We had a good rain late yesterday, which almost immediately perked everything up in my garden. Even my mammoth sunflowers are continuing to reach toward the heavens. The last time I looked at them, I’d say they’re a good nine feet tall right now and no signs of flower heads, and when reading on that seed package it was stated they’ll grow to twelve feet, at this point, I don’t believe they were exaggerating. I’ll definitely have to put some bird netting over their maturing flowers because I have a number of blue jays flying around looking for a meal of sunflower seeds. Blue Jays are like squirrels in that they continue gathering food and hide it in trees for future use.
As much as I wanted to spend my entire day working over at my little/big project, I was randomly being interrupted by drop-ins and phone calls nearly the entire morning. Thank goodness I was at Menard’s at six this morning to buy supplies and glad for it, because I would’ve been even more delayed if I had to go out there later when filled with customers.
Since I was given permission, I headed over to a client’s fence line and picked all the ripened choke cherries that were available, which ended up being over two pounds. I would’ve stopped to thank him but he wasn’t home, but for sure, I’ll have to give him a small jar of jell from them. Since I really don’t have time to be doing anything extra on my stovetop, I washed them good and sent them to the freezer for future use. My gosh, it’s been years and years since I’ve handled them. I did find a recipe for them last night, so I printed it out and filed it away.
Much to my disgust, I didn’t get over to my project until after the noon hour, and since I was running behind, I worked nearly non-stop on my stripping which ended up being more than I was expecting to have done if I’d worked there all day. Perhaps my late start sent me into over-drive. Since I have to play over at First Congregational Church tomorrow morning, I’ll likely only have part of the afternoon to get some additional work done over there.
One of this morning’s callers was from an out of State client who was extra-talkative, so a good hour later, I managed to diplomatically bring our conversation to a close by saying I was late at getting some personal things accomplished. As much as I like to believe I’m a good listener, there comes a time when I’m about ready to crawl out of my skin.
For the strangest reason, all the time I was working away this afternoon, I was remembering all those exasperating phone calls I’d received from family members over the years. Oh if only I had a dollar for every one of those many hundreds of hours I used to spend on the phone listening to all their belly-aching, complaints, gossips, absurd demands, their children’s dramas, spousal issues, fits of rage, name-calling, workplace issues, health problems, along with multiple requests for advise on various issues which were never followed-thru, and all coming from the family circle. I continue to wonder how I managed to have the patience for it all. I sometimes felt I was either their ordained confessor, their whipping post, or a male version of Dear Abby. To this day, I’m eternally grateful it all came to a screeching halt and long hard lessons learned. Hallelujah!
Perhaps it was all subconsciously triggered on this particular day, as today happens to be my long-deceased father’s birthday. As a footnote to it all, if any one of them were placed on the carpet over the things they’ve said and done, it would all be completely and totally denied. Now with tongue in cheek, I truly believe a handful of them were the ones who invented the term ‘fake news’.
The book I was waiting for, came in the mail yesterday, so very early this morning I started reading Mikhail Zygar’s recent release of his book titled ‘War and Punishment’. Oh my gosh! After reading only 20 pages of it, I could barely put it down. Now that’s highly unusual for me because I almost always have struggle to get ‘into’ a book. Once I have it fully read, I’ll give you my full review of it, and because he was a reporter/journalist, I can see it coming out in his style of writing, which is a good thing.
Before heading home, I had to make a grocery stop out on the east side of town, so as I was driving back, I started my zig-zagging down streets I’d not been on in some time. There’s no question we have a large number of homeowners who could give a hoot over the way their homes and landscapes appear. When I mentioned it to a colleague several weeks ago, his answer to it all was, “Well, they likely think that if they make their homes look as bad as possible on the outside, our City Assessor will lower their assessments.” Of course my kick-back was, “What really needs to happen, is our wasteful City Government to lower our topped-out millage rate.” You see, most of our residents really don’t understand what’s going on in City Hall.
Speaking of City Hall, I decided to scan and then crop those pages from the front of my 1927 City Directory, and then turn them into a slide show for your reading pleasure. I know it’s all past history, but sometimes past histories help guide our futures. Forget about MAGA, and focus on MMCGA! Of course that’s an acronym for ‘Make Mason City great again.” Just remember, back in 1927 it was great city which was growing by leaps and bounds.
Tonight’s One-liner is: What we plant in the soil of contemplation, we shall reap in the harvest of action.
