Oklahoma millions of dollars in economic impact.

THOUGHTS:  When I heard 500 hundred-year flood I assumed that meant it would only happen once every 500 years.  I was wrong.  The phrase means it is predicted to occur once during a 500-year period.  Rain patterns come in cycles.  You tend to have a series of wet years followed by a corresponding series of dry years.  If you put enough dry years together you have a drought.  In contrast, flooding can take one bad storm.  The pandemic has hit the world like one bad storm.  Fauci (et al.) got us through the Ebola scare by acting quickly to contain the virus at its origin.  America’s refusal to acknowledge covid-19 as a threat has had the opposite effect.  With schools set to reopen this month we can only wonder.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

 

August 6, 2020

I came across a new sales gimmick at our local gas station.  I usually get gas at the grocery where I shop and had just got back from that store (and a trip to the station associated with it).  I had forgotten to bring my gas can and needed to get gas before I could mow.  The gas in town was a little more per gallon, but I figured by the time I drove to the cheaper gas I would have eaten my saving.  I put my can in the truck and headed across the street to another station.

Many might be too young to remember the gas wars local filling stations used to wage.  There were two stations on the corner near my grandfather’s farm and they always seemed to be trying to undercut each other.  Gas was usually around 19 cents, and the lowest I remember was 6 cents.  My dad looked forward to filling up every time we went to see “Clarence.”  These were both independent stations, so they were not mandated to sell at a set price.  This was also prior to the oil embargo in October of 1973, so gas was selling for $3 a barrel instead of the $12 it jumped to by the following year (in contrast to the $43 per barrel today).

The sign on the local station’s pump proudly proclaimed, “Enriched with 10% Ethanol.”  I never thought mixing ethanol in gas was a good thing.  Today’s engines need higher octane to run efficiently and ethanol is a cheap way to raise the octane of a low-grade gasoline.  Much of the biomass used to make ethanol is grown in politically important states like Iowa.  It is no surprise that ethanol in gasoline is mandated by Congress. It started with the 1990 Clean Air Act and by 2019, 14.5 billion gallons of ethanol were mixed into the U.S. gasoline supply annually.

THOUGHTS:  The good news is ethanol is a cleaner fuel than gasoline, and it helps reduce emissions.  The bad news is ethanol has about 33% less energy than gasoline, and at a 10% mix, yields 3% less fuel economy than straight gas.  Ethanol evaporates more than gasoline (a major source of air pollution).  The land and resources (like gas) used to make ethanol are not available for other purposes (like food), and the rain forests are cleared to grow sugarcane.  Corporations, politics, and farming tied together.  Imagine that.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 5, 2020

I have always enjoyed cooking.  I have mentioned how I rarely use a recipe but still seem to be able to put together a dish and even complete meals.  Since Melissa has been driving to Northwest Arkansas, I have taken the responsibility to have dinner ready or at least prepped, by the time she gets home.  This allows us time to relax, have our now nightly “conversation,” and eat before the Royals come on.  While I enjoy cooking and even see this as my daily gift to her, I sometimes struggle to come up with something different to make.

If left to my own devices, I usually fall back on rice or pasta.  That has been harder now as we have been counting calories as both dishes are circumspect carbs.  I try to mix in different types of salads as a side dish.  Even I have realized people do not live on carbs alone.  I occasionally have the salad as an entree, but struggle with this.  Every time I focus on the salad, I end up hungry just in time for bed, not a good combination.  The other thing I try is to serve fish or a vegetable-based dish.  Melissa is not big on fish, but I have been slowly weaning her over.

The one fish Melissa does like (aside from fried catfish, she IS southern), is salmon.  She will not make it herself, but she likes the various ways I fix it.  Tonight, I baked the salmon and prepared a peach and avocado chutney to go along with it.   We had a small side salad (we ran out of lettuce).  We also received some Anaheim Peppers from our gardener friend which I stuffed with shrimp, cheeses, and just the right amount of crushed red pepper.  It all turned out great.  More important, it was something different.

THOUGHTS:  I remember mom telling me about how she would sit in the women’s circle and listen to the proud mothers tell about their seven or eight-year-old daughters helping in the kitchen.  She never had the heart to tell them her four-year-old son had been making his own breakfast for the last year.  I even had my own cookbook, handed down from my sister (I used it then).  Trying new ways of cooking and different types of food has been with me ever since.  We are in a time when we are trying new ways and different approaches.  We have been shown the old ways no longer work.  I am sure for many, they never did.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 4, 2020

The tops of my potato plants died about ten days ago.  That is all but for two.  I have been waiting to harvest until all the plants died but gave up today and decided to tear into the dead ones.  I was not worried about leaving them in the ground as it was suggested this will help put a patina on the skin to help them stay fresh after they are harvested.  Once I got started, I got excited and went ahead and harvested all eight of the hills.  Now I have some fresh spuds for dinner.

When a new director came on, he arrived amid a “Barney Fife Day” at our office.  I tried to keep things light with Friday donuts and the occasional afternoon get together.  This time we showed taped episodes of the Andy Griffith show and everyone came dressed as one of the shows characters.  He came in and was introduced and asked who was responsible.  I proudly responded it was me.  He responded, “Let’s never do this again.”

While we never did it in the office, we did hold the First Annual Spud Days in a park up one of the nearby canyons.  This was a series of silly competitions and included the awarding of small trophies to the winners.  We also had a potluck supper which was common for our division.  The highlight for the “games” was the opening ceremonies.  Four of us dressed up in wild knee-length golfing pants (homemade naturally) and teed up baked potatoes.  We all swung at once and the potatoes went everywhere.  It was the perfect start of a night of fun.

THOUGHTS:  I have used the word Spud both lovingly and derisively.  I called my son a spud when he was born because he was so cute and cuddly.  I have called someone who seems to be brainless a spud (or Mr. Potato Head).  I marvel that in this time of pandemic our legislators are still trying to cancel what is disparaged as Obamacare.  We have 30 million people who have lost jobs and are on unemployment.  Most have either lost insurance or been forced into new insurance programs.  The only thing keeping many afloat as they struggle with the cost of fighting the disease is this program, and we are trying to make it unconstitutional.  I believe we would get a rapid response if we made these same politicians live with the insurance rates and plans most of us have.  It is past time for universal health care.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 3, 2020

I went to the eye doctor last week to get a checkup.  I had my temperature taken when I entered the locked door.  She got a puzzled look and took it again.  Then she said, “That cannot be right.  It is way too low.”  I told her my forehead was wet from the rain.  She took it again, shrugged and wrote it down (96.6).  I answered all the (now) normal questions and sat down to wait.  The assistant came over and led me into a room where she asked the same set of questions again and had me sign waivers.  She explained that part of my procedure would require me to have my eyes dilated.  I agreed, signed another waiver, and then went through the preliminary exam.

When I was in Berkeley, I got an eye infection and had to switch from contacts to glasses for a while.  I have never liked glasses since being told I needed them in Junior High.  Somehow this pair became “lost” and I never had them replaced.   Now I had no choice.  I had my eyes dilated as part of the exam.  After the exam was over, they told me I could select my new frames from any of the ones hanging on the wall.  I looked them over and selected a pair I could live with.  When I looked at the price, I could not read it because of the dilation.  I choose several pair, just to be safe.  It turns out every pair I selected were from the expensive section.  When they showed me the cheap ones, I ended up buying the pair I liked.

The doctor told me I was fine and just in a normal aging process.  I told the assistant I did not need the paper sunglasses she offered as I had my pair in the car.  She gave them to me anyway.  I purposefully left them in the exam room, but she brought them out saying I had “forgotten” them.  After settling the bill, I said they could keep their sunglasses.  They were skeptical but did not argue.  As I went out the door I was told if I had trouble getting to the car to let them know.  When I walked outside the sun was shining brightly and it nearly knocked me down.  I squinted my eyes near closed and wobbled my way to the car.  I donned my glasses and finally found some relief.  Maybe I should have paid attention.

THOUGHTS:  As we struggle through the pandemic we have been told (and shown) what it takes to get back to some semblance of normal.  Many are taking the attitude that I took toward my dilation.  We hear the warnings but seem to think those are for other people and not for me. After all, how bad can it be?  I found out it can literally be blinding as I struggled to get to the car.  America has found out it can be 4.6 million cases and 154,000 deaths.  Perhaps they are called experts for a reason.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

August 1, 2020

After my visit to the Hospital I decided to reward myself and go fishing.  I have not had much luck lately (I blame the heat; it could not be me) so I decided to go to a lake where I always catch fish.  This is also located on the way home so I thought this would be perfect.  When I arrived, there were a few cars but only one family group fishing.  Many people come to this lake for the hiking trail which winds along the water.  Being mindful of others, I put on my mask before setting my chair along the shore.

There was another group about 50’ away with what appeared to be a grandfather, grandmother, daughter, and her son.  It was obvious this was the boys first fishing adventure as the grandfather was instructing him how to fish.  I clearly overheard (without trying; he was talking loudly) him tell how to cast, how to reel, and where the best spot was located.  I also noticed none of them wore the masks now mandated in our state.  This was another teachable moment he obviously did not think mattered.

My son Alex had texted and shared pictures last week about taking his two-year-old son on his first camping trip and fishing expedition.  As I listened to the grandfather explain about fishing it made me sad that we are not closer to where the grandkids live.  We live in Arkansas and they live outside of Seattle.  We have been able to get to Seattle several times a year, but with the pandemic we are not even considering flying and to drive would take us through states forcing Melissa to quarantine from work when we returned.  As for now we are forced to settle for Facetime calls.

THOUGHTS:  Amid our crisis the world seems to be moving at a slower pace.  This has blessed us with new opportunities for learning.  During the lock down portion, I explored ways to communicate I had never cared about before.  Now that I tentatively move outside, I have begun to explore some of the byways our state is known for, primarily because there are fewer people there.  This is a time to write your stories to pass on teachable moments for later generations.  Who knows, there may even be a time when we can hug the grandkids again.  Change is coming and it starts with you.

July 31, 2020

After I did my Wellness Check for Medicare, I received a call from the hospital saying they were trying to schedule me for an ultrasound.  This came out of left field for me as no one had mentioned anything about this in any of the three appointments I ended up having to go to.  I was also miffed as my mandatory Wellness visit had incurred charges, even after I had been informed it would be covered by insurance.  I choose to ignore their call, but they called back.

This time I asked why I needed the appointment, and of course the scheduler did not know.  I called the nurse and left a message.  She told me it was “part of the process.”  The hospital called several times and I finally made the mistake of answering and set the appointment.  After doing so, I wondered what this was going to cost.  I have changed insurance now with Melissa’s work and knew I had a high deductible.  I called and the scheduler sent me to finance.  I was assured since I now had double insurance, it would be covered.  We will see.

When I arrived for my appointment I did not know where to go.  I had been told it was “by Labor.”  I entered and had my temperature taken, then I was told I was in the wrong place.  I was given a guest band and sent down the hall to the MRI unit.  I had checked in by phone earlier, so it was a matter of waiting on the technician.  It was a quick procedure and I was out inside of an hour.  And yes, at least THEY think I am normal.

THOUGHTS:  I marvel that in this time of pandemic our legislators are still trying to cancel what is disparaged as Obamacare.  We have 30 million people who have lost jobs and are on unemployment.  Most have either lost insurance or been forced into new insurance programs.  The only thing keeping many afloat as they struggle with the cost of fighting the disease is this program, and we are trying to make it unconstitutional.  I believe we would get a rapid response if we made these same politicians live with the insurance rates and plans most of us have.  It is past time for universal health care.  Change is coming and it starts with you.