homelife
-
I’ve been sleeping in fits: lucky to get five straight hours, I’d rather have, and need seven or eight. This morning I woke after five, couldn’t sleep, read 50 pages of poetry, and still couldn’t get back to sleep. I got up and worked my daily routine, made breakfast, and laid down and slept for… Read more
-
My focus in the garden turned to apples. By weight, it is the biggest crop I grow. Doing something useful with them drives me to spend much kitchen time processing them. Zestar! and Earliblaze are finished with Red Delicious remaining to close out the garden season. Of the four varieties I grow, Red Delicious hang… Read more
-
A woman posted her hobbies on a community website to encourage people to contact her to be friends. She was new to the county seat and was having trouble getting to know people, the post said. To encourage people, she listed these hobbies: discovering places/things, thrift stores, garage sales, movies, going out to eat, and… Read more
-
This is one tart, tasty apple drink. I’m not sure what to call it. When I make applesauce, I steam cored apples in enough water to cover the bottom of a pan. Additional moisture is released from the apples. Everything goes into a cone sieve strainer resting on a large Rubbermaid pitcher. Once the liquid… Read more
-
Overnight temperatures reached 50 degrees this week. I examined our trees the next day and the Green Ash and Autumn Blaze Maple were both kissed by cool weather and leaves had begun to turn. Summer is over before we know it. There is a large-scale sporting event this morning. I had to look it up:… Read more
-
It is supposed to get hot during Iowa summer, yet not like this. On Wednesday and Thursday, ambient temperatures climbed to nearly 100 degrees with heat indexes approaching 120. I got outside shortly after dawn and walked along the lake shore. Neighbors were also on the trail early to beat the heat. The air was… Read more
-
I’m left alone to attend to the house while my spouse is helping her sister. She’s been gone three weeks, and a return date is uncertain. I made a care package of garden produce, a couple boxes of rags, and my labor for some heavy lifting last Wednesday. We had a good conversation about life… Read more
-
It has taken four days to recover from the move in Des Moines. Surprisingly, it wasn’t temperatures in the high nineties that affected me. The killer was walking up and down stairs endlessly as we loaded basement stuff into the truck. My legs began to hurt at home on Monday and have been sore ever… Read more
-
Our local daily newspaper printed the entire Declaration of Independence in this morning’s edition. I didn’t read it again yet appreciate the gesture. Even though “men” were “white men” in the document, and slaves, indigenous people, and women were not included in the lofty talk about “the separate and equal station to which the Laws… Read more
-
Two days after a full moon, in pre-dawn darkness, it was difficult to see it rained yesterday. It hadn’t rained long, just enough to get the ground wet and start water flowing toward the ditch. It was not enough to seal cracks in the ground caused by a lack of moisture. The ditch near the… Read more
Journey Home 