The Besttechie Cafe'

[blim]

Thanks, Sidekickcat, your raspberry post (also delicious, mine are still green) reminded me to pick the strawberries before the bird get 'em.. about a quart to share. "they" say to pick fruit in the morning for flavor, but I think its to pick them before the birds do--tried netting one year, too cumbersome!

Bozodog, I did get a good surge protector (the "insurance" was more than all the furnishings of my house, I think) Didn't want to take any chances with the storms around here.

And......wait, runs out to the garden.....daisy leaves do taste a bit like mint--a little grassy if you chew em, but sucking on one now! Didn't know that. I originally planted chives near my rosebushes to keep away the aphids (still get some, though) but they sure are handy when I'm in the middle of supper and realize I have no onions!! And even though, you're "supposed" to cut the flower buds off if you want eat them, they're too pretty and they bloom forever--I keep 'em. In the "Martha Stewart-type magazines" I have seen recipes for sugared violets. Never made them but they sure are pretty! And Son's DanceCoach picks my one old bush that produces rosehips for tea.

About 10 years ago, a brotherinlaw was unemployed and wanted to give us something for Christmas (I didn't care, that's not what Christmas is about!!!--but they're kinda materialistic) He brought over an armload of applewood for the woodstove. To this day, that gift still gives me the fondest memories, it smelled so good! I can't tell you what he gave us last year, but I remember that armload of wood!

Off to another openhouse!

Liz

[macmarauder]

Glad the Martians let you come back to us, I've missed you!

don't worry i didn't go far. as always i've just been real busy. had a full two days of buying stuff at an auction, graphics project for someone on this forum, new sig project for someone on another forum, painting the interior for the bronco, writing down ideas for my two books in between things, ect. ect. ect.

besides no interstellar travel for me right now, they took my galactic license away. who knew that there was a stop sign on the second ring of saturn.

that was sooooo delicious thesidekickcat.! is there any more? it was so good that it makes my toung droop out for more like this

[bozodog]

I just cut my chives back to about 4 inches high. the flowers were about gone and the stalks too tough for table use. They will come back quickly nice and tender. I will then cut a bunch, chop them up and freeze enough to last till next spring. Great in scrambled eggs, salads, casseroles, mix with mayo for a zing to your burgers, sprinkle on garlic bread with italian seasonings.

Try some soapy water sprayed on the aphids. Works well and biodegradable.

[Vile_DR]

I was out cutting the grass this weekend, and I decided to do something different. I cut the yard as in the same manner in which they cut baseball fields and get those different shades because of the way they cut it. When doing that, a 45 minute task too 2 HOURS...what was i thinking. I was having fun so it didn't really matter...but when everyone is talking about doing yard work, and flowerbeds and stuff, i guess i envy you because you take the time and patience with the extra efforts to make sure everything is done and looking great...

[tenmm]

It does not matter how I cut my lawn,it takes two hours or better

(gotta get a rider)

I spent part of the weekend rebarking around the garden boxs and resetting some of the stepping stones.

I will "spider bomb" the attic this coming weekend,will leave for several hours and then vent the house for several more,makes for a good excuse to have a BBQ outside.

EDIT:

blim and thesidekickcat what I mean about the critters is not politically correct.

Here where I live we have what are called ground squirrels or whistle pigs they are a varmint.

Many ranches that have several hundred to a couple of thousand acres with cattle running around need to keep a control on the population.

Where I come in is to do a "surgical strike"on one area that is overrun with squirrels.

All so on my list are rockchucks,rabbits and what ever the rancher has a problem with.

The problem is these critters dig holes,the bigger problem is sometimes a cow steps in one and breaks a leg or gets injured this can get spendy for a rancher or farmer.

For the farmer/s these critters dig holes in irrigation canals and ditches causing loss of water at best or a complete rupture of a canal bank.

I have spent as much as 10 hours inducing"lead poison"on one place.

[bozodog]

I will "spider bomb" the attic this coming weekend,

????? What's up with that????? Spiders eat bugs.... If you kill the spiders the bugs will come back faster. Ewwwww, poison my attic??? No way, I don't think so, nope, notta!

Besides, who the heck needs an excuse to grill out?

Mmmm, burgers tonite, with home made coleslaw, lettuce from the garden, and a *BIG GIANT* mushroom grilled with butter and garlic... Join us.

[macmarauder]

I've missed you!

Liz

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

[tenmm]

I will "spider bomb" the attic this coming weekend,

????? What's up with that????? Spiders eat bugs.... If you kill the spiders the bugs will come back faster. Ewwwww, poison my attic??? No way, I don't think so, nope, notta!

Besides, who the heck needs an excuse to grill out?

Mmmm, burgers tonite, with home made coleslaw, lettuce from the garden, and a *BIG GIANT* mushroom grilled with butter and garlic... Join us.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I understand but I have and grandkids,who do you think comes first??

BTW the BBQ has been setup for a couple of weeks no real reason needed...

[blim]

Heh,heh, Tenmm, I was going to say the same thing about spiders and I hope I can speak for Bozodog here, we keep forgetting the poisonous spiders don't survive our brutal winters!! Worst we have are wolf spiders (startling because they jump) and daddy longlegs There may be a spider or two that can make someone sick, but I don't think there are any deadly ones in MI. We sometimes do get some "exotic" looking bugs in the summer, I figure they hitch rides on the cars that come from Florida for the summer. Somehow the ants survive for their spring migration run, though!

Thanks also for explaining what you do, Tenmm. Are ground squirrels the same as chipmunks? I live in a community that has diary farms and can imagine the damage those critters can do to a pasture and the cows. We used to have a rabbit and I KNOW the holes they can dig!!!

Guess I'm lucky that we only have a dinky city lot to mow, and half of that is garden! I mentioned once to Hubby that I wanted to turn the back yard into an English Garden--only grass in it would be the paths. Believe it or not, he was thrilled with the idea, I was shocked, till he said, "Yeah!! Less to mow!!" (like he mows anyway, we have a teenaged son!) Gotta wait till the dog goes to doggie Heaven, though She's real good about staying out of the gardens (unless there's a squirrel in the yard, of course), but an English Garden just may not be a good thing yet. Vile, I betcha your "custom mowed" yard looks really cool!

Heh, we only mowed once this year--since midnight, Bozodog got 2.6 inches of rain, according to the news, and we "got nottin", it looks like August. Crunchy grass!! I don't water the grass--the gardens alone are going to cost a fortune in water!

**And on a side note, and I hope she doesn't get mad at me but, here goes... Sidekickcat is having a terrible time seeing the print on the forums--especially the reply boxes, that's why we haven't heard from her lately. I pm'd her to keep on Jeff to make the font more "weary-eye-friendly", but in her reply to me, she seems really discouraged--she loves this place. If the cafe crowd could "fill her pm box" (with bold type!! ) I bet it would make her day!!

Liz

[bozodog]

Wow! Sidekickcat! And blim.. or any of you other ole folks out there.......

I don't know about older OS's (98 0r 95) but you can increase the size of the type on the forum by hitting Ctrl and the plus sign (+) once, big, once again I can read it from across the room.

Oh jeesch Tenmm, black widows huh? Yep I sure would get the bug bomb out.. And for the stupid Recluse, I had just a mild nip from one and it took over 6 months to heal. Blim, I have heard the Recluse is slowing working it's way up north. Hope I'm dead and gone before they get here.

Sorry you're not getting rain, I wonder how I can send some rain clouds your way? It's trying to drizzle a bit now...

"rain dance"

"rain dance"

"send the rain to blims house"

Off to work now... Brats on the grill tonite, with taters and coleslaw.

[robroy]

Daddy longlegs are one of the most poisonous spiders around, luckily their mouths are too small to bite people. I need to bombtoget rid of them, dozens around this year

Supper sounds good bd

[blim]

Wow, Robroy!

I had no idea Daddys were poisonous! I used to play with them as a kid, and my kids played with them, too. As I always say, I learn a lot more than just tech here

Thanks for the tip, Bozodog, I'll have to send that one off to Sidekickcat, she has 2000,... I think?? But I betcha she already uses it, she's pretty techy!

Your Raindance worked, but is was too windy for us to get any (blow you away today, 2 hands on the steering wheel!), so far, it all blew to GR. Could you aim for Wisconsin?

Brats sound great, I'll add some strawberries for dessert--you sure have been getting good use out of the gassy, haven't you? Hmmm, with Father's Day coming up, maybe I'll be good to Hubby.

Son came home Saturday with a swollen nose and 2 swollen eyes, that turned into shiners.....playing basketball and caught an elbow on a rebound. Now I am usually the one who says, "he'll be fine...", but all I wanted to do was bring him to the MedStop! Son said "I'm fine, it doesn't even hurt", Hubby looked at it and said, "he's fine", My Dad even looked at it (he stopped by), said, "its straight, he's fine". Bah, men!!! The swelling went away Monday, his black eyes are turning green and yellow, but he BETTER be "fine". (I'm so much better with bleeding, no experience with broken bones unless they're my own, even then, I walked around with a broken foot for 2 weeks once!)

My Dad gave me 3 gallons of "the recipe". I announced to Hubby, "looky, I've got tea!!" Hubby said, "well, why are you leaving it by the back door? Put it in the fridge". So tempting, soooo tempting--it was manure tea Fed my puny hibiscus so far!

Liz

[Vile_DR]

My Dad gave me 3 gallons of "the recipe".  I announced to Hubby, "looky, I've got tea!!"  Hubby said, "well, why are you leaving it by the back door? Put it in the fridge".  So tempting, soooo tempting--it was manure tea   Fed my puny hibiscus so far!

Liz

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

You so should have...that would have taught even lesson that needed to teach...As a prank in highschool, me and my friends use to drink a ton of kool-aid. Well we got our ands on some prescription high-dose laxative....and I am sure you can figure out the rest, but I'll tell you anyways. We made the Kool-aid...poured our cups full and then used the laxative to fill the container back up. When one of my friends who didn't have kool-aid to drink wanted to get some, he got the biggest glass he could find and filled it to the top. Well we tried to get him to race and drink it as fast as he could...he did alright, and spent the next 5 hours on the throne...it was one of the funniest things...he couldn't move...he couldn't think...he absolutely never knew what happened, until about a year ago...this was 6 years ago and he recently found out...lol...

I guess i am glad i am done with all that now, so i dont' have to worry about the friends returning the favors....l

[tenmm]

"Are ground squirrels the same as chipmunks"

Not that I know of,chipmunks are better looking for one thing

Badgers,rockchucks and a host of other critters can cause quite a bit of damage.

Here where I live it is mostly desert so jack rabbits are the norm and very abundant.

YA,that tea ain,t to bad once it's cooled off..............

[tg1911]

blim

You can increase and decrease text size in Firefox using, Ctrl+ and Ctrl-.

Here's an image of your name, on this forum, at the maximum setting, in Firefox.

blim

Should be able to read that.

[blim]

Hi Bozodog and TG (by the way, like the cool new picture under your name!)

I pm'd your suggestions about the print size to Sidekickcat, thank you!!

And she wrote that she received some pms from the Cafe crowd, she seemed to truly appreciate them!! We'll get her back here!

Vile, you are a naughty one, aren't you?!? You, too, Tenmm!

Liz

[tenmm]

Hi Bozodog and TG (by the way, like the cool new picture under your name!) 

I pm'd your suggestions about the print size to Sidekickcat, thank you!!

And she wrote that she received some pms from the Cafe crowd, she seemed to truly appreciate them!!  We'll get her back here!

Vile, you are a naughty one, aren't you?!?   You, too, Tenmm!

Liz

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Hu?? waaa??

looks for pigtailed girl and ink well

Now what did I do??

[tg1911]

Thanks blim.

handplane made it for me.

[blim]

Hey Bozodog!!!

Its raining, its raining!!! Well, drizzling....but close enough--and cold (yuck) but the drizzle won't evaporate and maybe turn the grass green again. Thanks for your Raindance! Now I can justify cracking open that book that only has 2 chapters read

TG, the talents the folks have on this board never ceases to amaze me!! Very nice work, Handplane!

Time to make supper. Hmmmm, something with chicken.....

Liz

PS--Ok, Bozodog, keep dancing. The drizzle didn't even get the bottom of my rainbuckets under the shed roof wet. But a drizzle is a lot better than nothing

[thesidekickcat]

Hi folks,

Yes I am back, and I thank you all for your kind thoughts, your PM's, and tips to help me. Bless you all.

Fotunately things seem a bit better on boards, at least in some areas such as the type in View New Posts seems clearer than in the index to forums. Also the reply etc buttons are easier to see. Still having trouble in some areas though. Have done a couple of new threads, and added a couple of posts, testing the waters so to speak. So far so good on that. Still squinting on other things though. I just now realized that tg's doing "blim" in blue, was a link, thought things were really bad when Liz said it was huge and it just looked the same as rest of type on post. But it is huge in link to screenshot of his Firefox...duh...sigh. How come no one ever said you could increase size in Firefox before??? That is the reason I became interested in Opera, when I read about sizing up things. Does Opera work on this board? I still am thinking of getting it. It is supposed to be able to increase type size too. Not brave enough for Firefox after seeing so many people on boards with problems with it. (That is if I can get the computer problems solved that started up in last few days.)

As for the tip to use ctrl and +, didn't do a thing for my machine on IE. I unfortunately have a Windows 2000 os that is not formated to NTFS...long story of wrong info from tech support talked hubby into it on a reinstall... so that may be why the ctrl + didn't work.

Liz said earlier,

"My Dad gave me 3 gallons of "the recipe". I announced to Hubby, "looky, I've got tea!!" Hubby said, "well, why are you leaving it by the back door? Put it in the fridge". So tempting, soooo tempting--it was manure tea Fed my puny hibiscus so far!"

That is so funnny!!!!

Reminds me of the time my Mom and I (I was about 7 or 8) were just fed up with Dad chewing snoose (Copenhagen tobacco). I wanted to mix it with mashed up goat droppings, thinking that would cure him once and for all. Fortunately Mom talked me out of it...so I am still alive today... (Dad had an evil temper even in the best of times!!!)

I hope your son is ok with the shiners Liz!!! As for broken noses, they never did anything when mine was broken a couple of times.

The eyes would worry me more if they didn't clear up, or if any red in eye suggesting blood.

Got hit in eye with a direct line drive softball to 3rd base once. Sure had a shiner out of that hit. Knocked me out for about 5 minutes, cousin who batted it my way, was my slave for weeks! Power over a junior in high school feels good to a freshman!!!

I guess I had better quit to make supper.

Will try to come back tonight, to do PM to Jeff about board type. Have made notes of what works and what doesn't for me. Don't know if anything can be done to fix those things though.

May be off line due to another storm coming in tomorrow night. The tail end to a tropical depression that could dump a bunch of rain over several days. Thunderstorms possible they say too. I hate those things. Rain is ok, just not electrical storms.

Mac, and everyone else,....here is a huge bowl of fresh picked raspberries...don't forget the whipped cream. Yummy.

See you later folks.

God bless everyone.

[robroy]

ooooh raspberries, goodey goodey, here's some whipped cream to go with them

Welcome back thesidekickcat. You can't run off and hide, we all need your 'god bless everyone' at least once a day

[tg1911]

Welcome back, sidekickcat.

You should give Firefox a try.

I've been using it since it was Firebird v0.7 (over 3 yrs), without a single problem.

If you don't like it, or it causes problems, you can always uninstall it (that's easy).

Any problems I've heard of with Firefox, were easily fixed.

[Vile_DR]

Vile, you are a naughty one, aren't you?!?    You, too, Tenmm!

Liz

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Not really naughty unless the situation is fitting, if you know what i mean, but I do jump through the hoops when creativity strikes my mind. It is all a matter of putting action to thought, and not hurting people, physically or mentally...

ooooh raspberries, goodey goodey, here's some whipped cream to go with them

Welcome back thesidekickcat. You can't run off and hide, we all need your 'god bless everyone' at least once a day

I agree with Rob, it isn't every day that you are blessed by someone you know, but it is reassuring to know, all I have to do it check up on one of your posts and you are blessing us ALL...Welcome back...

[macmarauder]

but I do jump through the hoops when creativity strikes my mind.

you only have to jump through hoops. i usually end up locked in the garage for days at a time armed only with my mind, tools and a unlimited supply of cosmic cheetos

thanks for coming back thesidekickcat and may the cheetos be with you and thanks for the raspberries.

[bozodog]

Bless you Sidekickcat, I don't know how funds are in your household, but may be a nice 19" flat panel screen is in your future. They are easier to spend time on and a bigger monitor will help in the size of print.

Welcome Back!

Blim, no rain in our forcast through Sunday. Maybe it's coming your way? Always beware of what you wish for. I weeded my garden on Monday and today it's all green with weeds again...