Daily Notes- October 19th

An older picture of Riley sleeping one of his many dog beds with his toys.  He is more bone now, less bulk, but he sleeps this way and usually all four feet are together.

We just got back from the daily walk and Riley is panting and I have five Arnica beads under my tongue.  My right hip joint is protesting. G has a selection of canes (most taken on the walks to ward off any rabid animals) but I now have a nice geriatric looking aluminum cane for the walks-he adjusted it to be the correct height for me.  I have to look in my arts and crafts drawers to see if I have anything adhesive to decorate the plain aluminum with.  Make it look less "nursing home".   Perhaps some stars and Wonder Woman stickers.

Sigh, getting old.

We spent most of the breakfast time period looking for G's reading glasses.  I remembered seeing them perched on his head when I told him it was midnight and he needed to stop playing games on the iPad.  We moved all the furniture etc- full scale search.  They were found in his closet. He had set them down to pull on his wool turtleneck.  Then left them in the closet.  He's going to hand them to me before bed from now on.

I have grape leaves in a steamer with cloth.  They came to a boil yesterday and then cooled down  "naturally"  (Judy's Journal post from this week- instructions in the comment section not the blog post) and I opened up my quart of shelf stable soy milk and have more washed cloth in with the soy.  Heated to boil and then left to cool "naturally".  Am supposed to do this process twice.  Heat /cool.  Then add the natural dye materials.  If neither of these mordants work I will go back to alum powder. The grape leaves were used in place of alum to crisp pickles in the olden days.

I missed my optimum time period to collect Fall Colored Leaves.  The ones I picked up had too much moisture in them and went brown when hit with the heat of the iron and the waxed paper.  Remember doing that in the "olden days"?  So no Autumn leaves.

G wants to use the noisy gas powered blower to get the leaves off the grass.  The noise does terrifying things to the dog. I mentioned this and G is now really angry (with me).  He wants to use the loud machine. Snd he will.  He thinks the blower is "easier" than a broom or a leaf rake. And He will be outside and I will be inside with a hysterical dog.  Lucky Me.  Riley has had his morning tranquilizer and I'll give him a hemp treat before G gets started making noise.

While at the Vet the last visit a man in a Trump ball cap was paying his bill, his hunting dog at his side.  I smiled and said hello and he gave me the most vile look.  Hate filled.  And that's what it's like here in Maine.  Not just disagreement.  But hate.