76 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 6-16-18”

  2. Lady bugs are nice insects. Around here, though, they have been replaced by an Asian version that bites. Someone had the not-so-bright idea of importing the critters in order to control the aphid population in the soybean crops. As usual with these lame-brained ideas, the bugs are now the problem. They have almost wiped out the native lady bugs and have no natural predators here. The birds won’t even eat them since they evidently don’t taste so good. And pesticides haven’t worked either. Plus, when you squash one, they put out an odor that isn’t pleasant. They get into houses and are everywhere.

    When will we learn that if a creature or plant is not native to an area there is a reason for it? I can think of several examples: kudzu in the South, Russian thistle (tumble weeds) and Bermuda grass in the West, and the list goes on.

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  5. Peter, I think that header is one of the Asian insects.

    Starlings and house sparrows are also not native here. But then, so are honeybees, and many people talk as though their recent “decline” spells doom. I assume chickens aren’t native to America, either, nor are horses.

    But animals or plants brought here on purpose, and since spread out of control, are legion. In Nashville I had to watch for baby mimosa trees. The full-size tree was actually gorgeous, but invasive, and I didn’t want one in my yard. The previous owners had allowed two or more plants to take root and get a couple years growth; one of those was touching my house or really close to it, but it was too big to get it with loppers, and so I elected simply to remove any green growth repeatedly. After a couple of years it died and began to weaken, and eventually I think I pulled it out of the ground. But neighbors a few doors down allowed one to grow in their drainage ditch, very near where the water entered it, and I thought they were just asking for damage to the concrete and to their drainage. It wasn’t a good place for a tree, but it was still there last I saw, and quite a few years old and fairly large.

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  7. Sitting in a massage chair at a nail salon—my job is to jolly the mother of the groom on wedding day. With her two fun-loving sister-in-laws this should be a wild morning. Pedicure anyone else?

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  9. Morning! Oh I love lady bugs…there was one on my windshield last week when I was leaving Home Depot….I stopped and let her fly away. Cheryl what is the difference in appearance distinguishing the Asian from our domestic bugs? That one on the header does seem to have sharp detailing in the markings? I have yet to bitten by a lady bug and hope to never have the experience!
    Sounds as though Michelle is having a fun day on her “other coast”! I have never had a pedicure (do not look at my feet!) No really…when my toes are touched or rubbed, I physically feel nauseous….I just cannot allow it at all!! 😊

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  10. I guess I will have to break the news to husband that he is a wimp. Though Chas understood his problem. But he elected to drive at night when it is cooler rather than day. He is over by knoxville now.

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  12. Many of the crops that the honeybees pollinate are not native to this country either – apples, pears, and cherries are all non-native to North America, coming from Asia via Europe. Wheat is another European import, originating from the Middle East. The chicken is also originally from Asia. While the buffalo is native to North America, the domestic cow is not. Some of the worst pests that threaten North America were not brought here intentionally, like the emerald ash bore, which has killed most of our ash trees, or the zebra mussel, which has spread through the Great Lakes, but rather hitched a ride on imported goods.

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  13. I’ve never had a pedicure — OR even a manicure.

    OK, today is paint shopping day. I need to get the list going — and I think I’ll get the sample cans for my indoor colors while I’m at it, but just for the one set of colors that I think I have now chosen. It’ll probably be crowded with the sale, and I’m thinking I’ll have to pick most of my paint up later as they surely have to mix it, right? There are too many colors to have them all in stock in big quantities, I’d think.

    I should probably call Dog Park Painter before I go, he wants a specific kind of primer.

    We’re in for some cool wether in the next week, which will be pleasant for some of us (others are yearning for summer to begin already).

    Friend in a neighboring city was up early this morning and saw one of the neighbor’s cats flying through the air and landing on the top of her sliding glass door screen — with a coyote giving chase. She ran out and scared the coyote off but i’m guessing he’ll be back. They should probably lock the cat up for a good while.

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  17. Should the parents pay for the five year old tipping over the sculpture and destroying it? Or is the place at fault for not securing the artwork?

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  18. We have peafowl in our area, brought here by someone in the 1930s. They’re beautiful but noisy and messy and they cause all kinds of issues for homeowners (they’re not in our immediate neighborhood as of yet, thankfully, but they are just to the south and west of us). I remember driving on a narrow road cutting through the peninsula on my way home from work one day a couple years ago and having to stop while a long-plumed peacock slowly sauntered his way across the road.

    There’s continual debate over the “native” status of our coyotes which have largely been indigenous to the central plains but quite recently have spread out in all directions, reaching both coasts. The disappearance of the wolf population, coyotes’ primary predator, is thought to have been a major factor in why coyotes have thrived and experienced such a population boom.

    We have buffalo roaming across Catalina Island just off our shoreline, apparently brought to the island in the early to mid-1900s for a film shoot.

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  19. I have thought of getting peafowl here. They are pretty and I have room for their mess and trees for roosting and predators to keep them contained. But I don’t have any desire to spend three hundred dollars on coyote food.

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  21. The thinking is that while coyotes will go after peafowl, the birds are so crazy-ornery that coyotes tend to look for easier catches.

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  27. I suppose that is more appropriation.

    Cheryl, we generally just donate dead bodies to them, or parts. So, the cost of some grass and weeds.

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  30. California is very excited about wolves crossing over our borders now. So who knows?

    Interesting how the predator protection movement will play out in the long run. Seems like we like to go from one extreme (wiping a species out) to the other (inviting them to live nicely among us in harmony).

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  31. I tried to give blood this morning, but the nurse didn’t get the needle quite right in the vein and after a few minutes gave up and took it out. That’s the second time in a year that has happened, not sure if it was the second time in a row or not (other times I’ve been deferred for low iron or got sick and had to cancel, so I’m not sure when’s the last time I gave successfully). When I was a young adult nurses had trouble with my veins (once after fasting over 12 hours for a blood draw, where the nurse tried both arms and failed with both, much to my annoyance). But for the past couple of decades it almost always went fine. I was not expecting things to get worse again in that regard.

    Very hot today, currently 92 degrees and feels like 109. One of these weekends I want to get my bike tires pumped up and get back into riding, but not today. I suppose we could go to the Y and use the pool – my husband walks around the pool for exercise and I walk with him to keep him company (otherwise he doesn’t go). Last time our son jogged outside (because the indoor track is closed for construction – the whole facility has been getting an upgrade), but today’s not a good day for that either. My husband is encouraging him to train for a 5K, which I’d enjoy doing with him if my knee and foot would handle it but I doubt they would. The question is whether I can manage walking that far while he jogs.

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  32. OK, the wunderground.com page seems to have the wrong numbers. Another page says it is currently 92 degrees and 101 degrees with the heat index, which seems more reasonable. Although frankly I’m not sure I would know how to tell the difference, it’s just plain HOT.

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  34. 65 and cloudy here. I love gloomy weather. We get so much sun and heat later in the summer and fall (it was 90+ degrees last Thanksgiving!) that I will take all the cool gloominess I can while we can still get it!

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  35. Midwest heat & humidity is almost unbearable for me, we don’t get much of that kind of hot “sticky” weather on the coast, thankfully.

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  40. I always ask for a butterfly needle on a blood draw. After donating blood for so many years, I was shocked to realize I have tracks on my arms!

    My feet are beautiful and feel wonderful. We went to Michaels and bought pretty paper and have made fans for the wedding– I didn’t bring a hat and it is hot.

    The sisters are hysterical and we just came in from laughing so hard, I could scarcely see to drive for the tears.

    Now I’m down for a rest and to ice my knee for a couple hours.

    An outdoor wedding in the country– so my perfume (at least around the ankles) will be eau de OFF!

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  43. PeterL, When were you coming through NM? I actually live on hwy 54. Give me a date and we will try to make it work.

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  44. I think another difference between our lady bugs and the Asian is the color. Now thar I look closrr, I see that the bug above is red-orange. The Asian bugs are more orange whereas the American ones are red.

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  45. The development where my home in CA is is overrun by turkeys, deer, and Canadian geese. I am sure that coyotes would love it.

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  48. Got caught up with this week’s posts this afternoon. A few comments on earlier discussions:

    Insect bites: try cutting open an onion and rubbing it on the bite. I was surprised to discover recently how effective that is in relieving the itch.

    Dreams: I dream about living and deceased people both. My grandparents who lived next door to me as a child end up in my dreams occasionally, but rarely or never do my grandparents who lived in town, even though we saw them a lot, too.

    Also somewhat related to one of the discussions this week:

    When I lost my first grandparent (I was 11 at the time), my mom was at the hospital at the time of his passing, and I found out from her soon after. So this next isn’t about some ghostly apparition or something appearing to me at the time of Grandpa’s death, but in the early weeks (or maybe months) after his decease, there were two or three occasions where I laid awake in my bed at night and saw a ghostly white form in the doorway to my bedroom.

    It didn’t scare me, but neither did I think it was just my imagination. But I’d always think of Grandpa right then.

    I never mentioned that to anyone, and it only happened a few times that I recall, and then never again.

    As much as I often feel the need to analyze why unusual events occur as they do, I’ve never felt driven to try to figure out anything about that series of occurrences.

    The conversation here the other day reminded me of that; otherwise, I don’t think about it at all.

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  49. Cheryl, thanks for that article link. I will be using that with 4th Arrow, as we’re about to begin a book on logical fallacies.

    There sure were a lot of uses of “could,” “might,” “may” in that article, I noticed, besides everything else wrong with it.

    I had a bunch of snarky things I was saying under my breath, reading it. 😉

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  50. My summer project with cataloging my music is going well. I hit my stride this week after some uncertain fits and starts, and feel like I have more of a handle on categorizing what I’ve got, so I can use it well at the appropriate time.

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  51. Peter, I’m D3 in my house. In my experience, the grandmother feeds them, the aunt entertains them, and the grandfather gets on their case when they get out of line.

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  52. DJ, I didn’t get much unpacking done this week, as I’d already unpacked just about everything that had a place to go! But we got a printer stand (and my husband put it together) and a microwave cart (likewise), and both of those gave me a small bit of storage for selected items. And we got the toilets this week; one got put in tonight, and in preparation, we removed wallpaper, cleaned, and painted the walls where it was going. (That bathroom was really filthy, so cleaning it was a “bit by bit” process, but now it is mostly finished and we have a toilet in it and a vanity waiting to be installed.) We next painted my husband’s studio, because a sleeper sofa is being delivered Tuesday. And I’ve organized things better, and I forget what else. Well, wallpaper removal.

    Craft storage is supposed to arrive this coming week (an Ikea order), and once it arrives and is assembled, nearly everything else can finally be put away. We’ll need to buy another bookcase or two, and we will still have decorative stuff in boxes (pictures for the walls, ceramic decorations, etc.), but what boxes remain can be put in out of the way places and the house can be tidied.

    But this evening we are waiting on a visitor–our younger daughter drove down for Father’s Day, and we got a call from her 90 minutes or so ago that she was checking into her hotel, would get something to eat, and then would come by. (In the future, she can stay with us if she wants–though she likes hotels and may not–but this time staying with us would mean sleeping on a couch surrounded by boxes.)

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  53. Cheryl, I think you’re more unpacked then we are — twenty-nine years this month since we moved here. 😛

    Why, there’s our Christmas tree sitting in an open box ten feet away from me! Fortunately, this is the basement, not where I conduct business.

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  54. Kathaleena, some time back (last year, was it?) you mentioned the book Finding Grace in the Face of Dementia. They didn’t have it in our local library system, and the reference librarian said the only libraries she could get it from wouldn’t loan it because it was so new. But she promised she’d put out the notice again later to see if she could get it for me.

    It just came in for me this week. 🙂 I’ve begun reading it — only the introduction so far — and it seems good. Thanks much for the recommendation.

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  56. Roscuro- We all did our part to entertain them and feed them, etc. The game D1 went to is on Fox, so the children all wanted to watch in case their parents were on TV.

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  59. Good morning. I am back at work and have access to a computer.

    Happy Father’s Day to all of you wonderful dads out there!

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  60. Happy Father’s Day to you Peter and all the Dads here in our little community.
    We are still waiting on that rain the forecasters keep chatting about around here. The sky is cloudy this morning so this just might be the day…may it be so!! ☔️ 🌧

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  62. Happy Father’s Day to all our Wandering Views fathers!

    Praying X, and my daughters (who will be missing their own father today), will be drawn today to find God as their Heavenly Father.

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  64. Thankful my father has been allowed to stay with us for a while longer. My mother said that he is starting to regain his energy. He was able to be outside with Tiny Niece for a while yesterday. Hopefully that means the blood clots are dissolving, and his circulation is going back to normal.

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  65. I’m in for the morning, I slept late 😦 after being up a couple hours in the early morning and unable to get back to sleep right away. I’m missing the visit of our Czech Republic missionaries who were to be with us and serving in the pulpit (I believe) this morning.

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  66. We got some rain!! Oh the delicious scent of new fallen rain…I had forgotten what it was like! I sat on the front porch with the dog and enjoyed the experience….as soon as it thundered she was ready to scoot indoors. 🐶 🌧

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  69. In yesterdays message, the fellow preaching mentioned that his sister had just died the night before, we had all been praying for her and his family. He shared with us his last goodbye as he had recently gone home for a visit. He told her they would next meet in heaven and she agreed. But then he said that another, unbelieving sister was there. She said, oh, that’s right, you have that, I don’t have anything to look forward to. I am praying that the funeral might enlighten her and that she would realize that she could see her sister again.

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  70. Yesterday on the prayer thread, I mentioned X giving me a hug. I chose not to mention that to Nightingale as I thought she would be angry that I let him do that, and worry that I was falling for some con of his, although I realized that The Boy might mention it to her.

    Today she is not happy with him. She had me text him earlier, asking him to have The Boy hone by 6:00 since it is a school night. When 6:00 came, and I hadn’t heard back from him, I texted him close to 6:30 asking if they’d be back soon. I finally heard that he’d drop him off at 7:15, and he said he forgot that it was Sunday. (Although he knew it was Father’s Day, as The Boy gave him a homemade card and a little gift – a baggie filled with popcorn and goldfish crackers. 🙂 )

    A little while ago, he called to say they are running behind, and it looks like The Boy won’t be home till after 8:00. Nightingale is highly annoyed about this.

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  71. Okay, The Boy is home.

    X got out of the car to get something out for The Boy. He smiled at me, and after he hugged The Boy goodbye, he wished me a good evening, and said “I love you”. I kind of mumbled it back, feeling slightly uncomfortable.

    This feels so odd. Until yesterday’s emotional conversation, he would just stay in the car when he dropped off The Boy, and any talking we did was minimal, usually about when he would be back or some such.

    Part of me is liking this, but the other part of me is feeling that maybe I’m “being played”. Has me feeling kind of off-balance.

    I can’t talk to Nightingale about this, beyond what I already told her about the phone conversation yesterday. She highly distrusts him, and has warned me in the past that he may try to make nice with me (and Hubby, when he was alive) to get me/us on his side against Nightingale, which he did in fact try at that time.

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  72. Praying our Lord will give to you discernment and wisdom with your interactions with X. Kizzie I know you as a woman seeking the direction of our Lord….and I trust He will guide you. You have not asked to be placed in the middle of this but here you are finding yourself. Your girl will need to trust that you can make wise decisions concerning such matters. I will be asking our Lord to watch over you all and give to you divine direction as only He can give. ♥️

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  73. Thank you, NancyJill!

    Sadly, my girl does not trust me to always make wise decisions where X is concerned, as she thinks (and I have proven to be at times) too naive about him.

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  76. Well, I came here to catch up when the count was at 73, but I thought I’d let someone else have it. Good job, mumsee.

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