Life

My wife started a new job last week at the university! And my metamour (wife's girlfriend) moved in with us! Both good things but it's a lot of change at once that's been stressful.

I found a good reading spot in the woods behind our house -- it's along an intermittent creek bed and has a bunch of huge boulders that are comfortable and cool even when it's hot out. There's just enough cell service to send texts which is perfect.

Gardening

We are trying to grow some tomatoes and peppers and basil this year. Yesterday I put up some chicken wire to keep rabbits and deer from eating the pepper plants -- I hope they make it; one is missing quite a few leaves. We also started some oregano, parsley, and chives from seeds. They're doing pretty well but aren't quite ready to go outside yet. I'm trying to sprout some jalapeno seeds too but those may not do anything...we'll see.

There's a bunch of wild spicebush growing in the woods. The leaves smell heavenly when crushed up so I think I'm going to look up how to make tea from them. Apparently you can use the berries like allspice too?

More life

We live down a little gravel road off a state highway. Years and years ago there used to be a bridge over a creek a bit further past our house, but it has been out for so long that you can't even see where it used to be. The other side of our road connects to another state highway that goes to a town south of us. I guess taking our road would have saved a few miles over just following the state highways -- recently some GPS company twiddled some parameters of their algorithm and started routing semi trucks down our road since their maps don't know the bridge is out.

Which is great except for there is nowhere for them to turn around -- they have to reverse over a mile until they reach a driveway big enough for them to three-point turn in.

One night we're laying in bed just falling asleep -- it's maybe 1 AM or so -- and a semi truck comes down the road, stops at the gate across it, and starts reversing. We watch for a bit; he manages to get up to about where our driveway is. My wife says, "I wonder if we're going to have a mailbox in the morning" --

and immediately after we hear a drawn-out crunch as he runs over our mailbox.

Well, alright then -- we get up, put on pants/boots/coats, get the gun (just in case), flashlight, go out and see what's up. He's friendly and seems like he's pretty new to the truck driving business, so we end up helping him reverse further up the road until he gets stuck in a ditch.

So, anyway, I have a new mailbox now. ~fin~