Odor in the Court: The Farm Report 06-15-2021

 Odor in the Court 

 The Farm Report  

06-15-2021

Odor in the Court? Let's just say that is my clever way to blow off a little steam. I was selected to sit on a jury two weeks ago. It wasn't fun. In fact, it was so disgusting that I went home each night and just wanted to A. Scream, B. Choke somebody who needed it, C. Kick some butts up between their respective shoulder blades, and/or D. Go even deeper into my hermitage and ignore 'society' all the more. I went back each day to do my civic duty though. The trial took all week long.

The case was a civil case between two brothers who have apparently hated each other's guts from day one. The court case is open and public record, so I don't have to mask my comments. Like Ron White, the comedian says though, although I have the right to remain quiet, I might not have the ability. I'll try not to say too much. EXCEPT THIS: When your parents have gifted you with quite a lot already, and you're doing fine with what they gave you, PLEASE do not drag me into court to waste my time sitting on a jury tasked with deciding which of you two pinheads might get just a little bit more of your dead mother's estate than the other one. And since both of you two knot heads had obviously decided you would rather give more of what was left to the entire panel of expert witnesses and lawyers (who all appeared more than willing and ready to accommodate and soak up everything they could) than to each other, it seems a colossal and disrespectful waste of my time - and everybody else's too. So there. What a travesty. And my butt still hurts from 5 days of sitting on antique courtroom benches for hours on end. I'm sore in more ways than one. 

So to make a little lemonade from the lemons, here is another complaint. Due to COVID-19, we were not allowed to use the more comfortable juror's chairs. We were sat on the narrow Civil War era narrow observer's benches in the back. Appropriately spaced of course. Some of you probably know that my 'real' job was working as a furniture conservator and restorer. Can you imagine my chagrin seeing the Official Yellow Sticky Tape stuck directly onto the seating to isolate us? Oh well - permanent employment for restoration people I guess.

This doesn't mark the spot where the treasure is - unless your treasure comes from fixing the finish where this tape tore it off. Yes, I did mention it. All I got was a shrug. The court really only cared about whether Momma had sufficient mental capacity to know the kind and extent of her bequests at the time she signed off; and whether somebody had diddled with her to entice her to go to the new lawyer or not and make yet another in a long list her many of wills. I'm going to be bent about this waste of my time for a long time - so if you see me out in the garden mumbling to myself, you might want to just drive on by that day. Just sayin.....

The Cardinal Red Weigela has been just gorgeous.

Like most flowering shrubs, it is in bloom for just a short season each year. Then it reverts to one more of the woody bushes around the farm. But oh my! Those two weeks or so of bloom make it worth while. The time had been just perfect to take cuttings and root this bush - while I was cooling my jets sitting in court. I'll still try. This bush came from a bouquet brought to my wife Joyce, by our neighbor, Chris J. one summer. We enjoyed the flowers, then stuck the stem into a rooting bed and Hey Presto! Now we have a plant to propagate from. It is not only fun to propagate your own shrubs; it is also great to have the 'where it came from' stories to tell.

Now is the time for everything to propagate. The annual cereal rye we plant as a cover crop is seeding.

Each little kernel has it's own flower. The yellow part is the blossom which will become the grain.

Up in the greenhouse we have success. I've been enjoying fresh zucchini from the Dutch Buckets. Soon, it will be just too darned hot inside my greenhouse even with the doors wide open. I'll move the Dutch Buckets outside for the rest of the summer.

Speaking of too darned hot - I had not yet cooled off under my collar when I heard a very unusual, very suspicious BZZZZZZZZZ sound coming from the downstairs window AC unit the morning after I was set free from court duty. According to Youtube, and everybody else I could talk to, this part - a running dual capacitor - is 95% of the time the trouble child. It is a cheap part - if you can get one.

Remember where I live - way out in the middle of the country in one of Iowa's least populated counties. Nobody had the part. So, Amazon to the rescue. Two days later - and for the record that would also include two hot nights as well - a fine upstanding young man in a brown shirt handed Annie Oakley a doggie treat, and handed me a package with the new part in it.

Of course, as it turns out, that part was not the problem. I'm on a roll. Another day of blue cloudy skies filled with vile language and ill wishes beseeching the Great Spirit to condemn this thing and any surviving male dogs and/or their mothers around Oakdale Manor, and a flying trip to Omaha, and I now have a totally new super duper AC unit chilling me with panache. I think I'll get my winter coat back out of the closet.

 

Annie looks nice. That blue thing is her favorite INDOOR toy. If she looks a little 'guilty' in this pic it is because she knows she should not have Blue Bone outside. But she does, and she wants to be sure I see her with it. 'Hey, Big Shot! Look what I've got.  Why don't you try coming out here and taking it away from me? You're so old and slow I could be half way to the Timber before you get up any steam.' She's like that. I also know she will lose interest and be disappointed if I don't even try - then after she moves on I'll pick it up. We do this game a lot.

But if you look over Annie's head way down there in the background you'll see this. While I was off to town last Friday, we had one of our famous 'sudden blasts' of super wind. And yep! just to top off all the rest of the events so far this month, my Hale Haven peach tree snapped off. We had -28F actual temperatures one night last winter, so there weren't going to be any peaches this year anyway. Darn it though. Now there won't be any peaches from that tree at all. Ever. How has your summer been going? 

Other than that, my summer so far is like just about all my summers; I'm not a summer fan, and I'll leave it at that. Cheers from Oakdale Farm.