elainegrey

3 -11 August my week off by the numbers:

Reread five novels and two novellas from the Miles Vorkosigan series from Lois McMaster Bujold.

We had three power outages, but i was away for the Thursday morning one.

• 2024-08-03 Sat 16:44 - 19:14 "caused by fallen trees or limbs damaging our equipment."
• 2024-08-08 Thur 06:55 - 09:04 (During Debby) "was caused by fallen trees or limbs damaging our equipment."
• 2024-08-09 Fri  06:50 - 08:38 (During Debby) "was caused by fallen trees or limbs damaging our equipment."

6.01 inches of rain (recorded 9:45 am Sat .97+.68+.99+.86+1.0+.77+.74 mostly clear, sun just coming over the trees)

15.58 ft height of Haw River at Bynum 2024-08-09 09:45

Gathering of twelve family members to inurn my mother at Arlington National Cemetery on Wednesday

Dinner on Wednesday and a visit to the National Cathedral  on Thursday with ten family members

Lunch at a Richmond deli with six family members.

Around ten hours of I95 and I85 travel.

Eleven pounds of apples, at least two pounds of figs, 20 plus figs in organza bags on the tree, and lots of fruitfly and wasp infested figs to deal with.  (Yay, the green organza bags don't stand out. Um, oops, i am now hiding the figs from me, too.)

Three 12 oz jars sealed of spiced apples in syrup, two failed seals, one quart i didn't even try to seal.

One sealed quart spiced pickled apples.  Around three cups leftover sweet spiced vinegar brine.

One quart fermenting mixed fruit for vinegar. One quart apple cores with champagne yeast fermenting for vinegar. Third quart jar collecting apples cores and really ripe figs, with champagne yeast, to make more vinegar.

Four spice packs, a gift for Christine, two floor mats, a steam canner, and an electronic posture monitor ordered.

--== ∞ ==--   My week off so i could join with family in DC to inurn my mother's ashes at Arlington Cemetery is about up. It was a week well marked by Hurricane/Storm/Depression Debby. Tuesday morning i bought and installed-ish a sewer pipe to get one drain spout that is on the uphill side of the house routed around to the side. I hacked through one large root with my mattock in the rain -- i'm pretty sure this root is associated with the sweet gum stump that, years after cutting down the good sized tree, still isn't dead.  (I also cut back all the saplings that had shot up from the stump.) There are more roots, these from the black cherry, that are in the way of a properly graded drainage, but it's better than the shorter run of downspout extender i installed back there many years ago, since crushed.

Wednesday i arrived at my Dad's at 6 am and rode with him to DC. My sister's family passed us at the Virginia border, we passed them when they took a long break, and we arrived within minutes of each other to my brother's hotel in Roslynn, the area just north of the cemetery. Christine and my niece S. were absent - all Mom's other children and grandchildren were present. S was recovering from covid, and  C was absent to care for the pets -- and so i could focus on Dad.

After an hour or so of catching up, we went to Arlington and met up with my aunt and her husband. The chaplain and "Arlington Lady" were warm with and caring of my Dad as we waited in the blessedly air conditioned "family room". We processed to the site, sat under an awning and heard the chaplain memorialize mom from the obituary i had ensured was tribute to her, and then we placed the urn and flowers where it is going to be buried among the forest of white markers. The Washington Monument and National

While the clouds from Debby were threatening, we managed to stay clear of rain. My sister got a wonderful photo of the urn, flowers, field of gravestones, and the grey storm clouds.

My aunt and her husband had just flown up for the inurnment so we took them back to the airport, and then continued south (with my brother N) to the suburb where Dad had got a hotel room for us and where we were gathering at Maggianos, a chain Italian restaurant. It's the same chain at which we hosted my parents' fiftieth wedding anniversary. We sat in the lobby a bit as Dad and N recovered over coffee, then went to the restaurant bar and hung out there for a while. Eventually, my sister's family and my brother's wife and sons arrived and we had a lovely meal. I sat with the three grandsons and had a lovely conversation about the kit they use for their hobbies (music, fishing, soccer) and the various quality vs cost  dimensions.

Back at the hotel Dad fell asleep quickly and i went to the lobby with my phone plus monitor & keyboard kit. It was nice to see full screen websites for weather and power outages; i didn't catch up much before playing two games of Gin Rummy with Christine via cardgames.io . Then i was tired and ready to sleep.

The next morning Christine let me know our home was without power. Dad and i had a hotel breakfast then headed to the National Cathedral. It was a place that Mom loved to visit, and Laura had planned to go, weeks ago. Since everyone had their own hotel breakfast, ...

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and i'll just post now, since i've been working on this for a good long while.

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The first weekend and Monday were restful -- i read novels and we had a friend over.

Yesterday i picked eleven pounds of the tiny green apples from the front apple tree. Before i left, i'd collected a pile that had fallen from the tree. Those i placed where i thought critters would easily find them. Harvesting on Saturday morning was miserable with the high humidity, even before the sun began to steam up the day. I was using a harvesting basket on a twelve foot pole -- it wasn't hard work -- but i and my clothes were sodden because it was 96% humidity. That's not rain: it was mostly a clear blue sky. Ugh.  I think most are ripe and the balance of underripe apples will just add tartness.