Monthly Archives: May 2025
Well how was I supposed to know?
Went to Rural King the other day to get mutt food and Equine Pine cat litter. My wife asked me if I could get here 1 flat each of Red Sage and Red Impatiens. I said sure and looked em up so I would know what they looked like.
RK didn't have the Red Sage but they had the Impatiens, in 3 distinct variations of red. Oh dear, what to do. So I bought 2 of each color, 6 total. Also, I saw small white flowers called Night Dream and I bought 2 of them too.
I got home and she came out to the vehicle to get her posey's and freeked out. Lemme see if I can describe this.
The flowers themselves are teeny and each is in a small cupcake size plastic container and the containers are grouped in 6 individual flowers. And, there were 4 of the individual containers of 6 in each flat. Apparently my idea of "flat" is diff from what my wife's is.
She explained she only wanted (2 each) of the 6 packs for each of the Sages and Impatiens. I bought 4 times as many as she wanted. So now she has to find a place to plant all that stuff.
During the 40+ years we have been together we always go to some places in the spring and she buys flowers to plant. I don't have much interest in such things so when we get there (Rural King type places) she heads to the garden center and I head to the tools/boots/hardware/baby chickens-ducks area and we meet up later on after she's loaded all the purchases in the vehicle. I never pay much attention to what she buys. On the way home while I'm driving she'll rattle on about where she's going to plant such and such, and how she bought 2 more bags of soil, etc., etc., and while I'm paying attention to the road my mind is also thinking about that Husky chainsaw with the 42" bar or the 48" LED shop lights and various other things that interest me. I may seem to be in conversation with her by nodding my head now and then, and saying, "Yeah" at the appropriate times, I'm in my own world. I've long learned how to fly on auto-pilot. That's why I bought 4 times as many flowers as she was wanting. The flowers are sitting in the shade on the north porch but she will be workin' them this weekend. I'll get out my Stihl chainsaw with 20" bar and get it all spruced up and ready for summer bidnit.
Continue reading →threadbare quilt of patches
My mother in law used to make quilts. Hundreds of them over her lifetime. Old skool, by hand, method.
When our son was born she made a small quilt for him that had kitty’s all over it. Small, like maybe 24 inches by 36 inches, mostly light blue. With kitty’s. lol
Like Linus, our son always had that quilt close by when he was little. So much so that my wife had to distract him so she could put it in the washing machine due to being dragged around everywhere. After awhile it seemed like a weekly thing for her to break out the needle and thread to “fix up” the tattered thing. His “blanky” habit started waning when he was about 6 and one day blanky just disappeared and our son never noticed. He had moved on.
When spring rolls around my wife comes out of her winter cacoon and starts the new year. Washing windows inside and out, rolling up large rugs and hanging them over the railings, scrubbing all the wood floors down to base and then repolishing them, etc. And throwing stuff out.
Old people have a lot of stuff. T’was ever thus I suppose. And my wife hates clutter. Well, in the spring she hates clutter. But the rest of the year the clutter accumulates all over again….
Last week she was going through some boxes from the back of a closet and lo and behold there was our sons kitty blanky. She brought it out to my office and said, “Look what I found!” I looked, and asked, “What is it?”
Instantly, in her eyes, I saw a chasm of hurt, and daggers. In her mind it was impossible for me to not immediately recognize our son’s kitty blanky. But there I was, forgetting all over the place like a pro. Look, I hadn’t seen that thing since the 1980’s and there’s been a lot of water under the dilapidated bridge since then.
She said she was torn about whether to ditch it or put it back in the box. I sort of detected that she was asking rather than telling me something. I told her, “When in doubt, don’t do anything, otherwise you may regret it.”
Later at suppertime she said she put the kitty blanky back in the closet, but had 2 big bags of “stuff” she was going to sit out at the curb.
Continue reading →Dipping Into The Pig Slop Again
Chief U.S. Magistrate Judge Gregory Wormuth ruled that the federal government had failed to demonstrate that the illegal immigrants knew they were entering the restricted New Mexico National Defense Area (NMNDA).
According to court filings dated May 14 and 15, the government argued that it had placed signs in both English and Spanish to declare that the area is a military zone and that any unauthorized entry is prohibited.
But Wormuth stated that this was insufficient to prove that the illegal immigrants knew they were violating security regulations when they entered the areas, as the defendants may have missed the signs.
Why was the military not involved with illegal entry into a restricted military zone?
How many of us have received a ticket, been arrested, or some other such under the concept that "ignorance of the law is no excuse".
How many of us believe illegal aliens don't know they're breaking US law when they cross the border?
How many of us realize we'd be charged or arrested if we crossed illegally into Canada or Mexico, especially into a military zone?
How many of us are getting tired of hearing about "judges"?
How many are beginning to think DJT's administration is yet again just another example of smoke, mirrors, and fluffy talk?
Damn ...
Continue reading →Vacancy
There should be
a poem
here
.
Field Of Yellow
Eye Of The Beholder…
First published by Jean Monday, May 09, 2011
you are not old
who still sees
beauty:
in a smile
older than yours
or a tree that casts
no shade or
a home with peeling paint
or a lone flower in a weedy bed,
in a threadbare quilt of patches,
a day whose only music
is a birdsong or
someone humming
in the kitchen.
I’d Commute In This
Yet Another Day Of Celebration
Yes folks, on this date in 1853, Gail Borden patented his process for creating condensed milk. The product was successful enough that the "Gail Borden Jr., and Company" was founded in Connecticut in 1857. Gail Borden had the same business sense I have but investors saved the company in 1858 and changed the name to the "New York Condensed Milk Company".
Sounds downright "homey", doesn't it?
The company prospered selling condensed milk to the Union Army - samples from 1863 are shown below.
Anyone up to popping a top bottom and sampling the contents?
No? Oh well...
The company started using glass bottles in 1885, evaporated milk in 1892, and changed the name to "Borden's Condensed Milk Company" in 1899, changed again to the "Borden Company" in 1919.
The company reorganized as a holding company in 1929 for Borden's Food Products, Borden's Dairy Products, Borden's Ice Cream and Milk, and Borden's Cheese & Produce.
Borden created the forerunner of Key Lime Pie with its Magic Lemon Cream Pie in 1931.
The company reorganized again as a unified company in 1936, combining the four separate companies, and introduced Elsie the Cow.
Further expansion came about in WWII when the company sold non-dairy creamer, instant coffee, and powdered food.
Yum, yum!
Borden started acquiring smaller companies in the 1950s - Cracker Jack among them - and expanded into inks, fertilizers, and plastics in 1953; they were so successful, the company reorganized again to create a chemical and petroleum division.
It went on another expansion in the 1980s (including the purchase of Meadow Gold), but suffered losses in the early '90s blamed on mismanagement, excessive debt, and too many restructurings (remember the nation-wide craze of mergers and acquisitions of the 1980s?)
The company was bought out in 1995 and shattered into many scattered pieces; the final portion sold to Kraft in 2001. One of the purchasing companies revitalized the name in 2009 but filed for bankruptcy in 2020. The assets were put up for auction, purchased, and continued to operate as "Borden Dairy Company"
The Borden name and Elsie still live on.
Now, isn't that far more than you wanted to know about Borden?
All because I had this photo of old condensed milk cans and found that May 14 is the day Borden filed for his patent.
