“The RoseBouquet”

I knew this little house had mice before I moved in, and I cleaned up a lot of their waste and tried to block off all holes where they might come in. My neighbours tell me there have been mice coming from under my back porch to sample their dogs’ dishes, but so far I had seen none inside my house, so I thought I had succeeded in keeping them out.

However, on Sunday evening, sitting in my recliner for a quick read, I suddenly saw a movement from the kitchen doorway and glanced over in time to see a little dark mouse creeping under my pink chair. Like a flash I jumped and started hollering at that mouse that it was NOT welcome here! I stomped my feet and commanded it to leave.

Nothing. No obedience, no movement.

Then I realized how it must have come in. I had the back door open during the afternoon to let the bright sunshine in from the back porch windows. I know there are some gaps in the outer door frame big enough for a mouse to sneak through. It must have got as far as the kitchn in the afternoon from outside - under my porch.

Well, I think of myself as a pacifist, but I became very active and alert as I inspected where all it could go. Mainly I think it is camping under my desks and filing cabinets. I haven’t seen it leave, but then I haven’t been keeping my eyes on the floor at all times. So it could be anywhere by now. I went downstairs and brought up a box of fabric softener sheets. I had already stuck strips of this in all the cracks in the basement walls, and foundation. Now I laid some under every gap beneath my desks too, around my bed, (horrors - if it should cuddle up close to my face in the night!)

I also called Penny next door, and left a message for her to come over with her cat once they got home in case her cat was a mouser.

She did, but Buddy is NOT a mouser. He prowled and sniffed and just knew there was something under my desk, but he shivered with fear.

Other friends gave me a couple of new mouse traps some weeks ago, but when I tried to set one, I only caught my own finger in it. What a strong spring! So those are handy if anyone comes over and is able to set them. Since yesterday was a holiday (because Remembrance Day fell on Sunday) I had to wait until today to go shopping for mouse poison. That’s on my to-do list right after finishing this RoseBouquet.

I wasn’t too keen on finding desiccated mice all over the house, but now I’m desperate enough and am declaring a fresh, intensive offensive in this war! I will be rid of all mice in this house - and under the back porch too!

Whew! I have just spent ALL morning at this photo story of the craft party! I think I’m going to short-change some of the other sections to get this out now in record time.

You can see and read all about the Craft Party I had on Halloween night here; Craft Party Photos

I have enjoyed some extra fine blessings here at home though in the past week. Let me quickly mention them. On Friday, Henry Dyck, the widower, whose wife Tina was a corrector at our mission, came over to help me with my plumbing problems. In one morning he fixed the steady leak under the bathroom sink, and also the cold water tap in the tub that just spun around. (I had to carry cold water to the tub from the kitchen each time I wanted a bath). I just had to pay about $21 for the fittings he had to go buy.

On Thursday, neighbours Joe and Penny took me shopping at Home Depot for the fittings needed to fix my gate and back fence. yesterday afternoon I came back from my lunch walk to find Joe and Arnold building me a new gate and fence! By 5 pm they were done. I went out to clean up and then brought my car into the back yard and locked the gate with the new gold padlock!

We’ve just decided not to hold our breath any more for the RRAP gov’t inspector. Some things can be done without their “okay.”

I’ve got boxes and greeting cards strewn all over my living room last week and this - well, until tomorrow night. Then I hope to get it all cleaned up and put away.

Who am I kidding? I still have to get around to making my own big batch of Christmas cards and gifts. All this has been in preparation for a Craft Party tomorrow night, as a Halloween alternative.

A few weeks ago, Arnold Stobbe, the director and I were talking at our Western Tract Mission offices. I mentioned that I had not had the heart to throw out 4-6 boxes of old greeting cards in my move, and now I was trying to use up a bunch for my Christmas gifts and mailing. He pulled a shopping bag full of cards up from behind his desk, and asked what to do about those. Oh my! I suggested a craft party to get others in on using them up. Arnold loved the idea. “Go for it!” he said. “You can even use the large meeting room downstairs.”

So I’ve been making invitations and handing out whenever I get a chance, and I’ve managed to sort through three generations and several families’ old greeting cards. I pulled out all those that had notes that might help me with family history, and that were personal in nature, and now I have four boxes of cards ready to offer up. Hundreds!

I also asked the printing company where we get our WTM printing done for cuttings. I got 3 boxes full! I’m well stocked up.

Basically, I’ll show them how I make pretty gift boxes with the cards, and a few other quick things, like booklet covers, bookmarks, and so forth, (maybe even a laced up basket). Then I’ll circulate around the room and help those who need help, or who want to chat.

I’ve also made a batch of Prachakuchen (begger’s cookies) and need to finish making a chocolate berry flan. I’ve no idea how many will actually show up, but I’ll have some food to offer.

I’ve already promised one subscriber a photo story of this project next week, so you’ll get to attend vicariously. You might be able to throw a craft party at your house too.

As I’ve said I try to do most of my domestic chores on Saturdays. Slowly I’m getting more of the yard work done , and also tidying up inside. This past Saturday, a friend from WTM who is a part-time farmer, part-time business man, brought over his rotortiller in the trunk of his car, and went through my garden for me. I had been sort of wishing someone would offer to do this. I can’t recall that I prayed very hard about it. So it was a nice surprise.

While we were pulling wilted squash vines from his rotor’s blades in the back alley, a man from the Granada family restaurant came over. He’d been standing outside their kitchen doors for a smoke. He said that it was nice to see some “decent” people living in this place for a change.

I ignored the implication that we might be a couple, but thanked the man, and mentioned that my neighbours on both sides had been glad to see me move in too.

It gave me a good feeling to know that other neighbors have noticed the change in ownership at this address. This includes the staff at the restaurant - I had no idea they were watching me so closely.

After Lynn left, I took my spade and dragged what was left of a bag of peat moss around to the front and scattering the clods into my flower bed, took time to spade up the bed in the front of the porch and along the sidewalk on the one side. I left the other side for next Saturday.

Inside I’ve been re-organizing my bedroom cabinets and also my office desk drawers. The top of my desks still has to-be-filed boxes on them, but I’m making progress. When I’ve got things more neatly arranged, I think I’ll start taking photos for my annual Christmas story in my card.

I’ve also been waiting and waiting for the inspector to come assess the repair projects still needed on this house, but which the RRAP plan of the government might cover. Last week I learned that they are three months behind, then got another call, and the woman said I should hear from the inspector soon. That has got my hopes up that it could still happen before winter really arrives with a vengeance.

This is something I do pray about daily for it could involve a new roof, new furnace, new water heater, plumbing fixes, outer doors, maybe windows, and a new back fence and gate. If you’d like to join me in prayer - I’d be so honoured!

By the way, my face has nearly lost all those vivid colours, and my knee is okay except for kneeling on it. My nose may have a hairline fracture, but is okay as long as I don’t manipulate it. , and I should have my new lens soon. Perhaps today yet. A big thank you to all who wrote to express sympathy for that minor crisis.

Have you ever had a streak of good things happen and then suddenly something bad happens? Life just seems to grind to a halt, doesn’t it? Well, that’s my spot right now. Lots of positive and encouraging things have been happening to me, to give me a cozy loved feeling.

In fact, last week Thursday a pen pal and her brother from Alberta showed up and sort of kidnapped me to take me shopping and shower me with gifts. (Just wait until I can do that for others!) Another friend brought over some potatoes from his farm on Friday, and I bought an SBI site. I made major progress on my unpacking, this time all my sewing stuff, on Saturday. Sunday was good too. Someone slipped me some money in church. Things were just coming along tickity-boo.

But yesterday morning when I called the government RRAP program to see how much longer I would have to wait for the inspector who is to okay some renovation projects around here that they will pay for - I learned they are backlogged for three months!

When I left for my 3 times a week exercise/walk to the Western Tract Mission office to have lunch with the staff, who are also my friends, I was all excited because I’d had a call about Elsie’s stereo and these people were going to meet me there. I’d only gone less than ten minutes into that 30 minute walk when SPLAT! I found myself on my face on the sidewalk. My runner must have caught an up-raised crack in the cement, and before I knew I was falling I was connected with the hard cement!

I managed to roll over to a sitting position and whimpered aloud, “Oh Lord Jesus, come help me! Help me!” My left knee was feeling really bruised and raw, so I hugged it. My glasses were bent out of shape, but I managed to look at them and put them back on. Not broken. My nose felt scrounched into my face.

In moments a strong young man showed up and asked how I was. I realized that the worst was probably the shock, but if I continued to walk to WTM, by the time I got there or wanted to head home, my knee might be too swollen. So I just asked him to help me get to my feet, and then I went home. On the way I felt better already and decided that I could take the car and still keep my appointment. I grabbed a small pair of pliers to bend the left arm of my glasses with Joe’s help, if I couldn’t do it. Took a look into a mirror and saw that I had a bit of blood in my left eyebrow and my nose was getting a thick bridge, but otherwise I was whole. The worst damage was the scratches on my left lens of my glasses. I washed them, and still they seemed dirty. The cement had done a number on the left one.

I showed that couple the stereo, and received a mid-month support check from Helen, (which had extra in it!) so I headed out to do my banking and then went to an optician whom I’ve seen in the past, who is able to order in my special prescription lens and get it inserted in a local lab, so I will only have to be without my glasses for about 10-20 minutes next week.

Today I’m counting my blessings again, and realize that it could have been much worse. The one lens alone cost me $237. If my glasses had been irrepairably broken, it would have cost me over $500! I might have had broken bones too. Now I’m just going to have a colourful face for about a week or two. I’m able to carry on and feel blessed and watched over.

However, I am seriously considering asking the Lord each time I set out to send me an angel as a walking companion. One who can grab me quick before I go down! Have you ever tried that? Does it work?

What’s that? You’re worried about me and need to see my face?

Oh, all right. I can be that humble…

last night’s coloration - and improved this morning.

Yesterday, the second Monday of October, was the Canadian national holiday, Thanksgiving. In this area many people pick and choose which day of the weekend they will celebrate it with the big Thanksgiving meal. Married couples have to juggle family gatherings for both sides of their family, usually one day for the wife’s side of the family and another for the husband’s parents and siblings - and their families. If the couple have grown children who are married, they have to juggle schedules to have a gathering for their own family and the families of their sons and daughters-in-law. Some folks eat big meals on Saturday, Sunday AND Monday!

In my case, things are quite simple. Except for my brother Tom, my siblings are too far away. Sometimes in the past they have come “home” for Thanksgiving, but that was because they wanted to connect with our parent(s). In recent years, I prepared a meal and then would take it and Dad into the city to visit Tom and spend a few hours with him. (That was easier than driving into the city to pick him and his wheelchair up, bring him home, and then take him back again).

Now it is just Tom and me right here in Saskatoon, so my routine was even simpler. I checked with him and decided that Sunday supper would be our time of eating the turkey meal together. I prepared it at home, and took it to his place, and because of the much shorter distance, I didn’t have to re-heat it in his kitchen.

My one problem was that since I had bought a very small turkey I started it in a crock pot where it ju-st fit. About 4 pm when I checked it, it was still bleeding when I stabbed it. So to speed things up I lifted the liner out of the crock, covered the bird with foil and put it into the oven. By 6 pm it was done nicely, and I had already mashed the potatoes and put them into a covered dish, made the gravy, and a topping for the pumpkin pie.

I told Tom that I’d heard on the radio there was to be a phone in show the next morning on whether eating turkey makes one sleepy. I felt it did. That night I found out it was so! My head kept nodding off while I tried to finish one regular email I always send out on Sunday nights.

Yesterday and today I’ve been simmering the bones and trimmed meats, and juices in a crock. Just now I’ve added some vegetables. This should make a large quantity of turkey vegetable soup, which I can divide into containers for the freezer, and enjoy quick defrost and heat soups for some time to come.

Then there’s the left over turkey to cut up and squirrel away in the freezer too. That one birdie, costing me 6.80, is going to give me a lot of fine meals yet! Yum, (smacking my lips).

Do you do things that way too?

On Saturday morning I managed to get a my eavestroughs cleaned out. It hadn’t been done for years. Messy job! I got a lot of mess on me, but fortunately I’m washable. It was misting while I did it, but just as I finished, it began to rain in earnest. I went inside praising the Lord, and worked at cleaning myself thoroughly.

Then I focused on organizing one end of my bookshelves and my desk. I didn’t finish but I feel great about the amount of work I got done. I made major progress!

A week ago Sunday I took a supper over to my brother Tom’s and he wanted me to take away two used microwaves that had been left behind when others died or moved out of his apartment building. I put them in the trunk of my car, thinking to offer them to the sponsors at my church, who are looking after some refugees from Thailand that arrived a few weeks ago. But when I checked with the woman in charge at church, she said that they didn’t feel they needed the microwaves, but they wouldn’t mind the two chairs of Tom’s I’d told her about.

Well, I’ve been helping by picking up the refugee family of six the last few Sundays, so while we were driving back to the city I ask “my family” if they would like a microwave. They said yes. So when I got to their apartment address I opened the trunk to give them one of the microwaves.

Just then another family arrived at the car. These, I believe, were the friends of theirs, that they told me had just arrived the previous week. I asked if they’d like one too. They chattered among themselves, and suddenly one of the first family’s young boys piped up, “They said Yes.” So I gladly handed over the second microwave.

I drove away feeling the joy of giving, and was quite pleased that it had been so easy to give them away.

The next morning it hit me; what if they don’t know how to use them? They might burn themselves or break dishes that shouldn’t go in! Oh well,

There’s lots to do all week, but I guess the more fun things to describe to you are what I do on Saturdays. I had another very productive Saturday this last weekend. The weather was gorgeous. A perfect Indian Summer day! I would love to see another two months like that.

I dug up my potatoes, harvested the squash and zucchini (found a couple of biggies I hadn’t noticed before) and chopped up all that greenery to dry up for compost. I tossed the potatoes to the grassy side of the yard and let them dry off in the sun the way Dad would have. Later in the afternoon I put on his thick rubber gloves and sat on an over turned pail to dust the potatoes off and put them into pails. The 10 gallon pail was not quite full. I’m afraid I’ll have eaten in just a few weeks.

The pail of stabbed or injured potatoes I gave away to my neighbours. (Joe had been hunting and gave me some fresh venison, which I shared with my brother Tom, in a Sunday supper I took to his place).

I also dug up my dahlia roots to save for next spring. Fortunately they have multiplied nicely, which means I’ll have more plants next summer. I only got two flowers from this year’s growth. I brought them inside to put in a bowl for my dining table.

Just now I had a call from someone who helps his relatives farm out in the country. They are waiting for a week of dry weather so they can finish harvesting about 10 more quarter sections of crops. This makes me realize that I did well to get my whole harvest done in one day.

This next Saturday I hope to see how much of the garden soil I can turn over with a spade to work the compost and peat moss into it. Where the potatoes grew the soil is much softer and looser than the rest of the garden, so growing potatoes was s good move. But it will take more effort, probably over several years, to get the kind of rich garden soil and flower beds that we had in Hague.

Saturday was a a wonderful Indian summer day. Sunny, warm, and yet with the taste of autumn in the air. A perfect day to make that garden shed really mine. A teen age girl had volunteered to come help me after her morning youth group meeting, so in the morning I did a bit of cleaning inside and then went out to start carrying my garden tools and scrap lumber into the shed.

Close to noon I realized that I better get the paints ready so that when I had picked up Chelsea and brought her over, we could get right to the painting of the shed. I brought up a number of pails of paint from the basement and opened and stirred several. Finally I decided on the pail and a half of stain for the first coat. The other amounts were smaller and might do for trim - or if I should get carried away, then maybe to decorate it like a gingerbread house.

This stain looked like a thin grey soup, and the wood drank it up in the first coat Chelsea and I gave it. We decided there was enough of the stain to do a second coat. This one stayed more on the surface and made the shed glitter as if we were painting with silver! Wow! I felt quite pleased.

Later it dried to a plain grey. Still it did wonders for making the shed look more perky and clean. We went into the house for a cookie break, and Chelsea showed me her photos of her trip to Egypt this past summer with Teen Missions.

After Chelsea’s Mom came to pick her about 4:30 or 5, I went back out and although the light green outdoor paint was quite lumpy I decided to try it on the trim on the back of the shed. Well, it gooped up the brush quite a lot, but it would do, I decided, so I finished the job.

I’ve added photos to this page, 903-garden-shed.shtml

In a way I had hoped there might be time to dig up my potato crop too, but as I was about to start I could hear Dad scolding me for trying to do this so late in the day. He would always insist on digging up the potatoes early in the day, brush them off and let them dry on the grass until the end of the day, so that they wouldn’t have moist soil on them when he brought them in for the winter, as that would pretty well guarantee some potatoes would go mushy and bad.

I marvelled that just memories of what Dad would say or do could guide me now. I decided to dig up just one small pail of the purple potatoes for use in the kitchen. Mainly because I wanted to see how big they had grown. I dug up two plants and had a good pot full, (which I cooked on Sunday in the crock), but they were only half or a third of the size Dad usually grew.

Mind you, he liked to plant them in April, not mid-June as I had done this year.

This morning I see that the trees all around have golden leaves. We’ve had some touches of frost and it is high time I harvest the garden for the winter. But this week is so busy it will have to wait until this next Saturday. Basically it will be my potato crop, a number of green squash (I guess they can ripen in the house), and my dahlia roots. I have two dahlia blooms!

The tomato plants grew to a good size and have lots of blossoms, but it’s too late to expect any fruit from them. Too bad. Well next year I will start my garden earlier again, and have a bountiful harvest of everything.

I received yesterday a very special gift. A used garden shed was delivered to my backyard.

My friends, Helen and Wendell, a couple that work at Western Tract Mission, are getting a new garage built in their backyard. But they already have several small buildings and by city ordnance, they are only allowed so many, thus they offered to give me their small garden shed.

Hey, sure! That would be great. It would give me a place to store my garden tools, and some lumber and I wouldn’t have to try to squeeze it all into my already full house. Yesterday Helen called to say that Wendell was hiring a flatbed truck and driver to deliver it to me. I opened the back gate and went inside to work at my computer while I waited. It was about 4:30 when they came into the back alley.

I tried to be helpful, but I also had my camera with me. Since I haven’t had time to get an article ready…I’ll whip up another photo story.

There! That’s done. A Gift of a Garden Shed