We’re Good!

Sorry folks. I didn’t mean to worry anyone. I kept thinking I’d sit down and write a blog post. Then it would get to be too late and I was tired and I’d plan to write first thing in the morning, then there would be something that HAD to be done right away and one thing turned into two, then first thing I knew, it was too late . . how can two old people be so busy??

I can’t even remember what days things happened so I’ll just guess.

Saturday night we were up way too late watching football. By the last game, I had my earbuds in listening to music and stitching while Vince was watching the end of the last game. It was about 12:30 a.m. . . Sunday morning by now. My phone doesn’t work so well in the basement . . rarely rings, then if someone leaves a voice mail, I don’t get those unless I leave the house because even with WiFi calling, phone doesn’t ring and voice mail doesn’t come through. My friends know to send me a message on Facebook Messenger.

So, it’s after midnight, I’m stitching listening to my old gospel music and something next to me catches my eye . . my phone was ringing but not ringing. I could just see the screen lit up and a neighbor was calling me. I knew something had to be wrong. I yanked my ear buds out. Vince said “What’s wrong?” I said “My phone is ringing.” He said “Hello Sarah” because she often calls me or I call her late at night. But, it wasn’t Sarah. I answered the phone and my neighbor said “Do you hear gunshots? Lots of gunshots?” I told her I hadn’t heard anything because I had my earbuds in with music and we were in the basement. I could tell she was quite shaken. I said “I’ll go outside and see what I hear.” She said “NO! Do NOT go outside right now.” I meant . . I’ll open the back door, stick my head out and see what I hear. I did and I didn’t hear anything but we often hear gunshots here. There are woods nearby and a large creek with woods across from it. But, it still made me nervous and I didn’t sleep well that night.

Sunday Vince and I cleaned out the greenhouse to get ready to stain the floor and get it ready for plants. We drained the big barrels of water we keep in there (four – 50 gallon barrels), moved out the shelving units, swept it out and now we will get the floor stained, let it all dry, then get the rugs and shelves back in there. After the greenhouse was clean, I started cutting back some of the tomatoes that I want to keep in the greenhouse and see if they will grow and produce in there this winter. Then I harvested more sweet potatoes and cleaned out more of the empty grow bags.

Sunday night, there was another incident that happened late at night and that one kept me awake. In fact, that night, it was almost 2 a.m. and I called my friend, Sarah, to see if she was still awake. She was and we talked til 4 a.m. so you can imagine that I was a zombie on Monday.

Monday I picked 8 pounds of green tomatoes, then got a call that one of the local farms had green tomatoes and I had asked for 30 pounds so we went up there and got those. I also cleaned out a small freezer and thankfully, I found a container of gumbo so that was what we had for dinner. Gumbo and canned coleslaw.

Monday evening, it wasn’t dark yet, I took Oscar out. He always goes out on a leash, even though the back yard is fenced. I opened the back door, and as usual, he was so excited to get outside, he went out ahead of me. There was a snake on the mat at the door. Oscar stepped on it just as I saw it. I yanked him up and over the snake, back inside the house . . after I had screamed. I’m not sure if I scared Oscar or the snake but it was a blood curdling scream. I wasn’t sure if Oscar had been bit by the snake. It happened so fast and I didn’t get a good look at the snake. It was light brown and had darker brown diamond-is shapes on his back. It was a young snake . . not a baby but not a full grown snake. I brought Oscar in and looked on his belly, his neck, his feet. I couldn’t find any indication of a bite. He seemed fine but I read online that they may not show symptoms for 25 hours. Why 25 and not 24? You can guess I didn’t sleep much last night. He seems fine and it has been about 27 hours since that incident. Now, we get to the back door. I still Oscar to stay (he doesn’t – but he’s on a leash so I make him stay), I open the door, check for danger, then I say “Come” and he does and gets a treat. Some day he will learn to stop and wait while I make sure the coast is clear.

Once in Texas, we had a rattlesnake stretched out at the back door. I’m guessing the metal threshold was cool from the cold air in the house. I went out with Speck and he stopped right over that snake. Of course, then I was on one side of the snake and he was on the other side so I had to take a “granny” leap over the snake. I went to the window, tapped on the window and asked Vince to come to the window. I didn’t want to yell and have him go running out the door to see why I was yelling since, by now the snake was expecting someone else to come out. I can’t remember how that ended but no one got snake bit.

Today we had an appointment a little over an hour from here so we left home about 8:30 and got home about 4:30. Another long day. I couldn’t wait to get home and check on Oscar. He’s a good dog! He was in the crate all day and “held it” and didn’t have any accidents in there. He was one happy little dog to get outside and relieve himself.

I am going to go out on a limb and say that I think we have no place to go tomorrow and nothing on the calendar. My plan is to get a batch of chow chow started from about half of the green tomatoes and to make more green tomato curry with the rest of the green tomatoes.

Believe it or not, I’ve managed to do more stitching than usual. Those little bits and pieces of time when I don’t have time to start a canning project or I’m waiting on something else to happen, I’ve managed to get some stitching done. Will report on that tomorrow!