More uses for the 4 rules

The four rules work for power tools, tool, especially when you’ve got a 4-year-old helping you. Besides wearing eye and hearing protection, remember:

1. All power tools are always plugged in. (I found myself unplugging my circular saw if I wasn’t actually using it that very minute.)

2. Never hold your (although I suppose it still holds true) the tool near something you don’t want sliced, pierced, ground, spindled or otherwise mutilated to bits.

3. Keep your booger-hooks off the buzz-switch(es) until everything is lined up, and the 4-year-old is in a safe spot.

4. Be sure of what you are cutting/drilling/slicing/dicing and what is under/behind/next to/around it.

I emerged reasonably unscathed (only a couple of splinters, and a blister on my thumb. “We gotta install microwave ovens. Custom kitchen deliveries. We gotta move these refrigerators...” Sorry. Got carried away.) and with a pile of sticks approximately the correct size. Good rules to follow, even off the range.

Oh, and  I saw a bald eagle on my way in to work this morning. I love living where I that is not an uncommon occurrence.

Worms

My driveway was covered with worms last Monday morning. Tuesday, too. It hadn't rained in the night, or for a few days previous, for that matter. I don't know why hundreds of worms decided to throw themselves on this particular grenade on a beautiful, warm spring morning (some sources indicate they might have been mating), but at least I don't feel guilty about it.

Smells of Spring

Sweet Daughter and I got home today and did some work in the yard. She dug holes, and I transplanted a bunch of stuff. I am not a gardener by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a pretty good herb garden going, and I’m working on getting more 18th century appropriate plants put in. A coworker gave me two big pots of lemon balm, I moved a volunteer Redbud tree, a Rose of Sharon, and a bunch of Tansy to more appropriate locations.

Here is what I learned today.

1. A pair of leather gardening gloves is in order. I don’t know what that shrubbery is with the reddish leaves growing by the shed (Japanese Barberry – thanks Google!), but some thorns are the diameter of my darning needles and got caught in my hair and clothes, and some are microscopic and the scratches felt like I’d been bitten by hundreds of tiny wasps. I was not amused.

2. Don’t trust church ladies. The nice one at garden club fundraiser two years ago told me that tansy wouldn’t spread and take over my garden. She lied was mistaken. I bet if there was a grudge match between the tansy and kudzu, the tansy might actually win. Or at least would end up with a “both mangled and killed” result.

3. The yard is lovely when the azaleas, dogwood, camellias AND lilacs are all blooming. It’s lovely enough that I can even ignore all the zombie dandelions ("Laaaawn … we want laaaawn …"). The scent of lilac is like springtime distilled.

4. Bacon and eggs makes a great dinner when you’ve been outside too long, you’re all starving, and have to get dinner on the table fast.

5. While bacon and lilacs each have a wonderful aroma, they don’t go together so well. Frying bacon with the jug of lilacs sitting next to them was a bit… interesting. Sort of like burning plastic, actually.

In case you missed it.

Just in case you were one of the 5 people who missed this last year, I bring you the literal version of "Total Eclipse of the Heart". And if you saw it, watch it again and laugh. Especially if you're of a "certain age". I'm still trying to figure out why my driveway was covered with worms this morning. Maybe I'll have photos tomorrow.

What's in a name?

My little sister-in-law drove down from her home on Saturday afternoon so we could all pile into one car and drive another two hours to my mother-in-law’s house the next day for Easter. As we sat around Saturday evening, each with a glass of wine, my SIL gave a relaxed sigh and said, “This is the house of wine and bacon. That’s what we (she and her boyfriend) call it.”


“The House of Wine and Bacon.”

What a lovely compliment. And where was she when I was looking for a name for this blog?

Foxhunting

When I was in grade school, I was absolutely besotted with horses. I spent a year earning money to take a set of riding lessons. $100 for 10 lessons - this was about 35 years ago, and that was a lot of money. I managed to wrangle a job at that stable, working one afternoon/evening after school and one Sunday each week (totalling about 13 hours) in exchange for a one hour lesson.

Foxhunting was something I never had the opportunity to try. While I loved horses, I was clearly not of the "horsey set", if you know what I mean. And while I've always thought foxhunting was one of those wonderful traditons found in Virginia, I may have to agree the with following e-mail I received, and work to ban foxhunting .

WARNING - Graphic photo below the jump!

So, that event I was talking about …

Our first event of the season took place at Jamestown Settlement. Military Thorough the Ages is a timeline event, and it is judged. We wrangled ourselves an invitation last year to see what it was all about, and we got hooked. The participants are divided into three time periods: Cold Steel, Black Powder and Modern. Since we portray a British Hospital during the American War for Independence, we were part of the Black Powder group. There are three judged categories for each time period, Best Camp Cooking, Best Camp (Material Culture and Interpretation), and Best Uniform/Clothing Impression. There is also an overall Best Unit Demonstration for battlefield interpretation and a Reenactor’s Choice award.

It all makes for a crazy weekend. We didn’t have as much space to set up as we would have liked so we crammed ourselves into our space with the aid of Vaseline (Oh! Not period correct. Maybe I should say lard) and a shoe-horn. The firewood was green and wouldn’t burn (thank goodness for those who packed the period correct charcoal). There wasn’t any room for the kids to spread out and just be kids so we put them to work. The 11-year-old boy was up interpreting dentistry with the men when we weren’t making him haul water. The 9-year-old girl was helping the cook chop vegetables, and Sweet Daughter took over the coffee display solo when her sidekick was helping in the kitchen.

“These are coffee beans. (Points to green beans.) These are done (roasted) coffee beans. This is how you grind them. (She counts out four beans and places them into the copper hopper of coffee mill.) Be very careful not to get your fingers down there (pointing) or you’ll get hurt. (She gives the handle a couple of rotations.) They look like this (shows drawer of ground coffee.) Then she (points to the 9-year-old) puts them in here (points to Turkish burr grinder) and then they look all runny (??) (points to a bowl of finely powdered, burr-ground coffee.) Yeah, I’m biased, but for “teaching” for the first time at age 4 ½, I think she did a great job.

There were over 2.500 visitors on Saturday alone. Our guys that portray doctors and dentists and surgeons (Oh, my!) love this kind of thing. They can, and do, talk all day long. We’ve got a teacher representing one of the women who followed the army and worked for the hospital. We’ve got our cook. They love to teach. Me? Not so much, and I guess I’m still puzzling out why I love this event so much. The amount of time and effort I put into the planning the minutia of this event drives me close to insane. I think it’s because while our medical staff is the undisputed star of our show, it gives us support-types a chance to shine. The public comes to watch Dr. Mike make suppositories (they were a huge hit), or see The Bone, or hear the details of an amputation. Few really care about how to make covered buttons or how to do a prick-stitched lining in a jacket where the edges of the wool are left raw, or how a hand-rolled hem looks on a cap, or what rice and beans grown in the Carolinas in the 18th century look like. These are all really small, nit-picky details, but they all add up to a better impression. And I like this event because it drives me to better my impression.

Well that, and comparatively speaking, every other event of the season will seem like a cinch to plan.