Replies

Let's just say that, either I don't know my own strength, or I don't know how to get out of my own way. LOL A little of both, now that I think about it. And it's directly opposite the side where I tore that chest muscle six months ago. A half of an Oxycodone #10 every four hours is getting me through the worst of it. I gotta start remembering I'm 55 and not 25 anymore. (That's what my doc keeps telling me, anyway.) Getting brittle. Worst part is, it's beside my casting arm, so I won't be getting near the water for about three more weeks. I bet Italy was pretty. Dad visited there several times when he was stationed in Stuttgart back in the early 50's, and he fell in love with it. He loved Germany, where our family heritage is from. He spent his weekends living on Uncle Karl's farm, and he loved Switzerland and France, too, but he always had a special affinity for Italy. He loved taking the train, just to see the countryside from one to the other. When I was born and they built the family home, he got a 6' x 3' oil painting of the canals of Venice. Ornate, gilded, carved wood frame, a little brass tag attached to the bottom, the works, and he hung it in the living room. It was a special place he liked to go. A few years after he passed away, Mom redecorated, and I eventually asked her a couple years ago what happened to it, figuring that my sister absconded with it and it was hanging in her living room. Mom said it was up in the attic with a lifetime of other stuff, and may not be in good shape from being up there for fifteen years, but I was hell-bent to recover it. And so I did, wobbly legs and all. It had a half century of dust and cigarette smoke on it (they both smoked back in those days), but one day while I was at work, Connie got one of those Mr. Clean clean-up pads, and gently got every last smudge and spot off of it, took Old English to the frame, and hung it over our sofa. Looks like it did fifty years ago. For the first few months, I'd walk by the living room doorway and when I'd see it, I'd get an emotional rush that I really can't put into words. A comfort and familiarity, I suppose. Remembrance of Dad, too, maybe. A tinge of nostalgia. Simpler times. Too many facets to it. Now, it just feels like it belongs there.

As far as our garden goes, we're plucking the last of the runt-like veggies out of it. This heat really made a mess out of things by July. I still have hot peppers going in pots with an assortment of little green peppers of various varieties on them, and I'll bring them inside to grow if I have to. Not sure if we're going to try any winter veggies, but I may get a hair crossways and plant something, even if it's in pots. My dwarf Key lime, Meyer lemon, and Mandarin orange trees were status quo in the Marlin Perkins Wild Kingdom room, then about ten days ago, they all - simultaneously - took a growth spurt. The lime tree, especially. I think it doubled in height. So I'm cautiously optimistic that we'll be seeing some citrus fruit in the next year or two. Just have to trim back any branches that are bare or raggedy, so the trees focus their energy on the productive branches and leaves. These aren't grafts - they're 'true seed' - so they should produce better than that chewed-on looking navel orange tree in there with them. That was a graft from a nursery in St. Augustine. It flowered one year, then went celibate. Optimally, with proper care and conditions, this is what my citrus trifecta should look like: