It’s so STICKY hot today! Still 93° at 7:00 PM, the air feels very close. They say in Florida you get an ocean breeze — even though I sure never felt it at Disney during the summer. And they say in Vegas and Phoenix you have a dry heat — even though it’s still freaking hot, it’s not supposed to “feel” as hot. When it’s hot in Indiana, it’s just plain hot.
Ben and I went to eat Indian food today — like being temperature hot wasn’t torture enough. The place was closed. We didn’t pay attention to the fact that they close between lunch and dinner and we were too late for one and too early for the other.
Stopped for road construction on the way home, I was reminded how beautiful it is in Indiana — even when it’s miserable.
TIL (Today I Learned): The Declaration of Independence was not signed on July 4, 1776, but rather on August 2, 1776. And historians believe seven of the 56 signatures on the document were placed there later.
Dharma wasn’t herself yesterday and I have no clue why. Head down… back arched… she acted weird all day. I thought maybe she’d eaten too much poop (I know, gross, right?) or that she’d injured her back or hips. I even contemplated that she might be going through some doggie dementia at a youngish age.
Whatever was ailing her is gone today! She’s had her breakfast, has been outside, and all is right in the world. Except it’s pouring rain and she’s tracked water everywhere. For the record, Merida isn’t innocent in the mud tracking extravaganza. We’ve got puppy paw prints for miles on dark wood floors.
Blame it on World Water Day!
It’s a gloomy, dreary day and rain is forecasted to continue throughout the night with flooding everywhere in the county. Even my Nest camera is sending alerts of movement in the target zone. Oh my! But every time I check it’s nothing but rain blowing sideways or big drops of water trailing down the camera lens. 🙄
Guess it’s fitting that March 22nd is World Water Day! Did you know that? I was made aware of it by Moen. Their social media team is flooding (pun intended) Internet feeds to ‘spread the word about water scarcity.’ It’s not scarce here, Moen… not today.
TIL (Today I Learned): There are artificial islands on the coast of Los Angeles called the THUMS Island that are oil fields hidden in plain sight.
Today is mow the grass day. Forecast is for a bit below 90° and mowing early is impossible with heavy dew. Even though this yard is MUCH smaller than what was mowed at my previous home, it takes longer to finish.
When you live in the country, you don’t weed eat everything to perfection. You certainly don’t edge both sides of a driveway and the entire street curb in front of your property. Before living here, NOTHING was mowed with a push mower. We’d spray and burn the ditch a few times a year.
Here, I water flowers with a watering can — at the old house I pulled out the hose. Here, I have an automatic yard watering system with a separate well just for that and we’ve not once used it. This is such a great house… I just don’t really “fit” here I guess.
I’m getting ready to make a move to do something… not sure what yet, but change is definitely on the horizon. 🙂
TIL (Today I Learned): The mosquito is the world’s deadliest animal. By spreading diseases, the mosquito infects nearly 700 million people each year resulting in over a million deaths. That’s more than any other creature in the world! (And to think, I have a 4-legged sister named Mozzie — what Aussies call mosquitos.)
Yesterday was a near perfect day in southern Indiana. Not too hot — a high of around 80°F — and sunny. I had to mow and weedeat the yard (storms are coming later today), clean the sunroom, spread a couple bags of decorative rock and various other ‘outside the house’ chores. I checked email often but didn’t do much in the way of “work work.” It was a good day.
But Dharma’s day was even better! She got to do her favorite thing in the whole world…
Dharma LOVES water. She wants in the bathtub the second the water is turned on. If the hose is on she’s in it. No way I can water tomato plants without her charging in. Besides the video, of course, I had to take around 100 photos. I’ll just share the one that made me smile when I saw it. 🙂
Please notice that Merida is absent while Dharma is celebrating her uniqueness. Merida is the lab that HATES water. Turn on the hose and she runs for the back door. She wants nothing to do with water other than what’s in the bowl to drink.
TIL (Today I Learned): President Trump’s grandfather made his initial wealth by opening a dead horse meat (oh my!) tent restaurant and brothel for miners during the Gold Rush in Canada. He died in the 1918 flu pandemic. Read more interesting stuff about Frederick Trump>>
Of course, I’m talking about my home state of Indiana… because the North Pole doesn’t have Santa Claus. We do! Did you know that Santa Claus, Indiana, receives every letter sent to the jolly old man? Even better… did you know that every single one of them get a reply?
And baseball? The first professional game was held in the town of Fort Wayne in 1871. That’s about as American at it gets this side of apple pie. We have ghosts here too, y’all. Angola is known for it’s hauntings — particularly a ghost with a red beard on top of an old theatre roof that cries, “Marie, please come back to me, please!”
Get back to Indiana, Marie!
My Mom will like this one… Elvis’ last concert was in Market Square Arena in 1977 – he died 3 months later. I think we were at that concert… but I’d need to verify. I’m sure we ate Indiana popcorn while at the concert (if we were actually there), because 90% of the world’s popcorn comes from here. Why, old Orville Redenbacher himself was born in Brazil, Indiana. And if you talk about the King of Rock and Roll, you can’t leave out the King of Pop when talking about Indiana. The Jackson 5 started out in Gary.
No where in the entire world has more covered bridges than Indiana. We are the “Covered Bridge Capital of the World.” My state also has the richest deposits of limestone found anywhere on the planet. Without it, you’d not have the Empire State Building, Rockefeller Center, Pentagon, or the US Treasury. You wouldn’t have Raggedy Ann dolls either — but I doubt you care.
This is already long and I’ve not even mentioned IU’s highest honor in Olympic swimming (thanks, Mark Spitz), the first goldfish farm ever in Martinsville in 1899, John Dillinger or the Reno Brothers train robbery (in MY county, no less!). How bout the Oaken Bucket, and the fact that Indiana is the state where public schools first originated, and that more UFO sightings have been recorded over Hammond, Gary and South Bend than even Roswell and Area 51. BOO!
Indiana had a theme park 10-years before Walt, the Coca Cola bottle design was developed in Terre Haute, and we are home to the “worlds largest Christmas tree!” Then you have Johnny Appleseed. Oh… and Lewis and Clark started out from Vincennes.
And finally… you’ve heard — and often said — the words “grand central station.” Welp, that was Newport (now Fountain City) and was named during the Civil War as Indiana was crucial in helping slaves escape to freedom using the infamous Underground Railroad.
So if you don’t already live here, why not? Inquiring minds want to know…
