August 17, 2024 – Saturday
It was sunny this morning, and overcast and humid in the afternoon.
Using my weedeater, I trimmed the weeds and tall grass between the kitchen gazebo and the shed. Then I turned to trimming the weeds that create the pesky little burrs from the area arond the tire garden and over the septic system.
One of the packages I picked up from the post office was a long awaited live animal trap. I had tried to order one while I was here on my last trip, and twice, it failed to arrive for whatever reasons. I had set the live animal trap past night, and this morning there was a cat in it!
Now I was faced with the question – what do I do with it?
I fixed myself breakfast while I pondered this question. My phone rang as I was washing my breakfast dishes. It was my neighbor. He said that it appeared that one of his cats was caught in my trap . . . and would I be kind enough to return it to him to take away. He said that he understood why I did not want them in my kitchen.
I gave him the trap with the cat in it. An hour later, he returned the empty trap along with a bag of oranges. He had released it on the opposite side of his property and hopefully it had learned its lesson!
Then, I used the weed eater to trim the grass around the entry to the driveway at Ahi… until it ran out of string!
I went on line and ordered some more spools of string.
I called Gary and asked him to deliver a load of 2 1/2″ minus gravel to my property at Ahi. 2 1/2″ minus means that nothing larger than what will pass through a screen with 2 1/2″ openings should be in the load. The load containing about 13 or 14 tons cost $550.00 and was a full load for a 10 wheeled dump truck. I had it dumped at the top of the driveway.
After he had dumped this load, I ordered another load for the Holowai Property. This arrived about 45 minutes later, and I had him dump it in two piles – one on each side of the driveway!
At about 6:00 PM, I was sitting in the gazebo after I had just finished dinner. Dinner – I browned some hamburger meat, then opened a can of tomato sauce and put about a third of it into a saucepan. I had a small bottle of mushrooms, and added a few tablespoons of mushroom pieces to the tomato sauce. Sprinkled in some Mexican oregano, basil leaves, parsley flakes, a bit of salt and black pepper and heated this until it was simmering. I peeled a small yellow squash and cut it into 1″ chunks and put it into another saucepan to boil. Then I added the browned hamburger to the sauce in the other saucepan. Once the squash had cooked, I added it also to the sauce as it simmered. Into the empty saucepan, I placed a few handfuls of elbow macaroni and a bit of water and started this to boil. Once the macaroni was cooked, I added it to the toato sauce concoction and sprinkled some crumbled cheese on top with the lid on the pan on a burner and turned off the flame. I tried to grate the cheese using my grater, but it only crumbled. Once the cheese had melted, I served it onto a plate (I guess I could have eaten it right out of the pan, but I prefer to be just a tiny bit more civilized!) . . .dinner!
The sun had gone down and I was relaxing as the light slowly began to fade out of the sky, and suddenly, there he was!
Standing on top of the roof of the bird feeder was one of the red headed cardinals.
I had set up my three tiered fountain – three old containers with a solar water pump in the lowest one – yesterday to attract the birds, but I didn’t have anything to put into the feeder! I typically crush up a couple of crackers, butter crackers to be precise, and put the crumbs into the feeder. The birds can handle the crumbs easier than larger pieces. But I didn’t have any crackers!
He hopped down to the feeder.
Then he hopped out to the flower pot on the lanai.
I tried to explain to him that I had looked through all my totes where my kitchen stuff was, and didn’t find any crackers as he hopped up onto the handrail.
He just looked at me with the look as if to say, “And you didn’t think to bring any with you?”?!!?
I apologized profusely, and he listened. Then he flew up into the branches of the tree above the lanai where his mate was waiting. I guess he explained the situation to her, because they both flew away.
I got out a dog biscuit – I thought to bring dog treats, but no bird treats – and broke off a small piece. I tried to crush itup as best I could, but it was so very hard, and put the crumbs into the feeder.
He must have been watching me because as soon as I sat down into my chair, he flew down into the feeder. He sampled the dog biscuit before flying up to the handrail and gave me a look as if to say, “You’ve GOT to be kidding! That will never do!” And then he flew away!
I guess I will have to get some crackers somewhere!
TTFN
TropicalCastaway 