sjusts

Thanks for the tomato info

Does anyone know what one can do with green tomatoes? My tomato plants are still producing tomatoes and I would hate to have them all go to waste

Corbeagirl's post on people who have touched ones life made me want to share:

It was just before Thanksgiving my Mom and I (age 5) were flying out to see Grandmother before she died. Due to weather it seemed like we were forever missing our next plane. We were wondering around Sea-Tac when I whispered to Mom (child's whisper, loud) "Mommy that lady looks like she is burned like a cake." Mom wanted to drop through the floor, either that or have me disappear. Mom started try and explain to me, but the lady interrupted and told me to come on over. She sat me down next to her and explained that she was just a human with skin a different color than mine. She told me to touch her skin and see that it was just the same as mine. She then went on to explain how her ancestors were from the hot regions of Africa where mine were from the cooler northern regions of Europe.

My mother was a racist to the Nth degree, but my meeting with that lady at that age made me realize that people were people, it was the person who was good or bad. That race, color, religion etc was not the cause of good or bad. She was a believer in the teachings of Martin Luther King that a soft voice will win more people than violence and shouting. That day she influenced me and through her the teachings of Martin Luther King lived on.

My only regret is that I never knew her name so that I could track her down and thank her for her timely words of wisdom.

Happy Birthday Jupiterorbit

Oscar was the first domestic animal I rescued. She was a short haired brown tabby with a white chest at least that was what she looked like after 4 lathers of kitty shampoo. She had been living in the boiler room and the apartment complex we moved into. The manager started in on us the day we signed the rental agreement to take Oscar, while showing us around the complex she took us to the boiler room and introduced us to this brown and black cat. So she joined our household.

The people who first rescued her had always wanted a cat named Oscar the fact that she was a she did not inter in to it. When we got her she answer to Oscar so we left the name.

She became the head of the household, animal wise. She house trained all the cats and dogs that came into our home for the next 10 years. Oscar adopted a kitten, Merlin, that we were going to keep, she cleaned him, taught him how to defend himself, proper litter box use, and all the other cat things.

We let the cats out during the day in the summer to deal with the rodent population before it moved in for the winter. Oscar decided one day to teach Merlin how to hunt mice. She went and found a mouse stunned it and brought it to Merlin. She set it down in front of him and backed away a bit. They sat there looking at the mouse until it came to. The first thing that mouse saw was Merlin. The mouse backed up, into Oscar, looked around and saw the cat that had attacked him. Being survival oriented the mouse moved quickly away from Oscar. Which made it that he was scampering toward Merlin.

Now Merlin was a very sweet cat, but when they were handing out brains he thought they said trains and he wasn't going anywhere. In other words the cat was lacking in the brain department, drastically.

So when this mouse started coming at him, he backed up, the closer the mouse came to him the farther he backed up. The mouse ended up chasing Merlin around the yard. Until Oscar got well and truly fed up. She stalked over to Merlin and proceeded to smack him around the head and ears until she was satisfied that he had figured out she was pissed at him. She then proceeded to come into the cabin and refused to have anything to do with Merlin for the better part of 3 days. Normally Merlin would sleep with her and she would groom him, but for those 3 days she would act like he did not exist.

Merlin never got a mouse in his life, that we ever knew about, and Oscar never tried to teach him how to hunt again.

The Cook Inlet AK is second to the Bay of Fundy (spelling butchered) for the number of feet between high tide and low tide. In the Turnagain Arm area the difference is 35 feet plus or minus a few depending on time of month. At Ninilchik the tide differential is only 20 feet plus or minus.

There is this sand bar just south of Ninilchik Harbor, it shows up at very low tides. There is a lot of clam digging when the tide is low enough. One really nice clear warm sunny day Dad and I took the skiff out just as the tide was revealing the sand bar, we hopped out of the boat and set the anchor real well. Next on the scene was a guy who flew in on a float plane, he ran his plane up just like we had run the boat up. Only difference is he did not anchor the plane.

Clamming was really good that day and a lot of people got so involved in digging they forgot to keep watch on the tide level. Dad and I were keeping a good eye on the boat while busy digging and enjoying the nice weather. Suddenly there was a cry "Hey! who owns the plane that is floating away?" We looked up and there was the plane drifting away with the tide and way to far out to walk to. Our skiff was too far up to be of any use, lucking one of the other locals had his boat closer to the water and took the pilot to his plane. Dad rescued the pilot's clams.


Cook Inlet named for Captain Cook. He was looking for the northwest passage when he sailed into the inlet, he had to turn around again when he reach the end. Thus Turnagain Arm. Anchor Point is named either because they anchored and restocked or because the anchor was lost there.

Speak like a pirate.

Originally the estimate was 18-24 months of wearing these lovely pieces of tooth jewelry. Well the 2 year mark passed 6 months ago. My teeth are being stubborn and are not wanting to do the last bit of movement where they all line up in neat little rows.

I want to eat a mango, bite into an apple, make a batch of caramels and eat them, and have a salad without spending hours getting green leafy stuff out of the braces. Soon, soon...I will believe that when these dang things are gone. It was not until the last 10 months that my patients has worn all the way through to the roiling lava below. Sigh This to shall pass, just not frick'n soon enough at this point.

Zoro, roomie's cat, did a great job of chasing the squirrels off the balcony, so well that they moved to the front porch. So I moved my Alpine Strawberries to the balcony since they really do not like to be dug up every other day. No squirrels on the balcony still!!! However Zoro has developed a taste for strawberries...can't win.

Zorro, the roommate's cat, has been doing a wonderful job of harassing the squirrels on the back balcony. However the finishing touch was when the most obnoxious of the critters took a big bite out of one of the hot peppers.

Now the little buggers have moved their digging thing to the front porch, sigh.

Over heard last week "Mommy look there is a squirrel!"

Older sibling, "Can we kill it and eat it"

Younger sibling "YUCK!! Mom don't let her do that"

Mom, "no killing or eating of squirrels in this family"

Ever since the heat wave my asthma has been really hard to control. For the first time ever my inhaler died because of use rather than expiration date. The place I am living in is the only condo that does not have a smoker and/or a charcoal grilling device (I would swear that they use gallons per briquette both of which triggers my asthma. Sigh so the long and short of it is that I will be moving ASAP.

I am really bummed as Mike (roommate/landlord) is a really great person to share an abode with. If anyone in the Vancouver/Portland is looking for housing drop me a line and I will put you in touch with him.

I hate moving I really hate moving, sigh.

Yes, it was a smash and grab robbery. The trial ended in a hung jury because there just was not enough evidence from either side to make a solid decsion. It was the most boring and frustrating time for me. The jury divided between the fact based evidence the emotional side of the situation.

Work has AC and everyone who do not have AC start bugging you to trade shifts.
You start wondering if the grocery store will rent out the walking cooler.

Add to as you see fit.

Dear Miss Manners,

Is there a polite way to tell the neighbors that they are using way too much lighting fluid on their charcoal?

Sincerely,

The Downwind Neighbor

Have not heard from you in a while. How is the new abode, now that you have been in it for a while?

I got new digs too. It has a balcony that I get to spend time on most days and evenings. There is a bird feeder so I can watch a real live nature show. There is also this squirrel that keeps coming around, it digs up all the plants on the balcony which gets the humans more than a tad annoyed. But Zorro, the other cat here, is dealing with that problem. He can reach the railing the squirrel runs on and likes to scare it by slapping its tail as it goes by.

Waiting to hear from you

I picked up two hot pepper plants this spring and they are loaded with peppers. The Thai peppers get red when they are ripe, but how does one tell if a jalapeno pepper is ripe?

The place I am living at know has good plant karma as everything is growing like mad, bad thing is that some of the veggies bolted. So if anyone in the Vancouver Hazel Dell area wants some fresh herbs for cooking with please drop me a line. If I can not give them away I am going to have to start drying or pitching out.

Thanks

When a car hits a full grown moose the car looses and the moose is usual badly hurt and has to be put out of its misery.

Mark was driving down Deep Creek hill when a full grown cow moose decided to cross the road. It was spring and the side of the hill Mark was on got the spring sunshine so it would do a melt as thaw for quite a few weeks. Mark was able to stop his car almost a full inch away from the moose. The moose had stopped walking to take a look at Mark and his car. As the moose turned to walk away she slipped and fell on the hood of Mark's car, resulting damage was a busted hood and wind shield. Mark was pretty philosophical about the situation, saying that at least he has not hit the moose. His insurance company had bit of a problem with "a moose fell on my car" for the cause of the accident.

Then there was a friend of my family who had a bull moose jump out in front of his car. His car was the old style VW Bug without roof rack. At the time the highway was gravel instead of pavement, but a fresh load of gravel had put on in the last few days. He was not able to stop his car as it slid on the gravel. The moose was sideways to the car. His Bug slid between the front and back legs of the moose and out the other side just tickling the belly hair. According to the friend the moose looked quite confused as he glanced in his rear view mirror.

Our janitor, Mr. Thompson, at out school was a very sweet nice guy, he would give a helping hand to any who asked and a lot of the time you did not even have to ask. He was heading home after work, the wind was blowing and the snow coming down hard enough to reduce visibility to a few feet. Mr. Thompson saw a pair of legs in his headlights and slowed down to offer a ride to the poor person walking. He stopped his car and threw open the passenger's side door, shouting out "do you want a ride" at which point a large moose head entered the car. They looked at each other for a bit and then the moose withdrew his head and sauntered onward. Mr. Thompson closed the door and continued onward himself giving the pair of walking legs a wide berth.

I just found out that a good friend is having a difficult time of it, would you please keep them in mind.

Thanks

I love animals, I really do, but there is one breed of birds that I wish had never been domesticated the cockatiel. They pick up the most irritating sounds and repeat them over and over until they get what they want. This particular bird has picked up a sound that is very similar to a speed dial. Translated into cockatiel it is a very harsh sound to listen to at 7am in the morning.

The condo complex has a rule that says dogs and cats only. I wish they would enforce that rule. The bird isn't too bad except when they put him outside to get some sun. I never thought I would say this but I would love some not nice weather.

As mentioned before part of my dog's job was to clear the large dangerous animals away so I could walk down the driveway to catch the school bus.

As I got ready to go to school a cow moose and her two year old cafe came into the front lawn area. No only did they prevent me from catching the bus, they were between the house and the car so no ride to school from Mom. So we opened the front door and let the dog out. Momma moose bolted to the hillside that was across a small gully. Baby however took off after my dog in a dead out run.

My dog could not get enough distance from the moose to be able to get in the house. She was leading the moose around the house hugging the corners of the house. On the third lap around the house, instead of hugging the corners like before she ran out onto sheet of ice that was between the house and the wood pile. Once in the middle of the ice she executed a right angle using her claws for traction the moose hot on her tail. Moose have hooves, they do not have claws, their traction sucks. But to give the moose credit he tried real hard to turn and chase her. He actually got his body turned but his momentum was still going on the original track. So skidding and thrashing the young moose went crashing into the wood pile. Wood went flying every where, it looked like a scene from a cartoon. After finally getting to his feet and staying there, he ran to his mother. She gave him a look that "that was stupid, next time don't play with the dog" They both trotted off. Mom gave me a ride to the end of the driveway to catch the bus.