Asking A Lake About Death

Lake Superior Driftwood By David Jacobi

Walking along the shore

I asked the Lake Superior

Where do we go when we die?

It broke a wave and splashed at me

Is there an afterlife?

It washed ashore some debris

When it grew stormy I asked about heaven

It washed over the stones and back out again

Leaving some just so

2021 By David Jacobi

Woodpeckers and Tiny Frogs

Corn just before it began browning this year

Our well has been repaired (broken impellers) and the new overhead door for the machine shed installed. It took two and a half months to get the door because of back ordered parts. Our situation with broken supply chains is occurring worldwide. I was visiting with a lady who told me she placed an order for replacement windows for her house in June and was told not to expect them until November. A few weeks ago I heard an unfamiliar call from up in the trees on the acreage and spotted two larger than average birds, both sporting a dash of red and white. It took a few days of observation while out and about until I finally was able to get a good enough look to identify two pileated woodpeckers. They stuck around for close to three weeks and seemed to be bickering with each other, not mating. Then they were gone. In early August we noticed all of the robins were gone, and they remain so. We have had about the usual amount of fireflies drifting about and dragonflies buzzing around but very few monarch butterflies and no painted ladies. We have a few toads again this year, with a new addition: tiny frogs, about the size of a penny. When walking through the grass they will leap out of the way, jumping up to two feet at a time, while the toads will just sit and watch you pass by.

The Roundup

Fungus on our old pear tree

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Nine Things To Do With Your Extra Tomatoes

Tomatoes in our garden

If you planted some tomatoes last spring and have had a good year you might have more of the juicy red crop than you know what to do with. It has been another great gardening year for us here on the acreage and we are starting to employ some of these ideas ourselves.

Eat more. We have them with our daily fruit and vegetable plate and have been adding them to other meals. Today I diced up one and added it to our scrambled eggs.

Freeze them. So far we have put up a dozen quart freezer baggies. Great to thaw out during the colder months and add to soups and stews.

Can them. We haven’t done this in a few years, but we still have all our canning equipment if needed.

Make homemade V8 juice. In the past I have made enough to last two or three days then made another batch. Click here for a recipe or search for a different version online.

Make chili. Here is my recipe.

Make salsa. As with the homemade V8 I only make small batches because I am not using any additives or preservatives.

Give them away to friends, family and neighbors. One of our neighbors reciprocates with a full bag of sweet corn each year.

Give them to a homeless shelter.

Put up a roadside stand. Try charging just over or just under store prices.

What do you do with your extra tomatoes?

Mad Scientist

Evil Genius By David Jacobi (It was as close as I could come to Mad Scientist in my portfolio)

“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


Mom

Denise Jacobi, my mom

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.