Dawn dish soap to the rescue

I showed you how eaten up our cabbages were getting in this post. I was washing out 7-gallon plastic jugs that had once contained cooking oil using Dawn dishwashing detergent to cut the oil, and got to looking at those cabbages, and in total disgust, dumped the oily, Dawn-y suds on the cabbages.

Guess what? Whatever was eating them, is gone! And the cabbages are doing okay! All but 2, which seemed not able to rebound and start to make a head. So I yanked those two out and the others are doing quite well.

Kieffer has a new job. He is now a CNA at Thornton Manor Nursing Home, the same place where Britta worked for 5 years, then Barry worked too. There's another Stahl there, too, Emily, one of Kieffer's classmates (a very distant relative possibly).

Tom Klein, Irish Piper

I went through high school with Tom Klein. He just launched his website, featuring his music on the uilleann pipes. Check it out - and click on the Music tab to hear samples of his music.

Interesting scoop-shaped basket

I bought this interesting scoop-shaped basket at The Way Station. Have any of you seen anything like this? It's old, and it's well made. It's not just a larger basket that got cut off at one end, the ends are neatly woven into the basket. It's about 14 inches long, 13 inches wide and 5 inches deep. It fits nicely in the hand for scooping loose grain (though tightly packed grain would probably wreck it), yet it also works nicely for gathering produce. I am no basket expert, but it feels Native American to me.

Any thoughts?

Gladys Richards auction

This morning my late neighbor and fellow church lady Gladys Richards' estate was auctioned off, pretty much across the street from us (down a couple of doors). They sold her little house, which was on a nice-sized lot but not a particularly interesting house in my opinion, plus most of her belongings. I popped in and out throughout the morning while getting other things done.

I bought a bag of wooden clothespins, some canning stuff (lids, rings, a few jars, some wax and a couple of funnels), a photograph of our church building that I believe dates to soon after the dedication of the current 1950s structure, a vintage Hamilton Beach roaster oven (church lady staple), and an Enterprise tabletop meat grinder. I accidentally bought a couple of air mattress floatie things, making a certain young lady very happy, as well as a stack of afghans (not sure what I'll do with those) and one of those glass ceiling light shades with the three holes for chains. Some of this I know I'll sell, some I'll keep; I'm still figuring out which is which. It usually goes like that.

It was awfully hot out, but lots of fun, as it was a good, friendly crowd AND I wasn't stuck there and could run home to air conditioning every time I felt like it. One thing I found amusing was the gentleman who showed up with his van. He parked, then placed a tiny electric air conditioner in one of the back windows of the van, then pulled out a gasoline generator to power the air conditioner. Wow.

A few pictures

Remember our other robin family? - Both babies died, so our robin parents decided to try again, in a new tree. Here is their second family.

This morning I was up at 5, and witnessed this glorious sunrise.

Camping! We're wimps!

Click on that for a panoramic view of our campground in the Yellow River State Forest after Sunday at about noon. You'll see one crazy family camping amongst the blazing heat and humidity, mosquitoes, and rabid raccoons. (That's us. Right in the middle, at the end of that dirt driveway.) Everyone else was wise enough to head home.

More pictures:

Garden update (lots of pictures)

"Black" hollyhocks (actually they are deep purple). A heritage variety we don't know the name of.

Horseradish which I just started from rootings. In a barrel so it doesn't escape.

These tomatoes are in the former chicken pen and are very, very happy
 to be rooting in a deep layer of old chicken poop. Lots of nitrogen.

Hops, taking over the garage as usual for this time of year.
People sometimes think we're growing cannabis. It's not surprising;
marijuana and hops are both closely related to hemp.

Wee little eggplants!

Potatoes in barrels.

More tomatoes, this time in the garden proper.
Lots of tomatoes setting, but look at all those yellow leaves.
Big difference from the chicken poop ones.
I have sent Barry out to buy fertilizer.

Sunflowers, growing tall. Barry planted them
rather randomly all over the yard.
He loves sunflowers. So do the birds.

Some nasty creature is eating all our cabbages.

Something new this year: Black beans!
Mostly just for fun; they are cheap to buy and you
have to grow a LOT of them to feed one person.

I was sprouting some black beans from the store
and decided to plant a few and they took right off.

Company sold

Webmedx is now part of Nuance Communications, the company that produces the Dragon line of speech wreckognition software.

I'm tired.

What We Did Last Week

We Stahls spent last week visiting my parents in Roseville, Minnesota. A big project we accomplished (okay, mostly Barry accomplished, we helped somewhat) was to sand and refinish the hardwood floors in the dining room and hallway. These floors have been under carpeting nearly all the time since 1958 when their cute midcentury ranch home was built. So the floors are in great shape, just needed some love.

Now my mom says she thinks she'd like to have more floors exposed, since this turned out so nice. Those will be much easier, as this area was the part that you basically have to walk through to get to any other part of the house.

Christ Community EFC to have open house

Christ Community EFC to host open house