Happy Holidays!
Here on the fourth of December, the Aristocrat pear trees along Main Street and in the Blackey Park are still fully clothed in autumn gold, coral, and russet, a testament to days in the sixties down in town, in spite of a half-dozen hard frosts up where we perch in the fold of a mountain above town. Not for long, though. A front will push in rain and wind tomorrow, followed by a week of highs in the thirties and forties. We suspect tomorrow’s wind will blow off the pears’ gorgeous dresses and leave naked limbs.
A few days ago, we switched the 5’x8’ flag in the park for a 6’x10’ size. The park flagpole is tall and strong and cried out for a bigger flag. Now that it’s up, we’re eager to see some wind to watch the flag loft and stand from the flagpole. Tomorrow may be our chance. We walk in the park six days a week, and tomorrow I think we’ll tote the camera along in hopes of capturing the new flag aloft and flying.
Our second park effort was seeding to replace grass that died atop the flag knoll while we were in Alaska, an effort which involved laborious watering (laborious because we had to carry the water down from our house daily in gallon jugs, since the park lacks a water source). Impatient with the response, we not only toted water but also fertilized generously. The grass then took off at an insane gallop and hasn’t looked back. We’ve had to mow it five times in the last four weeks and we look to be facing weekly mowings right through the snow.
Since the park often suffers while we’re not here, the seeding, watering, and fertilizing are not new. What is new is the walnut factor. The park sports a big old walnut tree, which most years yields prolifically. I (Nina) haven’t gathered walnuts for more than 50 years, but this fall mended my ways. I gathered nearly every walnut that fell and hulled them, taking care to wear gloves. (Those who’ve ever hulled walnuts will understand why. Walnut hull stains last for weeks, scrub ye no matter how much.) Then I spread them to dry. I’ve been dreading the cracking and nutmeat extracting process, since black walnuts are the very devil to entice from the shell. Last week, I took my hammer and a dozen or so walnuts out to a huge rock beside the house and sat down on it to reacquaint myself. The cracking with a hammer was a little easier than I remembered. Kind of a simple lots-of-force process. But the nutmeat extraction was harder than I recalled. The initial breach didn’t by any means open the walnut enough. I then got to choose winkling the walnut meat out using a dental pick or using the hammer again. Since it’s hard to know exactly how much force is needed to crack an already cracked walnut just enough more, I usually ended by smashing the shell and the nutmeat, leaving lots of tiny, flat, granular snacks for the chipmunk who owns the rock. So now I use a three-stage process: Use hammer for initial breach, apply needle nose pliers to the inside to break the chambers, and dental pick the nuts. Since I’ll probably only have time and endurance to crack maybe two dozen at a time, any nice day this winter you’ll probably find me on the rock sometime during daylight.
Last year the weather was our big enemy. This year we were subjected to insect attacks. Coordinated. En masse. Evil and vicious. Two separate invasions.
This past spring, we found ourselves engaged in a mortal battle with fruit flies. They started showing up in frightening numbers, and we had no clue where they were coming from. No half-hearted attack; their infestation worsened daily. The fruit-fly population began to remind me of mosquitos in the most infested parts of Alaska, which in numbers will nearly drive a victim crazy, even a head-netted victim. (If you’ve seen video of caribou snorting and shaking, and seeking windy places to avoid mosquitoes, then you know.) I (Nina) could sympathize because I was beginning to develop some definite crazy from the fruit flies.
After two or three days of a worsening problem, I decided I had to do something. I started casing the kitchen for the source. I found it when I shifted a pineapple that was ripening next to the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter. As I joggled it, a dense black cloud of fruit flies lifted off and spread around the kitchen. Then they separated into tribes with their own territories. There was the refrigerator tribe, the wine rack tribe, the cabinet-front tribe, and so on. If I sneaked up and slapped at a few on the refrigerator, they would all lift off, but instead of fleeing to the wine-rack, they would fly around until they could land on the refrigerator again, where they seemed to engage in colloquies. I began to suspect them of convening parliaments and electing leaders.
We got rid of the pineapple, but saved a little of the fruit and a lot of the juice for traps. I (Nina) figured that if they liked pineapple that much, we could weaponize it. So, for more than a week, we set out bottles with pineapple juice and bits in the bottom. When enough flies accumulated inside and on the rim, we slammed the lid on the bottles and treated the flies inside to a pineapple tsunami. Once they all drowned, we set the traps out again. Eventually we could see the proverbial end-of-the-tunnel light, and finally the invasion ended. But I haven’t dared to buy a pineapple since, despite an overweening fondness for them.
The entomology kingdom invaded again after we came down to Kentucky in the Autumn. Not fruit flies this time: Yellowjackets! We discovered a colony had set up housekeeping inside the front wall of the house, one whose members were entering and leaving in large numbers just a foot or so from the door. A large army of yellow jackets next to your front door is nothing to feel complacent about, so we jumped on the problem. We stopped up their entry hole and sprayed the area around their entrance and egress with wasp spray so those outside the walls couldn’t get back inside.
Unfortunately, that also discouraged the ones already inside the walls (a fully generous number, we regrettably learned) from exiting, at least to the outside. Instead, swarms started showing up in our living room. After days of chasing them down by the numbers and killing them, accompanied by several stings apiece, Dean finally tracked down their entry. We have wall baseboard heaters and the wires, as is usual, run inside the walls. EXCEPT of course where the wires exit through the sheetrock and connect to the back of the heater on the living room wall. Apparently, the vicious little devils found that hole, which their nest must be right behind, and poured out through it into the living room. We are fortunate that they mostly headed straight for the windows, where we were able to smash them against the glass, though not without risk and stress. It is unrestful to jump up every couple of minutes to combat a new group. Also unrestful to endure stings (three each for carelessness) and lots of yellowjacket parts smeared on the window glass. We lived in dread that they might invade other rooms, especially our bedroom, so we had to make rounds every night before bed to eliminate strays. For unknown reasons, they didn’t seem to come out of the nest at night. Maybe an entomologist would know why; we just thanked our lucky stars. We know the solution is to take the heater off the wall so we can get to that opening and seal thoroughly around the wires, but don’t feel safe doing that so long as living yellowjackets may be poised on the nest waiting to fly sorties in revenge. Maybe in the depths of January after several hard freezes?
We spent a good part of the early months of this year cleaning up from the legal case, which finally ended in January with a judgment against the person charged with taking our timber. It took about five months after the judgment before the paperwork was finished. Innocents that we were, we just assumed that getting a judgment meant maybe two weeks until we'd seen the last of it. Not so. Not even two months. Maybe not two years. We still don't have all the money, and had to file judgment liens in several counties as the first step in collecting the balance. Meanwhile, he is in federal prison, not because of our timber but because he was bilking the IRS big time. That case went to trial last year and he was convicted, so he will be serving 30 months as the guest of the federal government, while we will fall in line behind the IRS in collecting, so nothing is ever simple. We do feel some satisfaction for sticking out the thirteen years this dragged on and winning.
I (Nina) may have mentioned my ambition to redo the kitchen in the Anchorage, Alaska condo. Summer before last, I had a design which I loved but which required moving walls, rewiring, shifting plumbing, and a whole host of other things. When I got bids, though, we were looking at $80,000, which you could buy a whole house for in Kentucky, and it would have a good-sized lot and at least two baths. I loved that design, which connected the kitchen to the entry foyer and opened it to the living room, but I knew we could never recoup half the cost at a sale, and we would never use the place long enough to recoup it in enjoyment, so I decided it made no sense to go forward. But I am back at it again, this time leaving wiring and walls (except for soffits, which I want gone) untouched. Mostly I'm planning new cabinets, counters, and floor. Meanwhile, I've had a ball using Computer-Aided Design to plan multiple new versions of the kitchen and the two baths.
That’s our year. We hope you had a good one in 2017 and will have a better one next year.
Here on the fourth of December, the Aristocrat pear trees along Main Street and in the Blackey Park are still fully clothed in autumn gold, coral, and russet, a testament to days in the sixties down in town, in spite of a half-dozen hard frosts up where we perch in the fold of a mountain above town. Not for long, though. A front will push in rain and wind tomorrow, followed by a week of highs in the thirties and forties. We suspect tomorrow’s wind will blow off the pears’ gorgeous dresses and leave naked limbs.
A few days ago, we switched the 5’x8’ flag in the park for a 6’x10’ size. The park flagpole is tall and strong and cried out for a bigger flag. Now that it’s up, we’re eager to see some wind to watch the flag loft and stand from the flagpole. Tomorrow may be our chance. We walk in the park six days a week, and tomorrow I think we’ll tote the camera along in hopes of capturing the new flag aloft and flying.
Our second park effort was seeding to replace grass that died atop the flag knoll while we were in Alaska, an effort which involved laborious watering (laborious because we had to carry the water down from our house daily in gallon jugs, since the park lacks a water source). Impatient with the response, we not only toted water but also fertilized generously. The grass then took off at an insane gallop and hasn’t looked back. We’ve had to mow it five times in the last four weeks and we look to be facing weekly mowings right through the snow.
Since the park often suffers while we’re not here, the seeding, watering, and fertilizing are not new. What is new is the walnut factor. The park sports a big old walnut tree, which most years yields prolifically. I (Nina) haven’t gathered walnuts for more than 50 years, but this fall mended my ways. I gathered nearly every walnut that fell and hulled them, taking care to wear gloves. (Those who’ve ever hulled walnuts will understand why. Walnut hull stains last for weeks, scrub ye no matter how much.) Then I spread them to dry. I’ve been dreading the cracking and nutmeat extracting process, since black walnuts are the very devil to entice from the shell. Last week, I took my hammer and a dozen or so walnuts out to a huge rock beside the house and sat down on it to reacquaint myself. The cracking with a hammer was a little easier than I remembered. Kind of a simple lots-of-force process. But the nutmeat extraction was harder than I recalled. The initial breach didn’t by any means open the walnut enough. I then got to choose winkling the walnut meat out using a dental pick or using the hammer again. Since it’s hard to know exactly how much force is needed to crack an already cracked walnut just enough more, I usually ended by smashing the shell and the nutmeat, leaving lots of tiny, flat, granular snacks for the chipmunk who owns the rock. So now I use a three-stage process: Use hammer for initial breach, apply needle nose pliers to the inside to break the chambers, and dental pick the nuts. Since I’ll probably only have time and endurance to crack maybe two dozen at a time, any nice day this winter you’ll probably find me on the rock sometime during daylight.
Last year the weather was our big enemy. This year we were subjected to insect attacks. Coordinated. En masse. Evil and vicious. Two separate invasions.
This past spring, we found ourselves engaged in a mortal battle with fruit flies. They started showing up in frightening numbers, and we had no clue where they were coming from. No half-hearted attack; their infestation worsened daily. The fruit-fly population began to remind me of mosquitos in the most infested parts of Alaska, which in numbers will nearly drive a victim crazy, even a head-netted victim. (If you’ve seen video of caribou snorting and shaking, and seeking windy places to avoid mosquitoes, then you know.) I (Nina) could sympathize because I was beginning to develop some definite crazy from the fruit flies.
After two or three days of a worsening problem, I decided I had to do something. I started casing the kitchen for the source. I found it when I shifted a pineapple that was ripening next to the fruit bowl on the kitchen counter. As I joggled it, a dense black cloud of fruit flies lifted off and spread around the kitchen. Then they separated into tribes with their own territories. There was the refrigerator tribe, the wine rack tribe, the cabinet-front tribe, and so on. If I sneaked up and slapped at a few on the refrigerator, they would all lift off, but instead of fleeing to the wine-rack, they would fly around until they could land on the refrigerator again, where they seemed to engage in colloquies. I began to suspect them of convening parliaments and electing leaders.
We got rid of the pineapple, but saved a little of the fruit and a lot of the juice for traps. I (Nina) figured that if they liked pineapple that much, we could weaponize it. So, for more than a week, we set out bottles with pineapple juice and bits in the bottom. When enough flies accumulated inside and on the rim, we slammed the lid on the bottles and treated the flies inside to a pineapple tsunami. Once they all drowned, we set the traps out again. Eventually we could see the proverbial end-of-the-tunnel light, and finally the invasion ended. But I haven’t dared to buy a pineapple since, despite an overweening fondness for them.
The entomology kingdom invaded again after we came down to Kentucky in the Autumn. Not fruit flies this time: Yellowjackets! We discovered a colony had set up housekeeping inside the front wall of the house, one whose members were entering and leaving in large numbers just a foot or so from the door. A large army of yellow jackets next to your front door is nothing to feel complacent about, so we jumped on the problem. We stopped up their entry hole and sprayed the area around their entrance and egress with wasp spray so those outside the walls couldn’t get back inside.
Unfortunately, that also discouraged the ones already inside the walls (a fully generous number, we regrettably learned) from exiting, at least to the outside. Instead, swarms started showing up in our living room. After days of chasing them down by the numbers and killing them, accompanied by several stings apiece, Dean finally tracked down their entry. We have wall baseboard heaters and the wires, as is usual, run inside the walls. EXCEPT of course where the wires exit through the sheetrock and connect to the back of the heater on the living room wall. Apparently, the vicious little devils found that hole, which their nest must be right behind, and poured out through it into the living room. We are fortunate that they mostly headed straight for the windows, where we were able to smash them against the glass, though not without risk and stress. It is unrestful to jump up every couple of minutes to combat a new group. Also unrestful to endure stings (three each for carelessness) and lots of yellowjacket parts smeared on the window glass. We lived in dread that they might invade other rooms, especially our bedroom, so we had to make rounds every night before bed to eliminate strays. For unknown reasons, they didn’t seem to come out of the nest at night. Maybe an entomologist would know why; we just thanked our lucky stars. We know the solution is to take the heater off the wall so we can get to that opening and seal thoroughly around the wires, but don’t feel safe doing that so long as living yellowjackets may be poised on the nest waiting to fly sorties in revenge. Maybe in the depths of January after several hard freezes?
We spent a good part of the early months of this year cleaning up from the legal case, which finally ended in January with a judgment against the person charged with taking our timber. It took about five months after the judgment before the paperwork was finished. Innocents that we were, we just assumed that getting a judgment meant maybe two weeks until we'd seen the last of it. Not so. Not even two months. Maybe not two years. We still don't have all the money, and had to file judgment liens in several counties as the first step in collecting the balance. Meanwhile, he is in federal prison, not because of our timber but because he was bilking the IRS big time. That case went to trial last year and he was convicted, so he will be serving 30 months as the guest of the federal government, while we will fall in line behind the IRS in collecting, so nothing is ever simple. We do feel some satisfaction for sticking out the thirteen years this dragged on and winning.
I (Nina) may have mentioned my ambition to redo the kitchen in the Anchorage, Alaska condo. Summer before last, I had a design which I loved but which required moving walls, rewiring, shifting plumbing, and a whole host of other things. When I got bids, though, we were looking at $80,000, which you could buy a whole house for in Kentucky, and it would have a good-sized lot and at least two baths. I loved that design, which connected the kitchen to the entry foyer and opened it to the living room, but I knew we could never recoup half the cost at a sale, and we would never use the place long enough to recoup it in enjoyment, so I decided it made no sense to go forward. But I am back at it again, this time leaving wiring and walls (except for soffits, which I want gone) untouched. Mostly I'm planning new cabinets, counters, and floor. Meanwhile, I've had a ball using Computer-Aided Design to plan multiple new versions of the kitchen and the two baths.
That’s our year. We hope you had a good one in 2017 and will have a better one next year.
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