Week Two: |
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| CW + KK =
Yum! |
While most of you know
that I am a huge Coke addict (Coca-Cola that is.
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some of you
know that my second favorite drink is Cheerwine. |
| Cheerwine is basically a Cherry Coke,
only much better than the real Cherry Coke on the market. Cheerwine
tastes like an old-fashioned soda fountain Cherry Cola. Distributed
out of Salisbury, NC, it isn't sold everywhere and wasn't sold
anywhere near where I lived in OH. I usually packed an extra luggage
bag when I took my trips back to NC, so that I could fill it up with
Cheerwine to take back to the North. Needless to say, now that I'm
actually live back down South, I keep at least one bottle of
Cheerwine in the refrigerator along with my Cokes. |
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Since moving down here, I've also been
partaking of another local Southern delicacy, based out of
Winston-Salem, NC - Krispy Kreme doughnuts! Mmmmm, doughnuts! After
buying my first dozen, I was pleasantly surprised that I could take
a survey, and get a special code to go with my receipt to get a
second free dozen of doughnuts with my next purchase of a dozen
doughnuts.
Two dozen doughnuts for the price-of-one??
Heck, yeah! |
| But what could be better than Krispy
Kreme Doughnuts and Cheerwine? How about combining the
Cheerwine with the doughnuts?!? Yes! Krispy Kreme has put out a
special limited-time doughnut stuffed with Cheerwine-flavored icing,
glazed with chocolate icing and topped with red and white sprinkles. |
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| The only problem was I
couldn't find the damned doughnuts anyway. They weren't selling them
in their Krispy Kreme stores; but were stocking these special
doughnuts only in certain grocery stores and only for the month of
July. So my search began. Every other day, I would head out one
direction or the other (my street runs into another and you can only
go left or right) and stop at several grocery stores out that way.
But I couldn't find the doughnuts anywhere! |
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| Just as I was about to
give up on ever finding the elusive Cheerwine Krispy Kreme
doughnuts, my Mom came to the rescue. Explaining on FaceBook how we
couldn't find these what looked to be tasty treats, one of Mom's
friends came through with the location - and it just happened to be
nearby to where Mom and Dennis play bridge occasionally. WooHoo! |
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Week Three: |
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| The Garden |
| Although there has been
very little rain and way too much heat, my garden is still growing -
just not very well. |
| Once again something I planted turned
out to not be what I planted. See that vine growing out of the herb
garden and growing past the lemon balm? That was supposed to be a
pimento plant which should have grown like a bell pepper plant and
certainly not as a vine plant. |
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MouseOver this picture
and you'll see that my pimento plant
is actually a gourd plant. |
Just like the sun has been
full and shining day after day,
so have these soft lemon yellow petal and brown center sunflowers
been shining. |
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| Having produced half a dozen small
squashes, the squash plants are starting to die off - even though
I've been regularly watering them. |
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| Views of the Garden from
the Left and the Right |
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Finally, the tomatoes have
been putting out some "maters";
but the heat hasn't helped and most of them are pretty tiny. |
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Four okra plants poked their heads out
of the ground and started growing. Only one managed to continue
living a few months to finally give me half a dozen pieces. |
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I planted four zucchini
plants and all of them lived.
And grew and grew and grew,
and bloomed and bloomed and bloomed,
to only produce once crappy little zucchini. |
| Mom's Roma tomato plant has really been
the only plant that has done really good. Well it and my cucumber
plants that have produced a bumper crop! |
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| Bugs n'
Critters |
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A young brown preying mantis |
| I have no idea what this crazy bug is! |
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| The little anole lizards
are out in full force scampering all around the yard. |
| Flowers |
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The hollyhocks are growing very well
and since there are still several more growing months, I still might
see flowers out of these plants yet. |
| The heat did a number on these flowers too;
but being watered almost daily has helped them to hang on. |
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| This is a plant that my friend Bill
gave me back in the Winter. It's really enjoyed being outside, and
began to put out it's very odd flowers this week. The little orange
appendages grow into those long blobs of white flowers. |
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The Carolina Jasmine is growing well
and starting to wind all through the lattice. I can't wait to see
how well it does next Spring and to see (and smell!) the beautiful yellow
flowers. |
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| The rose plant on the
trellis was get quite shaggy (pix on the left) as it's limbs grew
this Spring and Summer; however, with only a little bit of judicious
trimming, and a lot of winding and braiding, the plant is filling
out the trellis much more now. |
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The Mexican Garden has been
enjoying the dry, hot Summer. |
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All the different types of cacti have been putting forth new shoots. |
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One plant has even gone so far as to produce a bloom.
Sadly though (in a way), we finally got some rain for two days, and
the bloom never opened before falling off the plant. |
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Unlike the garden that only did so-so, the morning glories that took
so long to produce many flowers has been going to town! Every
morning I wake up to pink and purple flowers filling the trellis
right outside my window. |
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| The Trees |
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My palm, the Dragon Tree, has really enjoyed moving down South. Back
in the Spring it began to put out new shoots, and during the Summer
it's been filling out with plenty of leaves. |
The Red Bud tree I planted has also
been doing well too. It has more than doubled as it was only a
single scraggly branch with a couple leaves when it first came to
live with me.
Now look how big and happy it is. |
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| The Apple and Pear trees
are doing well as the Summer has gone along. The damage from losing
the branch is still noticeable in the pear tree; but it's other
branches seem to be doing well, even though they are very heavily
laden with fruit. I'm definitely going to prune the two pear trees
for next year. |
| Fruits and
Produce |
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Speaking of the trees, the trees are filling up with fruit. |
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Using up the myriad of tomatoes that got ripe all at the same time
(I mean, three people can only eat soooo many 'maters at once, even
when the three people loooove BLT's), I made homemade salsa. |
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Since my garden produces dozens of
cucumbers at one time, I whipped up a batch of Greek Tzatziki
sauce -
a cucumber, dill, garlic, sour cream sauce that is used on gyros. It
was easy to toast up pita bread points (cut into 8ths, rub with
olive oil and sprinkle with parsley, or almost any other spice) to
use to dip into the sauce. |
Though not of it came from the garden,
since it's been Summer, we had the Fourth of July, and it's been
hotter-than-blue-blazes, we pulled out Mom's ice cream maker and
enjoyed vanilla one night, chocolate another, and this very tangy
lemon sorbet.
I kept trying to get Mom to let me add lemon balm to the recipe; but
she said no. |
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| Some
Projects |
| I didn't go anywhere this
month, like to a rally or even a vacation like I've usually done in
July, so I spent a lot of time around the house tackling just small
projects. It was just too hot to do anything too much like serious
work. |
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| Although it sounds like a
lot of work, it wasn't really due to my effort and it was just the
thing to do in this heat. Breaking out the power washer again, I
finished up blasting all the sides of the house, knocking off the
dirt, spider webs, and green algae. The house is now sparkling
clean! But not just the house! I blasted the carport clean too.
Trying to keep it clean for a little longer, I also trimmed quite a
few branches that were either dragging across the top or about to
fall on the carport. |
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| While I fenced off the
tiger lilies last month, after the heat burned them up, I had the
chance to clean out all the trash and weeds in the area. I got it
cleaned up enough, that new shoots were able to starting growing and
filling in the area. |
| Dennis put the final touches on a gate
to my back yard, that I helped him hang up. Although I don't use
this gate much, it makes running around with the chipper or getting
over to the backyard spigot a lot easier and faster. |
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Another project that I helped Dennis complete was setting up a table
he built for the pool pump. This stand will keep the pump up off the
ground so no dogs pee on it; but it'll also give a good bit of shade
to the pump as it sits out in the hot sun day-after-day. |
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The only "big" project I worked on this month, took an hour or two
every day for several days. Back in OH, some friends had an odd
plant growing throughout their lawn that produced tiny orange
flowers on tall spindly stems. I did some research and found out
that was "hawk weed" - a generic name for this plant that comes in
numerous colors. |
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| Our yards (mainly the front
yard) have yellow hawk week growing up and really starting to take
over. Using the weed popper that Dennis gave me, I would spent this
every morning pulling the weeks out of the lawn and planting grass
seed. |
| Then every afternoon, I watered the
dirt spots. Now a week later, I've got a little bit of grass growing
up and filling in all the holes in the lawn. |
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| By this time, you should
all know about how much Coca-Cola, aka Coke, that I drink. Because
of Pooltag (the parties where we built pool floats from pop
bottles), I have spent years getting in the habit of saving pop
bottles. When I moved out of my 14th street house I left hundreds of
bottles under the basement staircase, and when I left Jim's house on
48th Street, I left hundreds of bottles stacked up out on the patio. |
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I've been in SC quite a few
months and slowly (a 2-liter bottle a day) been building up a new
stockpile of bottles. (I mean, there's is a pool in the backyard so
another Pooltag might be possible ) |
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My final project this month
was setting up the shelving unit I brought from Ohio, and stocking
it with the dozen garbage bags of pop bottles that I had been
"hiding" out behind my deck.
Time for everyone to start planning a Pooltag float. |
| Fun in the
Summertime! |
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| But it hasn't been all
boredom and short, easy projects this month. For the most part, I
been doing just what I love doing - playing on the computer, reading
books, and lounging by the pool |
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| Nearly reading through a
book a day, I've read through quite a few interesting ones lately.
David Rosenfelt writes a series of books about a lawyer, Andy
Carpenter, who ends up solving several crimes - usually with a doggy
connection somehow. In one a missing dog reappears years later
proving his master may have not murdered his girlfriend. In another
one, a show dog's owner passes away and when Andy is given temporary
custody of the dog, all the people in line to take ownership begin
dying. ("Sudden Death", "New Tricks", "Play Dead") |
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| I've also begun another
series of books that are pretty freaky by Hockensmith redid a
classic with a macabre twist, "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn
of the Dreadfuls". Set in turn-of-the-century England, the time the
Bennets deal with Victorian morals and manners while battling the
"z-ed word" as no woman of manners would speak such a word as
"zombie". Next up is Seth Grahame-Smith's "Abraham Lincoln Vampire
Hunter". |
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| MouseOver CloseUp |
MouseOver CloseUp |
| As I said it wasn't all
just reading, swimming and lounging. That's me in my yard work
clothes. Just clip my mp3 player on one hip, my cell phone on the
other, and a pair of gloves - and sprayed down all over with some
bug spray |
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| I also read some assorted
non-fiction like "Six Pixels of Separation", "The Search: How Google
and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our
Culture", and "The FaceBook Effect"; and some assorted science
fiction "Mortal Coil", "Factoring God" and a few
others. I topped it all off with some
light-hearted reading of Bob Smith, a gay comedian, who wrote
"Openly Bob"
from bits and pieces of his standup routine, and "Selfish and
Perverse" as his first novel. I absolutely LOVED this book! |
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| But it wasn't all books
and tanning. My ASO (Aids Service Organization), The
Catawba Care
Coalition, sponsored "Movie Night" every other Friday through June
and July. No movies are scheduled for August because the ASO is
moving to a new building and even changing their name. I'll have
more about that next month, as I'm scheduled to help with the move
and also have 3 scheduled health fair booths that I'll be manning. |
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| In June, the agency showed
"Precious" and "Avatar". I didn't much want to see a movie about a
heavy-set black girl raped by her father who gets AIDS, so I skipped
the first movie. However, the scifi fan that I am, I really enjoyed
"Avatar". |
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| I really didn't want to
see the first movie of July; but the dates and movies got switched
and I ended up seeing both films. The one I didn't think I would
care for was "Simon Birch", which turned out to be a very
heart-warming/sad movie. Although I have actually seen the second
movie, it was worth it to see Pixar's "Up!" once again. |
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| Speaking of vampires (I
did when I mentioned the upcoming book "Abraham Lincoln Vampire
Hunter"), I recently spent 3 or 4 days away from the sun and up too
late watching a TV show about vampires, "True Blood", and soon I'll
start reading the books from "The Southern Vampire Mysteries" series
of novels by Charlaine Harris. I really have enjoyed the show (which
is on HBO, so that the internet gods for being able to download not
only music but shows and movies LOL) |
| Some More
Flowers |
| Crape myrtle trees abound in this area.
Our trees took a little longer to bloom this year because we cut
them back so much. However, they are doing well and are filled with
bunches of bunches of blooms. |
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Did you happen to see our mailbox there
by the road? It seems because so many new housing developments have
sprung up around here, that we're no longer quite so "out in the
country". Now that our road is a back cut-through to a housing area,
vandalism has come to the area too along with all those new people. |
So, another small project is done after
putting up
new house numbers and a new mailbox.
(metal, this time) |
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