Tag Archives: The Squire

Gee, Thanks

18 Nov

I went up and watched two of the local great-grandkids the other day, and as I was leaving, our daughter handed me a plastic bag – “for Daddy”.

Two soft crabs, ready to fry.

This is a Maryland delicacy, but neither The Squire nor I enjoy them. When he first came to Baltimore, a dear naïve young man from the hills of North Carolina, a bunch of fellows from his office invited him to join them for dinner. The Squire had no idea what to order, so he suggested the others order for him while he went to the restroom. “Surprise me.” You can imagine his reaction when his meal arrived and he found they’d ordered a soft crab sandwich! A huge spider, all elbows, hanging over the bread. Worse yet, when he lifted the lid on his sandwich the spider was glaring at him!

Although Isoftcrab enjoy hard crabs – and The Squire also likes those – I’m not overly fond of soft crabs, either. Mind you, I like oysters in any form, even raw, but no soft crabs, thank you very much.  I think it’s something you have to grow up eating to really appreciate it.

Sort of akin to eating the lamb’s eyeball. Or escargot.

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Bucky

29 Oct

For the last few weeks, just at dusk, we have seen a large buck either in our back yard or just at the edge of the woods around us. We put out deer corn in the “back forty” (the power company right of way behind us) to encourage him and any friends he might bring along.

The last day or so, he’s been missing.

Yesterday morning, The Squire and Blazer went out to collect the newspaper and found the deer in the woods on the other side of the stream. Ninety acres of state-owned forest behind us, and Bucky had to cross the road.  He’d managed to drag himself a good distance  from the street, and was lying on his side, with his head resting on a log.

Right now, he is perfuming the neighbourhood, poor thing. I kinda wish the vultures will find him soon.

I think the thing that disturbs me most about deer – and mice – is that they don’t close their eyes when they die. They just lie there and stare at you accusingly.

Bucky

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Welcome to the 1700s

22 Oct

We had a Colonial Fair at Resurrection yesterday,  and both The Squire and I are still dead on our feet.  We had these Fairs for five years, ending about thirty years ago, when they sort of collapsed under their own weight.  With all of the history we have in our own back yard, we decided to give it another try, with more emphasis on the history of Joppa and Copley Parish.

We had a few vendors – we’d have liked to have had more – plus a group of Piscataway Indians, and some Revolutionary era suttlers/reenactors. I found myself volunteered – not that I minded – to give tours of the church grounds, stopping at Low Street, the Court House, High Street, and the foundation of the 1724 church.  The Squire picked up the group in the narthex, pointing out some of the artifacts discovered on the property, and then shepherding folks into the church itself for a slide presentation of the plans Panitz had to developing the  “new” Joppatowne.  I did three circuits, which took 45 minutes each.

When I got home last night my feet were killing me, and today I can’t get my shoes back on.

We both took cameras, but neither of us managed to get any pictures, and I’m not sure anybody else did, either.  The best I could do was this shot, which is from 1976.  The Squire is on the far left, and I am in the middle of the back row.  None of us can get into these costumes today!

ColonialDays1976

 

 

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Peanuts!

20 Oct

Peanut plantWe have been purchasing raw peanuts to feed our squirrels from a local farm stand.  (Yes, I know there are plenty of acorns. Somebody has already pointed that out to me.)  The critters have been chowing down on the nuts all summer, but now that cooler weather has arrived they have begun burying them. Every place.

When The Squire and I were hanging up the clothes on Tuesday we discovered a garden of peanut plants all over the yard.  I doubt they’ll survive the winter, but if they do, we’ll end up selling peanuts instead of buying them.

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I Ain’t Goin’

30 Sep

Yesterday I was struck with a fit of ambition and took Blazer over to the park. Actually, it was that or go to the Y with The Squire, and I just find it hard to get jazzed up over sitting on a machine.

However…

We had a nice long walk – the loop is just shy of a mile and a half – and we were both pleasantly tired when we got home. Blazer was panting pretty badly;  I had walked him down the boat ramp so he could get a drink but the moving water startled him. He took one or two licks and then backed away quickly when the river lapped at his feet. He tanked up when we got home.

This morning I had a couple of errands to run, but it is cool enough – 60º at 12:30, up from 52º at 7:30 – that I didn’t feel he’d be in danger left in the car for ten minutes.  I grabbed his leash and suggested a ride. He took one look at me and went back to his bed. Normally, he will follow me outside, so I left the kitchen door unlatched and went to feed the birds.

The Squire said he told Blazer to “follow Momma” and the dog just looked at him and snorted.

Maybe we’ll try again on Monday.

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Downtown!

28 Sep

I’ve decided to re-register with Kelly Services; I enjoy getting out and about from time to time, and a few extra shekels wouldn’t hurt, either.  I called the Towson office and discovered they’ve closed that branch and everything is being handled downtown. And I do mean downtown. As in, the “crossroads of the city” – Baltimore and Charles streets. Yeesh.

I haven’t worked in town for decades, and everything I knew had changed. All the roadmaps I used to carry in my head are useless, now. So – The Squire said he would drive. (I knew he would!) He dropped me off in front of the building, and then went to the Maryland Historical Society to do some genealogy work until I called him. The interview went well, and the young man and I settled on some positions that would work for me. I’m not interested in anything longer than two weeks, unless it’s a steady part-time job. Monday-Wednesday-Friday for six months, or whatever. I feel pretty good about the whole thing, but I know personnel says a lot, and promises nothing.

A quick cell phone call to The Squire, and he said he’d pick me up on Cathedral Street. “One block up”, he said. What I’d forgotten, and he didn’t think to tell me, was that Cathedral Street. changes names at Baltimore , to become Lombard.  I looked the wrong direction at the corner, and didn’t see it, so I kept walking. When he finally caught up with me I was about three blocks west of where I should have been.

I should never be allowed out alone!

 

 

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Ask and Ye Shall Receive

25 Sep

A couple of days ago I mentioned a gizmo one of the women in my knitting group was using to hold her yarn while she worked. The Squire asked me to draw him a sketch, because he wasn’t “seeing” what I described.

Yesterday afternoon, he locked himself in the workshop and came out later with this little gemyarnholder.  It’s two pieces of wood (maple, in this case), pegged together, and a dowel rod in the center of the flat piece. I wind the yarn onto the piece of PVC pipe, and slip the pipe over the spindle. The yarn unwinds as I work, and doesn’t go skittering all over the place.

As my sister used to say, I think I’m going to let him keep me.

 

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It’s in the Blood

27 Aug

This morning, my feet were so swollen I couldn’t get into any of my shoes, and you could trace the rash’s progress up my legs –  a blister about every two or three inches up to my groin, in more or less a straight line.

The Squire went off to church, and I tried to find something to wear. When he got home, he helped me wrap my feet in gauze, to both protect them and squish them down so I could put something on my feet, other than fuzzy bedroom slippers.  (Yes, I know there are people who go out in public that way, but I’m not one of them.  Anyway, my slippers are in the attic with my winter clothes. ) Properly shod, we trotted off to Patient First.  I took that lovely picture of Lynn and me to show the doctor how badly I can blow up, and explained that when I was eight the doctor had told my mum that the poison was in my blood and they needed to keep a watch on any future cases. I got a rash on my scalp and on my eyelids. It is a mighty wonder I’m not blind.  And when that was over, I got boils.

Anyway, I explained to the doctor that while I realized PI was a “minor” complaint, I didn’t like the way this case was playing out.  She traced my spots up my leg and allowed as how she’d never seen such a thing, and gave me prednisone.

We stopped for lunch at a pizza place called Pie Five. You can select your crust – thin, Italian, yeast raised, or gluten free. Four or five sauces, and as many toppings as you wish. I was able to pile on double mushrooms, Kalamata olives, fresh tomatoes, and a few slices of mild-hot peppers. The Squire indulged his taste for “dead animals” and got pepperoni, sausage and bacon! A salad and breadsticks to share topping it all off. A bit more expensive than we expected, but we can eat again on the leftovers.

Bringing home a frozen pizza and cooking it in you oven may be handy, but honestly, you can’t beat a properly made pizza parlor pie.

Say that three times quickly.

 

 

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One of Those Days

26 Aug

About a week ago, the blade belt on the tractor broke just as The Squire finished the front lawn. He called and ordered a replacement, which arrived this morning.  He and I both worked on getting the belt on the machine, which involved a lot of heavy lifting, pushing, pulling, and cursing.  Remove the deck, fuss and fiddle with the various pulleys, get bolts through holes, insert pins, etc. Very hard on knuckles and knees.

So – after several hours of this business, we finally got the tractor in working order.  The Squire hopped on and headed out to mow the back yard. He got about twenty feet, and the drive belt broke! We will draw a curtain over the scene that followed.

Many years ago, The Squire had my godson, Steven, help him with this job, and that young man suggested simply turning the mower on its side. Ah, if only that worked!

After dinner, I discovered I’d managed to get poison ivy on my feet. No idea how that happened. I can catch the darned stuff if the wind is in the right quarter, so I am pretty careful.  A year or so back, I got rash on the back of my calf, which I finally figured out came from the cuff of my boots; apparently I had walked through a patch of poison ivy and the oil was still “active” several months later.

ADDENDUM

The above was written last night.  I now have poison ivy all over my legs! I sleep on my back, with one leg or the other hooked under the opposite knee – think flamingos – and I seem to have spread the rash from my left foot to my right leg. Scratching it in my sleep didn’t help a bit!  Lovely. Just lovely.  I made up some aspirin and hand lotion and dabbed it on the spots, which killed the pain.  I wanted to get a pedicure on Monday, but that’s out of the question, now.

 

 

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Swords Into Plowshares

21 Jul

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Being left-handed and old, getting up in years, dumb as a box or rocks, set in my ways, I have never learned to knit. Not for lack of willing teachers, but more a matter of having “iffy” hand and eye coordination.  And so, I have taken to using the loom in the picture. It can be slow going, but I enjoy it, and it keeps my hands occupied. You can always tell my work, because the only thing I can do is a cable stitch in the picture. You may have to squint.

When I went to knitting yesterday morning, I couldn’t find my “hook’. It’s a bit of bent metal set into a plastic handle, which is used to flip the bottom loop of yarn over the one on top. A crochet hook won’t work, so I was using my fingers. I mentioned this to The Squire in passing, not complaining, just wondering what on earth I had done with it.

“How does it look?”

I extended my index finger and bent it at a slight angle.

“OK. I know what you mean.”

He wandered off, and I heard the electric grinder going in the back room. He came back a few minutes later and presented me with a “new” hook. He’d taken a thin screwdriver, ground off the blade, and carefully bent it to the proper angle. He’d actually chosen a tool with a pocket clip, so I could keep it in my shirt pocket!

Spoiled? Moi? Never!

 

 

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