Even with everything that’s gone on this year since the initial lockdown, yesterday felt different. Mr. FixIt and I were heading to our great-grandson’s 1st Birthday Party. We needed to make a stop at Walmart to pick some things up to take with us. There is only one entrance open now at the Walmart we shop at. 

“This Door for Emergency Use Only” the sign said.

I finished cleaning the kitchen yesterday and put away the canning paraphernalia for a few days, then headed to the farm. My Uncle “Dudley” was going to be there by 4:00 to cut up the limbs on the tree that came down and fix a few things, so I wanted to be there and have an apple pie baking in the oven when he arrived. I pulled into the drive and...there he was. Well, his truck was there. And the limbs were all cut and moved. I put the cooler in the kitchen and went to look for him.

I saw a video yesterday that warmed my heart. A little girl smashes her fingers in a door. Her mama instructs her to take a deep breath. She asks her a few questions and when the little girl remembers she smashed her fingers, she puckers up to cry again. Her mother never once tells her not to cry. She acknowledges her daughter’s pain and comforts her in a way that gives the little girl power. Not only power, but the opportunity to participate in love. In loving herself. In loving her mom. All without a meltdown or worse...a tired and frustrated mom yelling at her child to quit crying.

Mr. FixIt had Physical Therapy yesterday so I decided it was the perfect day to put up some Bread & Butter Zucchini Pickles. As soon as the kitchen was picked up from the mess I made baking the Pepperoni Rolls, I took a box out to the garden and picked the squash I’ve been letting grow. They were some monsters! All told, I ended up with seventeen pounds of squash. 

There’s a fine line between sticking your head in the sand and just stepping away a little bit. Admittedly, I’ve been more invested in the news lately than what I am necessarily comfortable with. I write about stepping away. I write about the merits of news fasts from time to time. And, like most people, I don’t always practice what I preach.

The is the first year since I moved back to West Virginia that I am staying home all summer. I usually spend a month in Colorado with my kids, but Covid and Mr. FixIt’s health put a damper on that. So, the commitment to grow a garden took hold in the spring and...here we are. I gathered a handful of peppers off the three pepper plants yesterday. Peppers aren’t my favorite thing, but I wanted to put some banana pepper rings in my zucchini pickles this year to give them a little zing and there were several plants marked down at the greenhouse. Something happened to the labels, so it was anybody’s guess what kind of peppers I would end up with. It’s fun to take a chance once in a while, right?

If you’ve been following me any length of time, you know I went through a huge downsizing after Mr. Virgo died. And I swore I would never accumulate another dang thing...SWORE. Yet, here I am, happily remarried. And the stash is growing. In my defense, there was a lot of stuff when I got here. And, in all actuality, we haven’t purchased a heck of a lot since we got married. But since Mr. FixIt’s strokes, we have noticed his arthritis is bugging him a lot more because he can’t take the medications you typically take. Yesterday, we decided to go take one more stab at finding a comfortable chair for him.

I’m still eating my way through the pandemic. Pandemic Pounds are justifiable...things are sucky...eat ice cream...liberally. The variety du jour is Cookies and Cream. *swoon* Maybe I’ll get the ice cream freezer out and make some homemade! Of course...I’ll have to find the ice cream freezer first. *sigh*

It continues to be hot and sticky here in West Virginia. And one of the true upsides of that is...the grass has gone dormant. Well, it’s really more like...it’s gone crispy. Seriously, whereas just three weeks ago, you could sit and watch the grass grow, now there are large areas in the lawn that crunch under your feet when you walk. The only thing that seems to be growing in the lawn is the flowers on the clover. They pick their little heads up and the honeybees glide from one to another all day long. When it’s like this, we really don’t have to mow nearly as often. It’s been almost two weeks here at the Ponderosa and it still doesn’t need it. It’s been the same amount of time at the farm, but it is cooler there and in a holler so we mowed it yesterday morning before the sun got things too toasty. 

Last summer, I told you a funny story. Well, sorta funny. I was working in that little camper I bought last spring. Remember? The one that fell apart when I got to Colorado? Yeah...that was an expensive lesson. Anyway, I was working in the camper and Mr. FixIt was spraying around the house foundation for ants. We had a horrible time with ants last year.

Last fall, when I was on the journey chasing the sun with the Girl Camper Raffle R-Pod, one of the first places I stayed was Calhoun County Park. This is a 200 acre park with a renovated Historic Village, a campground with only eight sites, and a designated “dark sky stargazing area”. That means, there are no streetlights or floodlights in the park and the surrounding area is very rural. When it gets dark, it’s “can’t see your hands in front of your face” dark.