LOANING THE KNIFE

 Well that was fun .... or maybe not so much.  There was a horrible crashing sound about midnight that woke me up.  WHAT WAS THAT?  I mean really, it sounded like someone crashed their car into my back fence.  I waited before grabbing my phone and peaking out the window.  Nothing ... there was NOTHING.

How could that be?  The neighbors heard it too because all their lights were on.  Then it happened again.  Good grief ... that's thunder like I've never heard it here!  We rarely ever get thunder and lightning.  Then my phone buzzed.  Yessiree ... it was a thunder storm of epic proportions, but about ten miles away.  It went on for the next two hours.  So if this blog doesn't make sense, you'll know why.  I was up for about 2 hours.

Yesterday however, it was a gorgeous morning when I went out for a run.  I didn't run however.  I just wasn't feeling it and I kept yawning trying to take a deep breath.  No worries, I'm fine.

Lookie here ... a quick walk into my back yard and my Cooper shrub.  It's blooming like crazy!!!  I love the fuzzy flowers ... they remind me of him.  Not that I need to be reminded, as you already know from all the pictures I post!  

By 11:00 I was off to accounting work.  I've mentioned this is AG country, and any road you take from my house, you will see growy things.  I pulled off the pavement to get this picture and almost got stuck in the sand.  I really do need to check on new tires for the Jeep.  I think this is squash of some kind.  There are also fields of lettuce and tomatoes.  The corn has already been green chopped for cattle feed.

Then of course there are fields and fields of almonds and pistachios.  These almonds are ready for harvest and my house will soon be covered in dust.  If you have ever purchased pistachios in those green bags, you bought some that were grown right here in my neighborhood.

So the accounting didn't go well at all.  There was a big fiasco with accessing the bank account online, just like at home.  I spent two hours trying to fix it before finally calling the bank and letting them know it was THEIR problem.  I expect they will get back to me at some point.

Back home, I found this on the doorstep.  What the heck?  It took awhile to figure out the mystery.  This is from the sweet lady that gives me all the amazing tomatoes.  This is a tomato knife.  Who knew?  I called her to get the scoop.  Sure enough, she said this thing works like a charm on tomatoes and cheese.  Probably on lots of other things too.  

There is an old wives tale that says if you give someone a knife, you cut the relationship off.  Back in the day, when her family and mine were both in the cattle business, everyone got a knife when they were a little kid of 7 or 8 years old.  You never knew when you might need to use one to cut a calf free from a rope, or cut a horse loose if they got hung up in something, or cut a willow to use as a fishing rod.  I still have the knife my dad gave me when I was 7 years old.  

However, the knives were never GIVEN to you.  They were LOANED to you in case they needed them back, so you would not CUT the relationship and end up enemies.  And so she stated this knife was LOANED to me to cut up the tomatoes.  When they are gone, she gets the knife back ... which may be in about 30 years.  

My afternoon was spent on the road.  I finally contacted the gal who does the embroidery on the quilts for the four Veterans this year.  She lives about 40 minutes away, so off I went to deliver the fabric.  It turned out that she was not home.  She is a caretaker for the elderly and had a client in distress.  The lady had received one of THOSE phone calls that her daughter was in the hospital.  You know the ones ... send me money for the doctor so she will live.  She of course panicked.  Thank goodness for the caretaker because she immediately called the daughter, but then had to wait for her arrival.  Stinken evil people!!

I had to leave the fabric in the back yard.  She called me later to say she had retrieved it and would be working on them this weekend.  YAY!!  

Kitters bugged me a LOT in the afternoon, so I played the feather game with her for a bit.  She has no problem whatsoever getting her point across.  Later, she meowed and would NOT leave me alone, running to her food dispenser.  You have PLENTY of food.  But that wasn't what she wanted.  She wanted a bit of that canned stuff hiding in the fridge, whereupon she left me alone for the rest of the night.  

That was it ... nothing really exciting except the loan of the knife.  I'll give it a try today and see how good it works.  Oh, and more tomatoes are on their way to my house!!

So here we are with Mr. Cooper.  This was in my Class A rig, possible on our way to Alaska.  I had to put the doggie gate up every time we went somewhere to keep them out from under my feet.  Back then there was no chaining them to the seat.  The second he heard the air brakes, he moved to this spot to see where we were, and to be sure I didn't leave him behind.  He and Jessie were the best travel puppies ever!!