(DF) FALL GARDEN? Ok, so it's a little late

Like a lot of people, I grew up with garden planting time being in the early spring and again in the fall.  Well, not really fall, but more like summer (early to mid August) for a fall crop.  Based on how things were done when I was a kid and how things worked with the climate here, I have continued that practice all of my adult life.  So why am I planting in October?

There are a couple of reasons.  The first, and less logical reason is that I have been unable to work in the garden all summer and simply couldn't stand not having something growing.  Lets face it, the ground needs worked up in order to get a handle on the grass anyway.  It is hard for me to have nicely worked garden soil in warm weather and not plant something in it.  The second, and more logical reason is the simple (or more complex, depending on how you look at it) fact that the climate here is not at all like it was when I was growing up.  There is now no way of honestly considering when the first hard freeze will be, or the rainy and dry seasons either, for that matter.  My memories of seasonal change in the past are certainly not what we are living today.  In recent years, I have seen some strange things, like picking vine ripe tomatoes for Thanksgiving salad.

I will reserve the memories of past climate for another post, but with the erratic climate in mind , it makes some kind of twisted sense to keep planting as late as possible.  No I am not planting corn, green beans and okra this time of year, but things like turnips and beets can take a lot of cold without much damage.  I did plant a few blackeyed peas a couple of weeks ago (though I doubt they will have time to make) simply because they are good for the soil and if they freeze, I can till them under.

Yes, it seems late even for turnips, but if the extreme weather holds off a bit, a good mess of turnip greens is always food on a cold evening.  And who knows, they may even make turnips.  As for the main garden, It is not tilled up yet but hopefully will be in time for planting a LATE cover crop of rye or winter peas.

(AF) Yep, It's Saturday night in the Boonies!

Awwww.... The quiet of the country ..... NOT!!!

Once upon a time, a long time ago, it was peaceful and quiet on Saturday nights out here in the Boonies. Anyone wanting to cause a rukus went into town where 'the action was.' Those that stayed at home, kicked back and relaxed to the simple sounds of nature. Although I will admit, those frogs can get pretty darned noisy during the rainy seasons!! But even so, it was enjoyable, not a stressful noise.

Over the years, the aire, feel and attitudes out here have drastically changed! People aren't near so friendly and helpful. No one waves in passing, they are all too busy on their cell phones. A person under attack could scream their lungs out all day (and/or night) and no one would even consider coming to their aid, or check to see what was wrong. And those trouble-making thugs high spirited kids & young adults that used to go in to town to do all of their destruction partying, must not be able to afford the gas to get to town any more, because they seem to all be walking the roads out here after dark and causing all kinds of commotion.

   One of their favorite things to do is to tease my dogs. Now, teasing 7 grown Boxers just isn't one of the brightest things to do! No matter how tightly  you secure your dogs, an angry dog, on occasion, is going to find a way to get loose. And can these moronic idiots young people not figure out that this is going to happen and the dogs are going to jump them?! Can they not figure out that if they continually antagonize my dogs, the dogs are going to feel a threat to our property and protect it, and me, any way they can?!  Sheesh!!! But no!

The more I try to stop these spoiled brats neighbors kids (some now grown with their own little ones and including them in their games) from harassing my dogs, the more determined they are to harass, tease and antagonize them. Even bringing authorities into the picture doesn't stop them. They just get sneakier about it, so they think. And now, it seems to have become their Saturday night game. As I type, my dogs are barking like there was no tomorrow, at something going on at the front of my property, just outside the gate at the road. I  keep hearing young male voices, but it is really dark down there and with my tiny flashlight, I just can't see what is going on. Oh, how I want more than anything to just go down there, open up the gate, let a few of my sweet babies loose, and problem be solved! 

And so, I sit here once again on a beautiful Saturday night, tensed up, repeatedly running out the door to try and figure out what is going on that has my dogs so stirred up, spending a little time just sitting outside in the shadows trying to catch the monsters lil darlin's in their act, trying to figure out if there is anything at all that is within the law that I can do to put a stop to all this foul play, and longing for those quiet, peaceful Saturday nights I remember oh, so well when I first moved out here nearly 2 decades ago!

PHARMACY FRIDAY - My Accidental All Natural Diuretic

  Yes, I know Friday is nearly over, but it has been a rough 2 days,  yet I am determined that I am going to get Pharmacy Friday started back today!

This is one of those terrific things that I stumbled upon strictly by accident and I just have to share it with you all! It started out that I was going to write today about the diuretic properties of Cayenne Pepper, but as I dug deeper into my research, I made some fantastic discoveries and had to broaden this post. I also may embarrass myself a little, but since I think this could help so many people, I will push my pride aside.

For awhile, now, I have had 'spells' where I have to get up often during the night to go pee. Sometimes I only get up twice, but other times I am up nearly every hour. And I really hate that disruption in sleep! Then there are spells where I get a full nights sleep and don't have to totally rush in the morning to get to the bathroom. The other night, for the first time in a loooong time, I slept for 7 hours straight without ever having to get up to run to the bathroom. It was wonderful!!!

So... I decided to take an extra good look at my activity and diet to see if I could analyze what I might be doing differently from one time to the next. The one thing that was consistent with the nights that I wake up several times, barely able to 'hold it in' until I make the long trek to the bathroom, was my hot chocolate night cap. I have consistently noticed that on the nights I sleep all through the night, I haven't had my nightly not cocoa for a few nights. And oh, how do love to wind my day down with my hot chocolate as I check my messages and watch a show or two.

You might be wondering what could be so special about my hot chocolate that it could act as a strong diuretic. Well, I make my own hot chocolate, completely from scratch, AND, I have gotten totally addicted to putting several good sprinkles of powdered cayenne pepper into it. I had read somewhere, once, that adding it to hot chocolate would help with pain relief. I tried it and after a week, my nightly hip pain drastically eased up, but we will save that for another post. But even more, I loved the flavor!!!

So I was thinking, maybe Cayenne Pepper is also a diuretic. I did a little research and sure enough, it is a great diuretic! Turns out, it is a great diuretic (increasing urination), anti-inflammatory and helps to improve circulation, which would also help rid your body of excess fluid. There is some further great information on it HERE and HERE.

But I only put about 8 or 9 dashes of Cayenne powder in my hot cocoa, so I got to thinking that just that surely wasn't running the fluid off of me that well, so I decided to research each of the ingredients in my hot chocolate. Turns out, 3 of the other ingredients in my made-from-scratch hot chocolate also aid in eliminating excess fluid from the body!

Himalayan Salt - yes, the terrific flavor of hot chocolate is greatly enhanced by a dash of salt. And then, of course, there are those women like me that occasionally crave our salty chocolate (though I honestly do try and keep it at just a dash). Where commercially processed/created table salt makes your body's cells retain fluid and holds onto it, consuming natural, unprocessed salt (in a reasonable amount) actually regulates the fluids in your body's cells.

Next, we have Ceylon Cinnamon. No, I am not talking about the cheap stuff at the grocery store that we have come to believe is cinnamon but really isn't, but the actual, True Cinnamon. Lately I have also started adding a pinch of the Ceylon Cinnamon to my hot chocolate . . . kind of an Aztec Hot Cocoa. It is very good that way!!! I did a little digging on Ceylon Cinnamon and sure enough, it, too, is a powerful anit-inflammatory!!! Wow! You can read even more about it HERE.

And next we have our main ingredient, the one that makes my hot cocoa so yummy, Cocoa Powder. I don't mean that cheap, Dutch Cocoa powder stuff. I am talking the actual, 100% pure cocoa powder, such as Hershey's, the one loaded with natural antioxidants. This natural cocoa contains theobromine, which is a mild stimulant that has a great diuretic effect! Cocoa can be such a strong diuretic that if you aren't drinking enough water, you can dehydrate. Amazing! HERE is some more great reading on the subject.

Besides holding anti-inflammatory and diuretic qualities, each of these ingredients also has may other terrific health benefits. With all these fluid relieving ingredients in my nightly hot cocoa, it's a wonder I don't end up sleeping in the bathroom!  My accidental concoction seems to work every bit as good (maybe even better) than the Lasix I am supposed to be taking. I am now greatly relieved, though, to know that all my potty trips aren't due to something being wrong with me, but in fact, are due to something completely natural that I am consuming and actually helping to improve my health.

Thank you for taking the time to read our post. I hope you will get some benefit from it!

(AF) WELL DARN, THAT DIDN'T WORK

As you all know, I have not been able to be on here much for the past many months. Okay, about a year. And before that, I often had my hands full, computer was down, or various other things that periodically kept me away from this site for a brief spell from time to time.

When I was unable to get on here, one thing that really worried me was our Pharmacy Friday and our Tightwad Tuesday posts (and our Bread on Monday on our cooking blog). Well, I had the bright idea that when I got some time to spare (yes, that is rare), that I would go ahead and write them up, post them on here, then backdate them.

Yes, for those of you that have your own blogs, over there on the side of the compose page, where it says "Schedule" you can actually backdate your posts and put them into any year, any month, and on any day you want. I thought I would do this and fill in the gaps for those posts that were a series. But NO! That didn't exactly work as I had planned.

Yes, after I wrote up some posts, and backdated them under the Schedule, they did go just exactly where I wanted them to. BUT...... that wasn't all that happened. They went into people's blog reading list as though it has just been posted, which it had. And let me tell you posting about 3 Pharmacy Friday posts in a row on an odd day such as Monday, which all came up in the current feed (even though I had back dated them) looked pretty funny and got some raised eyebrows.  Yes, backdating them worked to get them all put exactly where I wanted them into our list of posts, in the correct order, but I could find no way to get them to not come up into the just posted posts at the same time.

So, until I figure a way around all that, there will just have to be some BIG gaps in our weekly series posts, darn it. Now that I am back on a better working computer, I would dearly love to go back and write up the posts for all those missing weeks, but I guess I will let it slide for now and pick up where we left off so we don't hear a lot of, "What in the world are they doing?!"

(AF) MY COMPUTER IS FIXED.... Yay!!!!

  YES!! After roughly a year, my desktop is finally fixed!!!! I had muddled along when I could on my rickety old laptop, but it had its share of problems, too, and now even the keyboard on it is fritzed. I'm still not ready to part with it. Hoping I can plug a new keyboard into it and still use it now and then. Each computer does a thing or two the other doesn't and it is nice to have the other one to use when I need it, too.

At this moment, I am fighting with one of my cats. I have had to erase and start over so many times just trying to type this far. She is insisting on sitting on my mouse pad and playing with my mouse (I know, that does sound kind of funny). Didn't have to worry about that with the old laptop.

So, what was wrong with my desktop computer?
Well, a year ago I went in to Staples and asked them about it. They said that they were certain that it was a virus and would cost at least $150 to $200 to fix. I just could not come up with that kind of money to get  it fixed, so .... it just sat here collecting dust for the past year. I did at least have a back up to use on occasion.

But then, Dave's computer finally met its end and he HAD to get a new one (and then he had to wait for ever to get his new Internet installed, but that is another story). With the new computer came a service card for the Geek squad. So, for no extra cost, I got to take my computer in to have it checked out and repaired. Turned out, it didn't have a virus in it at all!!! Well, in a way it did.

About 2 years ago, I had let the guy at Staples talk me into getting Norton virus protection (I know, I know. I just didn't know any better then). As it neared renewal time, I started getting reminders on my computer. About 2 weeks before it was to expire, I got a notice and it asked me if I wanted to renew. I clicked on 'no', or 'don't ask me again', or something along that line. Guess that was the wrong thing to do because as it turns out, THAT is what was wrong with my computer!!!

I had tried everything under the sun, that I could do, to fix it myself, including following the advice of a computer savvy friend... took it back in time, and tried to uninstall stuff. My clue should have been that there was no longer any way to uninstall Norton! It would no longer let me click on the uninstall button. Why? Norton was mad that I wouldn't renew! And to 'punish' me, it was blocking me from the Internet!!!

Yep, because I had refused to renew Norton Virus protection, Norton itself BLOCKED me from using my Internet! At the same time, it also blocked me from being able to uninstall Norton itself. Sheesh!!! The Geek squad had to use some special disk that they have to get it out of my computer. Once Norton was out, my computer worked like a dream!!! Yep, I was just a little bit more than mad at Norton and Staples. I am sure Staples knew what would happen and just figured they would make even more money when I brought it back in and tell me it was a virus or something.

NEVER, NEVER, NEVER EVER AGAIN WILL I EVER HAVE ANYTHING TO DO WITH NORTON!!!