July 2021

Before and after of Pax and the hip surgery. Our summer of expense continues with a whopper of a veterinary bill but hopefully will end with a dog who can walk on 4 legs, a car door that closes, a septic system beyond reproach and a partridge in a pear tree.

Poor puppy she was heavily drugged for a few days and in some definite pain for a while as well.

We had our usual 4th of July Tie Dye and firworks.

It was hot and the berries were producing at a good clip.

The shirts turned out well this year.

I took the kids to Haven for some extra 4th fun. They participated in a big water gun fight and watched lots and lots of firecrackers and fireworks go off.

Then we went home and set off a few of our own.

We started eating summer sandwiches routinely.

We managed the harrowing task of getting the fentynol patch off the poor dog. A liberal application of baby oil seems to be the trick over here. She perked up and starting eating more as soon as it was off.

We had several big events in July and for me the biggest was our family vacation to North Carolina. We planned to camp at the beach and then go to see much missed and much deferred family.

To that end I set up the tents in the front yard to ascertain their habitability.

We also had an innertubig event with Haven that I had wanted to attend the previous year but Covid prevented.

We took the innertubes out of the bins and inflated them at a smaller local spot.

It was relaxing and reassuring.

Megan got her bottom braces on. We bought all the soft foods we could find and gave her the painkillers that she would take.

Mom and I went to our new choir. They are called Ladyes  Fayre.

The people are so talented and the music is really challenging.

I will have to work hard but I'm so lucky to be given this opportunity. This is choral music from before 1600. Its an era of music that I love and have loved for years. Its not something I can pick up listening in the car. This will be study and because its an SCA group its free.

They meet very far away (about 2 hours) and Covid is a bad time to sing with people and I have lots of social anxiety. I hope I stick with it. I hope I learn the things I want to know.

We learned that our friend Ashish and lost his mother. We went to her memorial service and heard beautiful music. We saw our friends and felt somber.

This is the 3rd meeting around funerals/memorial services that we've had within the last few years.

I suspect its our stage of life that now we will meet around deaths more than other ceremonial events.

I am not a fan of that.

On a much brighter note Kiernan reminded me that it was 7/11 and that it was about to be 7:11. So we rushed over to 7eleven to get some slurpies at 7:11

Behold our stunning success.

The garden looked promising.

The milkweeds on the front walk brought us the monarchs we were hoping for when we planted them.

We left for our family vacation early in the morning as well usually do.

We stopped at the VA welcome center weirdly in the center of the state then drove on till we hit the Outer Banks. Our first stop was Duck Doughnuts.

The family built their doughnuts and I missed sugar.

We took them with us in the car to our traditional Kill Devil Hills stop.

We unloaded sticky and hot and all sugared up (present writer excepted).

We checked out the hang gliding school and took off for the dunes.

It was sooo hot

Meltingly hot. Drink all the water and don't climb any more dunes hot!

Our Laurence of Arabia time had come.

After that we rushed over to the other side of the island and cooled off in the ocean.

Then we drove another hour or so down to our campsite.

We pitched camp and went to see the beach that we were camping at.

This is the Frisco National Seashore campground. It has nice flat spots, cold water showers, flush bathrooms and is right on the beach.

We walked down the boardwalk to the ocean.

On each side there was a prairie looking expanse of seagrass and dunes.

Ahead of us the ocean

The beach is beautiful and relaxing.

I am so glad that David came. He hates camping. His job until recently has not allowed for much time off. When I asked him if he would be joining us for the trip I was very pleased and surprised that he said yes.

It was a completely different trip with him there.

We lost not one but 3 air mattresses in the short 2 days we were there.

Happily the closest store had new ones to buy.

It was too hot at night and no one slept well except strangely for Megan.

On the first night we had Navy jets fly over at around 2 AM. They woke me up in a panic sure that we were in the middle of a lighting storm or possibly somehow under a rocket.

Other than sleeping poorly everything else went well. We had good food and we were able to go boogy boarding and the weather held. There were no super bad sunburns or crab bites or injuries.

We even managed to avoid getting any cactus spikes in our feet.

We showered with frogs.

We ate terrific ice cream.

We enjoyed each others company.

I got to see the Buxton lighthouse.

Then we packed up and left for part two of the vacation.

We drove a few hours to my wonderful Grandparents and Uncle and Aunts houses.

Grandma fed us.

We sat under the shade and visited.

My uncle brought out a box of knives that he'd made and we got to pick some.

My dad was there for a visit to help out my sister at her house in Nashville and he brought my niece up with him.

Catfish was eaten.

Crazy dogs were reacquainted.

My dad brought us some great island coffee.

We went to a bird park.

It was crazy hot again.

It turns out that birds love my Uncle Neil's hat very much.

We had suet sticks with bird seed on them to tempt the birds but they ignored the sticks and chose the hat time after time.

Whoever had the hat had the birds.

It was pretty great.

We saw some wild looking birds. This one made a rather loud low humming noise at me.

The kids had fun cousin times.

We packed up and checked out.

We took the parting shots.

My Aunt Betsy wrapped some grape vine cuttings for me so that I can try to grow some of their grapes.

We got home and found that the cucumbers and been productive. So we made some quick pickles.

A week later we went on the Haven inner tubing trip.

The next weekend we went to a Kung Fu Tournament to support our school.

 It has been a long time since I was at a tournament. While there I saw my old instructors and friends. I was so nervous that they wouldn't remember me and I circled around my old Sifu many many times before giving up. I watched him all morning and was so happy to see him but just couldn't work up the nerve. What do you say to someone who was so meaningful to you? How crushing if they don't remember you. After we returned from lunch I saw and was seen by the head (SiGung Derek Johnson)  of the Coulmbia school (where we go now) and he called me over to show me that Troy was there. This is Troy. He was David and Kathryn and Judy's Sifu. He was head student under my Sifu when I was in High School. He is charming and gifted and entirely gregarious. He hugged me and told me that Sifu Mims was around. I told him that I knew but was too nervous to do anything about it. Troy then pulled me around the floor, in and out of rooms, looking for him.

I was so happy.

Eventually upstairs and on my own I saw Sifu Mims again and approached him. I was shaking. He remembered me and was so kind. I introduced him to David and the kids and learned that he was visiting incognito. He was very influential and if its knows that he is around people tend to make a fuss. He was showing his grandson the event to gage his interest and said that we might see him at the Columbia school depending on how things went.

I hope. I hope!

He told the kids that I was one of his star students. They couldn't have cared less but David heard it and my heart swelled 3 sizes with pride.

Our School did very well and medaled in all categories that they entered. We got to show the kids weird weapon forms and full contact fighting and how our forms stack up against other schools forms.

The blue guy here got his bell wrung pretty hard and had to be handed off to EMS.

Kiernan was completely overwhelmed by the people and the noise and was pretty miserable at the end there so we took off. Over all though it was a wonderful thing to have done.

The next day I cleaned the garage for hours and freed up the heavy bag. David has been kicking the stuffing out of it ever since 

On that Sunday I went blacksmithing without Kiernan (who was still recovering from the tournament).

I brought my hat and worked on my railroad spike. I had a much better idea of what I should do with it due to 1) thinking about it longer while reading blacksmithing books 2) talking to my Uncle about knife making.

I'd been trying to bend that thing over from session after session and this time everything gelled. 

In addition to putting more heat into it and bracing it better, I used a smaller hammer so that my arm didn't tire out so quickly.

Then Gene (one of The Haven Guys) recommended that we do a hammer round/circle (here is a video demonstration of what that looks like). It was nuts with only 3 full rotations of the group hitting the spike it went from folded over but full thickness to flatter than a pancake.

That was so satisfying and cool.

I made a very fair asparagus risotto.

The vines didn't die immediately (fingers crossed).

Kiernan and I worked on our wall stretches and it hurt but was also very funny. We are trying to get more flexible.

I printed out and put up a few new pieces on my shop .

We went to an SCA picnic where Kiernan tried out fencing and archery.

It was hot and I was able to try out my very modified garb.

It was hot in Japan too.

I got a text from Kathryn that she was on a train to who knows where because it was hot and their Covid spike meant they wanted to be away from people.

They had some cool water to play in and some shade to hide in. Three cheers to Yoshi for that idea.

It was a very busy month. The Olympics started and we traveled and the garden did well and we spent some really good family time.