Monthly Archives: September 2005

Ugh

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I’ve had a very rough day. I was supposed to be able to paint one or two rooms today thru this weekend, but the way things have gone, there’s no way.

Asa, just turned 5-year-old is on a rampage of disobedience and no matter what I do, he’s behind me doing something horrid. The boys room is moving to downstairs and the office to their old room. They have been so very messy and disorganized, it’s a nightmare to motivate them, any old day, lest today. Add in Asa’s horrid behaviour and well, I’m sacked. Plus I’ve got some allergy thing, or thought I did, then I went and finally looked into the mirror at the eye that’s bugging me and saw I have a fleck on the surface of my eye, right over my pupil, it’s on top but won’t move off. I’ve put Saline in like crazy since then. It’s very irritating and driving me bonkers. I have no recourse but to pray, use saline solution, and wait. So if you have a mind to, please pray that God will clear the whatever-it-is-fleck off of my eye and that there is no damage and won’t be any damage and that it will totally resolve very soon.

I have no idea what it could be, but it could be glass … I had to pick up some glass that broke in the basement who-knows-when, a picture frame, today. But I can’t be sure there was anything to it that was that small, or that could have gotten in my eye … oh but it’s just frustrating to not know and not be sure about it at all, just know there’s something there that is disturbing normal feelings, it’s a grating feeling and my sinuses are going nuts from it. So my fantisy is that it’s glass or something rough or prickly and very small but big enough to be seen and just stick there on my eyeball. Ick. It’s like any old allergy thing, the eye feels dry and sticky and itchy and if it just gets washed out it’ll feel better. Like if there’s a bug stuck in there, or sand or dirt. But this is something right on the top and it won’t get off. URG. My eyelid isn’t happy about it either.

Frank isn’t here. He’s out for another day or so. I don’t know this is an emergency, it might be, but might not be. In any case I am not one to run to anyone medical for help so soon unless it’s something super bad and all that. So I wait.

Update: 10:03pm: I took a shower, hoping that the humidity would help, water washing in and all that … but it’s still there in my eye. I hope that sleeping will help it get out. Maybe a nice big allergy icky night will help goop it out. Anyhow, at least the shower made me feel a tad better, but the icky allergy stuff is coming back fairly fast now. Ho hum.

Really it’s just horrid since I can see it, but can’t get it off. Touching the eye with anything can be dangerous, but not that, just plain too sensitive to stand. The eye blinks naturally and it’s so hard not to, to put something up to it. I used to wear contacts and had no problem putting THEM in, or taking THEM out, but that’s totally different, a thing that slides and all that, but I do recall times I went to sleep without taking them out and without moisturizing them first, and in the morning they’d be stuck on my eyeballs or up inside under the lid all crumpled up and I’d have to peel them off, but they worked differently, of course, than this mysterious fleck, since they could hydrate with saline and then unfurl themselves more easily and they had edges to get anyhow, whereas this thing is a tiny fleck in comparison, but big enough to be very irritating and tempting to pluck off with SOMETHING, but what? Chewing gum wad? Bread dough (unbaked)? Something to put there and grab it. Hmmm. Ideas welcomed. See now, I can’t tell if it sticks out of my eye how, or what since my eye is a global curve, of course. Self-examine only shows me that maybe it does, feeling it, it sure does have presence above the level of the eyeball, but is is only smack down and stuck on, or is it a wedge into my eyeball with an edge sticking UP. Hmmm. Hmmmm. Hmmmm. This is the biggest thing that has made me go Hmmmm.

Vanilla and Violets

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Violets

We were at Harry’s the other day and I was looking through the plants outside the store, lingering and looking deeper than usual since Frankie was on the cellphone and I figured I’d just look for something to get, even though he doesn’t usually *let* me. I don’t usually press him to get a plant, you know how it is when you want something but are used to things being too tight to get frilly-froo-froo.

So it goes, I stumbled onto African Violets in the corner, and they were inexpensive. I grew up with them around me, my mother usually had a few, at least, on a windowsill in my childhood. They are so very Victorian too, so I bit the bullet, put three in the cart.

I haven’t had an interior plant for several years. I used to have household plants in Florida. I was good with them there. I like tropical greenage, and that hasn’t done so well for me in GA in the homes we’ve been in (all of two, mind you!)

The last inside plant I had was a hanging-something over the sink, a fern of some sort. It was lovely for a long while, over a year, then it went from green and healthy to whited out dried out in a zap-who-knows-how-long-a-time-zap, but it was zippety zap fast. So I left it there for longer than it was there green, in that dried dead state. It looked really cool, that’s why I left it there. A dead plant was my only household plant, the last one I had.

Because we have such a crazy household of people and are in the middle of re-doing everything for the last … bit of time, I haven’t had another plant. I do love plants and consider myself a plant person, gardener, and it’s discocerting everytime I realize that I haven’t really been a “good” version of what I consider myself to be, in fact find that I usually am a non-existant practitioner of said thing most every occasion that there is to discover these disconcerting sorts of things. Ah, the way of the life for the ever eratic eclectic one (me.)

I have my African Violets in the bathroom on the windowsill. That’s an East-SouthEast facing window, not the best for it, not the worst, alright considering the sun is not in Summer session now. It’s a transitional space for them, for now ;)

I need to get some African Violet food since I have none, of course, seeing as I haven’t had any plants of any sort for so long, and no AV’s at all. I think I’ll devise a bottom watering system for the plants, and then also I need a delicate little watering can for top watering every once in awhile. (Never get water on African Violet leaves!)

I’m not sure where I can put these delicate little flowery plants, but I have to devise some good place for them. They need light, but it doesn’t have to be direct and shouldn’t be much direct in any case. They can also live under regular lamp light, so I’ve read, but I don’t want to do that. The problem with plants on windowsills is “cats”, as wells as window blinds.

Vanilla

I bought 2 vanilla beans that day at Harry’s as well. Frank got me some 108+ Proof straight barrel bourbon for them … I put it together today, homemade vanilla extract, it’s in a closet, dark, warm, not hot, not cold.

I looked all over the web for ideas of what to do. So many sites say you have to have such and such type of bean, or else it’s not good. I have no idea what kind mine are, Harry’s only sells it as “vanilla bean: 2″ in a clear plastic box. The pictures I saw here and there online look like the ones I have, nice bourbon vanilla beans. Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. They don’t have the “vanillin” white powdery look on them, but they were long, 8 inches, curved at the top, and plump and super fragrant.

I split the beans, but didn’t separate them. I stuffed them into the bottle of bourbon and capped it and put it in the closet after a good shaking.

I’ve read that you should have a bean per cup of alcohol. Or 2 per 3/4 cup. Or 12 per … on and on it goes.

I have a 750ml container of bourbon, with 2 vanilla beans installed. It’ll do. I’ve read that others say it’s alright to do that. But no one really gourmet-like seemed to like the idea of that. They mostly are in the “a few weeks in the mix” type to make vanilla. The longer steepers said it’s great vanilla, and they are the ones that use less bean to alcohol amount. We shall see what happens. I’m open to putting in some more vanilla beans later. But not 12!

The two v-beans I got were $3.99. Not a bad price for vanilla beans, but to get 10 more … uh, yeah. So this country girl will be pleased to see what a good 750ml of straight barrel Wild Turkey Rare Breed turns out to be like with 2 beans now, maybe adding 2 more in a few weeks, for good measure. December is the date I’m shooting for. I’ll take some off the top before that maybe. I’m not opposed to experimentation all along the way.

I’ve long wished to try making my own vanilla. It’s very expensive to buy good stuff, and expensive to make your own, so if I can make an expensive-ish bourbon into decent vanilla, I’m ahead of the game the rest of the game-length.

I’ve read people say that homemade is better than storebought. Others say homemade is nice and fun, but not the best by far.

It’s one of those objective subjects, isn’t it? No, I’d say it’s very subjective. And so I subject myself to experimentation for my own subjective view to be formed. :)

Hot Hennie Update

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Our hennies egg production has picked up a bit the last few weeks. I have tried to keep them in order, get counts to put up here and all that, but … last week and over the weekend I’ve not been my best, so some things slide. FWIW.

The biggest thing to note though is that I took HawkLady out of the A=Frame the other week, put her under a metal basket that is supposed to go into a shelf thing for a panry sort of setup, but it’s a cheap thing and the basket is strong and not useable in the pantry thing, why not use it?

Upside-down it works to contain one hen. Not wing-flappy-able, but alright. I put HawkLady under it with a small former-catfood-can for water. I took her out since she hadn’t been laying much and had dropped off totally and was loosing more and more feathers. She has had a minny-molt going on for some time, in other words. She looked better after a few days in the new space. She got new grass every day at least once and looking at her today I saw her looking so much better, feathered out nicely for the first time in … and later the boys came running in to tell us that there was a green egg in her little pen. Ah, yes! There was! A beautiful green egg. Sigh.

There’s another that needs the same treatment, she is a Wyandotte, Pointsettia, and has lost a lot of feathers on her back. It’s not nice to see, and not nice for her, a big red target to the other hens in the pen with her. Peck, peck, peck.

That’s what Hawklady went through and it wasn’t that bad, just some days, and with something to do, it works to do it. So I have another basket I can use.

What I want to do then is to get a little pen built to hold the Wyandottes and HawkLady alone. It’ll be easier getting them together in a small pen, rather than getting them back into the A-Frame with the big girls, the Australorps.

The Australorps are laying something most days, up to 5 brown eggs a day, more like 2 most days though. So it’s an every other day sort of thing. The “up to 5″ included the Wyandottes, of course, seeing as we have 4 Australorps, not more. :)

The Leghorns are laying about 50-75% every day now. That’s really good for old women like them. We aren’t sure what to do with them, we’ll get them a light soon and see how to keep them laying over winter and maybe then when they quit we’ll do the deed.

I want some new pullets. I’ve wanted new ones. I’d be happy with more Australorps, or Golden-Laced Wyandottes. I love them both. My Australorps are so sweet, they remind me of an older sweet cat, in general. We shall see what we can do.

It’s been Summer again, very hot lately. It was Autumn-like then, bam! here comes Summer again. The 15-day outlook is pretty hot still. In any case, our Cherry trees have lost most all their leaves already, and our October Glory has a lot of changed leaves, and lost leaves already. This is early for both of these types. I’ve seen other Cherry tree types without leaves too, when driving around the last couple of weeks. It was the end of August when it started for them, and sortly after for the October Glory Maple.

I’ll get some pictures I just took of the trees on here soon.