Routine and Regular

Not even 8pm and it’s dark out.  The days are getting shorter, although the temperature reached the mid90s today.  Public schools let out at 2pm.  Weatherwise, this isn’t so much different from 3:15, hot is hot, and a couple teachers were quoted in the newspaper about that point.
The corn growing beside the parking lot of the college looks so dry and brown.  Usually corn gets to be about 7 feet high, high over my head anyway.  This stuff is only as high as my shoulder.  I didn’t have my camera in my bookbag today, but I’ll try to remember it sometime this week.  The old song about ‘amber waves of grain’ was written about the North American prairies.

I put a beef roast into the crockpot, with the idea that the meat will be used to make vegetable-beef soup in the next couple days.  Heat outdoors shouldn’t stop the ritual of having some soup in the fridge for re-heating in the microwave as quick meals for us busy folks.
This afternoon, I drove down to the coffee shop.  It was just too hot to ride the bicycle, plus my bag weighs way too much.  Textbooks, even the paperbacks, are heavy.  I had some deep reading to do, and being at home has too many distractions.  The computer and blogs being tops of the list.  Cats and laundry are a close second.
I got most of my homework done for Math and Ed Psyche, but by the end, my backside was numb.  To be that engrossed in a task hasn’t come readily to me for quite some time.
Maybe I am getting my act together for this school stuff.  Although I’d much rather be figuring out a crochet pattern.

When I got home, there were my two guys/housemates standing beside the crockpot.  A wonderful smell was wafting up and filling the room.  Husband declared the roast to be done, and he was about to be slicing off a hunk.  We all had some, then I put the rest into the fridge for making soup on my next afternoon off, which is Wednesday.  Perhaps by that time, it may become plain old vegetable soup, what with how good that meat tastes.

After supper, when I went outside for the laundry on the clothesline, there was Mahalia with a mid-size squirrel in her mouth.
It was shreeeeking like I never knew a squirrel could noise.
I grabbed the cat by the back of the neck with my left hand, then the neck of the squirrel with my right.  Halley finally loosened her jaw, and I set the squirrel down on the walk.  It moved all its limbs, and was breathing hard.  I turned it over, no bloody spots, so I picked it up again by the back of its neck and carried it to the lowest branch on the maple tree.
So small and cute and scared.  It tried to climb up to the next branch, but still seemed to be in a state of shock.  Chris went inside and got a couple walnut meats to get it to calm down a little.
Husband took pictures.
without flash

with flash

Mahalia has been whining at the back door for a half hour.  She really is mad at me for taking away her prize.  She wants to get back out there and try again.  I went out and made sure the poor little thing isn’t too close to the house.  It is no longer in the tree, and the nuts are gone.

Well, that’s about how the day went.  So routine and boring.  I did get a card from the Red Cross saying where the nearest donation site will be this week.  Today I am eligible, but since I just got my teeth cleaned last Friday, I had menopausal symptoms all weekend, and there is a Blood Drive at the church building in about 3 weeks, I think I’ll wait until then.  The Parish Nurse wants to reach a certain quota of units on that date.
~~love and Huggs, Diane

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