It will be another hot day here. I went for a walk this early morning, while it is still cool, and I passed by my favorite tree in the whole world. It is a grand white oak. It would take three people, possibly more, to reach their arms around the tree. It is huge. And I have been hugging this tree since I was a little girl. I looked up, and saw my favorite tree is dying. White oak trees live between 200 and 300 years, and this beauty was planted in the 1800s. I wish I had gathered her acorns to plant. She is on a lawn, so the park’s people mow, and I’m not sure she has offspring. Most of her branches have brown leaves on them this year. I went closer to give her a big hug and a thank you and suddenly, I stopped in my tracks. There, only 18 inches from the ground, were two baby nuthatches clinging to her bark. They were a little startled by me, looking with glossy black eyes. The tree is so large, I circled wide and gave the tree a hug from the back. She’s so old… but still beautifully useful. 🌳

For several years now I have been participating in Plastic Free July (sponsored by PlasticFreeJuly.org) by making a personal challenge in July, to find one more thing where I find an alternative to plastic waste. July is coming up. I wonder what I could pick? It might be time for me to do another trash audit to see what I am actually throwing away these days, but I suspect it is the bread and snack bags that come into the house, so I might make a commitment to bake more. I’ve been slacking on that lately! 😋🍞🍪

I enjoy people, especially diversity. The other night I couldn’t sleep, and I got up and put on the television. I found an unusual program, produced by Conde Nast Traveler, of people from more than 70 countries being interviewed simple questions like, “How do you say hello in your country?” or, “How do people in your country count money?” They strung these short segments together, and I found I was enjoying the faces, the diversity, and I began laughing in the middle of the night. Here is one. I hope you enjoy it. 🙂
https://www.cntraveler.com/video/watch/people-reveal-how-to-tell-if-someone-is-from-their-country?c=series

Good morning!
The house is pleasantly cool on the beginning of this hot day, and I am just back from a lovely walk around the block. I think I will make pancakes for myself this morning, as a treat. I found a WW!! rationing recipe a couple of years ago, that is very simple and doesn’t need eggs, and I absolutely love it. Per person: 1/2 cup flour, a pinch of sugar, a pinch of salt, and a pinch of baking powder if you have it, and then enough milk to make the batter. I use saved bacon grease to fry it. It only takes me about 3 minutes now to mix it up, get half of the dishes done, and sit down to the table for pancakes. ☺

Whiskers – We found two grants to help us fix up our old house. The first was through our utility company, which helped us to update our furnace to a new 95% efficient one, and to get blown-in insulation. The second was through our county, and gave us a whole house electrical renovation. Considering we had a pipe in our bathroom wall for GAS LIGHTING, lol (no longer used), and knob & tube, we were very thankful for that, and didn’t have to pay one cent, which helped us have money for the roof and some plumbing. So go to your city offices and ask about grants, and ask through whatever company is providing your heating. The grants are not always low income based. The heating and insulation was through Federal money marked to reduce energy needs, as it is cheaper than say, putting up another nuclear plant. So give it a try!
As for gardening, I also have a very shady yard, and there are walnut trees on the neighbor’s property to the south, which I could do nothing about. But my husband is Scottish, and in Scotland, they are big gardeners, even though it rains 250 days in the year and they don’t get a lot of sun. So I took heart by that, and realized that most vegetables grown in northern countries don’t need as much light… greens, Swiss chard, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, carrots, beets, rutabaga, onions, garlic, etc. The only vegetables that need more light are the “heat loving” ones: tomatoes, peppers, squash, melons, corn. So where I do have tiny patches of sun, I put the tomato plants and peppers, and I have a shady raised bed between two walnut trees for greens, radishes, chard, carrots, etc. You can totally do this! 😊🌱🌱🌱 Thank you for the compliment. My garden is still wildish, as I was always working on gardens on other sites and less on my own. But I love that you have a great picture in your mind of it! I have the same in my imagination! 🤣

If you look around that website, you will find other great ones, like the one where they are making cat or dog sounds from their country. The people are just so cute! 🤗😀

So, I have a pc. If you have apple you might need Mica or someone else to advise you, but I press the windows key and then the period key, and a little window pops up. There are different “pages” to the window key, and a scroll on each one. You just click one or more, and then press return. And a fun thing I discovered about it is you can search for emoji, too. You press the window and period keys and then just type what you are looking for, like “rainbow.” ( Leave out the quotations).

There is a second way to get emojis that I think works whether you have a pc or apple, and that is to cut and paste emoji from this website: https://getemoji.com/