The Greenville Flea Market

The Greenville Flea Market in Kentucky figures prominently in the writing that I am doing for National Novel Writing Month. The flea market is located in Greenville--per the name, in Muhlenberg County. It takes place on Tuesdays, and covers acres and acres of land. People rent space inside or out, and set up to sell all kinds of things.

When I am home, I love to go there. My sister, Karen, takes off work (calls in sick to my Dad, her boss) and we load up usually with my mom, and Karen's mother-in-law, Wanda, and Karen's best friend, Bernice. It is always quite the day and we make sure to get an early start.

We go to the market first, and make sure we go down every aisle. In addition to rusted out harnesses and old coffee pots, there's usually a supply of livestock for sale--puppies and kittens which everyone ooh's and aah's over. One year my brother-in-law was with us and he bought a rooster and a chicken.

My treasure that I got there once was a Shawnee corn crock--a beautiful piece of ceramic in the shape of a corn cob. It sits in my living room and I just love it.

After we cover all the ground at the market, we go and have lunch at some local spot where we all eat too much. Then, we hit all the local antique stores. Wanda is always our guide to these, and directs us around the country roads where we find places hidden away off the beaten track.

This is always a day I look forward to when I go home to Kentucky.

NANOWRIMO

November is NANOWRIMO month: National Novel Writing Month. Over 100,000 people all over the world will participate this year, in a quest to write 50,000 words by the end of the month. 50,000 words translates into approximately 1,667 words a day and I find that it really isn't that much to do--if you keep up with your writing throughout the month, that is.

This is the second time I have participated. There's a whole coterie of activities that have sprung up around the event and you can engage as much or as little as you want to: write with a group of others--or don't. Attend socials that are scheduled throughout the month--or don't!

I was invited to be part of a loose group of writers who keep track of their progress together. Essentially this means that I log my word count in every day on a Google shared document--along with 12 other people, only two of whom I know. You also are encouraged to log your word count in on the main NANOWRIMO web site.

So far, I have put down 14,601 words. So far, so good. I'm hoping that at the end of the month, I will have the first draft of this novel half done--and will have gotten into the habit of writing every day.

The Trials and Tribulations of Dealing with the Phone Company

Over the years, we have had a lot of issues with our phone service--powered by Qwest!--which in our case includes the internet service, too. A few years back when I worked at home, every time it rained there was static on our phone line. There are 3 poles around our back property, one up by the house, and two at the very back, one on the north side and the other on the south side. It seemed I was always calling in for service and various technicians would come out and climb around on those poles, trying to fix the problem. Finally, right around the time I was going back to work in an office on a regular basis, they got things fixed and pretty stable for about three years. No static when it rained, or anything.

Then, over the last three months, we have had numerous problems. The internet was down all the time. Finally it was down hard and not coming back ever, it seemed. I had to go to a coffee shop to blog and check my email. A technician came out and worked on things. He got the internet service back up, at least--said there was a loose wire somewhere. But we still had a lot of issues and the problems weren't completely resolved. Suddenly the static was back on the phone line--worse than ever. It was miserable trying to talk to someone with all of that going on. And the internet service kept going up and down. I called in again. The phone company sent us a new DSL modem; they said ours was an early one that had been discontinued. I was interested in trying that out--it seemed to me as I watched the behavior of my internet connection and checked on the modem in the basement that there were two problems: the internet kept going down and the modem had trouble reconnecting (that was in addition to the static on the phone line).

Qwest sent us the new modem, and that did help a lot. I believed that the wireless connection still went down more than it should, but the modem recovered pretty nicely. It kind of masks the symptoms of a problem, really. But the static was absolutely horrendous. I called in again and listened to the same lecture I always get--if the issue is caused by our inside wiring, they will charge us $75 per hour for the technician's time. Yada, yada. In all the years of dealing with this, the issues have never been caused by our inside wiring.

Another technician came out. I couldn't be home to wait for him, but made sure he would have my cell phone number. He called me to report that he had fixed the problem. He had found two screws that were up on the pole by the house that were not screwed in at all, and they were a critical part of our dialtone. I shook my head as he told me this. The reason those screws weren't connected was because the previous guy who came out to fix things had left them that way.

I was feeling pretty happy until the fellow on the phone told me that he needed to do two things--he needed to trim the trees in the back next to the other two poles. I was horrified at the thought of this. I don't care much about the trees on the south side--they are weedy Siberian elms, but the two on the north side are pear trees that we planted ten years ago and that bear a lot of fruit. We like those trees a lot.

So I said no, that he couldn't trim those trees without me being there. He went from my friendly neighborhood lifesaver to a spoilt child who was told he couldn't have his way. He started carrying on about all the times that he needed to trim trees and the homeowners wouldn't let him. This guy must have wanted to work for the forest service or something. I let him go on for a while and then told him that we would trim the trees ourselves. Those two poles where he wanted to trim the trees were all the way on the other side of the yard (1 acre) from where he fixed our problem. He then suggested that we ask for some wire and dig it in the ground across the back and remove our wiring from the pole. Hmmm. The phone company would supply the wire and we would supply the labor. What a deal. I said we would consider it, but we won't. If there was ever a problem, the phone company would be quick to say that we put the wire in the ground and were responsible for any issues. Why would we ever put ourselves in that position?

Anyway, no more static on the phone line, thank goodness. I can now have a conversation in peace--until next time.

Snow on the Pumpkins

I bought some really cool pumpkins for Halloween this year. They looked so cute on the porch for a week. Here's how they look today, though. Poor things. I suspect that they'll be pretty soggy for trick-or-treat night--and into the compost bin the next morning.

October Snow

Yep, it's snowing here, coming down like crazy. I had to go out with a broom and brush the snow off a lot of our trees--this is normally a task I have to do in the spring, not the fall. The weather reports are saying that this snow will go on for all of today and tomorrow. Whoa. It's only October. Looks like I'll have to go out with my broom again in a couple of hours.



That mountain of snow is my big crabapple tree, that is bent down to the ground.




Here is my helper.

Paperwhite Season

I love to grow paperwhites in the winter. Dave calls them stinky-whites, because of their aromatic smell. They are a way to have a flower bloom in the off-season. This year I got a few really big bulbs from the West End Gardener in Boulder and put one in a little McCoy-like planter and a couple in a large glass container. I love the look and can hardly wait for them to bloom. I should have some good ones for the table on Thanksgiving.

Cabbage Into Sauerkraut

Dave is making sauerkraut. He did this a couple of years ago and when it was done, we had a German party.

He went out to the garden and harvested some beautiful cabbages that I grew.



Then he got busy working under the able supervision of Molly.















It was finally ready to ferment. He covered it up and put a plate down over it, with a stone on top (wrapped in plastic) and shoved it over in a dark corner of the kitchen counter. After a week, the smell was too much to be ignored. When I mentioned that it was becoming rather aromatic, he denied that it could be the cabbage. Nonetheless, he moved the pot to the basement--and lo! and behold--the smell went away. Whew. The smell hung around in the basement for only a day or so and then dissipated. So now, we wait. And no, his finger isn't in the chopped cabbage--he wouldn't be able to play banjo if that was the case.