Zoom school

 

Of all the grandchildren, only Hannah has in person school. There are 5 kids in her pre school class

She is excited about her first day of school

The west coast fires caused the ash to diffuse the sun such as we can look directly at it. Some mornings it is a huge red ball

toad lily

first mums

On my long Sunday bike rides, I go by this David statue which is often dressed for the occasion

Have 4 frogs in my pond now

Allie's work station. Usually the dog is on her feet

First day of Covid home school Shanna keeps them in one room. They wear headphones to not disturb the others

We had them all over for Labor day, the day before 'school' began

tomatoes

They changed Blogger yet again. So annoying.

86% of the Michigan school districts opted to have in person classrooms. Despite numerous precautions, many of them had to close down. The three different school districts my grandchildren go to have only on-line learning. The colleges that opened are now Covid hotbeds, especially large state schools. All you need is less than 10% irresponsible people and the virus goes haywire.

Again, how badly has this been managed? He opted not to tell us because he didn't want the country to panic. So if a house  is on fire, do you not tell the residents to get out because it would upset them? Such illogic. And he continues to have his self adulation rallies unmasked..they do sign a waiver not to hold him responsible. Could they sign one saying they will not go to the hospital if ill?

Virtual learning is especially hard for Maya. Naomi has to monitor every movement. They have to click on various links, many of  which do not work so Naomi is constantly trouble shooting. Some of the kids thought they could just use their parent's computers. No, the Chromebooks are especially loaded with the necessary programs. I did watch Maya's virtual gym class in which the teacher shouted out instructions for the kids to do various calisthenics and yoga poses. And we have internet and computers? What happens in other places?

Again this would have been over if we weren't 'led' by an idiot.

Aside from our hazy skies, we can breathe. Not so much on the West Coast. And then there is the Gulf coast ravaged yet again by floods.

I've been biking with only a rear derailleur for 2 years. Doesn't matter much with the mild hills around here though going up some of the big hills up north last summer was a challenge. But for the past week, I rode with both derailleurs broken. A single high gear. I definitely got a work out muscling up the hills here. Finally my official repair appointment was Tuesday. A zillion dollars later, everything is working now.

Days of sunflowers and roses

 

The full moon rising at our Kentucky Derby party

Traditional mint julep. Our hostess grew the mint

Some of us on the deck enjoying pre race drinks

For those not in the US, the Derby is known as the Run for the Roses. Someone gave each of us in an official Derby glass Also a  peach bourbon shot.

My friend's farm and pond. She has acres and acres

She shared some of her produce with us. These tomatoes are huge

My contribution: a chocolate black walnut  bourbon pie I also did my nails up in orange, gold and black

We had color coded fascinators, masks and jewelry though she couldn't find orange jewelry for me so I wore my own

my frog pond these days is surrounded by huge cleomes

Some of the apple orchards are open

A friend and I drove out to a flower farm. Nearby was an old German cemetery and stone church. Years ago I had gone to a wedding there

The church was surrounded by pretty gardens

A pretty church

most of the flowers at the farm were sunflowers. The other flowers I have myself and mine look nicer as I water them. Rather expensive to pick a bouquet but they let us walk around

Still acres of sunflowers are pretty and the sky was especially blue

My grand dog  Kaya looking regal

A smiling Hannah

Some how my moon flower has migrated to the other side of the house. I suspect squirrels bury the seed pods. These are poisonous to humans but to squirrels? Who knows These are annuals here but I have been told they reseed

Now instead of one blossom every other day, I get about six. The plant is huge

We've been getting nice sunrises and sunsets As you can see I have my own sunflowers

My nasturtiums are red, orange and yellow. These are the red 

Coney Island boardwalk someone else took. Not much social distancing but they have special lights now on the Parachute drop

The Derby field. We selected 3 horses a piece. If one of the 3 won, we get $15. I had selected my horse a few months back, NY Traffic. At that time, it had the worst odds but they kept improving since that time until he was in the top 4. And in the race, it looked for a while, he'd win. But fast starter, slow finisher

The Chosen Sisters with our color coordinated fascinators and masks

So sorry about the  pictures as they are all out of order. Hate this new blogger. It has been a busy week although alot of the busyness revolved going back and forth to the bike shop. Three flat tires! They were nice about it. They had failed to notice a tiny wire that would puncture new tubes. But then it happened again before I even rode it. Are they using rim tape? Who knows? But they decided my tire itself was hiding something and sold me a new one at cost. I only paid for one inner tube. It still has to go back in 2 weeks for some serious work but I can ride now that I have brakes and inflated tires. I've gone almost 90 miles in the few days since I got it back.

The Farmer's market is near the bike store so while it was being repaired the last time, I bought a burgundy dinner plate hibiscus and vegetables that as it turns out I didn't need to get as my friends have given me so much

Most of the towns now have their downtowns shut to traffic and streets turned into dining rooms. This will work for a while until the temps drop. Now if the maskholes would just wear their masks...

But we met Josh in nearby Northville to have dinner and then watch Hannah at her outdoor dance class. They had to stand on squares ten feet apart.

Naomi's restaurant is very dependent on the football traffic, which won't exist this year and the students, who will be offline. So she is surprised the place is still busy. One school starts, in 2 days, she will have to be home to supervise zoom sessions for Maya. She can work weekends when Maya is with her father.

A friend and I went to visit a flower farm out on roads that I used to bike on years ago. It was fairly close to the hairdresser I used to go to until she was having some life crisis and would cancel my appointments at the last minute. Although I have plenty of reasons to be mad at her, she shouldn't have any to be with me so I was surprised when I noticed i was "defriended'. I could see why some of her posts could get her into trouble with a divorcing husband so I assume she just deactivated her account but no, just me as I can find her account on Naomi's phone. Well I used to like her.

Washtenaw county had a huge influx of Germans from Swabia in the mid nineteenth century, many who were farmers on the west side of our county. Lots of Lutheran churches though the one we saw has been repurposed as a United Church of Christ. Most of the graves had German names on them except for the earliest which were English. Swabian is pronounced differently than High German. So the very common last name Bach is pronounced Baaaa, not with the hard K. Years ago, a good friend was married in that church, which was the last time I saw it. Sadly he died eleven years ago in  a bike accident.

It was fun to wander through the flower fields. Lots of btterflies. And then my friend cooked a delicious dinner out on her patio.

Fall is coming. A huge flock of blackbirds amassed where I was biking through this morning ready to migrate. I actually wore a long sleeved shirt. We will have a family Labor Day bbq tomorrow and then the kids will go back to school ( all virtually)

Summer is over

sigh

r

The sex life of squash

The squash blossom on the left is a female; the one on the right, male. Also there is a swelling at the base of the female stem.Females turn into squash fruit; males last week turned into stuffed squash blossoms For some reason, I have an 8: 1 male to female sex ratio

The blossoms waiting to be stuffed after I remove the stamens

Dishes I have: From fancy bone porcelain, vintage majorca Wedgewood, hand painted Mexican pottery, hand made art fair porcelain, various glass plates, IKEA kids plates. What do we use most? cheapo white Corelle. The rest are for company although with Covid, my guests outside get fancy Chinese New Year paper plates   Anyway last week a Corelle plate spontaneously exploded surprising me   This apparently has been seen before

An intense Miss Hannah Same blue eyes as my son

Her big sister Allie

Nasturtium blossoms which I used to garnish my Mexican stuffed fried squash blossoms. Just because a flower is edible doesn't make it taste good

We had a Mom's group surrounded by big trees and screech owls. Ate my first fake burger

My sunflower patch

Maya caught her first fish, a sunfish. I caught them as a kid always surprised how much they could fight for weighing 4 ounces

I wanted to make something special for the Moms. I did make red pesto spaghetti squash (lots of spaghetti squash ripening here)  I had made stuffed blossoms years ago purchasing them fresh in a San Diego Farmer's market. I think they were zucchini blossoms and the seller told me what to do as there was no internet in those days. Who knows what blossoms I used this time? They all look the same, pumpkin, zucchini, cucumber, winter squash and summer squash. I have them all. And I get mainly useless males though I am not hurting for squash so a few females had formed.

After another wretchedly hot week in which I attempted to bike until my tire became flat and would not hold air for more than an hour, it is finally cool. Also I have been riding with only a front brake and one chain wheel worth of gears. Time to go to the busy shop as all sorts of people are riding bikes now. New bikes can not be bought. They agreed to do the brake and tire. For the other stuff I have to come back in a few weeks. I picked it up two days later. Imagine my dismay to find the tire was flat when I wanted to do my long Sunday ride. Well maybe the air accidentally was let out of it. It held air until  was five miles away. I suspect they never changed the inner tube (they did charge me) and just figured I didn't know how to fill a tire and filled it. It does hold air for a little while. But it put me in a really bad mood. Are they going to deny they did this? Was it just an honest mistake?They don't open until Tuesday. I am so disappointed. In them. In humanity. In our country. Plus I felt sick from maybe drinking too much the night before or maybe I am not used to artificial meat. Aside from the five miles of riding and a half mile of walking until Steve could rescue me, it was the first day in months that I didn"t do my daily quota of exercise. Instead I sat around feeling sorry for myself.

I do feel better today. My poison ivy is finally clearing up after two weeks made longer because I wore the same contaminated clothes I was wearing when I was exposed. I can tolerate it during the day but at night, it burns and itches. I had been taking benedryl to stop the itching and make me drowsy. No new blisters, just dry irritated skin from all the blisters. And the insurance finally agreed to pay for my mammogram after 3 phone calls. Still need to find a new company. The one we use advertises heavily bragging that they accept 98% of the hospitals in the US. Just not the biggest one in our county apparently. The old company we used is looking better. They at least paid for things.

Poison Ivy

 

Steve's cousin's son took this of Coney Island half mile from where Steve grew up 

The lake I bike by in the morning. Couldn't capture the intense purples and pinks

As Naomi is now working, Maya is up north with her dad. Her step mom did this

After visiting a skateboard park where Allieskirts around teenage boys, we went out to eat with Josh and the girls

Daniel turned 11. From a preemie to this.He wanted a Hamilton schemed treasure hunt. We provided some Hamiltons

 check my milkweed for Monarch larva. Might have seen an egg but no caterpillars despite lots of adults flitting about

My niece in Colorado

Maya taking a break from going fishing

My friend's dinnerplate hibiscus. I have the same kind but as mine is less than a month old, I am lucky to get two blossoms a day

I think e was some fogging of my lens. It was fine later I had planted a hundred glads

Cleome, dill and orange cosmos

almost all my sunflowers are in bloom now

For his birthday Shanna took Daniel to a Marvel exhibit

My road in the morning. Pre-covid, it would be too busy to go on at this time

Black swallowtail. I had been feeding a larva for a week when it suddenly died. A blue swallowtail has been hanging around. Alas no photos

I am a mass of painful weeping sores. Usually they don't appear until 3 days after exposure but these popped up within 18 hours. I am careful. I always wear gloves that are rubber on the palm side but I was pulling up 4 foot tall catnip putting it in a pile until I amassed enough to put in a bag. When I picked it up I saw the poison ivy it had been resting on. My gloves only extend a few inches beyond my wrist. It is possible the catnip touched my bare arms. Now I know it definitely did. I wouldn't think the catnip was heavy enough to bruise the ivy but it must have. I can ignore it during the day but at night, it is difficult to despite the Benadryl and steroids'.

And I hate my new insurance. So, so annoying. I have a zipcode that suggests I live in a different county than I do. They keep sending me all this Wayne county crap. I call them up (a long multi step process entering my ID in 3 times) and tell them to send the stuff for my actual county. One person, who doesn't even live in my state was trying to prove that I lived in Wayne county. Or they tell me they know I live in Washtenaw county but send me yet again another Wayne directory. What providers you use are county specific so they didn't pay for my mammogram even though if I just had Medicare, it would be covered. Eventually I will get this straightened out but it is time consuming.

But aside from that. this week was fun. We even had some cool days so I could run in comfort though it is back to 90 degrees and no rain. We had a Mom's night outside last weekend. Another night I called my friend who I had tried to ride a bike with from Pittsburgh to DC but rain stopped us halfway. He had moved to Nevada right after that but came back to Michigan a few weeks ago. Although he lives a 100 miles away, he was right by my house when I happened to call. So he came over.

Saw my grandson on his birthday and then saw my granddaughter with her scooter go up and down ramps at the skateboard park.

Lots of time gardening. Now it is just watering and weed patrol