rain

Rain.  And more rain.  We planned a camping trip over the weekend, but it wasn’t meant to be.  Emily had scheduled herself off work, but a co-worker had a car wreck and Emily was tapped to fill in.  Then, we had a multi-day monsoon.  It rained hard this morning as well.  Someone and I were going to play golf, but now we’re thinking the course will be a muddy mess.  The course where we usually play does not have good drainage, and the creek along side it often floods.  We are members there because it’s not far to drive and it’s affordable. 

Sarah’s grandmother (on Sarah’s father’s side) let us have her cabin at Park Lake in Fleming County Friday night.  It was delightful!  Sarah’s father and I spent many days and nights out there when we were young.  I have many memories of the place, but it’s odd to be there after so many years.  The cabin has been modernized and is MUCH nicer than it was in those days.  The whole place seems nicer (more civilized) than it was in those days (30 years ago).  WOW – I’m old.  I should write about some of those memories, but maybe I already have. 

Anyway, I have new memories at Park Lake.  Sarah, Erin, and I went swimming in the lake, just 20 minutes or so before the thunder started and it began to rain again.  Getting in and getting out of the lake was the most fun.  Sarah and Erin had rafts to slide into the water on, but me (being old school) just dove in because getting wet quickly is the most merciful way to enter the water.  Getting out was a challenge.  The dock had steps that hadn’t been used in a while.  They were slimy and covered with mussels.  We managed.  I wanted to cook hamburgers on the grill for dinner, outside, but it got dark and there was just too much rain.  We made them in a skillet on the stove which is not as much fun, but it was fine.  Dinner on the screened porch serenaded by a choir of frogs was elegant.  As the night grew darker, a three-quarter moon peaked out through the clouds and lit the lake – beautiful Park Lake.  I took no pictures that evening because there is no cell service there, so I didn’t have my phone close at hand.

We have another camping trip planned for Tuesday.  It might be possible to get Sarah, Erin, and Emily together for one night.  I am hopeful.  This trip will be at Cave Run Lake, another favorite place. 

KyLady’s garden is growing.  The lettuce is superior.  The buttercrunch is my newest favorite variety.  The Green Ice just didn’t grow well this year.  It was marvelous last year, so I don’t know what changed.  In this picture, you can see my raised bed makes a U.  In the foreground (right) is buttercrunch lettuce.  In the foreground left is Brussel’s sprouts.  On the far side are carrots (should be ready in another week or so). In the far corner are radishes...I need to plant more radishes behind the ones that are up.  All the rest is Green Ice lettuce – missing in action except for three plants.

Raised bed - Creeping Charlie is invading

 

Buttercruch lettuce - ready to eat

Out in the big garden, the cabbage is coming along.  The egg plants have dropped their purple blooms and have formed little...eggs?  The cukes have blooms and we have some green tomatoes.  We planted corn and beans late because Someone likes them not to bear until August.  It rarely works out that way.  We always have a ton of beans just before we leave for the beach. 

And now, something I’m very excited about, sweet peas and morning glories.  No rustic trellis unfortunately.  What I really want to do is going to take more work and planning.  The planters will do for now.  I am hopeful that the blooms will come and be spectacular.  

The "big" garden

Sweet peas

Morning glories are alive and well

This morning, after the rain stopped, I planted some petunias and hung them up.  These were cheapo end-of-season discounted petunias.  Fifty-cents per three pack, so I bought two.  With any luck, these will be lovely in a few weeks...assuming the Japanese beetles don’t eat them up.  The beetles are feasting on my other petunias.  I hate Japanese beetles. 

$1.00 petunias...anticipation 

You would see pale yellow petunias in this photo but the Japanese beetles ate them. 

My newest project in mind – fire pit.  That needs to happen this summer.    

Head games

I’ve played golf for a while...since I was maybe in my mid-twenties.  I had no interest in the game until I went to work for Big Oil, and actually not until I began working with the pipeline folks who took golf very seriously.  Pipeline was mostly a men’s work group.  Working in IT, of course, even that was probably 80% men in those days.  But once assigned and dedicated to work on pipeline applications, I can only think of a hand-full of women who worked in that group.  As such, because nearly every group-wide meeting involved an afternoon of golf with beer followed by a day-long meeting, I learned to play golf.

Once I became reasonably skilled with the game, I LOVED to play golf.  In fact, I was a golf addict once upon a time.  I played every opportunity and even played competitively on an amateur level.  During a several-year period in my life, I hung with a group of women – like eight of us, who played several times a week together for years.  Those were good times.  We had a blast because we played strictly for fun and socializing.  Men might “pretend” to play that way, but men are just too competitive to play like that.  Like, you rarely see a woman get mad and throw a golf club on the course, but men do it all the time.  (That’s not to insinuate that we women don’t say our fair share of cuss words). 

It never rains here (and other myths)

One thing I know is that golf is a head game.  If you’re mind isn’t on the game, you won’t be able to play worth a shit.  If you start thinking negatively (like about a bad shot you just made), it’s going to screw up your next shot.  If you’re thinking about anything other than where you want the ball to go when you strike it, chances are good that the ball will find itself somewhere difficult or unfortunate.  One of the fun things about golf is pure luck.  For example, when you hit a ball that hits a tree squarely – well that’s unfortunate because obviously you’re trying to avoid obstacles.  More often than not, the ball hits the tree and goes somewhere awful.  But sometimes, good fortune smiles on you – you hit a tree and the ball ricochets off the branches and lands two feet from the pin, or somewhere near the green at least.  That’s what makes the game fun. 

Someone and I were playing golf this evening.  It was getting late, nearly 7:45 PM so the sun was almost below the hills.  We were on the 17^th tee and could see something unusual in the fairway.  It was obviously an animal – we realized it was a skunk.  The fairway is fairly narrow and the skunk seemed to be meandering around in the area where we normally hit what either one of us would consider to be a decent drive.  We had nobody behind us so we waited several minutes to see if the skunk would move on...it didn’t.  Finally, Someone hit his drive and it landed a good 50 yards beyond the skunk in the middle of the fairway.  He was pleased and told me that if I hit into the skunk, I should take the cart and he would wait by the cart path.  I busted a marvelous drive, one of my best of the day, that rolled well beyond Someone’s ball (beyond Mr. Skunk) and stopped about 30 yards from the green.   The skunk ran off when it heard us coming – I will say it looked healthy with a beautiful coat – not like the scraggly ones we see in town.  Based on our drives on that hole, the skunk brought us extraordinary luck, or perhaps it just gave us incentive and reason to focus on our game.