A Typical Tuesday

  This is Sir Po. He is a guy who got dumped on me a few years back, when I foolishly offered to foster 3 cats for a woman until she could get settled.  When he came here, he had never been outside, ate only Walcrap cat food, and was as fat as a pig. After I realized she was never coming back for her cats, I immediately showed them the door, lol, and they have been indoor/outdoor cats ever since. He was like a wild man. He ran and jumped and climbed trees and caught mice and voles and chipmunks. He came in every night, but during the day he was the happiest outside cat in America.  In the process of all this, he lost at least 10 pounds, and is the handsome bastard you see in this photo. I think he is part Russian Blue..has a blocky head and is completely gray with a white patch on his chest.

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  I was up at 6 AM again. (This could get to be a habit). Had to go in search of nomadic dogs again this morning, but not far.  So my morning started out like your typical Tuesday, coffee, computer and let dogs in, let dogs out...let cats in, let cats out. Vacuum, vacuum, vacuum.  I kept praying that it would rain, like they said it was going to, but by 9 AM I could see that they had lied again, so I had a cup of granola mixed with soy yogurt, got dressed in some work clothes with a St. Louis Blues Hockey team hat to keep the ticks out of my hair and headed into the backyard to get the mower out. I mowed all of the front yard, between the honeysuckle and the blackberries (a hundred feet of 8 ft wide grass), alongside the driveway, in front of the driveway, where the big planter is  and all around the garage.  It took me a good 3 hours, not counting the breaks I took for water and to cool off. It wasn't really so hot, maybe 80, but the humidity was a nightmare, and I had to come in and tie a terrycloth band around my forehead because the sweat was running into my eyeballs and making me go blind from the salt. My teeshirt was soaking wet and it was just yucky all the way around. But--the yard looks really good...

   My knee was hurting a lot, so I gave up after doing that much (and the sky was getting darker and darker)  and thought-maybe I can do more tomorrow.  Or--maybe not. lol  I have a couple of women friends coming over tomorrow for lunch,. so I may not get more done, even if it doesn't rain. And it is supposed to...Anyway, I came in and showered and  changed clothes and got the ice pack out. I sat on the couch with the ice pack on my knee as I ate my lunch (leftover veggies in coconut milk over leftover quinoa-yum.) I am reading a book I found during my cleaning frenzy in here, that I don't recall reading before, called Student of the Weather, by Elizabeth Hay, a Canadian writer. I read while I ate and iced (see--a good multi-tasker!!)  and as soon as I was finished eating, I fell right to sleep.  LOL

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    I got up and put on some Thai Jasmine rice ...one of the very aromatic rices. Probably as aromatic as Basmati, which I adore, but in a different way.  It filled the house with the comforting lovely smell and I fooled around a while before deciding what to fix for supper.  I finally just got all the veggies out of the bin, and decided to do a simple stir fry with broccoli, onion, garlic, carrots, celery, summer squashes, and spinach. Then I put some peanut satay sauce in and covered it until it heated and thinned out and covered the veggies nicely. It was awesome...once again, simple is better.And there's just enough leftovers for the Irishman's lunch box tomorrow. Well--except the rice, of course. I used the big rice cooker and cooked up about 6 cups of rice. I love it as a breakfast cereal, and I always love having leftover rice and quinoa to make suppers a little easier. 

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  It's only 9:30, and I feel like I could go to bed now. lol  I never go to bed that early unless I'm sick, but I have been trying to make sure that I'm in bed before midnight. And I think I do feel better and more rested.

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  The baby chooks are growing like weeds. They are eating fresh spinach that I throw in there and gobbling it up. They are all developing their little combs now and are still so darn cute I can barely stand it.  The sick hen outside is hanging in there...I am giving her extra vitamins and electrolytes, but she just isn't quite right...it's like she's losing her spark. Her feathers are dull, her eyes look tired..she's only 2 years old...she is still eating and drinking, and I hope that whatever this is passes and she is alright. I have lost chickens before, so I know I'll get through it, but you sure hate it when it's happening. It's such a feeling of helplessness...trying to figure out what's wrong and she can't tell me.

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  I need to go feed the fish and straighten up a bit. Then I'm going to look online for a cold soba salad to maybe make tomorrow. Or maybe I'll make the Turkish lentil soup recipe. Guess it depends on the weather. Soup and salad and maybe corn muffins?  Can't hardly go wrong with that, can you?  If I do the soup and salad, I will make a mixed greens salad with a home made yogurt mustard dressing.  And I think I'll put kale in the soup instead of the spinach the recipe calls for, because I can. lol  And the kale is bolting, so I need to get as much of it used up as I can before we tear it out.  Might could dry some more of it too. 

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  The blackberries that survived the tree trimmers holocaust look to be loaded with flowers. My red maple looks better every year--so beautiful, and the leaves are almost lacy, they're so soft. It has filled out nicely.  Something weird though--I planted a wisteria last year. A stick, that I got from Aldi's for 50 cents on sale. lol  It has grown like crazy and is huge already this year, and only 1 branch has leaves on it. There are nubs and buds on all the branches which will be leaves, but there is that one branch that has leafed out ahead of the others for some reason. Goofy.

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  Alright then.  Sweet dreams to you all...I'm gonna bumble around and do a few things and maybe make a small bowl of popcorn to eat while I read before going to bed. Just a tiny bowl...enough to satisfy this craving I have for something salty and crisp. Of  course, the dogs will eat at least half of however much I make, and even the cats like it, if it has butter on it. Molly will ONLY eat pieces that have butter (the Jack Russell Terrorist), the other dogs will even eat the unpopped kernels in the bottom of the bowl. Go figure...

  Have a wonderful night...

Namaste.