Taking pictures, making friends, having lunch, etc.

As I wrote yesterday, my friends, the Ladies Who Lunch, went to Batterup for our noon time meal. Locally owned, small place, only a half mile from my house. I could have walked, but I didn’t, since the noontime temperature was 95 degrees. Although I like to walk, and that’s an easy one, I also like to remain in one solid piece, not a melted puddle on the sidewalk. Nor do I like my face to melt and run down my shirt causing me to show up looking like some deranged clown. It’s preferable to have people want to sit near you, not have small children running and hiding when forced to walk by the table with the melted clown.

We had fun yesterday, and Gladys, the gal pictured in yesterday’s post, took a number of photos to post on Facebook. I am the usual photographer, but I was glad she was taking the reins and doing it this time. She even got our waitress into the act, taking a couple of photos of us as we entered the building. Funny thing, though, no pictures of our food. We were too hungry and too busy talking, and so we just scarfed down the food while talking a mile a minute. We’re like that.

On the way out, two hours later, Gladys took a picture of the waitresses. The one on the left was the one who assisted us:

She was quite the sweetheart, standing and listening to us jabber on about how, why, where, whatever, we do these things. Bless her heart, she even asked about my blog. So, if she shows up here, thank you very much for taking good care of three little ol’ ladies.

Hot today

The fans are running today. 91 degrees at dinner time. I fried chicken which makes it even hotter in the house. But I’m not complaining. I am so done with winter.

Still summer time here in California

Although it is officially autumn, our weather has felt more summer-like the past two days. Today it is 81 degrees at 1 p.m. We might hit 90 by 5. I turned on all the house fans today as I have been baking and will continue later this afternoon.

This morning I made a piecrust of ginger snaps, pecans, and oats. It baked for about 10 minutes. Then I poured in a mixture of browned butter, sweet potato, sugar, cream, eggs, and spices to make the most delicious pie. That had to bake for 20 minutes. A rib roast will be the last thing from my oven for dinner this evening. Another 100 minutes of heat coming from the oven and filling my kitchen air.

Due to the warm weather, I decided to clean the patio again, maybe for the last time this year. Of course, it could still be warm at Thanksgiving at the rate we are going with our seasons. We got our flu shots today, so we are ready when the cold weather does come.

Remembering my father on a hot day in June

Although Sunday was Father’s Day, daddy has been gone for 43 years so I have no one to send a card to, or to say “thank you for all you did,” but I have been thinking a lot about his life. Terry and I have been had many an opportunity, driving across Hwy 152 towards the bay area, to talk about farming and how hard it can be. All those fields, all that work, all the memories I have of how hard Daddy toiled in his fields.

This year there are more cotton fields to check as we drive by, and I do that, consistently, just as my dad would do when he was out on one of his occasional drives. Daddy wanted to know how other farmers were doing, and he compared his cotton crop to everyone else’s, and his was usually better. I’ve always said that Daddy knew each cotton plant in his fields. He spent that much time out there: watering, weeding, fertilizing, checking, always checking. He could get nearly three bales to an acre from his hard work.

One year, not long before my father died, an aerial pilot took a photo of our farm and tried to get Daddy to buy a large, colored print. Although I have the small black and white version, Daddy refused to buy a larger one because there were “skips” in the rows, where the seed had not sprouted with a healthy cotton plant. My dad saw it as failure. I understand that now. For you see, I too have his controlling, perfectionist tendencies. When teaching, I wanted all my students to be successes, and if any didn’t make it, then it was my failure.

Today, the first day of summer, will be hot. My dad would be out, on his tractor, most likely, cultivating his beloved rows of cotton on a day such as this. Even when ill with leukemia, my dad never stopped, never complained, but just kept going. After working all day in the field, he would come in for supper and afterwards pick peaches from the trees he had planted out back. My mother would spend the next day canning those while I languished in the hot house until the jars had cooled and the swamp cooler could be turned on. I remember complaining, bitterly at the time, that it was not fair that I had to be so hot. Now, on this hot day, I think of my dad, on a tractor, in the sun, making his way up and down those furrows, as I sit in my air conditioned home. Although I have a strong work ethic, I have never worked as hard as my parents did.