This is the view of the herb garden on the North side of my home. I leaned out the window one day, early last May and snapped this with an instant camera.
The garden has been in place for about 15 years. The trees and shrubs to the west have been encroaching, and I cut some of them back this summer.
If you look carefully, you can see the tips of the fern fronds at the bottom right of the picture. The ferns fill the area where the back wall of the garage joins the house. The faint line from the right of the picture that runs across the bottom of the herb garden, is the path the chipmunks have worn through the grass to the bird feeder.
The front right corner of the garden has garlic chives, a chrysanthemum, regular chives (the pink blooms), oregano and winter savory. You can see day lilies in the bottom left of the garden. In the center box, a dame’s rocket is in bloom with more chives, and the rest of the area is waiting for basil, rosemary and several other herbs to be planted. The arbor holds a deep purple clematis that is just beginning to leaf out.
The veggie boxes are covered with plastic. I have a weed that I couldn’t kill off any other way, so I tried solar heat for the summer. We’ll see how things turn out next spring.
And all the way to the back is Dear Husband’s pride and joy, the Arr!! It’s a 32′ Bayfield cutter that is moored in Lake Michigan during the summer, and boards with us the rest of the year. Any time you can’t find DH…..check the boat!
I want to thank Stu for starting the “View” meme. I have wanted to post this picture all summer and he gave me the incentive to work with my stepson to get it scanned. If you have a view from your home that you would like to share why not join us? And thanks go to Blue Witch, too, for sharing Stu’s meme with us.
UPDATE: Stu’s meme is called the Skyline Project.

I’m home!
I had a wonderful weekend with my youngest sister and her family. They had a ton of stuff planned and we filtered through it and settled on one thing here, and another thing there, and it turned out to be a laid back visit that was still jam packed.

Continue reading →

Well, actually, I won’t be roving….but making a trip to my youngest sister’s for the weekend. Roving would imply that I am going to wander. Even though I plan to take a new route, I still have a definite plan, and destination in mind.
Dear Husband and my mother and I will be making this same trip in mid October. I don’t usually make the trip more than twice a year, and sometimes just once. So, when Younger Sis asked me to visit, I had to think twice about it. The answer, of course, was…WHY NOT??

Continue reading →

Wednesday, September 22, is our wedding aniversary. We’ve been a couple for twenty years, and have been married fourteen of them. We plan to celebrate in a low key way. Our favorite restaurant is about thirty minutes east of us, and we’ll pack Mother into the car and head off to dinner. No dancing, no huge party, no gifts (at least, I don’t think there will be any gifts.)
Hmmmmmmm….I wonder if I should be looking for a gift tomorrow? What can you buy a man who has almost everything he wants other than a sixty foot sailboat? He can’t sail a 60 foot sailboat by himself….so that’s a moot point.
Happy Anniversary, Dear Husband! My gift to you tomorrow is not having to eat my cooking! *G* Have a great day, hon.

I think every home must have a story that the inhabitants, if asked, would say was the most memorable thing about the house. In our case, it might be the raccoons.
Two…maybe three summers ago, I hired two handymen to do some outside work on the house. I needed to have the dormer over the front door repainted, and I wanted to have a gutter repaired.
Well, Dear Husband came home and found them at work, and I had to admit that I had hired some help. A few days later, it rained, and it became apparent that we now had a leak in the roof….perhaps in the location of where one of the men had been standing, and the gutter could still be improved.
DH went out to the front of the house, and ripped out the soffit, announcing that we would leave it open to determine where the leak was.
A year later, a lady raccoon found the open soffit, and discovered that she could make a nest between the brick wall and the drywall in my mother’s sitting room. That spring we could hear her babies calling for their dinner. When she scritched her fleas, her feet would thump against the walls. We could hear her run across the roof. Later that summer, we took up viewing posts in the dining room, and watched the acrobatics as she left the wall, and curled up onto the roof. She used the valleys of the roof as her personal highways, and taught her children to follow her.
I assume that she hibernated in the wall that winter. We talked about the need to lure her out and close the soffit. I probably talked about that a LOT as she chewed her way through the rigid insulation, and began pulling out yards of fiberglass insulation. Each morning I would look out the front door and find wads of it festooning the newly emerging perennials in the sidewalk garden.
Then, we realized we had TWO female raccoons….two PREGNANT raccoons.
DEAR HUSBAND….we NEED to CLOSE the SOFFIT! DH would nod his head in agreement.
So….the raccoons found their way into the attic. One night, I was sitting in the “green room.” That’s the area off the kitchen where we have shelves of plants, and it’s where we eat informal dinners. Over my head there was an incredible fight, with high pitched screaming and thuds. The raccoons were establishing pecking order, and territory. Evidently one took the corner over our closet, and one found a nook at the edge of the great room, and they must have divvied up the green room as a straightaway to the exit. Their choices were astonishing! They instinctively chose places where we couldn’t get to them.
A month or two later, we could hear the babies trying to scramble up the slope of the cathedral ceiling over the great room. Those little suckers were cute little balls of fur….but I wanted them OUT of my house!
Dear Husband heard about it regularly, as the raccoons pulled more and more insulation out of the house. It was a warm summer, and the attic is hot, despite the fan and the vents. Every now and then I’d catch the raccoons snoozing near the opening of the soffit……a foot hanging over the side, and gentle snoring competing with the bees.
So…last month, DH finally cut a temporary patch for the soffit. We were agreed that the babies were old enough now to survive outside. We felt it was necessary to give them adequate time to find another home before winter set in.
I know you wonder why I didn’t just call an exterminator. I did. Actually, I called a “trapper.” I didn’t want to kill these animals. Their habitat has been eaten up inexorably. Houses have marched across the fields and into the groves that were their home, and we had one of the few places left that seemed a refuge. I didn’t expect them to become our dependents. At any rate, the “trapper” wanted $50 to visit and scope out the situation. Then, he wanted $35 a piece for each raccoon he caught. AND…..he would have to kill them once he caught them. We figured there were nine of them. The money wasn’t the issue. Killing the babies was.
My soft-heartedness came to an end when we started hearing stories about how dangerous they were to both pets and human health. It was time for them to go.
It’s quiet above me tonight. The soffit will have to be opened so that insulation can be blown into the attic, and we’ll have to paint, and clean. I’m glad they are outside where they belong, but I miss them.
It was the right thing to do, if only to give Dear Husband a little peace.

Although my blog roll is on the small size, I read a fair number of blogs. I try to visit some of the blogs that my friends have listed on their blogrolls, now and then. There’s certainly a lot of variety out there.
I have political opinions, but I don’t care to have a political blog. While I have a sense of humor, the things that tickle me are not easily shared in a blog. The bloggers who I really envy are those who are able to share their personal thoughts and problems. I’d like the depth of discussion that might result, but I’m uncomfortable with the idea of hanging my laundry out for all to see. And, it could be really upsetting to make my life public, and find out it’s trivial and uninteresting.
So, my blog has become more of a daily journal, a record of the repetative tasks that flow through my life. Even I find it dull some days.
I’d like to be able to spin a yarn like Scherezade, or write like one of a dozen authors. I’d like to have the diplomacy, empathy and wisdom of a person like Jimmy Carter, and the mature beauty of Sophia Loren. I’d like to understand economics, and philosopy, and be multilingual. I’d like to be as creative in problem solving as my husband, and as confident in crisis as my oldest sister. I’d like a large dose of determination from my youngest sister, I’d like to have gorgeous gardens that flow from one into another, and enhance the land, and I’d like to know, that when I pass away, I won’t be forgotten in a day.
Instead, my days are filled with weeding, bookkeeping, cleaning, meal preparation, and the running of errands. I’ve been waiting for a time when my obligations eased to allow me to fit other things into my life, but it seems that maybe I shouldn’t wait. Maybe the time I spend blogging should be put to use improving the quality of my life. Variety is the spice of life….and I need more spice.
A little allspice, anyone?

Do you remember your first kiss?
I have to admit, I can’t remember mine. I can guess who my accomplice might have been, but for the life of me, I can’t remember the kiss. Underwhelming, huh??
Can’t you just see me sending a note to each of the boys in my graduating class, asking if THEY were the lucky one? On second thought, that might be in bad taste. I wouldn’t want to hurt their feelings if they fondly remember the kiss. After all, I could have been a terrific kisser! Besides, I don’t need to tell half the class that my memory is already going.
Kissing is a GREAT activity! I was appalled when Henry Fonda asked Katherine Hepburn in “On Golden Pond” if she wanted to “suck face.” It’s not the sucking part, or technique that bothered me….it was the offhandedness of the remark. I’d make a comment disparaging old guys here, but Broad at Bat is teaching me to be careful about dropping generalizations about guys. Besides….I know that I should take the comment in the sense of humor, fondness and familiarity that it was intended.
So…to that anonymous guy who started me off on a lifetime of great kisses, thank you…..and so sorry I can’t recall the moment. ; )

It’s come to my attention that most of us are not spending enough time when we wash our hands.
Here’s a tip to help you. As you wash, sing “Happy Birthday” to yourself twice. If you’re going to be doing food preparation, sing it four times.
The Canadian Center for Occupational Health and Safety suggests that you wash your hands:
after using the washroom (includes changing diapers),
before and after eating or handling food,
after touching raw meat, poultry, or fish,
after handling garbage,
visiting sick people,
handling infected animals.
To prevent the spread of germs, avoid touching your eyes, mouth or nose.
The U.S. Center for Disease Control gives these guidelines for hand washing:
First wet your hands and apply liquid or clean bar soap. Place the bar soap on a rack and allow it to drain.
Next rub your hands vigorously together and scrub all surfaces.
Continue for 10 – 15 seconds or about the length of a little tune. It is the soap combined with the scrubbing action that helps dislodge and remove germs.
Rinse well and dry your hands.
Two other suggestions to consider, take off your rings, and be sure to clean them occasionally, and when preparing food, use a one-use, disposible towel or paper towel to dry your hands.
And, I’m sure that my dermatologist, if she read this, would say: USE HAND LOTION if you are washing your hands when you will not be preparing food.