I feel like I'm in a really bad '70s movie. The front door is being buffeted by huge hornets. I was able to let in a cat or two but Orville was taking too much time stretching and doing typical cat stuff and he just didn't make it in time. I had to shut the door and turn off the porch light. They really have it in for that light. The husband has been destroying yellow jacket burrows and wasp's nests for the past few days but I haven't a clue where these humongous hornets go during the day. They're like hummingbirds. The kidlet let one in the other night and the fly swatter barely stunned it. They've got to be really close. It takes them about five seconds to get to the light after I turn it on. Vaya con Dios kitty cat.

Got the kidlet's SOL scores in the mail today. How can a person be so damned smart and not have one whit of common sense? She missed two questions. Two. One in math and one in English/Reading. She aced science, history and social science. I'm so proud of her.

Dried a batch of principe borghese tomatoes yesterday. They are bigger and juicier this year so they take much longer in the oven but the taste is still phenomenal. I picked another batch this afternoon. Had to chuck some of my heirloom Brandywines to the chickens. Blossom end rot strikes again. I also pulled down the bean vines. The leaves looked like lace. The Chinese Red Noodle beans will come back once the weather cools off. The Mexican bean beetles don't seem to like them as well as the green stringbeans. The potato patch has dried up almost completely. Most of the squash plants are gone. The cucumbers are well on their way out, too. Even the horseradish is getting crispy on the edges. But it rained last night, the rain barrels are all full again. Pulling weeds in the garden was a breeze...the concrete gone for the time being.

Time to turn in. I can barely keep my eyes open. I think I'll go check on a small pump tomorrow for the rain barrels. And a gallon or two of hornet spray.

We need rain. A good day long goosedrowner. I've got a garden bed that needs to be turned over and prepared for the fall planting but it's like concrete despite all the organic matter that I incorporated into the soil this spring. When it gets really hot everything stops growing. I had a phenomenal crop of Mexican Bean Beetle larvae. The potatoes are pretty much done so I'll be harvesting them in a couple of weeks. I guess my best crop this year (so far) has to be the mini pumpkins. Two plants and maybe twenty beautiful little pumpkins. I think dd brought one home when her daycare went to the pumpkin patch on a field trip. Six years ago? I've got them growing on the head board of an antique iron bed. Very cool. The foot board, shown above, is covered by lemon cucumbers.

I've got to devise some way to get the water from the rain barrels to the garden---about 75 feet away. Lugging bucket after bucket to the garden just isn't cutting it. Especially when it's 90 degrees and humidity is at 70%. Excellent way to have a heat stroke. I was able to run a garden hose out one time by priming it with the aquarium vacuum but it only produced a trickle and quit altogether when the barrel level fell to a certain point. Perhaps if the barrel was elevated the gravity feed would be enough. However, I'm not about to dump the barrel in order to get it on a platform. Who knows when we'll get enough rain to refill the barrels. So far we've been lucky.

I never thought that would happen after today. The daughter and I had errands to run in town and she complained the entire time. Exhausting.
Had some bad news this morning. FIL (dh's stepdad) passed away last night. He was at the hospital getting a dose of chemo for his leukemia and I guess it did him in. He was just diagnosed recently. You never know how much time you have left.
Dh is taking the day off work tomorrow to go spend some time with his mom. He hasn't been able to do that for a few years now. I'm sure it will feel weird stepping back in that house after so long. Hopefully their relationship will get back on track.
I know how dh feels about it and I know how dd feels about it. I'm not sure how to deal with it from my perspective. Fil and I started out great. Or so I thought. I felt like he and I shared a common upbringing...not quite as privileged as the rest of the family. I really didn't know he harboured such resentment toward dh. And me? I don't know where he came up with the accusations against me. It's just not logical. All I can do now is shrug. One thing I can say for the man, and I'm not being flippant, he sure could cook fish. Holy Moley! The feud really messed that up. He fried the best fish I've ever tasted. He gave me a bag of seasoning once and told me how to do it but I failed miserably. I just can't cook fish. His was crispy and flavourful on the outside and moist and flaky on the inside. Just perfect. He did his fishing off his pontoon boat down in Urbanna at the Holiday House. Rappahannock Rivah fish. As he was fond of saying, "That's some good eatin' there."
I need to get some sleep. I have garden work to do tomorrow and I need to seal the grout in the bathroom. I also need to exchange couches so I can start work on reupholstering the sofa. I figure that will be my next big project. Give the tiling a break for awhile. After that I'll have to make a slipcover for it but one thing at a time.
Ambien is kicking in and I want to read a few paragraphs before I fall asleep.

The house is quiet. It ought to be since it's midnight. Too bad it's not quiet in my head. Way too many thoughts zizzing around in there for this hour of the night. I can't seem to formulate a complete thought these days. I can't form a coherent sentence half the time since I've been losing my words.

Summer break is particularly hard on me. My daughter is around me 24/7 and the constant noise sucks all of the energy out of me. The only time I have to recharge with quiet is the middle of the night. I try to read and my mind wanders. It doesn't go anywhere constructive....just goes. Fragments of my past, daydreams of a wishful future, it doesn't matter. I vacillate between admission of complete failure and a surge of spiteful ambition. It lasts a few minutes and then I'm over it. Nothing changes. It just is. I try to pinpoint that moment in life when it all went pear shaped, when I lost whatever drive I had, when I lost my nerve. When I lost my friends. All of my eggs went in one basket. A big no-no but that's what trust is, isn't it? Putting all of your eggs in one basket knowing they'll be safe?

My daughter is becoming beautiful. And while she's book smart, she has no common sense at all. Not a bit. She, like her father, needs constant entertainment...a steady stream of external stimuli. She has completely taken over my computer with her free realm games. I barely have time to play a few games of mahjongg before hitting the sack. Too bad M*A*S*H isn't showing at night anymore. That always calmed me down and put me in a right frame of mind for sleeping. Now I rely on Ambien. I still wake up several times during the night and now I'm having these really vivid bizarre dreams. Damn. I nearly nodded off while writing this. I saw my daughter in Florence...............crap. I have to crash. More tomorrow maybe.