Bed Work

Halloween morning was beautiful. Little Bear had decided to leave spend the day up in the mountains and he left before sunrise (to get sunrise and sunset photos in the same day. I’ll see if he’ll ‘give’ me some of his stunning captures), leaving his parents alone for the entire day. (except for the cats, of course!) I had set aside this day to spend in a bed, not the one in the house, but one in the yard. In fact, after he found me outside, The Craftsman joined me and laughed at the quip I’d made concerning our endeavors. I’d mentioned it was ‘nice to be doing something active together, in a bed.’

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Joking aside, it was nice. I have been wanting to get the iris beds cleaned out and, with his help, they were complete before 4. He even removed the fast growing vine maple from everywhere!! I spent a small portion of Sunday afternoon planting the yellow iris and cleaning up and putting the burgundy ones on top of the soil (Saturday was warm and sunny, Sunday was sunny and very cold-I had to put on a jacket over my hoody!).

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tiny daffodils starting to grow, the bed ready for iris (some were not dug up!), and a ‘garden shrimp’!

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Moses hung out in the yard on Saturday, too. He stayed in the sun while The Craftsman did a few more projects. At one point, even Mittens was outside watching The Craftsman while he was fixing the cat window box (the temporary roof, put on several years back, blew off a few weeks ago and we learned Mittens could escape from the house if Little Bear had the window open. How on EARTH she managed to climb up and out of the box and then jump 8 feet down to the ground, we can only imagine!). It was a good day for cats. In fact, after the few trick or treaters stopped ringing the doorbell, we watched The Aristocats. By then, Little Bear was home and watched it, too. (So far this week, we’ve watched ‘Cats Don’t Dance’ and ‘The Aristocats’. Thinking about ‘Bed knobs and Broomsticks’ with Cosmic Creepers!)

Kila (cat from ages past) in the window box that lost the roof. It is VERY high off the ground.

I kind of dressed up. I was in 50’s casual mom attire. Capri pants, a sweater, flannel shirt, pearl beads, an apron, and a pony tail. I was going to wear glow stick earrings, but it was a bust.

The package specifically says there are two of everything. Except, there was only one ‘adapter’ piece. I then decided to improvise with duct tape and tiny safety pins. Alas, only ONE glow stick worked!! Glow sticks have tiny glass vials inside that needs broken to release one chemical to make the other glow. Well, I cracked the heck out of the vial with pliers, but all my force only caused the stick to leak! Yikes!! Still no glow, but the idea of leaking orange goo was a bit disturbing, so I tossed that stick in the trash. The other tiny stick, I left on the counter. Wearing one odd earring is ok, but it is more 90’s than it is 50’s!

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I enhanced my 50’s mom motif by baking butterscotch oatmeal cookies. It was a fiddly recipe, but oh my, are they delicious! The original recipe calls for baking the raw oatmeal for a bit and then taking a half cup and pulverizing it into a flour. I’ve never done either of those things and was pleasantly surprised. I’ll see if I can find the recipe and share it. Little Bear said the cookies looked strange because they were all bumpy (note: I rarely make oatmeal cookies), but they tasted good! I think having a lovely scent waft out every time I opened the door was nice, too. Only 22 kids stopped by, a huge drop from previous years, but Covid is still the very real lynx on the porch in most areas. In preparation for the dressed up beggars, The Craftsman bought quite a bit of candy and one of the bags was annoying. If you read the label, it appears there are 4 kinds of candy in the ‘giant’ mix. When it was opened, there were the caramels and the Dots. The caramel candy tastes fruity!! Very odd. Candy isn’t what it used to be. Kit Kats are broken, Milky Way are crushed and stick to the wrapper, and sizes are changed.

All in all, it was a surprisingly pleasant Halloween and Saturday.