Riverbend Journal

  Not sure why I didn't post this sooner but better late than never I guess. Or more specifically, better this than nothing which is where I am at in creating posts right now.  Earlier in the fall I had lightly tilled up the garden where our spring and summer vegetables had grown. I left the fall things like okra and eggplant alone because they would produce up until the first frost. Unfortunately, I was lazy and didn't put the fence up around them thinking the deer couldn't reach the okra which was by then probably close to 10 feet tall and they didn't seem to touch the eggplant. I was wrong. The deer indeed couldn't reach the okra but they stripped off the lower leaves. When those were gone they chewed and rubbed the lower stalks until weakened, they fell over and then they ate the upper leaves. They never touched the okra though but killed the plants. When there was nothing else to eat in our garden, they finally decided to eat the eggplant.  All of this is reall...

I received the call from my elder daughter a couple weeks ago on a Monday afternoon. She had gone out to the student parking lot, a long affair involving a 30 minute bus ride and a 5 minute walk, to get her car and go with her roommate out to some store for something or other. She couldn't get into her car using the key fob. I knew what was likely coming but I walked her through removing the built in key inside the fob and getting the door open. She tried to start the car but nothing happened. No noises, no nothing. I told her that I was sorry but her battery was completely dead and that she wasn't going to be able to use the car that day nor could I help her fix it over the phone. They ended up calling an Uber and continuing on their way. Amazing what modern technology does. In my day without cellphones, the only option would have been to walk back to the bus stop for the long wait for the next bus and the long ride back to where I came. I had replaced the battery before my da...

  Four or five years ago now, we had a derecho come through our area and took out three of my trees. As I still had plenty of firewood from trees I cut down a decade before, I cut the two trees closest to my yard into stove lengths to season and piled up the small branches to burn some winter when conditions are right. I am still waiting on those conditions. A third tree, a black cherry, blew down on the steepest part of our sloping knob out back. It was nice and straight and would have made for some excellent lumber to use on projects if only I had a sawmill or even some way to haul it up and out of the huge ditch it is in and haul it to a sawmill. But I don't and due to the location, it has just laid there on the ground all these years. A few years back, a friend of mine asked if I could cut him a little chunk of it for some project the next time I had my chainsaw out. I did that and while at it, cut off the above chunk for myself. I lugged both chunks, heavy in water weight up a...

  Sometime earlier this spring while I was chest deep in the altar build project, my wife came home with a limited edition print that someone had given her and asked me if I could frame it. Around the same time frame, no pun intended, as an officer in a Catholic fraternal organization I was sent the picture on the left of newly elected Pope Leo XIV. For reasons too lengthy to get into, the organization can't utilize the picture and so my wife adopted it and added it to the framing list.  I dislike doing such projects when the weather is great because there tends to be a lot of spare time in-between steps such as waiting for glue to dry or coats of paint to dry. So with most of my furniture list completed, I thought now was the time to squeeze this project in. Using more scraps and some router bits from my newly installed wall mount case, I quickly had the frames made, glued up and drying in clamps.  Waiting ensued. The next day I cut reinforcement slots for splines in the...

  Our priest had a birthday and had several celebrations by various groups of parishioners leading up to it but nothing on his actual birthday including the Filipino community. Being fairly close to the priest as friends along with him being our spiritual leader, we invited to take him and his assistant priest out to eat. He accepted and chose a local Chinese buffet place that we don't frequent. In fact, I had never been there in all thirteen years we have lived in this town but I know it does good business as the parking lot is always packed whenever I drive by. But I digress. He had obligations so couldn't get there until close to seven in the evening. I had obligations and couldn't get there until twenty minutes later so my wife met him there and after I finished up, I drove there. I was surprised to see maybe 20 others that I knew, all belonging to the Filipino community also there celebrating Father's birthday, most of them having just celebrated Father's birth...