Take a Bucket Home Tonight.


It’s almost 9 PM and I just looked outside to see what the kitties are up to. All 4 of them are sleeping in a plant bucket on our back patio. I first saw them doing this a few days ago and took a picture as best I could through the glass door.


Our plan to try to control the kitty population now looks like this. I’m going to catch as many cats as I can, bring them to Gainesville to be fixed and then return them to our backyard. I’ve rigged up a trap and have been feeding the cats in it for about a week now. They have grown used to it and tonight when I fed them there were 6 cats in the cage/trap at once(Marmalade, Unsub and her 4 kittens). If I can reproduce that tomorrow night I’m going to spring the trap.


If that goes well it leaves Marmalade’s 2 10-wk-old kittens to catch. I don’t think I’ll get them, but I will try.

Meanwhile Brie watches all this between naps on the chair.

Crib Update


Today I just about completed the woodwork portions of the crib. I still need to put some hardware on it but except for final sanding and painting all those pieces that needed assembly have been assembled. The pieces for the toddler bed and full size bed still need assembly.

Today I put the slats in place. I’m very pleased with the results. I had to improvise a little to get all the pieces to the right size using a table saw, router and sander, but it all came out alright. It will be interesting to see how well it all attaches when I get the final hardware in place. Here are pictures.

Headboard

Head and Footboard

with sideboards.

Shantaram

Today I finished listening to a 35 CD audio book, Shantarum. The book was narrated by a guy with an Australian accent. He sounded like the GEICO gecko. I Googled the book and found out that in print it is 994 pages and it took 13 years to write. The movie rights have been bought and the main character – Lin – is to be played by Johnny Depp(if things go as planned).

Here is the Amazon description of the book:

Shantaram is the fictionalized account of the real life adventures of author Gregory David Roberts. The narrator is a man called Lin, escaped from an Australian jail and arriving in Bombay, India with a fake New Zealand passport. He immediately meets a taxi driver named Prabaker who gives him tours of the city and a hut in the local slum. Lin starts a free clinic for the people in the slum, and to provide for his own income, he sells drugs to tourists. This gets him the attention of the local gangsters, and he's increasingly pulled into their world of crime, from counterfeiting to gun running to passport schemes. Lin falls in love, nearly dies in an Indian prison, and survives a continuing series of adventures. More than just an account of drugs and crime, Shantaram is the story of a man who, even in a life of violence, genuinely loves those in his life and the city that became his home, Bombay.


I enjoyed the book. The writer captured Lin’s emotions and thoughts about everything he experienced. Throughout the book there are philosophical discussions about moral and ethical questions and strangely enough the meaning of life – why we are here and where we are going. Although Lin is mixed up with gangsters and he himself is a wanted criminal everyone in the book seems to have something to say about the meaning and purpose of everything. Many thoughts and ideas are discussed and provide interesting background to the actions and adventures Lin experiences.

Here are some of the ideas happenings and thoughts I found interesting:

“The Indians are the Italians of Asia and the Italians are the Indians of Europe. Both cultures are full of singing, love, food and dance”

When boarding a train there can literally be violence in finding and keeping a seat. After the doors close this changes to a civility wherein a person may apologize for accidentally brushing your leg.

If a serious auto accident occurs a mob forms and pulls the guilty driver from the car and may actually beat him to death as they drag him off to the police station.

“ A man has to find a good woman, and when he finds her he has to win her love. Then he has to earn her respect. Then he has to cherish her trust. Then he has to go on doing this for the rest of his life.”

When Lin first arrived in Bombay he took 3 showers a day in the steamy climate. When he saw that 4 men had to haul that water up to the 6th floor just for him he vowed to stop. He was told to continue because the men needed the work, it was good work and they were proud to do it. Similarly when some of his friends swept the trash from their lunch off the roof of their car onto the pavement, something that would make litter- conscious westerners cringe, he knew that the “ragpickers” would gather it up for that was how they made their livelihood.


The book is full of serious, life threatening adventures but it has many humorous moments like the smuggling of a dancing bear that was wanted by the police, across the city of Bombay,
While listening to the book I made good progress on the crib. I have now assembled the head board foot board and the 2 side boards for the crib. I still have to put cove molding on and cap off the side boards – and of course, cut and put in all the slats but it is now looking like a piece of furniture rather than a bunch of cut wood. I didn’t take a picture today because I still have clamps in place while the glue cures. Maybe I’ll have pictures tomorrow.

Some Assembly Required.


I’ve devoted most of my time for the last couple of weeks to crib building.Today I transitioned from cutting pieces to size and sanding to actually begin assembly of the crib. Right now, as you can see by the picture, I have lots of pieces to put together. Soon those pieces will look like a crib.

Crib Update


This week I finished the headboard rail cap (curved piece), footboard rail cap (long straight piece), the 2 side rail caps and some molding.

Today I glued the side panels together. There is still a lot of cutting and sanding before I start putting things together but so far so good.

Kitty Pourin’


When it rains it pours and this week our back yard was pouring kitties. Both Marmalade and her 1 year old, who I will call unsub, have had successful litters. We didn’t know how successful until yesterday and it presents us with a problem.


About 2 weeks ago Marmalade ‘s new litter showed up at our back door. There were 3 kittens only 2 of them healthy. Those 2 are growing and we only see them sporadically


Then on Tuesday morning unsub was lying outside our backdoor nursing a little seal point kitten. This was the first we knew that she had a litter and now we were looking at 3 new cats in the yard. That evening there was a little flame point kitten looking in at us. It dashed away and I followed it outside only to find 2 little flame points running across the yard. Now we knew unsub had 3 kittens and we were looking at 5 new cats.


To my surprise this morning (Thursday) unsub and 4 kittens are outside the door. The new kitten is all black.. Now the count is at 5 new kittens. I sure hope that’s the last. (If my Dad were with us this would remind him of the joke that has the punch line “Do you think it’s the light that’s attracting them doctor?”)


My automatic feeder obviously has made the cats too comfortable. We are presented with the dilemma of what to do. We can’t afford to have them all fixed - assuming I could catch them. We can’t stop feeding, can we? If I can catch them and bring them to Gainesville we could get them fixed for free – or basically travel expense and imposition on Christy.

So we mull over our options.

Smoke on the Water.


Penny didn’t feel well enough to kayak this morning so I went out by myself in my single kayak. It was more windy than usual this morning and I was having second thoughts before I loaded it on the CRV. I decided it would be worth going just to see how well it behaved with a good wind.

When I launched the kayak the wind was coming out of the northeast – which meant I would be paddling with a headwind to get up to the end of the bayou. I set off across the bayou to get to the other side, which was sheltered from the wind. We are seeing the effects of one of the Florida fires here. This is the first day we have it but it smells like wet smoke outside and the sun is just a red ball instead of its normal bright golden self. About halfway across 2 dolphin roll out of the water for a breath of smoky air. They are headed downwind and I follow trying to get a good picture. Each time the surface I’m paddling. When I get the camera up they stay down. I got a couple of pictures of fins and rippled water and ended up with another quarter mile to row upwind.

I found that paddling upwind wasn’t bad. It took a little longer but it is nothing like being in a canoe in a stiff wind. When I reached the end of the bayou I took advantage of the opportunity to explore up in the narrow tributaries feeding the bayou. Penny can’t go there because she doesn’t want to take any chance on seeing a snake. I found that I could get up about 100 ft into one side. Far enough in that the water was now a stream and had a noticeable flow. To my surprise there were several blackberry bushes hanging over the water with ripe fruit ready for picking. I could pick them right from the kayak and I did. After I got about ½ pint I noticed that there was another vine growing on the blackberry bush and that each branch ended with 3 leaves. (you know, leaves of 3 leave it be!) So I quit picking and backed away. I’ll be back later in the week with a fresh bag and be more wary of those 3 leaved plants. It’ almost 8PM as I’m writing this and I haven’t gotten itchy at all. Either it wasn’t poisoned ivy or I’m just lucky because I was moving those green leaves out of the way with my hands.

On the other side of the inlet I was able to go up about 500 ft. That gets close to the main road out there. That’s the road we drove to work on for over 30 years. Now the rush hour traffic noises we hear while kayaking are a reminder of the dues we paid to get here.


I took lots of pictures so Penny can see what is up in there. When I came back out on the bayou the wind was now blowing across my path back to the beach. I ended up spending about 2 ½ hours sitting in the boat and surprisingly nothing was sore.


This was a very relaxing morning. If I had a fishing rod there were several opportunities to try to catch something. I can see myself spending a lot of time playing around in the kayak.

I’m certainly glad that I’m not all itchy tonight.

These Dreams.


After my second shoulder surgery I went through a period of time where the pain medication I was on made me hear voices (Dianna Degarmo) and have some really strange dreams.


This week I am on a 5-day regimen of prednisone to try to settle my pain from a herniated disk. It’s been causing sleep problems. Last night, however, I had a really fascinating dream – perhaps induced by the medication. I found myself staying at a friend’s house. As I was getting ready for bed another houseguest, a young child, came over and started to talk to me. I didn’t know who she was but she knew everything about me. She was bright and articulate- a very interesting little girl.


The next evening I met another houseguest, an older woman who also knew everything about me. I was getting upset that everyone knew so much about me. Later in the middle of the night there were a whole group of houseguests and they were all actors performing some sort of play. I learned that they were all spirits that were trapped in the grand piano and each evening they appeared and played their parts.

Now is that strange or what. That basic idea could make a twilight zone episode. When I described my dream to Penny she said it was a good thing I grew up before drugs were popular. She thinks I might have liked the dreams I had from them too much.

Enjoy What You Can Do.


I called Aunt Margaret again on Saturday. It’s been about a month since I last called her. Each time I talk with her she says the same thing. She’s ninety-six and can’t do anything anymore. She said her right leg hurts and the pain medication doesn’t help it. She’s not allowed to do anything for herself. She is helped o the bathroom and anywhere else she wants to go.


She told me it was hard for her. Her mind is good and she remembers doing things for herself and wants to be able to do that again. She wants to be outside and work in the garden. She said her son Lou in Germany is only 72 but he can’t even walk a block.


Our calls have gotten into this routine. She tells me she hurts. She wishes she could take care of herself. She just watches TV all day. It’s too much trouble to try to go anywhere. Her family is afraid she will fall and they don’t let her do anything by herself.


When I get off the phone I appreciate more what I can do. I see those things that are getting difficult for me and I know that I may someday end up like her.


We all believe that we are going to stay healthy, not lose our minds and die peacefully and painlessly in our sleep at a ripe old age. But most people don’t.


So enjoy what you’ve got. Revel in the fact that you can go outside and hunt owls or have a garden or just be able to drive. Even the simple act of going to the bathroom with no assistance takes on a new light.


I temporarily lost the ability to do some simple things with my torn rotator cuffs. I learned from that experience to appreciate many simple daily tasks. Each time I put on a belt, put on or take off a shirt, take a shower, dry myself with a towel or put on deodorant I marvel at how easily I can now do it. I am once again able to sleep on my side. I can take long walks. I can drive. I can use power tools. I can care for the yard and the garden.

So appreciate what you can do and work hard to keep what you have. There are too many people like my Aunt Margaret who can only wish and remember.

Mothers Day – Not!


We always celebrate holidays like Mothers Day before the actual day. We usually go out to lunch on the preceding Saturday so the restaurant is not as crowded. That strategy worked to the extreme today – but I’ll get into that in due time.

Our usual Saturday routine is to get up go to Waffle House followed by a visit to Lowe’s to see if they have any good Saturday morning discounted merchandise. Then we go home and do what needs to be done.


Today after Lowe’s we did whatever Penny wanted to do for Mothers Day. That meant shopping and going out to eat. Today Beal’s had one of their periodic “Take 70% off the listed price plus an additional 40% off “ sales. It’s a great way to pick up clothing, shoes, and household items of good quality for very reasonable prices. We usually enjoy this type of shopping and we weren’t disappointed today.


After Beal’s it was time for lunch. Our newspaper’s food column had rated a new pizza place in Miramar Beach as outstanding. That’s where Penny wanted to go. The problem is we didn’t know exactly where it was. The place is named Fat Clemenzas Brick Oven Pizza.

http://www.emeraldcoast.com/dining/article_display.php?a=97

After cruising through a couple of strip malls on Highway 98 we finally spied it a place called Fountain Plaza and I made a hasty right turn off the highway into their parking lot.


At first we weren’t sure they were open because there were no cars in the lot. The door was open and we went in. They had the newspaper write up posted in their entryway. We found we were the only customers there. No one else came in the whole time we were there! Everyone there spoke Italian (and of course English). Penny took advantage of having the place to ourselves by chatting with the chef as he prepared our meals. He was from Rome.


A neat brick wood-burning oven dominates the small restaurant. The oven has no door on it and we could see the hot glow of the 700-degree fire and our food as it baked. I ordered a sausage and mozzarella pizza and Penny had a Puglese Calzone (chicken marinated in rosemary, white wine, roasted garlic and olive oil with cheese and spinach). We watched the chef slide the food into the oven and I expected to wait at least 15 minutes for it to cook. It was out in about 5 minutes! The pizza was luscious. It reminded me of the ones we got in Italy with thin crust and easy on the sauce – very tasty. Penny enjoyed her calzone and although it was the size of a loaf of bread she stuffed herself and ate most of it. She consciously made the decision to stuff herself with the strategy to stop at Fresh Market on the way home and pick up a desert of tiramisu to eat at home later. Then she proceeded to get the worst case of the full hiccups I have ever seen her have. We laughed at that.


We asked our waiter if the place was usually busier and he said, with an Italian accent, “Yessa, in the Spring Break they line up outside”. We were happy to hear that because we know we will be back and we don’t want them to go out of business. While I was eating I was anxiously watching for other customers to come in. I find myself doing this when I am in a small restaurant that has good food. I want them to succeed.


We did execute Penny’s well-laid plan to get take-home dessert at Fresh Market picking up some apples and pears while we were there. We’ve found that their fruit is not outrageously priced and is better than anything we get at the local supermarkets.


Penny will, of course, get special treatment tomorrow on Mother’s Day. Breakfast will be her current favorite, banana pecan pancakes. This celebrate-Mother’s-Day-early strategy actually makes the celebration last 2 days. Not bad.

Crib update.

What has 6 legs?

Insects do.

Some sea creatures do.

A Black Angus Calf in Litchfield, Nebraska and a lamb in Belgium do.

The 3-way crib also has 6 legs and today I finished making all the legs. They are all set for priming and painting. It took a while to make the legs because of their laminate design. The rest of the crib should go faster. Next step is the headboard.

Zips and sneakers.


Today in church the alter server, a big young man who used to have shoulder-length hair, showed up with his hair cut about as short as mine. I wondered how self-conscious he was and whether his friends gave him a hard time. It also made me flash back to my youth and the summer rituals that we went through.


When summer arrived it was time for the summer haircut. Each year Mom would get out the hair clippers and give me a “zip”. Basically all the hair on my head was cut down to about a half-inch length. The hair style is also called a “Butch”. For a while I even used butch wax to make the front hairs stand up straight. (I still can smell that stuff!). I don’t ever remember feeling that self-conscious about this. It was just what you did for summer. I do remember some of my friends saying “Boy, you really got your hair cut!” but it was never in a teasing manner, just fun.


The other summer ritual was getting a new pair of sneakers. We would go to the discount department store – I think it was Shoppers Fair and later Topps and all the kids would get new sneakers for our summer footwear. This was before running shoes and the incredible selection we have today. I usually got a pair of Keds (now called “classic Keds”) with the little blue label on the heel. By the end of summer the soles of these shoes would be worn out and flapping.

All this mind wandering in the first couple of minutes at church. All day today I’ve been flashing back to those years. I wouldn’t be surprised to dream about it.

There's a hole in my roof.


Some men are born to projects, some achive projects, and some have projects thrust upon them.


For the past week we have once again been hearing critter noises coming from over our bedroom. Last night it was scratching and gnawing sounds. I grabbed a flashlight and looked around outside and on the roof and didn’t see anything. Something was definitely up there. At times it sounded like it was on the roof at times in the attic. Lifting the attic hatch and looking around revealed nothing.


This morning Penny and I did a complete circuit of the house inspecting all the soffit vents for anywhere critters might get in. It all was nice and tight. The next step was to look on the roof. I climbed up a ladder where we heard the noise and the entry point was immediately obvious. The area around the 2 1/4 inch pipe where the power lines come into the house was gnawed away in such a manner that a good sized rat or squirrel could squeeze in. We are fortunate that it hasn’t rained this week. This hole would have let in a lot of water.


So my project today was to seal up that hole and make it so the critters can’t get in. They chose this area to get in because there was no metal flashing where it penetrated the roof. It was simply sealed with asphalt sealer an shingled. The critters used that weakness to get at the underlying plywood and gnaw out there hole. Why they waited 32 years to do this who knows?

I’m hoping that I didn’t seal the critter in the attic. It gets so hot there during the day that a critter wouldn’t likely stay there. So I think they are now blocked from returning to spend the night. I’ve heard many horror stories of persistent squirrels that will gnaw through wire mesh to get back into an attic. Hopefully our critters will give up easily. I did make it hard for them to return.

On the Water.


I’ve been out in 3 boats in 2 days.


Monday I went sailing with a friend from work, Walt Schmidt. I talk to him about once a month when he’s walking his granddog in the schoolyard behind our house. If I’m working in the shed, as I was on Sunday, he will give me a shout and we chat over the fence. He has a sailboat, a Catalina 22 and he invited me out for a sail .

You may find it hard to believe since I’ve lived here since ’73 that this was my first time out in a small sailboat. I’ve worked with a number of sailboat owners and they all find seem to find sailing addictive. I found I don’t have the bug. Sure it is nice to be out on the water being driven by the wind. It’s fun to have dolphin ride your bow wake only a few feet from you. But it’s not the carefree life that is portrayed. For one, it is an expensive hobby. Money aside, when you sail you are completely at the mercy of the elements. After a while I had to ask myself is this all there is? Sailing requires your constant attention so you can’t pull out the camera very easily. It can also be quite dangerous. I enjoyed the sailing. I won’t be disappointed if I don’t go again for a while.


Boat #2 was our tandem kayak. Penny and I went out again on Tuesday morning. It was a beautiful day to kayak. There was almost no wind and the bayou was like glass. We went down to the end of the bayou and watched the Osprey and Kingfisher snatch fish out of the water. There were fish everywhere and the birds were taking advantage of it. The water was so calm that you could see the bow wake made by any large fish swimming just below the surface. We keep seeing lots of fish – I’m going to have to break out the ol’ fishing rod soon.

Boat #3 was my single kayak. This was the first time I used it. I went out on Tuesday evening. I wanted to go back to the little beach to look for something I lost (see next blog) so it was a good excuse to try the single kayak. The first thing you notice in a single kayak is that it is less stable than the tandem. It’s just slightly more difficult to get in and get started than in the tandem. I found I could move along at a good pace by just doing an easy stroke. I did like the feeling of the single kayak but it just wasn’t as much fun without Penny along.


Today, Thursday, Penny and I went out in the tandem kayak. When we got to the end of the bayou where the Osprey nest is we saw some sort of furry critters swimming around. At first I thought they were beavers but when one rolled on its back and raised up its head to look at us I figured they were otters. I didn’t know we had otters here. When we got home we did some research and evidently what we saw were river otters. I took a picture at long range and zoomed in on the critters head when we viewed it on the computer and there is no doubt that we were watching otters in the wild!

After we saw the otters we did a complete circuit of the undeveloped area at the end of the bayou. It’s a pretty area to kayak in. Eventually the Air Force is going to put housing in that area so we better enjoy it while we’ve got it.

Lost and Found.


This has been a week for losing things. Fortunately I found both items I lost. In a strange coincidence Karen lost and found a black hoodie in St Pete in approximately the same timeframe that I did the same with my sunglasses.


My story begins on Tuesday when Penny and I went kayaking. I stuffed my cell phone in a baggie and buttoned it in the pocket on the leg of my pants. Later in the day Penny wanted a Wendy’s burger so I took the phone out of the baggie and snapped it in its case to that same pocket.


After we got home from Wendy’s we got a phone call from brother Lou. He said that someone had called him and told him that they had my cell phone. It was funny because the folks that found my phone first called Aunt Pat, Joe and Nana before getting someone to track me down. When they called Aunt Pat they explained they found it at Wendy’s and they were told Wendy just died. So they dialed another person. I don’t know what their logic was in choosing who to call. At least they made the effort to return the phone.
I thanked them and gave them a small reward.


I had clipped my phone too loosely to my pocket and it fell off when I got out of the car at Wendy’s. They said they almost ran over it. I’m glad there are still good people out there.


The second item I lost were the magnetic clip-on sunglasses I have. I had them on in the kayak and took them off to take some Osprey pictures. I didn’t have a shirt pocket to put them in so I put them in my pants pocket- again on the leg of the pants. I knew this was a bad place to put them but I thought I would remember to put them back on.


When we were driving home from kayaking I found I didn’t have the glasses on me. I searched the kayak thoroughly, the CRV, and I went back to the little beach and searched everywhere we went. No luck. That evening I went back to the little beach with my kayak, searched some more and again no luck.


So today as we headed out for our morning kayaking we discussed that I would have to replace the sunglasses. Halfway down the bayou Penny looks down into the bow of the kayak and sees my sunglasses shoved all the way up at the point of the kayak. I thought I had searched the kayak well. We evidently dislodged it in loading the kayak and then it was plainly visible in the bow for Penny to find.


I’m normally responsible. My actions this week don’t go to prove it. If anything I have to learn that those silly pockets on the side of the leg are not to be used for valuable items.