“I guess I’m just an old mad scientist at bottom. Give me an underground laboratory, half a dozen atom-smashers, and a beautiful girl in a diaphanous veil waiting to be turned into a chimpanzee, and I care not who writes the nation’s laws.”
S.J. Perelman
I had, like many of us (but, unfortunately, not all of us) a very good mother. She was smart, attentive, interested and encouraging in my interests, loving, a good teacher and present. By present, I mean she was a stay at home mom. My parents did not divorce. Dad was the bread winner, mom took care of the home and kids. He was a very loving husband, a good father and provider. Mom and I probably watched most every TV show during the 1970’s. It’s pretty rare I hear about a series or special or made for TV movie that we did not watch together during that time period. When dad had to travel for his job we would have a weekend all to ourselves, full of TV shows, playing cards and the special treat of TV dinners. Mom almost always cooked from scratch, so the TV dinners were our special treat when dad was gone. When she made homemade bread she would give me a pinch to make my little loaf of cinnamon and sugar dough to be baked along with the main bread. She was a voracious reader, passed on to me, a lover of history (same), read all of Shakespeare (I have to admit, no) and loved music (me too). She loved research and traveling (same here) and collecting antiques and learning about them and then selling when she was ready to move on to something else. Once I moved out we would have long conversations on the phone, get together to go to garage sales (usually on Fridays, when they were fresh) and have lunch at a park in between the garage sales and shopping at bookstores. So many good times and memories, we don’t really think they will end while we are living them. Mom was diagnosed with lung cancer caused by smoking her entire adult life. She braved out several treatments, over around two years, but we finally lost her July 31, 2001. Her mother, my beloved Grandma Y, died in September and was buried on the 10th. I went back to work the following morning, September 11, to more sad news.
O. Winston Link (1914-2001) took this photo of a passing steam train, automobiles at a drive-in theater and a plane on the screen. Titled: Hotshot Eastbound (1956)
Walking in the woods
I asked my Lab, Marley
Where do we go when we die?
She wagged her tail and looked at me
Is there an afterlife?
We got home and she took a nap
When she woke I asked about heaven
She yawned and looked away
Ready to run again
2021 By David Jacobi
Over the last few weeks we have been visited by crop dusters spraying the fields surrounding our acreage. They, of course, fly very low when spraying and it is a little disconcerting to look out the living room window and see a plane roaring past the house at 100 mph just above the corn field across the road. When spraying the other fields that surround our acreage they looked like they would crash into our house until at the last second they pulled just above the tree line and over our property, then do it again and again. I really came to admire the skill of those pilots. Recently I spied some noxious looking weeds growing in the area where our fire ring is located. They were about two feet tall with greenish yellow buds growing close to the main stem. Since we had a fire going at the time I used the pruning shears to cut them down then toss them in the flames. Immediately my hand and arm began to itch so I hurried up to the house and washed off with soap and water for several minutes. That took care of most of it but now, a couple of weeks later, I still have a lingering rash on my arm. I have committed what those weeds looked like to memory in case of future encounters. So far this year our problems have included a leaking roof, our oven quit working, the overhead door on the machine shed broke in the open position (we can’t close it because the tracks are bent) and now either our well keeps running dry or there is a problem with the pump. It was determined the roof was leaking around the chimney, which was patched for free but came with a quote to take the chimney off. We are still deciding whether to fix the old stove or buy a new one. A new overhead door was ordered the first of June and we are still waiting for it to arrive. The door company says the supply chains with their vendors are backlogged. I have to keep knocking down bird nests inside and chasing critters out. We can get just enough water to flush the toilet and fill a few jugs before it turns off again. The well man should be out again next week. All of us have problems but out in here in the country they can take on a little different flavor than we were used to in the city.
Anticipating a massive zucchini crop again this year from our garden I went on the hunt for some new recipes to try. I found 99 Ways to Use up Zucchini and Summer Squash.
I am currently perusing a book of paintings by Georges Rouault (1871-1958). I wanted to learn more about him and maybe find some additional paintings not in the book and I found this site.
www.doctortreatments.com “grew out of a passion and a love to preserve the old ways and recent history of medical treatments, thereby allowing people to come back to the roots of Victorian Medicine, which principally herald in modern science and medicine. Hence http://www.doctortreatments.com was born.”
I have seen a lot of these lists over the years on how to make side money and this one is pretty comprehensive for 2021.
This has been a pretty good year so far for our garden. We have been frying up zucchini almost every day as a side with a meal, there is a big jar of pickles in the refrigerator from our cucumber plant and the tomatoes and peppers are now coming on so fast we will need to start putting some up. As for the herbs the parsley and basil seem to be faltering a bit while the rosemary and chives are growing well. We found that if we let the zucchini grow too big the skin becomes too thick and hard to cut and chew, a problem we had not experienced before. The cucumbers so far this year have been fat and slightly bitter, while the tomatoes and green peppers have been excellent. Barring an extended drought occurring during a heatwave, like last year, this should be one of our best gardening seasons on the acreage yet.
Once a month I highlight a piece of art I have created and posted on my Fine Art America site. This one is titled Finger Of God from the Abstract Art Collection.
Off The Back Porch 