Frosty Mornings and Turkeys

 

Yesterday morning and this morning, 27 degrees and 26 degrees, respectively, I marveled at the heavy frost both mornings.  On the rooftops, at a quick glance, you would have thought it was a light snow.  There were turkeys in my neighbor's yard eating the berries from her Dogwood tree.  So strange to see them in the middle of a city, and so fun to see them so close to Thanksgiving.  I hope they stay safe from the cars that whiz up and down this street.

I am FINALLY feeling like I'm recovering from whatever I have had for over two weeks.  I feel like it has been going on for two months rather than two weeks.  So grateful to be seeing light at the end of this tunnel.  

Thanksgiving is this coming week.  I have gotten a turkey breast in the house, and I plan to cook my favorite things while watching/listening to the Macy's parade.  It's tradition and comforts of home to do this.   Will share with my sister and BIL but have no elaborate plans for the Holiday---just the way I like it.  

Fall Light and Still Sick

 

I am still sick.  Went back to Urgent Care last Friday, and they now say Walking Pneumonia.  I finished a round of antibiotics today but still not much better.  My pharmacist said there is something going around here in our city that the doctors aren't able to definitively diagnose.  Oh yay.  Fortunately, I don't have to be anywhere or do anything, so I'm good just staying home and doing as little as I can get by with.  

So hard to believe that next week is Thanksgiving.  The time absolutely passes in a blink.  

We have had some breathtaking sunsets this week, and the morning light has been such a delight to photograph with the last of the year's golden leaves being lit up.  A magical quality to the days...

 I woke up around 3 a.m. on Saturday morning so sick that it scared me.  I was coughing continuously and couldn't breathe for coughing which led to vomiting and feeling like I was going to pass out.  Miserable!  I hung in there until this morning then went to Urgent Care on the advice of my pharmacist, who also said it sounded a lot like...whooping cough!!  Whoa, wait, I thought had to do with kids and has been off the worry radar for a whole bunch of years!  So I was tested for Covid, Flu, some other SARS somethings and Whooping Cough, along with 2 chest xrays.  Negative on flu, Covid, and other SARS stuff.  Won't know about the the Whooping Cough thing for 2 to 3 days.  Oh, and I don't have pneumonia either, but I do have acute bronchitis.  So the raising of 3 kittens just became a little bit more challenging.

Wow! November 1, 2021 This Year Gobbled Up By Kittens

 

I am having a hard time wrapping my mind around the fact that it's November 1.  Lordy, can you believe I have spent the whole blasted Summer in this house raising these three kittens!!!  And I really really wanted to find a groove with my bicycle this Summer.  That didn't happen.  Now we are racing into cold weather.  Oh well, at least I have a huge stash of books that I'm looking forward to hibernating with.

My brother-in-law, Fred, had his 80th birthday yesterday.  He's a spook baby.  He is the least likely 80 year old that I have ever met or known.  The man looks, moves and acts as if he's in his early 60s---at the oldest.  He's a live wire, and is always working out in one manner or another or on the bicycle.  May there be many many more years ahead to enjoy.

I had 5 teeth implant bases put in place last Wednesday.  Not a fun few days afterward but I'm much better now.  Will have a follow up in three weeks and find out what the next step will be and when.

Today was absolutely gorgeous!!  Tonight the low will be around 34 with rain/cold on the way for the rest of the week.  May even get into the upper 20s the latter part of the week.  Need to pull out some thicker clothes for these aging bones.  

Happy Halloween!

 

Natural Dyeing

 From a Beautiful Mess, Experimenting with Natural Dyes, and well, they are dyeing linen, which I would love to try. 

Avocado Pits=light peachy pink on linen, light peach on silk, light blush on wool
Marigolds=light yellow on cotton and linen, olive green when used with iron
Turmeric=bright tangerine on linen, bright yellow when mixed with white vinegar
Yellow Onion Skins=warm orange on linen
Red Onion Skins=grayish purple on linen
Madder Root=bright rust on linen
Cochineal=bright cranberry on linen and silk
Hibiscus=a cool pink on linen

 
This book look like an interesting introduction to the process: Botanical Colour at you Fingertips.
 

This is from Kiliko.com 

Yellow 
chamomile - pale yellow birch leaves - pale yellow
goldenrod - sunny yellow
purple budleja - sunny yellow
marigolds - sunny yellow  

Green
marigolds - olive green with iron
birch leaves - olive green with iron
nettles - pale green, pale grey with iron
ferns - light green to red-pink  

Orange and pink
rhododendron leaves - pale orange (toxic)
willow leaves - orange-red
firethorn berries - orange-red
bracken fern
hibiscus flowers - orange-red to light blue-green 

Purple and Blue
mahonia berries - purple
elderberries - pale purple
oak galls - grey-purple with iron
ligustrum berries - blue (toxic)
black hollyhock - blue to grey

Brown and Grey
oak leaves - beige, grey with iron
acorns - brown-beige, grey with iron
alder cones - brown-beige, grey with iron
walnut leaves - deep brown
walnut skins - deep brown  

Kitchen waste
turmeric - yellow
pomegranate skins - yellow
onion skins - orange
avocado skins and pits - pink
black tea, coffee - beige-brown
rosemary - grey
sage - pale green
….and two lovely but very fugitive colors
red cabbage - purple
black beans - grey-blue 

Feast your eyes on these dye colors!

NatureColorsEU on Etsy. Dyers’ Coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria) over on Wild Colours, also lots of history on dye colors.

Lots of fun dyes on Hooked and Dyed, Hollyhock, carrot tops , mushrooms! Who knew!

I Believe that Climate Change is a Real Threat

 

Reposted from another blog...

Climate change is real

I Could Be Wrong always has something importand to impart. 

"I have an old 17’ powerboat that my wife and I take out to the Intracoastals a couple of times a week. Yesterday we were drifting in Tarpon Bay and I took a picture that I posted on Facebook saying that we need to work to preserve this. Every State has there treasures and our lakes, rivers and oceans have always been part of them. All my life I have lived near water and could not imagine life without them. I grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin right on the shores of Lake Michigan. On a clear day we could see some of the Chicago skyline form our shores. We had a sailboat and we enjoyed the lake as much as we could. Moving to Florida to be near the Gulf just seemed to make sense. I have been down here now for two years and it seems that the Red Tide and the Green Algae are still a problem. I read an editorial from an Orlando newspaper that stated that if you treat your state like a toilet you can’t be surprised when it backs up. We have a beautiful recourse here that we need to do more to preserve for our future generations. 

When I was a kid we did a lot of swimming in Lake Michigan. There was an area that we use to call the cove that was at the end of 68th street that we would go swimming there quite often. It was not really a cove, it was just an open area for the storm sewer run off could flow into the lake but we were kids so what did we know. Also there was the pumping station for the American Brass where they would pump water out of the lake to use in the fabrication of their copper products. Sometimes you could see the green discharge oozing up from behind the pumping station. When I was growing up the water quality of the lake was not monitored like it is now so we had no idea what we were swimming in. I always wonder how many sicknesses were caused by that water. The Great Lakes have come a long way in the last 60 years. One reason there was a comeback with Lake Michigan is because we started monitoring what we were dumping in the lake but the other thing was that the industry that was causing a lot of the pollution is just no longer there. It is good to not have the pollution but the loss of the jobs is really sad.

In many ways we have cleaned up our environment but, in many ways we are still lagging behind the rest of the world. We are still trying to save coal jobs that should never come back and we are still too dependent on oil, two of the largest polluters of today. They are also two of the industries that lobby the hardest against a green economy. Not pursuing a green economy is just making us fall farther behind the rest of the world. Those lobbies that are bribing our politicians don’t care about the future of our country and in some cases the future of our planet. They care about profit and the future of their corporation and many times it is a foreign corporation. Do you really think that a Saudi Prince or a Russian Oligarch care about the future of any of our grandchildren. They use your own hate against you so they can keep on making huge profits. The saddest part of all of this is that our own government knows that all this is true but too many of our own politicians are just getting to much money to help promote change. 

Climate change is real and it is not going to go away. It may actually be too late to reverse a lot of it. We can pray for rain out west to battle the drought conditions but we need to start preparing for that not happening. The solution, let’s start preparing to move people to places that have the water is to support the people and move the industry that will be needed. Science is not going to change what is happening out west. Science can only at this point help us prepare for what is going to happen and we need to start preparing for. At the least, we need to start talking about it. We need to get people to the areas that can sustain the population. I don’t mean that we have to abandon California but get it to the point where the water supply and the people can sustain themselves. The same with Vegas and many other parts of the west that are suffering the effects of climate change. 

These are really hard discussions that have to happen and with today’s political climate will not happen. We need to get the climate deniers out of Washington. We need to have election reform to get the bribery out of Washington. Those two things are holding us back and are making us lose our standing as a leader in the world. When it comes to climate change a strong military will not help us. A green economy is the economy of the future. We can either lead or we can follow. We use to be leaders."

Temps Dropping to 40 Tonight

 We are going from 60s for lows at night to 38 to 40 tonight.  Time to turn the heat on.  I'm ready for sweaters, and sweat pants, and soups and stews.  I'm ready for snuggling in watching college football games and reading books.  We had wind today, and the leaves were falling like rain.  Speaking of rain, we had a hard rain this morning, then it cleared and the afternoon was gorgeous.  Blue skies with fluffy clouds floating by.  And the moon tonight is so beautiful.  Won't be long until it's full.

The kittens are growing by leaps and bounds.  Marlee is no happier with them being here.  I try to give her extra attention, although these rampaging little dervishes are hard to ignore.  :D  

I ordered some Fall fabrics to make a table topper.  Maybe I will get a picture of them within the next few days, and I will share it if I do.

Have to go and have a nervous breakdown over this Tennessee v. Ole Miss ball game.  

Kitten Update September 1, 2021

 

What's Up With the Kittens?

 The Little Scrap of fur at the top was rescued by me and my neighbor from under her deck.  We couldn't get to it, so we called my brother-in-law to bring a crowbar and rip up a board in her deck so we could get it out.  She is a dog person, knows nothing about caring for kittens, so of course, it came home for ME to figure out how to bottle feed the little scrap.  This took place Wednesday evening.  My days right now are filled with trying to figure out how to take care of it (maybe 4 weeks old?), and these growing kittens, and Marlee.  Marlee is seriously wondering what has happened to her calm and peaceful world.  I'm praying someone will want to adopt the little bit.  

Sunshine

Sunflowers make me smile.  This is a volunteer that came up in my flower bed.  It brightens the world around it.
 

Summer 2021

 Marlee is not amused by these kittens. But she is slowly, grudgingly adjusting to them being in her space.  :)  They are growing and into EVERYTHING.  The first half of the day is the most hectic with them bouncing off the walls.  My first cup of coffee in the morning is no longer peacefully enjoyed as I peruse the headlines or blogs or watching the Tour de France.