I almost made a big mistake

Tuesday a fellow who owns the nearest dairy texted me asking if I was in the market for a Holstein bull calf or two.  I asked him the price, and he said this week only, he'd take $100 apiece. 

When we butchered our last two bobby calves, I swore off cattle forever.  It's costly, by the time you raise them and feed them, but I like cows so much it used to be worth it to me for the pleasure I got out of them.  So on hearing the bargain price he was asking, I decided to talk to my husband.  I was thinking maybe I'd just have them for pets, something to graze in the pasture again.  For two days I was mentally getting ready.  I talked to Cliff and he said if that's what I wanted to do, he'd do what he had to do.  

I called MFA to find out the price of milk replacer.  Wow!  Fifty bucks for a bag that would only last one calf for three weeks, and I was wanting two calves.  That's another $200 spent at least, and I prefer to bottle feed them longer than that.  We no longer have haying equipment, and most decent grass hay is $7 for a small bale.  Winter is coming:  Would I enjoy mixing the milk replacer with warm water morning and evening and going out in the cold to feed the babies?  What about keeping them in drinking water after they're weaned?  

I finally realized I wanted the calves, but I didn't want to do all that work and worrying again.  It would make a lot of work for Cliff to mess with, too: going after hay somewhere, putting it up in the barn, fixing a place for the calves while they're young.  And while they're on the bottle, we couldn't go anywhere and stay overnight.  The grandson could bottle-feed them for a day or two, but that wouldn't be much fun for him since he often leaves for work at 4 A.M.   Oh well, I had my day with milking Jersey cows and bottle-feeding calves.  It's time to let it go.

Yesterday morning when Gabe and I went walking, Blue-the-cat decided to follow us, as he sometimes does.  However, he made the decision to stay in the woods about halfway through our walk.  He's done this before, and usually is back at the house before the evening feeding time.  Once in awhile he fails to show up, and I go where I last saw him and call him out of the woods.  He wasn't here at suppertime, or even breakfast this morning.  While I do often have worries about him being eaten by coyotes, I was fairly sure he was back there someplace, so Gabe and I walked back to where we'd left him almost 24 hours earlier.  As we got near that place, I began calling, "Blue, kitty kitty kitty!"  It wasn't long before I heard him from across the canyon, meowing his loudest.  He was ready to be delivered.  Each time I'd call his name, he'd meow; soon we met him, coming our way.  When he's home, he meows at a whisper, but he knows when to get loud.  I picked him up and carried him for awhile, with him rubbing his head against my jawline, neck, and face and purring loudly.  Back at the house he ate ravenously, then looked through the window to let me know he wanted in the house.  I'm positive he knows the way home from back of the place; I think he just likes to make me worry.  

Who needs calves when you have a dog and a cat to spoil?

Now he's resting from his grueling time in the wild.

 

Success!

I do believe the guys got things fixed yesterday!  They finally found the real problem, which wasn't with the actual pump or with an O-ring, but with the plumbing on the pipe that brings the water up to our level and sends it to our homes... ours and the grandson's.  At the very top of the pipe through which the water travels to get to us, which attaches to the pump a hundred feet below at the bottom of the well. The fitting at the top of said pipe had actually eroded a tunnel where water could escape.  Here it is in my husband's hand, next to the replacement fitting:

 The guys couldn't find a fitting that size in the nearest towns, so they had to go to Blue Springs, where they were told there were no fittings of that size available; then the guy waiting on them remembered there had been some fittings returned.  Thank goodness, one of those was the right size.  

This being the last you'll hear about the well problems until some new disaster occurs, I took a picture of the hole in the ground where our old well is.  It still holds the box where they turn the pump off when they're working on it.  Also a tank that makes pressure to lift the water up to us.  Once in awhile it gets "water-logged", but I won't explain all that boring stuff.  It isn't a big problem, and could be totally fixed by buying a new pressure tank.

As for the huge leak that started near the barn later in the day Monday, Cliff can't imagine why that happened at the same time they were working on the well.  I think that after the water had been turned off for hours that day and Arick turned it back on, the lines bled back some of the water in them and had gotten air in them that compressed and caused what was already a small leak in a cracked fitting into a gusher, but my husband isn't so sure... and what do I know about this, really?  Nothing.  Anyhow, it gave them two separate problems to solve instead of one.  I have told Cliff for a long time that I thought we had a leak someplace, because the light that lets us know when the pump is running was coming on too often.  Sometimes when Arick (the grandson) wasn't at home, and Cliff and I hadn't been doing any flushing or hand-washing, I'd look out and see the light on.  But as in other situations, I have learned to shut up about such things; after all, I'm not the one who has to repair them.

Now, on to happier things.

When we went to Iowa on Labor Day weekend and came home, Mama Kitty wasn't here; she often seems to disappear when we're gone, and I often announce her death prematurely; I think she gets mad at us for leaving and goes away to pout.  The cats always get fed while we're gone, thanks to the grandson.  But this time she came back not looking well and throwing up her food every time she ate.  I babied her and soaked the food for her, but she was only showing up about once a day to eat and the rest of the time I didn't even see her around.

Well, she's back to normal for a 13-year-old, outside cat.  She hangs around the porches much of the day, waiting for me to pet her.  And yesterday, I noticed she was back in the tree-climbing business.

Grooming herself

"What are YOU looking at?"

The longer she lives, the more I appreciate this wise old mama cat.

Learning patience

Well, the guys thought they had the water problem fixed; instead, they met failure and also found a new problem:  a below-ground leak quite a distance away from the well.

The grandson and Cliff  thought they'd found the problem after  lifting the pump up just a few feet. something about  an O-ring near the top of the well.  I don't know a lot of details because I've learned, in fifty-six years of marriage, that when my husband is doing a job he hates, he does not want to answer questions about it.  The best thing for me is to keep away, and if I have go near him, don't ask stupid questions like "have you found the trouble" or "when do you think you'll be done" or "how's it going", etc.  Oh, or my favorite: "What do you think is wrong with it?"  and he roars, "If I knew what the hell was wrong with it, it'd be fixed already!"

Because I've learned this, our marriage is still intact this morning.

The grandson does all the tough work while Cliff is the "gopher" and tractor operator.  The tractor does the lifting for them

The red thing in the background is the roof over a hole in the ground, sitting on its edge while they work on things.  The electricity and other stuff that keep the pump running are down below it in the hole, which has walls of concrete blocks.  That's where the old well is located, but it started giving us sand in our water years ago, so we had the well drilled that you can see below.

Here we are looking down on the well, probably 12 inches across at the most.  No human will be falling in this well.  

About the same time they realized something worse than a bad O-ring was the problem, they also realized they had a leak in a pipe somewhere  underground.  First it was a slow leak, but after they turned on the pump after they had taken a break for the grandson to go to the doctor, then turned it back on, they realized the leak was a bad one. It's over near a watering place next to the barn, unfortunately covered with  gravel the grandson had put down trying to make the barn look better from the outside.

So  they're out there again trying to fix the problem.  They'll just shut off the water to the barn for now and concentrate on the well and pump.

all this, after messing with the well all day long plus going to see a doctor

I am still keeping my mouth shut.  That's why I  don't know much about  what's actually going on out there.

It'll all come out in the wash, as the old saying goes.

Oh no!

We live in the country.  We get our water from a well.  We don't have a water bill, but I wish we did have.  When something goes wrong with the well, or the pump, it costs a pretty penny, believe me.  And here I sit at 6 A.M. knowing something is wrong with the pump.

The water is coming from the faucets just fine up, here at our dwelling; but there's a light bulb on a pole that comes on when the pump is running, and it's been on steadily since I got up at 4:30.  So for some reason, the pump is running constantly.  I'll let Cliff sleep, because he can't do anything in the dark.  The grandson has been off work for a couple of weeks with a tricky elbow, but he goes back to work today.  I imagine the pump will have to be pulled, and Cliff and I aren't capable of doing that ourselves.  Cliff will have some ideas as to what might be wrong when he gets up and puts his thinking cap on, but no matter what, that pump has to be pulled up from a hundred feet down in the ground.  I will fill buckets and jars full of water before long, because who knows how long it will take to fix the problem.  There's a chance the pump has just loosened from the pipe, since we're still getting water at the house.  But it will still have to be pulled out to be fixed.

This has happened several times in the past 50 years, but it always fills me with dread.  In times like these, my mother used to say, "Oh well, at least it isn't a human life."

That's true.  But it sure is a pain in the neck, and at times can be quite an expense.

Beam me up, Scotty.

P.S.  I forgot the grandson is off Mondays, so he will be here to do the hard work and help Cliff troubleshoot.

Various things

I've been trying to find a new, old-fashioned, hand egg beater.  I go through one every couple of years, it seems.  One time years ago I mentioned my egg-beater breaking, and a reader of mine sent me one that had belonged to her mother.  That one probably lasted five years or so.  Now, years later, I realize it was the dishwasher that led to its death.  At least I got a lot of use out of it until I got a dishwasher, which is gone now, by the way.  It's the only dishwasher I ever had, so I thought I was in high cotton until I realized, after seven or eight years, I'd just as soon do them by hand and passed it along to my daughter.  But I digress.  The small Walmart at Oak Grove didn't seem to have any hand egg-beaters, so I went to Amazon, of course.  There were many of them, but the one I just broke the other day was a bit different-looking; I loved the way it worked, and have a feeling I killed it by using it on a too-heavy batter.  Usually all I do with hand beaters is mix all the liquid ingredients for a recipe, as for pancakes, corn bread, and so forth, before I mix in the dry ingredients.  It just seems so much  easier to get it out of the drawer, use it, wash it with the dishes, let it dry, and put it back in the drawer, than to get out an electric mixer, hunt up the beaters, plug it in, use it, then clean the whole thing, wrapping the cord around it before I put it up.

Oh, by the way, it's $22 dollars.  Yes, I could buy a cheap electric hand mixer for that price, but I already have one of those.  I like my hand egg-beater for mixing liquids.

We are saving money with our television-watching, though.  We got rid of DirecTv three or four months ago.  We only kept it for the DVR, because Cliff likes to record most football games and watch the next day, speeding through the commercials.  I finally found a way to do the same thing on streaming services much cheaper.  DirecTv was costing us almost $100 monthly, every month of the year.  I learned that Hulu, for $75 a month, would let us record the same games and watch them later, fast-forwarding the ads.  It's not quite as simple to use as DirecTv was, but it works.  And we only pay that $75 for the five months of the football season; I might have been able to make it only four months, actually.  When the season ends. we change our plan on Hulu for one that costs $12.99 the rest of the year, or maybe even leave Hulu for awhile and get a different streaming service.  We only use one paid streaming service at a time, but we also have Prime, which is part of Amazon Prime, and PBS (Public Television); we send them a five dollar contribution each month and get to watch any of their programs at any time.  We're always watching something British on that one; at present, we're watching Grantchester.  

So when Cliff complains about how he misses DirecTv, I try to remind him that we are saving at least $700 yearly and he still gets his football without commercials.

Looks like autumn is here in full force now, and I always have to listen to this song in September.  Nobody does it better than Ella.

October and November have their own songs.  

Peace.

Not much to say today

I was feeling a little depressed a couple days ago and then realized the problem:  I'm mostly done with the project that kept me busy and happy all spring and summer, and I was mourning that fact.  I miss my gardening; once I recognized the problem, I got over it.  

I've been doing a lot of reading:  Several days ago I decided to read George Orwell's The Animal Farm.  It was written in 1954, but I remembered it being on the recommended reading at some point in high school in the 60's; several students read it and did book reports on it, but it didn't sound interesting to me.  I decided at my ripe old age to give it a try.  It's a short book, and I'd have already returned it except that the latest Chet-and-Bernie book finally arrived on the iPad:  I'm a bit bored with Animal Farm anyway, but I kept it on my "bookshelf" on the Libby app.  I'll try to finish it, but I get the point already.  Now I'm done with Bark to the Future, but another book that's been on hold forever arrived on my bookshelf:  It's the third book by Mike Rowe's mother, who became a published author at the age of 80.  It isn't very long either, so I'm sure I'll get back to Orwell before it disappears from the iPad.

Peggy Rowe had her son, Mike, write the foreword for all three of her books.  Here's a small piece of what he wrote for her in this third book:

I did a screenshot of this particular section because I know many bloggers who would love to be the author of a book someday.  That isn't a wish of mine, because I know I don't have the patience for that.  Even the idea of taking on such a task scares me to death.  But I've seen bloggers who say that's something they'd like to do.  If you're one of those, you have a cheerleader in Peggy Rowe.

Oh yes, and I have a David Rosenfelt book on my shelf, too.  I've been reading his books in order lately.  

Now, about a movie on TV:  I seldom watch movies because they go on so long and take more of my time than I prefer, but last evening Cliff and I found ourselves sitting on the couch at 5:30 and I turned on the TV.  I went to Hulu thinking to watch something that wouldn't last long, but was distracted by a Robin Williams movie that was available... Fisher King.  I had no idea what it was about, but I like Robin Williams and set out to watch it; Cliff is always telling me what kind of movie I would like and what kind I won't like, so I decided to show him I could settle down and watch a complete movie.

If it hadn't been for my intent to show my husband, I wouldn't have made it through the first twenty minutes, because I don't care for fantasy, make-believe, whatever you call it.  But I sat and watched it as though I were enthralled!  About half-way through, I realized it was more of a fairy tale, or at least that's what it seemed to me; so I got into it and enjoyed the last half, just so I could show Cliff I watched a complete movie!  Then I had to explain it to him.  It was just a version of King Arthur's knights and the chalice, set in modern times.  He was looking at his laptop most of the time, but what he saw of it made no sense to him.

And now you know what I've been doing instead of house-cleaning:  Reading, watching a movie, and adding a new entry to my blog

A trip to the Truman Library

We've visited the Truman library several times, but they recently updated it and I've been anxious to see the result, so Cliff agreed to take me.  To read about the renovation of the Truman Library, click HERE.  I was quite impressed with what they've done, and was rather surprised to see so many visitors there on a Monday.  

My parents were not fans of President Truman, but after I grew up, I've always loved him; he talks like any Missouri farmer would, and wasn't afraid to speak his mind.  I admire the fact that  he loved his wife fiercely and loyally, writing letters to her almost daily when they were apart.  Cliff and I have both read, or listened, to the book Truman twice, and have great admiration for him.

I wish I had thought to take a picture of the outside of the library, but having been there so many times before, I didn't even think about it.  I took a few pictures as we went through the library, but most of them are snippets of things he said, because that's what I like about him.

These are some childhood things that belonged to Truman's only daughter, Margaret

The Truman's wedding day

Somebody thought this  picture was a good idea; Bess Truman, however, did not.

Patton was not a fan of Truman

There was an attempt to assassinate Truman.  Having spent plenty of time as a captain in the field artillery in France during World War I, he wasn't too worried about it.

This and that

Cliff came home from his ear doctor appointment with homework!  Actually, it's a book that tells him what to expect from cochlear implant, some facts about it, some things he will need to know, and choices; there are various types (brands?) of cochlear implants and he has to choose one; a lady told me in the comment section of a recent blog entry which one she chose.  She only had 13% hearing, and now it's 88%.  She got the Advanced Bionics.  

Old Mama Kitty disappeared for a couple of days and came back looking skinny.  She's done this many times in the past.  I have known for a long time her teeth are bad because she seems to swallow her cat food whole and often vomits it back up.  Since Blue wasn't around when I first saw her outside, I gave her a little packet of Sheba wet cat food and she devoured it.  A little later she got up on the table on the back deck where I feed both cats, acting hungry.  She took one little piece of the dry food I've always given them and stepped back.  So I got the second little cat bowl, put dry food in it, and soaked it with water; she gobbled it down!  This morning I put one bowl with dry food, one with soaked food:  Blue sniffed the soaked food and went to the dry, while Mama Kitty sniffed at the dry food but ate the wet.  I mustn't leave the soaked food out there long, though, because the flies will lay eggs in it.

I believe the flies know winter is coming.  I haven't had flies in the house all summer long, but now they almost wrestle me to get in the door before I can get in.  We seem to have two fly swatters busy every day.

Cliff bought an old finish mower, probably from the late 50's, on Facebook Marketplace.  The tires on it were no good, but Cliff had some used tires here that would work.  The mower needed some TLC, but with the grandson's help it was running by the afternoon of the day he brought it home.

Here's the before picture

Here are a bunch of parts that go with it.  There are two pairs of blades, one pair is brand new.

And here it is now; all it needs is paint.

This video was two days ago.  They've done more work on it since that to get it perfect. Cliff has another finish mower that he mows a lot of our  yard with, but it can't cut pasture grass very well.  So he's happy, and had a good project for a couple of days.

About two weeks ago, we got two inches of rain; there's been nothing since, so I've pretty much given up on the garden.  I had late green beans planted, but I'm tired of dragging a soaker hose around the garden, and put the thing up for next year.  About the only thing left that's producing is okra and tomatoes.  Those two inches of rain gave the tomatoes some new growth, and although they aren't too big, they are absolutely delicious.  We had BLT's today!  I'm thankful that rain gave us the gift of more tomatoes. 

I guess that's all for this session.

A poem that came to me while walking

My  walk these days takes about 45 minutes.  I had such a wonderful time on my walk Saturday, partly because a poem started coming to me.  It isn't anything great, but I had fun with it, so I'm going to share it with you.

Barefoot in the Grass 

Donna Wood 9/13/2022

When I was just a baby Mama put shoes on my feet

She even bronzed a few of them, for memories are sweet.

But when I started walking, I’d take off my  shoes and socks

And run outside to wander over dirt and grass and rocks.

My friends were mostly in my head, and they were barefoot too.

Mainly wild Indians who made me an Indian too!

From early spring through autumn, oh, the time went by so fast:

Just me, my tribe, and Jesus going barefoot in the grass.

My teenage years were awkward; I had hardly any friends;

And I kept to my own self, thinking school would never end.

But afternoons, when I got home, I’d walk inside the door

And put those shoes beneath my bed, abandoned on the floor.

Missouri winters freeze the ground, and that’s when I wore shoes;

(I’ve walked in snow while barefoot, but it isn’t what I’d choose.)

But once the sap was rising, and sweet springtime came to pass,

You’d see me outside smiling, walking barefoot in the grass.

And now I’m nearing 80.  All the neighbors think it’s strange

To see me outside, barefoot.  Ah, but I’m too old to change!

I still get that same feeling as I did when I was small,

I almost see those Indians in my head, and hear them call.

My feet were meant to touch the ground and feel old Mother Earth.

I can’t walk far or fast, but barefoot walking still has worth.

And I’m sure God will find me, when my journey ends at last…

Just me, my dog, and Jesus walking barefoot in the grass.

Every morning it feels like fall

It may get hot after noon, but these lovely mornings whisper to tell me autumn is near.  The moon was lovely this morning, too.

Gabe is fine.  I noticed yesterday his dog food was infested with little black bugs, and I think that's what kept him sick.  That's what I get for buying a huge bag of food to save money, thinking it would be fine as long as I kept it in a tightly sealed container.  Since we aren't near a store, I borrowed some dog food from the next-door grandson.  Yes, I know you shouldn't change a dog's food, but it's better than driving twenty miles after his regular Purina Pro Plus.  In fact, I may change him over to what the grandson's dogs eat; Gabe actually chews it.  He's always eaten so fast he didn't take time to chew his food properly.  

He's on heartworm meds, so I don't worry about him getting worms of any kind; some of you mentioned you thought it might be worms.  

With these cool mornings, I want to see if I can go for my walk in the woods again, so I asked Cliff to mow my paths when he has the little John Deere out.  My knees don't hurt as bad when I'm walking barefoot in the grass at a slow pace; I hope that hasn't changed, although I'm sure it will someday. 

Next weekend the Kansas City Chiefs play.  It will be interesting to see how they do, with so many new players, and the loss of some talented old ones.  We got rid of Directv, so I am truly hoping I've made the best choices on streaming professional football and recording them so Cliff can watch them later, zooming past commercials as he's always done.  I've chosen the highest-priced Sling streaming services (fifty dollars), although it's half-price for the first month.

------------

I wrote everything to this point yesterday, and decided it made too short an entry.  Gabe is very much back to normal in every way, and was as glad to go for a walk in the woods as I was.  I made it all the way without my knees hurting too much (they always hurt somewhat, except when I'm in bed).  I was overwhelmed with a feeling of peace as soon as I started walking toward the woods, and my time actually in the woods made it an even more joyous peace.  It always helps to be barefoot:  Even back before I can remember, I've loved to feel my bare feet in the grass.  I know this because my parents said I never liked to have shoes on.  To top off all those emotions I felt, my cottonwood tree whispered to me as I was almost back home.  Now I remember once again where the center of the earth is; that's a play on words from one of my favorite movies, Little Big Man.  

Jack Crabb : I don't understand it, grandfather, why would they kill women and children?  Old Lodge Skins : Because they are strange. They do not seem to know where the center of the Earth is.

The one thing I prize about the place where I live is my access to that little piece of God-given nature.  I wouldn't trade that for any kind of fancy house.  

Peace.

Too much information, I know

Because Cliff was never a hard-core dog lover, I am very aware of the fact that many people, probably some readers of my blog, don't care about the silly escapades dog owners go through with their "fur babies".  By the way, I've never called any dog my fur baby.  I've never put clothes on Gabe, either, unless you count the scarf the groomer puts around his neck after a haircut.  These are things that Cliff thinks are crazy, and loves to make jokes about.

Gabe seemed to feel fine yesterday, but still wanted to go out frequently.  I tried to follow him to check on his problem (diarrhea) but he ran under a fence and far into the pasture to do his business, so I didn't.  I do appreciate his wanting to keep that mess out of my yard, though.  I decided to sleep with Cliff last night, beside the dog kennel; I'm tired of cleaning up stinky messes three or four times a night.  I had been asleep for an hour when I woke up to find Cliff letting Gabe out; turns out Gabe was barking to be out, and I was sleeping so hard I didn't hear it.  With Cliff's lack of hearing, I'm surprised he heard it; he said it was the sort of thing where he thought he heard something and thought it might be the dog barking.

I did wake up the next two times Gabe barked:  once at 1 A.M. and again at 3 A.M.  He was very insistent and ran to the nearest door when I let him out.  I didn't want to go out in the pasture behind him because it was cold out there with me in my nightgown, and anyhow, who wants to walk barefoot in the dewy pasture in the dark?  

When I got up and let Gabe out of the kennel cage the last time, he ran to the door again; this time it was daylight, and I reluctantly followed him.  Finally I witnessed the event and saw that things were back to normal.  Now I'm wondering if he really needed to go out last night, or was he just bored.

I'm sorry for the boring details, non-dog lovers.  If it makes you feel any better, Cliff won't enjoy this entry either, and he's liable to make fun of me.

That's OK; I make fun of him sometimes, too.

Oh, September

September is the month when I used to begin my downhill slide into depression.  I'm hoping my little pills help me with that again like they did last year.  Cliff and I had a good enough time at Old Threshers in Iowa, thanks to the fact we rented scooters; we wouldn't have made it an hour, had we been on foot.  The temperatures weren't bad and people were friendly, as they always are in Mt. Pleasant.  

However, the trip there and back was more boring than usual because we have trouble conversing now, due to Cliff's lack of hearing.  Often, it doesn't even help for me to scream out my words because that only garbles the sound.  He used to listen to his SiriusXM radio in the shop all the time; he's told me to get rid of it now, because he can't enjoy it.  When he turns it up, it's garbled and he often can't even recognize what song is playing.  Thank goodness for captions on the television, or he couldn't even enjoy it.  I used to read on long trips, and we both enjoyed that so much; more recently, I checked out audio library books on the Libby app on the iPad, and we listened together.  That's a thing of the past.  He does qualify for a cochlear implant, but it looks like it will be some months before he gets it as he goes through all the procedures medicare demands; then after he receives it, he'll have to learn how to use it and understand it.  At least there is that one ray of hope.

We got Gabe home from the kennel and the next day, realized he had a stomach problem.  We took his usual food with him, so I don't know what the problem could be.  Maybe he picked up something from another dog.  Saturday night I was up three times cleaning up messes, and could hardly go back to sleep for the awful smell.  I gave him rice cooked in chicken broth, but he didn't eat much of that.  This morning, I opened up a can of pumpkin and he ate about a tablespoon full of it.  I do think he's improving now.

I'll share a few pictures from our Iowa adventure, and that'll be it for this entry.

The first thing he did was look at the Oliver tractors, featured this year.

  

Cliff forgot his hair brush and used his toothbrush to comb his hair instead for the three days we were there.  Yes, there was a Walmart in town, but why bother?

The high point of the trip for me was seeing the Country Gold show Thursday night.  93-year-old Leroy VanDyke had just gotten over covid, but emceed the whole show after singing his old hits from the 70's, still sounding like he did as a young man.  The other entertainers were good too.  I felt sorry for Cliff, though; his ears don't let him enjoy any kind of music these days.

I still have okra and corn in the garden, as well as a few tomatoes.  Also many, many weeds.  At this point, the weeds can just stay there.

We have a foggy morning here.  Enjoy your day!