Books, Blueberries, And Spam

Yesterday UPS delivered several boxes of things Terry had ordered from Amazon, along with three copies of the print edition of Big Lake Drunk, which I added to my bookshelf.

I started out the day by writing most of another chapter in my new Tinder Street book, which involved quite a bit of research on the different armies and air forces of the Allied and Axis countries before World War II. It’s interesting to note that in 1939, before the United States entered the war, the US Army had 174,000 soldiers, making it 19th in the rankings of ground forces. That put it ahead of Bulgaria but just behind Portugal. The Army Air Corps was rated fourth or fifth, in 1939, with a personnel strength of only 26,000. It had about 1,200 bombers and fighters, many of them obsolete. Many units were still flying open-cockpit airplanes. Obviously, we had a lot to get done in a short time before we went to war, and that’s the time period I’m working on now.

Later in the day, I spent some time on the riding lawn mower trying to knock down some of the high grass growing back between the barn and the fenced in area for the fruit trees. I quickly came to realize that I’m going to need the mower attachment on my Kabuta tractor for that kind of work. It’s too high and too thick for the Husqvarna riding mower.

I also watered the garden and then the fruit trees and blueberry bushes. We both like blueberries and we can’t wait for these to ripen.

When I was done with that, I turned on the two big tripod sprinklers for the new grass coming up where they re-graded the backyard.

While I was doing that, Terry was putting together the second raised garden bed she had ordered a while back, which just came in the other day. Today we will gather a bunch of branches to put in the bottom and then fill it with compost, fertilizer, and soil like we did the first one.

Her potatoes are starting to sprout up through the ground and a lot of the other plants she put in are looking very good. This being our first year for the garden, and with the heavy clay soil we are working with, we don’t expect a whole lot. But we know that what we’re doing this year will help get things ready for next year. At least that’s what Travis keeps telling us. 😊

With all of those chores done, we spent some time sitting on the back deck just enjoying how peaceful it is out here in the country. By the time we decided to go inside it was well into the evening and neither one of us had a huge appetite, so Terry made some grilled Spam sandwiches with cheddar, accompanied by potato chips. A quick and easy dinner after a busy day.

And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us.

Thought For The Day – You cannot sit back and hope for a happy marriage, you have to create one.