I had a frustrating day yesterday. It probably didn’t help that I got less than my optimal number of hours of sleep … so I was cranky besides. I was feeling a bit stressed at lunchtime so I decided to take a walk for some fresh air and exercise. It was a bit windy, but the temperature was in the 60°F range – highly unusual for this time of year, but much preferred (in my opinion) than 90!
Just as I was completing my loop and heading back to work I saw this:
A common sight near where I work as they do train car switching, so the road is often blocked for brief periods throughout the day. Seventeen minutes later …
The train engines that were pulling the switching cars were finally going to move past the intersection. Only for an Amtrak train to come in behind it on the other track! Did I mention, this all took 17 minutes?! My lunch “hour” was decidedly shortened. If I had known it was going to take that long, I could have retraced my steps and been back at work already!
And you see that dark cloud? Just as I started across the tracks (finally!), it started to sprinkle. So now, I’m tired, wet, and hungry. Not a good combination.
The day ended and I was looking forward to getting home, when what do I encounter next?
Road construction! All they were doing was caulking some joints in the bridge, but that meant traffic was down to one lane. Excuse me, but why are you doing that during RUSH HOUR!? Ugh.
I was determined this wouldn’t ruin my evening plans though. After supper, I suited up.
Scary looking, isn’t it? I recently bought a mosquito netting hat cover … best investment ever! Especially this year. We’ve had swarms of mosquitoes around the house due to all the rain from the last month. It’s so bad that Little Chick has been kept indoors most days. And each time Finley goes outside 8-10 mosquitoes try and follow him in.
I threw on one of my husband’s old shirts, a pair of old tennis shoes, liberally sprayed down with mosquito spray, and headed outdoors to pick “black gold”.
Also known as Black Raspberries. Ours are wild, so they aren’t very big. But that doesn’t make them any less tasty. There is a bumper crop this year so I couldn’t let them go to waste. Even though I’ve had pointed out by Papa many times that with all the wild animals and birds, they won’t go “to waste”. Still, we’re a fruit-lovin’ family. About an hour later, Papa and I had 2 1/2 pounds of raspberries picked. In another couple of days, there will be quite a few more that will be ripe. I’m not sure if we’ll pick more though. This was the perfect opportunity as it was cool so I could wear long sleeves and long pants … well, mostly perfect. It did start raining (again!) while we were picking.
My hands turned a lovely shade of purple, but today you can’t even tell I went picking except for a few scratches on the back of my hand.
Now to figure out what to do with these wonderful berries. We still have some jam leftover from a couple of years ago. What would you make with them?!