Catching Up...

So it's been awhile. It's already August. Lots has been going on. Some projects got completed, some doctor's appointments have been taken care of. The "rolling coup" here in the US is still going on, with no sign of stopping. The wildflowers are fading in the summer heat. The garden is, in parts, producing and in parts, struggling. 

Typical August in Illinois. A week or so of rain and tornado activity around this part of the state, with random results. 

The Garden...

Well, the tomatoes have given us mixed results. The plants in the big garden seem to be doing ok. The plants on the north side of the deck are going along, a little behind the ones in the garden. But the ones along the side of the house? Pfthhhhhhh. I was really looking forward to those, and they're all vine and no fruit. 

And the squirrels have taken their share. The very first yellow tomato I got? Had a nibble in it. Grrrrr! I have gotten 5 Romas, and 2 Cherokee Purple. Looking forward to the others. They're on the vine. Just have to see if the animals let them ripen. 

Our basil in the front yard is good; the stuff in the back? Squirrels again. And our cucumbers are little globes...Not sure if we should let them go another couple days to see if they'll stretch out a bit, or just stay....round? 

We'll see how this all goes; one good thing is that the bunny fence has helped tremendously. As for the wildflowers, we're keeping the milkweed in check, but I think that because we've had a plethora of birds -- more than we've seen in ages, our caterpillar population was drastically reduced. We whacked the big tub of parsley in the front; it bolted, and we saw only 3 swallowtail caterpillars, only as babies. So I'm pretty sure the birds enjoyed a meaty dinner. 

The hummingbird population has also been affected, I'm sure, by the weather and the wildfires. We've only seen a couple, and our feeders are definitely on the "frequent flyer" path. 

The snapdragons have all gone to seed. Our Brown-eyed Susans are huge and gloriously gold. The coneflowers and the Borage have spread out a bit, and the Prairie Blazing Star has come and gone. The Cosmos I planted really sprouted, and the calendula have done better than I expected. 

The Knitting...

The Endless Cowl is done!! Now I'm on to the second one, this one being crochet instead. I just like to shake it up. I bought some special yarn for a special project, which for now is being kept under wraps. I have to have Hubby figure some measurements for me. I'm rubbish at that, honestly, and I had this yarn specially created, so I want to get it right. 

What I like about the Endless Cowl is that you can wear it a couple of ways: longest, with no loop (not good for me, because I'm short); one-wrap (still decorative); and two-wrap, which is the warmest. It's acrylic, so the curl is there to stay, and I ended up playing yarn chicken. And losing. So I tinked back a few rows, and cast off, then wove everything together. I had a longer tail on the beginning end, so that's what I used to weave it all together. If I had sense, I'd have Kitchener'd the whole thing together. 

Would I do this again? Yes, but I'd do a K3 at either end so that it wasn't as curly. And I wish the yarn didn't have such hard edges at the color changes. There are a few sections which are "heathered," but not enough of them. Also, this being acrylic, it's going to be easy to care for. Like the rainbow one I'm working on now, it's going to be warm "enough" without having fussy care instructions. 

This is not going to the original intendee -- it's going to go to someone else. It will have a home, though. 

The crocheted one is also more "pride" colors, though sort of sherbet. And I love the stitch - Urchin Stitch. Somewhere, in a project bag in my house, there's a partial lap robe done in that stitch which is really cute. It's an easy stitch to really just whiz along and being crochet, it does eat up some yarn. Which in this case isn't a bad thing. This is the same brand of yarn, and so far, I'm keeping a better eye on the end. So maybe Yarn Chicken won't bite me in the rear end again. As you can see, it's moving along, and it's a wonderful texture. Again - can be worn straight with no wrap, and maybe a one-wrap. Since it's taking more yarn to do the project, it may be a tad shorter than the knitted one. I'll end up crocheting this together, I hope. 

A Trip...

Yes. A trip. In the 4th wave of COVID. Kid #2 and I decided to hit up Mammoth Cave. Granted, we did plan this BEFORE the 4th wave. We stayed at The Hickory Cabins - a group of cabins that are stand-alone, and in the middle of nowhere. I mean, the middle of a disc golf course. A/K/A - the middle of nowhere... One night, the sky was so beautiful and Kid tried to get a picture with the camera. We were on the disc golf course, and it was dead-dark. I felt the hair on my neck stand up (which is never a good thing), and then a mercury-vapor light went on. Kid was perturbed, but we went back to the cabin. I went inside. Kid tried to get the shot off the picnic table, and in 3 minutes was inside. "There's something out there..." No, really??? So we went and sat on the back (raised 10' off the ground) deck and looked at the stars some more. At least whatever "it" was couldn't climb up on the deck. We hoped. 

We ended up having 2 guided tours. A lot of the caves were closed because (a) it was too tight for safety vis-a-vis COVID; and (b) they were taking advantage of the shut-downs to do some maintenance. Which is always a good thing. The first one, in the morning, was in Frozen Niagara. That was a tad tight, and Kid, as usual, being the courteous being I raised, said, "Don't worry mom. If you get stuck, I'll push you through." Cute. The guide said that he would like to see what happened when we got topside after THAT comment!

The rangers were all retired school teachers - which was kind of cool, because they were very engaging and made us feel welcome. And we all learned something! It's hard to be in a situation where the person leading you sounds like they've just done it a zillion times and they're bored out of their minds. These guys didn't sound like that.

Perhaps they were just so happy to see PEOPLE! Anyway, one thing got into my craw... The Caves have a problem with White Nose Syndrome, which is killing off the bats. When you get out of a cave, you have to walk across wet Bio-mats...basically, squishy sponges soaked with Dawn dish soap (which apparently cures oily birds AND white-nose fungus...). We saw a number of people just bypass those. 

How hard is it to make that simple 5-step walk across the pad to prevent more bats dying?

Oh wait - we WERE in Kentucky, where many of the population still believe that God will save them from COVID and/or the vaccine injects you with a micro-chip... 

The second tour was later in the afternoon. So we took a side-trip to another cave which Kid wanted to try. 

Not sure I told you, but I have a bum hip. Two bone spurs on my left hip: one at the head of the femur, and one at the socket. And when those two meet? OUCH... My hip gives out. So I did this whole thing with a looming hip injury. 

So... I skipped the other cave, Crystal Onyx. Which I would've like to have seen, but Kid said, "If you thought Niagara was tight, you'd have HATED this one." It was extremely narrow, and Kid actually had a noggin-knock that was pretty bad. No blood, but a headache. 

The second Mammoth tour was the Heritage -- the first entrance to the caves, which was pretty awesome. It was also a lovely ramp; much easier to walk on. In between, and before Crystal Onyx, we also took 3 topside trails. It was almost 20,000 steps for me. 

Heritage was different. It's a "dead" cave (no stalagmites or stalactites). But it's so spacious and wide. The guides said they used to hold concerts down there. You could hold a note in that space for about a week! You can see where the river moved through the area millions of years ago. 

It was the last tour of our day; and the next day was going to be Cumberland Falls. The fun part of all of this was that we had to take a ferry back and forth from the cabin to the park. And I got to channel my inner Lewis Hamilton on those windy "foothills of the Smokies" roads. I didn't get a good look at the scenery, because there were some pretty intense turns and the roads were narrow. Very well kept though. Because we were out in the sticks, my GPS didn't always work, so we relied on the phone. Took a lot of scenic routes. 

The ferry was hysterical. First, there's a sign that says, "Road ends in water." Okey-dokey... And it does! It looks like the road sunk into a sinkhole (there are a lot of them in the park), and it's just a tad too deep for the average car to cross. So there's this ferry that looks like a pontoon boat with a port-a-pottie on it. (Dude's gotta go sometimes...) You get on the ferry, pull up to the front of the gate, turn the car off, put the parking brake on...and by that time, you're already to the other side! We did that several times, just because it was so fun. 

Cumberland Falls was a long drive...2 hours, but it seemed longer. We got there, and I'd swear I'd been there sometime in my life. The Falls just looked very familiar. Then, tragedy struck... We got to the falls, and my camera card was full! Oh no!!! So Kid took some gorgeous shots with his camera and I used my phone a lot. 

Kid took the trail from the Lodge, and I drove to the Visitor's Center (that pesky hip again). We then took the trail to a couple of viewing areas. The Falls is just beautiful, and we missed the Moonbow (a rainbow at the base of the falls which occurs in the light of the full moon) by a week. But as we've all seen here in Illinois, there have been a lot of full moons. Which end up being cloudy nights... 

Then, Kid points across the river. "See that trail?" Well, I lied and said yes... "I want to go there..." Yikes... We bought a map and took a look. It was rated as "moderate," so I figured "how bad could it be??" 

Never. Ask. That. Question. 

The map lied. The trail is rated "strenuous" and it's definitely a challenge. Lucky for me, I only took one cell phone, and nothing else. 

So, since COVID, I've noticed that I do have a hard time breathing. Not horrible, but I get breathless easily. And we had to wear masks. Because KY and because maskholes. And because of the Delta variant. We weren't hustling, but we kept moving. And we did "bench" calls when needed. 

There were a LOT of kids on that trail, scampering like billy goats. Of course. And tons of families, which was really good to see, in a way. Getting everyone out into Nature is always a good thing. But when the trail is 2 feet wide, and there's a gorge on one side and rock on the other....it's a little tough to navigate when there are a lot of folks close by. Several were young moms with a kid strapped to their front or back, and a toddler at hand. Dads were usually a few steps ahead, either with other kids or forgetting that they'd left Mama and the bairns behind... 

Anyway, off we went. According to the map, there were only 3 sets of stairs. The map lied. There were FIVE. Narrow, steep, stairs. And then there were boulders. 

Suffice to say, it was a challenge, but it was a good one because it proved that all that yoga works! The Kid had to hold a hand out because the boulders were big, but thanks to all the lunges and Warriors, I could spring up pretty easily. We were both pleasantly surprised. 

As we checked the time, we got a move-on back to the truck; we were on the wrong side of the mountain to be there in the afternoon. Once the sun starts to go down, it goes down fast. So we started back, and at one point, I confess -- I got dizzy. We realized that we hadn't eaten lunch, and I got a well-deserved lecture about drinking more water...

So, that was a day of about 18,000 steps. We were both beat, and it was a long drive back. I drove, Kid cooked. Being vegan, that was a better option. And I actually liked eating vegan for a couple of days. It was light and filling, too - it was good to not eat heavy meals with all the walking we did. 

We made a pact to actually stop and eat lunch...both of us are kind of the "power through it" types, and that doesn't bode well with strenuous exercise. 

Surprisingly, for Kentucky in August, the weather was mild. It was in the low 80s in the daytime and a lovely 60-ish at night. Though we kept the AC on in the cabin because the cicadas were INSANE. You could hear them over the AC and even when we were in the kitchen in the midst of dinner prep. Loud little buggers. 

The morning we left, we had a visitor... A young bloodhound stopped by. He had a collar, and he was a very friendly dude. His "sound flappers" were HUGE and he had the biggest feet! I didn't realize how solid bloodhounds were. He leaned against me and I had to take a step back. He got lots of ear skritchies. He didn't want me to stop. I opened the back of the truck, and Kid says, "NO, we are NOT taking him home!" LOL

I don't know if he belonged to the owner, and I hope he wasn't a stray. He was very well-mannered, and affectionate. So I hope he found his way home after we left. He looked comfortable around the cabins; maybe he was a guest's dog? Who knows. 

But he definitely made me miss my girls and he was soft as velvet to pet. It was a nice "farewell" to Kentucky. 

Random Picture...

I started volunteering at The Legacy Ranch, a place in town that does equine therapy. This was my first day at orientation. The girls went nuts because there were all the horses, and at least 1 barn cat. I volunteer about once a week, and now, they're almost used to me coming home "stinky," but they still want a sniff or two. 

I enjoy volunteering at the ranch, but I know I'm a bit too short for some of the horses; and I volunteered the day after we got home...when I was tired and I shouldn't have. It was a bad day to volunteer. The horses knew I was distracted, and I almost got stomped a couple of times. It's my own fault; I was not in the right head-space to be around them, and you really do have to have total concentration. I'm usually a "leader" because I'm too short to hold the clients on the horses; they like to have the guys do that because they're taller. 

Anyway, I skipped it this week because I had an MRI/Arthrogram on that wonky hip and I was quite knocked for a loop with the medications they had me take before they used the dye on me. I have a problem with it, so I usually am quite loaded up on Benadryl, and this time they added a steroid. I'll have the results in a few days. We shall see. 

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