Taste Like Chicken Thursday 8/22

Chele, thanks for the start. Hope Iggy has success with the FODMAP. I can just picture your Elmer Fudd going after that cheeky chipmunk. How dare he feast on your tomatoes!

Thanks for the start, Chele. Iggy, a MAN, doesn't follow directions? Surely you jest! It's great that he feels good, but that could be fleeting, as you well know. YAY for leftovers and not having to cook. BOO for that wascally chipmunk! I have a feeling he may not be limiting himself to your tomatoes, given his portly demeanor. That might have made a cute photo, if you had been able to capture it. I saw the 9-1-1 trailer and OMG!! Don't know if it's true that "an emergency is the absence of choice". As a former responder, I know there are always choices but in the heat of the moment, they may not be apparent. Fair setup seems to be going well. I was a little surprised, however, at the lack of plants both in the master gardener and the floral departments. I had my best Osteo session in weeks and even hit a new high on the machine I refer to as "my nemesis".

Linda, how is stitch-free Micki doing? Is he back to being able to jump on and off the furniture or will that take a little time? I hope you are feeling better than you were yesterday. Do you have all your meds yet? Sorry about the up and down night. I hate those. Nice to be multi-lingual. I was ok with French, but that was a long time ago. Never was any good at any of the others, although I did have to learn some Latin for chorus in undergrad. Is it another 110+ day in your neighborhood? Our fair is actually a bit late compared to several of the local ones. Some start right after Independence Day. There is only one more local one after ours, in fact, and it's in Knoxville and is the largest one in the area.

Sorry the heat wave continues, Becky. We got some rain today and may get more tonight and I hope that will drop our temps a bit. According to one of the other master gardeners I talked with today, we are considered on the verge of being in a declared drought. Hard to believe after all the rain we had in the winter and spring.

Kathy, enjoy your dry spell. I hope it will be long enough but not too long and that the tropical blob will divert away from you. I anticipated the additional learning curve with Linux, so I decided to go with what I was somewhat familiar with, even if it's an upgrade from Win 7 to 10. The fair is our local county fair, so about a 35 minute drive from home. My day to help with setup will be Monday, which is the day before the fair begins, so I'll be working with last minute things. I didn't see much in the Publix ad this week. Got the few things I needed, which wasn't much. I'm spending a lot more on local fresh veggies than I am at the grocery store right now, which isn't a bad thing.

How has the week gone, Liz?

I had a somewhat wet trip to and from Knoxville today. It poured down the rain at the fairgrounds while I was staging my plants, so I was happy I wasn't on the highway then. The new avatar is my windowsill herb exhibit with a leaf stripper, teaspoon, and scissors hanging from the front. I was the 2nd entry so far and the other one is much larger with many more herbs, so I probably won't take 1st place in that category. That's ok. I planned my exhibits for next year on my drive home from Knoxville, so that is in the computer if I remember to look at it. Firefox has been doing flakey things this afternoon for some reason, including losing all my tabs and extensions. Don't know what the issue is but I hope it's fixed now. Dinner is leftover tofu, beans, cucumber dill salad, and some mixed greens, with a big plum for dessert.

Becky, congrats on only 96. But it was only 3:30, so you still may gain a few degrees but maybe not to 100. Yes, rain is an actual thing. We have some coming down right now and it should be measurable but probably not by much. Sorry about the burn ban. Those are never a good thing. You asked yesterday if Arya might get to the point of not needing a human with her pretty much 24/7 and I wish I knew the answer to that. She has come a long way with us in the almost 2 years she has lived here, but she still doesn't do well with strangers or unfamiliar situations. Move a piece of furniture and she freaks! A basset friend adopted a puppy from a breeder and hers has a lot of similarities, as did the puppy's mother. So her issues may be related to having been abandoned as a puppy or maybe she has always been this way (and that was a factor in her being abandoned). I wish we knew more about her earlier life. All we know is that animal control had been to the house on numerous occasions and I don't think it was because Arya was making too much noise. She didn't even find her bark until several months after she was with us. For about the first 2 years Phoebe was with us, any time we put her in the car, she thought she was going to be left again (we were her 5th home in her first year of life), and she eventually understood that she was always coming home with us and she relaxed a bit. Maybe Arya will eventually understand that when we go some place, we always come home. I think now that Dale is retired, we may occasionally take a quick trip out for lunch together. That might give her an opportunity to adjust a bit (I hope). I run 2 browsers--Chrome and Firefox and do different things on them because some pages load or view better on one or the other.