The bank called

I am not in the habit of hearing from my bank. Used to be that one of the officers of the bank would call me in the morning if my account was in arrears, that stopped a long time ago!

But this time the line was different.

The lady identified herself and said: “I see some unusual activity on your bank account,” She said.

Now, I am an extremely small portion of their customer base, on a graph I would be so close to the line you could not see the space, but this time I was being asked about a charge on my debit card.

No I had not authorized that charge, nor another one just above it. I noticed the charge earlier in the day and was planning a trip to the bank to protest.

But, the bank called me instead. “Hmm.” she said, “Your account has been compromised. I am going to cancel your account immediately, and issue you a new card.”

Today I go into my branch bank where I know quite a few of the people and finish the arrangement.

I am still a bit amazed at what made them suspicious about that “unusual activity” and more than a bit pleased by their vigilance.

sketch book and the doc

juice

I canned tomato juice yesterday.

We came home from out last trip to some frost, but lots of good ripe tomatoes. We picked all the ripe ones, even the cherry tomatoes before hard frost took them all. Yesterday I juiced and canned. The juice turned out to be a fairly thick, but should make great soup base).

Some small shell pasta, a pint of juice, a bit of flavoring (Miriam said I had a bit too much) and it was good with grilled cheese on fresh home made bread.

Along the way, I spent some time organizing our fruit shelves. They can get to be a real jungle, with good fruit buried. I found some 8 year old plums that will aid the compost pile, among other treasures.

We have half gallon jars that we will never use, and a few gallon ones. I don’t know if any one uses half gallon jars any more, but they are way too nice to just throw out.

Space for invention.

Now the pint jars that are what I prefer. The tomato juice I did yesterday went into pint jars, they seem about right for two people.

corn and squash

I had a good squash crop, more than a wheelbarrow full.
Corn not so good.
I keep learning!

truck tires

Trucking ain’t what it used to be!

This week I was talking with a son in law. We talked about the old split ring wheels that trucks had. I think thery are obsolete now, I hope so.

A truck tire is a big hunk of fiber and rubber. It mounts on a good sized wheel. The tires are so inflexible that the rim had no edge on it, and the tire slipped on easily. But then a ring had to be added.

There was a groove on the edge of the wheel and the corresponding tongue on the ring had to seat together. They had to seat perfectly.

Sometimes, if it was not installed perfetly that ring would come off.

Tire men were trained to air a tire like that against a stron wall and to use the air line from the back of the tire, not the side with the ring.

We stopped in Tremonton Utah once (I rode with dad sometimes) and the guys in the tire store said one of theirs, who dad knew, was inflating a tire. For some reason he ignored the rule, the ring came off and took his head off.

That was not the only time. RIP.

Ben

Grandson Ben, in a philosophers mood.
Ben is our 2nd born. Next time around he will be 25.

lazy gardener

I certainly was not meant to be a farmer.

A good friend was a dairyman, back when a good sized dairy might milk 50 or 60 cows. Now we have factories that have around 10,000 cows, but that is a different story.

Cows need regular care, like twice a day. The girls are insistent on that big of regularity. So Dairy farmers don’t go on extended trips without a LOT of arranging and delegation.

I, on the other hand, will go visit a daughter or a grandchild on the flip of a bad coin. That is OK, except that gardening needs a schedule too. Not as tight as a dairy, but if the tomatoes don’t get planted by a certain time, there is not much of a crop etc.

So this spring we went to stay with Emily. Garden got to wait and it did OK, but it might have done better had I been here. This fall we were gone again when the first frost hit. Could have brought more in had I been here, but I was not.

And here is the tricky part. If I have to choose between a good garden and a good visit with a daughter or grandchild, the garden comes in a distant second.

So, today, after a few frosts, I am going to attack our tomato patch and see how many tomatoes I can salvage. The ripe ones will be juiced and in canning jars by bed time, the ones that are not quite rip will be eaten later.

This fall I will stay home, mostly, and through the winter much the same thing, but if an invitation is extended, we might be on the road again.

The garden can wait.

Jessica

This is my oldest granddaughter Jessica.
She took the picture of herself using the camera in my MacBook.
Jess has a birthday this month. She will be 16.
I am very proud of her, she is a keeper.

rhythm

It is good to be home, still.

Our lives all have a certain rhythm. Break that rhythm eve a bit and it is uncomfortable. And, come back and it is like an old shoe.

Now that fall is here I build a fire in the stove when I first wake up. I dress, make a cup of tea or chocolate and sit down with my computer.

The fire part has not been part of the mix for some months now. It is a good way to make a beginning for the day.

Nearly all of the wood we burn in our stove is recycled wood. Some Palettes that were doomed, some wood that was given us by various people, some from the trees on our property. Occasionally I buy some, but not too often.

When this house was built in the mid 70’s, a lot of people planted white birch trees. They were pretty, looked good and were plentiful. The trees hung onto our very alkali soil until the last few years and one by one they died.

Of course, I planted one too. It died a couple of years ago, but looked so good (I thought -- lazily) that I left it standing. Well, while we were gone a big part of it broke off and when it hit the ground it was so brittle it broke into pieces.

So this year we will burn some birch along with fir hunks and an oak scrap here and there.

camping crew

Campers.
Good bunch.
After we camped, we went back to their house and did some beauty work.
Sometimes we all need a morale boost, and a coat of paint and a bit of floor covering can do a LOT.
It was a good trip.
I am glad I had the time and the skills.

change of seasons


We left in the summer and came back in deep fall.

Last weekend we were camping with daughter and gang. It was hot enough during the day that you looked for shade. The boys (and Amy) went on an overnight pack trip and while it was cool, it was not desperately cold.

After sitting around the campfire for two or three hours we would go to bed and Miriam’s feet and hands would be so icy. It took a while to get her all cozy. We were cozy in the tear, but we did not get up too early!

There were abundant tomatoes at every meal when we left, and now the tomato beds are dark and weepy. The first frosts were fairly light, but delicate plants, like squash and tomatoes were affected.

I did harvest winter squash yesterday. Got a big, almost over flowing, wheelbarrow of what looks like good squash. I’ll bake a hunk of Blue Hubbard today. It looks good, but squash is sometimes hard to judge.

So, this winter it will be squash and beans!

We are back from a wonderful camp trip, but now I am up to my neck in grandfather work.

That is pretty good too.

Today we put a new floor in daughter's kitchen and dining area.

Tomorrow we paint the girls bedroom, and then put in some carpet. That might be all done by tomorrow night and we might have to finish Thursday.

I brought tools for the kitchen and bed floor, but not for carpet, so it might take a little longer.

I'll write more when we are back home in Idaho.

We are going camping with the grandkids for a few days.

Back Monday.

The child grabbed my hand and boom the paparazzi or someone took our picture.
I did not even have time to "fix my hair."
As if I would have cared!
This is Stef and I in Portland. The time was too short, but it was super good to see her after three years.

shelter challenged

We stopped for lunch at a state park.

Were I properly organized we would have fixed a lunch at home and brought it alone, but alas no one ever said I was even marginally organized, so we stopped at Wendy’s.

Baked Potato, Side Salad and small frosty for two: a bit under $8, and not a really bad meal at that.

So as we were eating this bounty, a lady drove up in a middle age Jeep Cherokee. Nothing unusual about any of that. Then she brought a few plastic jugs and filled them with water.

And more jugs, and small bottles and more bottles,and a picnic jug and more milk jugs. I don’t know how many she filled, and it really does not make any difference.


But I got to thinking.

I read the other day that there are many millions of people camping in state and federal forests around the country. Some are camping legally, some partly legally and some totally illegal, but they are there.

Some have full time jobs, but not enough money to begin to pay for an apartment, and they just lost their house and so on and so on.

I am not a social scientist, and I am surely not a politician, but I am a christian, and I wonder and even worry about all of the millions of people who are homeless right now.

Some, I know: decisions, lazy, welfare queen and other myths. Some fit many do not.

I have about as little as you can have and still have something. What must it be like to have that little taken and have no place to turn.

Maybe I judged the lady wrong. I will never know.