Tuesday, August 30, 2005, 18:25
Finally!
For the first time this year, Randy and I ate sweet corn from out of our garden for supper Monday night.
I never thought the day would arrive. The sweet corn this year has had nearly everything stacked against it -- cool weather in the spring and poor germination, hot and dry for most of the summer, corn smut on some of it.
But, when I picked the ears and started husking them, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that what few ears are in the garden are actually filled out quite well. It's been so dry, that I expected the kernels to be sparse and small. Carrying all of that water from the washing machine out of the house, down the hill, and dumping it on the sweet corn has paid off.
My old gelding, Kajun, has always liked to eat the husks from the sweet corn, so I figured the new mare Isabelle would like husks from the sweet corn, too.
Isabelle apparently has never eaten sweet corn husks before. When I threw some over the fence for her, she sniffed them cautiously, nibbled at the husks, picked up one up and started waving it around and then threw her head up and tossed it. The husk landed five feet away, then she had to go and investigate it again. Eventually she began eating the husks, and twenty minutes later, she had them all cleaned up.
It didn't take Kajun nearly that long to eat his share of the sweet corn husks.
As for Randy and I, we enjoyed every mouthful of sweet corn. And fortunately, there was enough that we didn't have to eat it, kernel by kernel, speared with a toothpick and dipped in butter (as we joked all summer long). We could slather butter on the ears to our hearts' content, sprinkle salt and start munching.
With any luck at all, there's a couple more meals of sweet corn out there. And if it doesn't freeze too early, we've got the second planting to look forward to.
As for my tomatoes, the Romas are ripening quite nicely. They're small, as tomatoes go, but they're tasty -- at least, that's true of the tomatoes I have planted in galvanized tubs and the tomatoes planted by the barn. I'm not sure about the Romas in the basement garden. The vines are so thick, I haven't been able to locate many tomatoes on them. For all I know, bushels of tomatoes are closer to the ground, lurking underneath all of the leaves. Or, it could be that the basement garden Romas are all vines and no tomatoes. I ought to pick up the vines and see, but I'm afraid I will break them off.
I'm still waiting, patiently, too, for my first muskmelon to ripen. All together I've got four of them that I can see. There might be others that I haven't been able to find yet. The vines are pretty thick. But any day now, the one I've been keeping an eye on ought to be ripe.
It's no wonder I spend so much time savoring the fruits and vegetables that come out of my garden. I certainly wait long enough for them.
LeAnn R. Ralph
Monday, August 29, 2005, 17:36
How to Calm Your Kitten
"Do you think I'm jiggling too hard?" I asked Randy one night last week.
Randy took one look at me and held out his hands.
"Here," he said. "Give her to me. See? Like this. Hold her rear end in one hand and put your other hand across her chest and just jiggle her a little bit."
As soon as Randy started the slight jiggling motion, Sophie's eyes softened and began to droop.
"You were jiggling her so hard, her head was bouncing. You don't want that," Randy said. "Just a little jiggle."
"I suppose," I said, "I ought to be careful. We don't want the kitten to be suffering from 'shaken baby syndrome' do we."
Over the past few weeks, we -- or I should say *Randy* -- has discovered that when Sophie is acting like the hyperactive kitten she is, the way to calm her down is to hold her in your hands and jiggle her a little bit.
Sometimes Sophie gets so wound up, she's like a small gray streak running around the house. One of the things she likes to do is chase the dog. Either that, or she likes to have the dog chase her. It's hard to tell at times just who is chasing whom.
Pixie, panting happily, eyes glinting, ears perked, will try to herd Sophie around the living room. That's one thing about Shetland Sheepdogs. They like to herd anything that moves. Sophie will jab left and then right, and then will most likely run underneath Pixie and come out behind her tail. Pixie spins around and chases Sophie, then Sophie stops, and chases Pixie. The dog will run down the hall tight on the heels of the kitten and two seconds later, Pixie comes back, with the kitten right behind her.
But sometimes, after one of those lively games of "chase me" -- and sometimes after she has been giving her ball a good workout (it rattles as it rolls so the kitten really likes it) -- Sophie gets so wound up that the next thing you know, she has climbed my legs, climbed the front of my shirt and is working her way up to the top of my head.
It's right about then that a soothing session of "jiggle the kitten" is in order.
"I can just see it now," Randy said last night as he held Sophie in his hands and jiggled her. "I could give classes on 'How to Calm Your Kitten.' There'd be twenty people in the class. Everybody would be watching me closely as I demonstrate. 'Hold the kitten's rear end in one hand, put your other hand across the chest. Then jiggle gently.' One lady would be bouncing her kitten too much. Another guy would be jiggling just so slightly that you could hardly tell he was jiggling his kitten. Another guy would be falling asleep while he was jiggling the kitten, but the kitten would be looking around, wide awake."
Personally, I'm just glad we've found a way to get Sophie to settle down. I don't remember my other kittens being quite this active. Then again, the other kittens had litter mates to play with. Not that it seems to matter to Sophie. She plays with anything that moves. And plenty of things that don't move (table legs, the couch, my 20-pound tom named Duke -- although it's not that Duke can't move, but when Sophie tries to play with him, he sits down and glares at her, and no matter how she tries to engage him he is adamant about *not* playing with the kitten.)
Jeepers -- I wish I had some of Sophie's energy!
LeAnn R. Ralph