Vinegar and Honey.

 Well, so vinegar and honey can help with indigestion/heartburn. Good to know when you decide you want milk and cereal for breakfast and buy the kind that crunches real good but just sits there on your stomach as if it wants to punish you for eating it in the first place. It just is not fair that stuff that is supposed to be food and semi-good for you should give you fits instead. Now if it had been steak and eggs, or fried anything, that would have made sense for indigestion. But let's face it, even little kids have cereal and milk. Maybe one gets too old for that stuff?

Barely any fingernails left to chew or otherwise, but got my hands pretty dirty this morning by dumping out the aloe vera plants (yes, more than one) and repotting them along with some Joseph's Coat ivy. Those plants are now inside the green house/ chicken house. Hollyhock is next, but it does not need to be repotted. Probably could have left the aloe vera in its original pot since it is not coming inside the house. Just not sure where that little brown snake went, ya see.

Got up at 4:30 this morning--unable to sleep--and went out and clipped the wings on the nine chicks. Got all nine of them done even if my calf had to be licked twice. Two got away from me, so that meant catching them all again and checking that right wing. Found the two quickly enough and got that little job done. Then left their door open this morning after putting the plants inside and putting down their new feeder--a gravity drop dog feeder. Put all kinds of good stuff in their feeder, so the hens were more than curious. The chicks eventually ventured outside their door and onto some grass. Of all the picking and peeping you ever saw or heard! Later went out to check on them and four were missing. Looked all around and finally found them BEHIND the chicken house. Herded them back to the front so they could find their door. Boy did they ever scurry! "OH! We're back!" Happy little campers now.

My doctor let me know she had some samples and egg cartons for me. She came about four this afternoon and had an entire box of samples--bunches of dollars worth of a very expensive medication. Some are supposed to be here this week, but they are now in Chicago, so who knows when they will get here. Ordering drugs online is like a "crap shoot." Maybe they get here within a month or maybe not. Glad this is not a life or death situation. It's not like insulin where President Trump said that the price HAD to come down. And it did. Now folks who take insulin may be able to take it like they are supposed to and still budget enough to eat.

The old woman must be happier lately. Caught myself whistling a song and couldn't remember the name of it. But it sounded good to me, anyway. The dogs just have to put up with that sort of thing---and the hens, well, two or three of those girls have really got the "loud mouths"! They are the Black-laced Wyandottes, too. Not even the Hamburgs! They scream and carry on as if they were starving and need to be fed. And we BOTH know better! They just had some good green stuff from the grocers, too! Thinking of the term "fishwives" when considering the volume of the noise. sigh

The neighbor--kind of--who owns the pasture below Jerry's place is over today cutting the grass. Wondering if the city or his neighbor below him complained. That is about the only time he cuts the grass--when he is made to do it! Then the rest of us sit back with a shotgun waiting for his snakes, rats, and other vermin to come calling. Seriously! He has infestations of big ole black bugs on that lot. Think "as long as your thumb" size. Harness a few of those critters and save on gasoline for his mower.

Now have all eight of those fancy lightbulbs charged. Not sure how they will be wrapped--if at all--for the kids. Who gives lightbulbs as Christmas presents? Is that not the strangest thing you ever heard? But who would think a light bulb would last 40 years. Maybe they can put one up in that high ceiling so that they never have to climb up there again in the next 40 years!

My Dickerson grandson gave me a book one year called "Lost Wisdom." In smaller print it says, "A Celebration of Traditional Knowledge From Foraging and Festivals to Seafaring and Smoke Sense." The only way to read it is with a magnifying glass or magnifying page thing on a light. This is how small it is! Do you think he wanted me to know that my glasses needed to be helped out a bit? He'll get old someday!

Michelle Malay gave my two dogs some Purina "Busy Beggin' Twist'd" chews. Thompson wants to go outside with his each time he gets one, but so far he has not buried one. They are messy things, but apparently they keep them from wanting anything else for at least ten minutes or longer. Even Sylvia and her chompers take a while to get one eaten. 

Kinda hoping for some rain tomorrow. The smoke is not bad now and the pollen is only 8.5, so maybe if it rains just a bit, we might all be breathing better tomorrow. Lots of people in Walmart this morning were wearing the masks over their mouths and not over their noses. Think allergies has a lot to do with how we breathe right now. Certainly have slowed down my get-up-and-go. But then, going to Walmart is like going on a two-mile hike! One thing in the dog food section is cattycorner to the milk and toilet paper aisles--a half mile away! Need your good walkin' shoes on when ya go there!

Years ago it felt like walking was SO easy. Could just walk for the longest, even carrying a child. No longer can do that kind of walking. Getting the old girl's backside from one place to another takes a bit of determination. Understand now how Grandmother Pollard felt about having sheep to care for, and the garden to tend to, and the chickens to feed, and the meals to make. And she wasn't even five foot tall! But it took several years to slow her down. She came to stay with the oldest two when our last child was born. She was so excited when Lewis went to get her that she forgot to pack her panties, and he had to go to Kmart the next morning and get her some! We have laughed about that quite a few times. She was with us when Jennifer was born, and we had fresh apricots coming off the trees in baskets! So she was outside flagging folks down trying to give those apricots away! She was a character!

Seems like things always need to be done, but it is not always easy to just do them. No amount of determination or grit can really find a time and the enthusiasm needed to do things the right way every time. Still, Daddy always said that if a job was worth doing, it was worth doing it right the first time so that there did not need to be a second time. But you know that saying about "from dust we come and to dust we return," well, wouldn't want to disturb anyone's dust, so my house has a collection of dust--not sure if it is coming or going. Maybe tomorrow can rearrange some of the dust, or not.

Going outside to put pepper on my kale plant--well, what the rabbit has not already eaten. But let's just hope that all of you have something that satisfies your funny bone or your sense of order. Whichever one suits you, enjoy getting your tasks finished or at least begun with a good sense of humor. You are loved.