Finally the end of 2021

Finally the End of 2021

 

Happy New Year! 

Life changes, but my New Year wish for you remains the same 

I wish you happiness, good health, and well-being!

 

It's our Anniversary today!  I am so thankful to have such an amazing wife to walk this journey of life with!

Vacation Week, we're looking at a few projects to replace some stuff here at the house. 

Did some Grocery shopping this week, lots more folks wearing masks than last week. 

 

 

 

 

A couple of great Articles about the American Chestnut

The Great American Chestnut Tree Revival

The Most Useful Tree - Chestnut,  Interesting article

And here we go again...

Rose and I have somehow managed thus-far to stay free of COVID-19 (insert current variant here...) mostly through liberal applications of alcohol sanitizer, mask wearing, and staying to ourselves whenever possible.

I hope you and yours are managing to stay healthy and Covid Free, Flu Free, and Cold Free this year.

Let's all hope that 2022 is better for us all!

Christmas

A Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

“I never thought it was such a bad little tree. It's not bad at all, really. Maybe it just needs a little love.” Linus

 

Rose and I wish you all the best this Christmas!

 

 

The Red-Tail Hawk

The Red-Tail Hawk

 

This Red-tail Hawk flew into the Apple trees just as we pulled into the yard, we'd just picked up the boys. There were multiple huge Grey Squirrels running around teasing the hawk, even running right below the apple tree he flew into. A good sized hawk, hopefully he can help with the squirrel population here.

We picked up the boys, they're helping us get ready for Christmas.  Jarrod had picked up gingerbread house kits and sent them along with the boys.  Nice kits.  The boys assembled them under Hanna's watchful eyes.

Prepping the ingredients for "Turkey Divan", Broccoli is out of the freezer, Rose & I stripped the turkey carcasses to remove all the meat.  Jason and Rosie assembled it.

I went out and sanded the walkway down to the driveway, what a difference dry sand makes, it's not a frozen solid mess like last year.  Oh boy, is it slick out there.  I met out next door neighbor JP (We don't know their last name yet) I'll have to find out as he travels for work so if she's stuck or needs anything we can help out) JP was out chipping the ice off his driveway, he mentioned they are already struggling getting the oil truck up their driveway.

We took the boys bowling, we had the entire bowling alley to ourselves, go figure.  The fact the alley was deserted was especially nice, its been 40 years since Rose or I have bowled. Nothing worse than watching kids in the next lane bowling far better than you, and you trying your damnedest to figure out what they're doing and you obviously aren't...  The King lanes in Goffstown a candle pin alley was the place to be, Jason out bowled us all today!

It's Christmas eve!   

It's spitting snow this morning, the dogs got me up barking at 4:30am this morning with a bark, that's unusual enough the I jumped from bed and ran downstairs to see what was the matter... nothing...  

 

Merry Christmas, thanks for stopping by. 

May your Christmas be safe, joyful and memorable.

-Don

The weather outside is frightful!

The weather outside is frightful!

 

Thursday, I finally got my hair cut, they're open late on Thursday evenings until 7:30pm a great place for a Christmas Cut!  Below is a quick pic I took of Tonic Barber Shop in Goffstown all decked out for Christmas,  The place reminds me of some old Twilight Zone episodes.

Saturday we didn't get nearly the 6-12" we were predicted so we have that going for us!  

It's so quiet at the house right now, the dogs are all tuckered out from playing in the snow this morning.  Zeb snuck his ball out and it rolled down the hill by the old Apple tree out back.  Rose said he just stood there and stared at it wishing it to come back, I'll have to go get it for him later.

Sunday clean-up yup as I expected, Snow blowing snow still sucks!  Even though we get the driveway plowed, the walkway to the barn and workshop, most of the front yard for the dogs and for us to unload groceries, a path around the house, a path to the deer-yard, and the deer-yard itself all still need to get done.  There was some wind blowing still around noon, I had to stop 3-4 times as the snow discharge was blowing back in my face, it freezes where you stand.  I'm just relaxing in front of my PC now, tired...

Monday  It's 14 Degrees this morning, we'll watch the dogs good when they go out.  Hannah does not have a lot of fur on her belly, she gets to playing with Zeb and gets too cold.

I cleaned off the cars, tried the remote start on the RAV4, it worked fine.

The RAV4 drove right up the steep part of the hill through the 4+ inches of un-plowed fresh snow,  All Wheel Drive (AWD) works...  Nice.

Tuesday Turkeys came in this afternoon we haven't seen them but once in the last couple of years.  There were 8-10 huge birds out there.  We're hoping they were just passing through, they make a mess everywhere.

We hit Tractor Supply to pick up a deer block, we're hearing about grain shortages out west, so far we're still seeing no issues here in NH.  Only time will tell.

Wednesday morning it's Icing up good, Zeb slid off the back stairs early this AM.

Our trash pickup cancelled their pickups today, that's a good thing, the ice is bad here.

American chestnut trees once filled North American forests.   Interesting, I remember a big chestnut tree on main Street in Pepperell, MA.

 

Here comes the Snow and Garden ramblings

 

We have Snow in the forecast

Saturday Dec 18th 4-8" last I heard.  Hah, I just saw the Accuweather map this morning showing 6-12".  This'll be plowable for sure, the first this year for us. 

Deer - Rose was so happy that she tapped on the kitchen door window the other night to get my attention and after hurriedly pushing the dogs back I was able to squeeze through the door keeping them in.  They can't get to the deer but will bard to scare them away.  Rose turned on the flashlight, and low and behold 6-9+ deer all jostling for a spot in the deer-yard,  the deer-yard is a lollipop circle mid field where we feed the deer in the Spring through Summer months, in Winter, we feed the herd closer to the house as we have to snow blow path out there. 

Garden and seed thoughts - I found myself thinking about our 2022 garden already and whining to myself about the price of seeds, then I remembered complaining loudly to Rose about the price of plants too...   lol, I found that funny, seeds are cheap by comparison.  

Much of what we grow in our expanding gardens are heirlooms, a lot of what we grow are heirloom non-hybridized varieties so that seeds we save from them will come back true to the original as long as we're careful with cross-pollination! An heirloom is anything of value (though not necessarily economic) to a person, family or group passed down from one generation to other.  We weren't so careful about cross-pollination one year and one of our squash plants crossed with something awful, we had the bitterest squash I've ever tasted that year.  We taste everything we put up now, every time!  It's a bummer when you raise a plant, keep the bugs and critters from eating it, have it fruit, pick, process it and can or freeze it to then cook and taste something bitter.

At Victory Seeds a Cherokee Purple Tomato Seed packet is $2.95/pkt. and Each packet contains approximately 20 seeds.

Burpee has one variety of San Marzano paste tomato 6.95/Pkt.  and 150 seeds per pkt. (A much larger fruit than an Amish paste tomato)

We pay as much as $4.00 per heirloom plant for a rare heirloom Tomato plant, yes that's for one plant, at a local greenhouse that specializes in some great Heirloom varieties! You can't grow them all, can you?  I try to sneak in as many tomatoes as possible into the garden, Rose keeps me in check. We try a few that we haven't tried every year as well as out fav's, we scaled back a bit this year...

Seed prices are just fine!

We lost most of our Tomato seedlings we grew in the house last year, lord knows what took them out, it was sad.

 

The Geminids are coming

The Geminids are coming

I went for a walk last night, (Sunday evening) it was quiet, dead quiet actually, an occasional car the only noises heard. I didn't even have to trot across Rt 114 to keep from getting hit, so that was nice. I have at times waited 5 minutes or so to get across the highway, timing is the key.  I don't run quite as fast as I used to.   

We had a front come through at 3am or so Sunday morning woke me right up, the wind was howling like a freight train coming down the hill from Weare.

The Geminid meteor shower was supposed to peak this evening, Monday December 13th, it was a bust for me, Rosie was out and saw two big streakers, she called me out but it was not to be, as is the case many times with fleeting things. I looked up in the back yard and took a walk out front to no avail.  

According to website Space.com, the Geminids are considered one of the best meteor showers every year because the individual meteors are bright and come fast. The name Geminid is derived from the constellation Gemini, from which it appears to emanate.

I went out for a walk Monday night, traffic was still quite light on RT. 114 I didn't have to run across the intersection, timing is critical as the vehicles race up the straight a way.

I stopped several times to stare up at the sky along my way, hoping I'd see a few meteors.  There's a clearing on the other side of Riverdale Rd. I stared for a while, I heard a deer rustle in the oak leaves.

On the way back to the house I noticed Orion's Belt was sandwiched between the two big pines by the workshop, I'd not seen the constellation in some time, I have to remember to look up more often.  I went back out at 10:30pm and saw two short length meteors finally.

The smell of birch smoke from a wood stove nearby it was heavy in the air, it smelled nice, the only better smelling wood is a nice apple wood.

It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas around here...

The yard is a mud pit after the warmer weather and rain we got this week.  I'll have to put down some more straw on the bad wet spots once that wind dies down, it helps to reduce the mud coming in with the dogs.

It's beginning to feel like vacation though it isn't for another week.

With beef prices skyrocketing, SPAM sales are again at a 7 year high.  I do love my SPAM.

Talking about Beef...  I saw this, Beyond Beef "FAKE Beef" ingredients list... Good grief!

 

Rose and I finished up our Christmas shopping and all of the presents are WRAPPED too!

That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  Stay safe our there...

Oh Deer

Oh Deer

 

Rose said we had 5 deer in the other night, we're glad to see the herd is growing slowly.  We had three in just before dark tonight Dec. 6th.  Look at the size of that Doe on the top right...  and her two kids are quite fluffy too.

Sorry about the pic quality it was nearly dark, the camera was having a tough time focusing. They didn't like that I showed up on the porch, they ran about 20 feet then decided that I wasn't a threat and came back to feed.  They are a lot more used to Rose and generally just continue eating when she's out there.

She is huge.  They have their dark winter coats now.

Broken stuff...

Broken stuff...

 Trip to HD was not productive.

 

Oh the fun of being a homeowner...  Stuff around here always seems to break around Christmas time.  When it rains it pours...

I replaced the battery in the Hyundai Tucson today.  The replacement went in well, now I have to return the old battery for the $12.00 core charge.

We were looking to replace a medicine cabinet hinge locally, (plastic broke) no luck... it's one of those euro (pic below) highly adjustable deals.  Hah, I'm lucking out today, I found it on Amazon for $17 for 4 pack.

Full Overlay 26mm 90 deg. Clip-On Hinge

Our bathroom vent fan/light combo, the fan is going bad, to replace it HD wanted $108 and up for a new unit.  Not as nice as the one we have now.

Found the exact fan/light on Amazon for $83.50  Yay!

Even better, we took the fan/light combo down, I'm ordering a replacement fan/blower assy. from Amazon for $26.00

Rose just noticed the Pellet stove making an odd squeaking sound, still working fine just an odd squeaking noise.  Ugh...

The Robots are coming...

A U.K.-based company Engineered Arts has developed a humanoid robot that can display human-like expressions with ease.

 

Oh what fun...

Went for a walk Saturday night, a squall kicked up snowing, and blowing, it only lasted a short while.

Stay Safe out there!

Our Adventures at Wally World continue

The Games Continue

Our Adventures at Wally World continue, Monday night, had to get a battery for the Tucson, and Rose had to return some pants.  I'd gone online prior to going there, and saw the battery was $88.00 with a 3 year warranty, I took a screenshot so I knew what model to buy, not a bad price, as the Die-Hard battery at Autozone was $178 with a 3 year warranty.

Figured I'd go pickup the $88 dollar one at Wally World.  

So we go right to the Auto section and the battery rack is mostly empty, oh, no... but, low and behold they had the Everstart battery for my car.  The shelf below the battery (of course) said $129.84 not the $88 that I saw online, we loaded it into the cart and headed for the registers any way.

Wally World only has 3 registers open... so we waited, and waited some more. We finally get to the cashier and I told the woman that I needed a price check on the car battery, she scans it and sure enough it comes up at $129.84.  I showed her my phone with the the Walmart web site battery price, then she says "that must have been a Black Friday price". I told her "no this is Walmart's web site right now".  She calls over the manager, and says "are we still price matching?" as though what I showed her was a competitors web site. He replied "yes" we still price match...  Then the manager scans the barcode on the battery with his cell phone, it pulls up the Walmart site and the $88.00 price and says I was right, "Give him the $88.00 price".  (Yup, you heard that right, I Was Right!), yay me!  I just saved $41.84!

So Rose was walking by crock-pots and says she is picking up yet another crock-pot, I said what do we need another crock-pot for?  Being sharp as she is she says I couldn't even cook you your turnip for thanksgiving because I didn't have a crock-pot for it.  Yes she did...  I returned just as quickly "Okay Fine then I'm getting another gun!"  She just smiled...  And that folks is what you call a WIN-WIN!

The Covid-19 variant of the day is out... It's OMICRON! 

 

Drove by this last week had to stop and take a pic...  LOL!

Hulu,  I was talking to Jarrod over thanksgiving, he mentioned he still had Hulu, we had it at one time but had the Hulu Plus with Live TV it was I believe $67 per month and we dropped it.  Jarrod said he has the regular version of Hulu that's cheaper.  Right now they are running a .99 cents per month for 12 months deal.  I jumped on that at the price, we can keep it for $6.99 per month after the 12 months or cancel it next November.

 Stay safe out there

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving All!

Post Thanksgiving activities are in full swing today, another bird in the oven.

                                                       Revenge

Turkey prices, funny, we paid $.79/pound last week, that was for the cheapest frozen bird.  We picked up a second bird on Monday night and paid $1.19 / pound, it was the cheapest at Market Basket, WOW!  Up $.40/pound in a week!  Yikes  Market Basket is making Shaw's look real good lately! 

We went to Hannaford and picked up a fresh 20 lb bird for thanksgiving at $.49/pound for a fresh turkey, we'll save the 10 lb'er we got to cook up this weekend for more leftovers.

The thyme herbs we just bought in the last month.  Rose opened the bottle and there's black in the jar.  Threw that out... Sad.  

Jarrod, Crystal, James, and Jason came over for Thanksgiving on Thursday.  A great time and fantastic food was enjoyed by all.

Reynolds Oven bags fiasco...  The Turkey of the day!

Purchased Reynolds 8-24lb Turkey size bags for the 20 lb. Turkey we're cooking for Thanksgiving today.  Rose opened up the bag, put in a tablespoon of flour as directed, then she shook the bag to distribute the flour, 3" of the bag was not fully sealed on the bottom so when she shook the bag flour went all over the place, counters, floor, cabinet fronts... Amazing how much a tablespoon of flour will cover.

Just to add insult to injury, we also purchased bags for meats, for the Thanksgiving Ham, I opened the box, and found no ties for bags, and no instructions...  Extremely disappointing quality issues at Reynolds.

And the plandemic with it's supply chain issues will continue

Stay safe

 

November Ramblings

November Ramblings

 

WOW, DAD is 87 years old!  Happy Birthday Dad!

Once in 580 years the Blood Beaver Moon

I caught this partial eclipse at 4:30 am this morning, I managed to catch it just before it went below the trees, an hour later I went out and it was gone below the tree line.

Talk about crazy food prices, I went to McD's last weekend to get a Filet O' Fish sandwich, just the sandwich, $5.41 I was told, sure enough, $5 for the sandwich and .41 tax. OMG! 

I'm sure you're seeing it too, 16' feet long 5 shelves high, yes that's FEET wide of Marshmallow Fluff at Market Basket!  (Dad's ol'e favorite) A lot of products were one deep, and all pulled forward to make it look better.

We've noticed that even the reasonable restaurants around town are no longer able to contain prices...  Where we used to be able to go out for $28 for an evening is now closer to $55+.  Even Chinese food is pricing us out...

Rose is seeing the twin fawns just before dark nightly, they have their dark coats now, and a white band around the nose in now prominent.

Stay safe out there...

Getting ready for What's next...

TURN YOUR CLOCKS BACK!

FALL BACK...

This post's a bit late...

11/2 Tuesday Evening

Rose finished the clearing out the front perennial bed and the back of the house beds, a whole lot of work, it makes it so much easier in the spring though.

I decided I'd vacuum up the maple leaves with the tractor, and vac attachment, it makes the yard look manicured.

Rose pulled a pallet down the cellar stairs and we put the 20 or so birdhouse gourds onto it in the spaces to dry, Rose said she thinks it took a year last time we grew them.

11/4 Thursday, A frosty morning this AM 24 degrees...

I just read that the new Roomba iRobot vacuum can now detect poop.  Somehow before I read this article it never would have occurred to me, that a robot vacuum may run through poop from a dog accident and track it all over the room.  Who'd a thought?

 

Rose and I had a great dinner at Jarrod's Saturday evening, roast pork, and a nice brown gravy, mashed potato, corn, beans, and topped off with chocolate cake yum.  We're taking the boys home with us they can help with some of the pre-winter preps stuff we need to get done.  Moving the Deer feeder tripod, tarping the camper, and a couple other things around the farm. 

 

French Toast for me and the boys Sunday morning, yum!

With the boys help we got the bump-out cranked in on the camper, we'll use the tarp from last year it looked to be in good enough shape, we got the tarp pulled over the roof and bungied it in place for the winter.

Rose was pulling out the winter clothes and went through all her old clothes in the process, I need to do the same with mine.

 

Monday, the time change didn't hit us too hard.

 

Time to start spring cleaning the office, it's supposed to rain this weekend.

 

They haven't uttered the "S" word yet here, so there's that!

 

I added a couple Free new channels "new to me anyway" to the Fire TV cube, "iMDB TV", and "Fawesome", lots of TV shows and movies, oh and iMDB carries Roses fave Judge Judy!  I added another channel I added a couple weeks back called TUBi lots of horror films we've been watching.  

 

 

Side note:  Let me know if you get this Joe...

 

 

 

Into November we go

Into November we go

8 weekends until Christmas

FALL BACK

Time change:  Nov. 7th  1 hour Back  Nov 7, 2021, 2:00 am

Happy Halloween!
Goffstown is getting ready, the signs are up telling forks to watch for pedestrians, and BOO! 

Rainy Day on Saturday

Rose and I pulled the ten or so remaining Butternut squash out of the fridge, we cooked them up three different ways.  A good year for butternut squash for sure.

1. Cut them in half, cleaning out the guts, roasted with skins cut side down on a sheet pan. I liked the ease of this way...
   
2. Cut them in half, cleaning out the guts, peeled, cubed and roasted on a sheet pan. Was more chunky
   
3. Cut them in half, cleaning out the guts, peeled, cubed, and boiled.  This way worked good too.
   

We'll see what method works best, quickest.

We got it all bagged up and into the freezer, I tried a few chunks it is tasty...

 

We have a sign next to the walkway, says Leave all packages Here... and a Beware of Dogs sign 6 feet from that, Twice today Amazon delivery folks walked right past the signs and put the package on my front porch.  My dogs will jump up on you... 

Dad called Friday night, he sounded absolutely horrible, I asked if he had Covid-19, he said no, and yes he got tested, a real hum-dinger of a cold though.  We made a quick run over and dropped off some Turkey soup, crackers, and Gatorade.  Mom sounded a little rough too. Get Well Soon guys!

The supply chain issues continue, we had to hit Wally World in Manchester, we're always reminded when we go there what a horrid place this is. We'll go up to Concord next time... the MHT Wally World had gaps in many places, entire areas that had hooks but no products on them.  No dress shirts???

Sunday 

We're putting in driveway marker stakes today before ground freeze and covering up some exposed maple tree roots to make it easier for the snow blower getting around the house.  We vacuumed out the two cars too.

We've moved the deer yard closer to the house,  easier on us getting out there daily to feed through the bad weather.

 

Stay safe out there...

Finally Frost

FROST!

We finally got a frost, I was beginning to think it wouldn't happen this year with the seemingly never-ending garden production.

We went out and picked the last peppers, and Leeks from the garden, I can now officially pick the kale now as the frost sweetens it.  I'll make up a big batch of Johnny Searle's Portuguese Kale Soup!

The last of the Maple leaves have yet to fall

We finished up around the foundation yesterday, washed all the car windows, I grabbed the Rain-X but it had gone bad, we'll have to pick some up.

Today it's a run to Home Depot to pickup some Sakrete General purpose sand for the walks and driveway, it comes bagged and DRY... nothing worse than trying to get sand out of frozen solid sand barrels.

Rose froze up all the Leeks on Tuesday, we were able to offload some veggies with Jarrod too, whew a little more space.

Adventures in shopping at MB on Wednesday evening, lots of holes on the shelves, this nightmare is just starting and I already can't believe the price of most everything I see.  

No Folgers coffee, we bought some Chock Full O nuts. I never saw 12 foot width of Marshmallow fluff jars on display before.  $4.99 for a box of Total cereal, all of the products were pulled forward on the shelves, nothing behind though.  Out of canned dog food, so we nearly cleaned out the other brand of canned dog food. One guy commented that the Deli was the most fully stocked place in the store. Meat prices were ridiculous, pot roasts stared at $24 for a roast, they has one small eye roast for $17, though they still had hamburg for $4/lb.  None of the Cascade we use in the dishwasher.  We walked the entire store commenting OMG at the prices we saw.

Articles about heating fuel prices are everywhere.  We have propane, and 3 tons of pellets for this winter.

Mid October

2021 was an amazing year for our garden. 

We put a lot into the garden, leaves, mulch, compost, and some other soil amendments, lime, bone/blood meal, composted cow manure, and peat moss.  We braced for a drought, putting in irrigation hoses and plastic to cut down on water usage, in the end we haven't watered since the end of May, go figure.  

I don't know if we've ever grown this much in our Vegetable garden.  We're still getting tomatoes, butternut squash, pumpkins, kale, leeks, beans are drying on the vines now.  We're expecting a frost to come in and take out the remains of the garden in the next couple of weeks, except for the Kale, it loves the frost...  Speaking of frost, I was talking to some colleagues in Canada Thursday and the have already had their first frost in Ontario.

The Pellet stove's been running mornings, and some evenings as we're in the 50's this week, this ol' house holds heat like a barn.

We heard it, on Oct 10th, it upset the dogs too.
MANCHESTER, N.H. — ** Update: Scientists now say the boom was likely caused by a meteor entering the atmosphere. Read our latest report. **

Supply chain stories are cropping up everywhere, appears it's far worse than predicted.  Get those x-mas gifts early folks.

We've got to get the boat put away for the year, the snowblower up to the house and we'll start thinking about tarping the camper too.

The first of the ladybugs and stinkbugs have arrived Rose said there were bunches of ladybugs on the front of the house.

Halloween is Sunday, October 31, 2021, I don't know if that's good or bad.  We'll probably go downtown and walk around to see the kids in costume.

Saturday the 16th, Lots going on in Goffstown today, St. Matt's big yard sale, an antique snowmobile and mini bike show, and the Great Pumpkin Regatta all today. There was a great turnout as the rain held off all day today.  The
Great Pumpkin Regatta continues Sunday, I think with a race, and Punkin Chunkin.

We took a ride looking for some color, ended up in Concord, not a lot of color this far south.

We pulled the utility trailer out back, we're loading it up with scrap metal from around the farm.

I decided that seeing 40 or so percent of the leaves on our two maple leaves were already on the ground to load up the vacuum on the lawn tractor, we went over to where the vacuum was sitting in the hedge row. I grabbed one side she the other, simple right, hah, not so much, on the way out I managed to trip on a raspberry cane slamming me to the ground on my knees HARD, I almost smashing my face on the back of the tractor in the process, I got real lucky, Rose said so you're lucky you didn't lose all your front teeth, everything feels OK, we got all the leaves vac'd up. Rosie cleared all the squash and pumpkin vines as well as a ton of volunteer morning glory vines (for whatever reason Morning Glories took over many sections of the garden this year, all volunteers too.) and she pulled up the irrigation hoses and plastic this week.  This left me with nice clear beds to cover with leaf mulch putting the beds to rest for next year.  It's one of the best things ever vacuuming up the leaves leaving a pristine grass yard.

The design of the garden,  beds, and gate locations this year were awesome, our most productive and easiest to maintain.

Oh, I forgot, the yellow jackets have moved on, thankfully.

Stay safe out there...

October Already

October Already

It's Jarrod's Birthday today, Oct 1st when I started this post.

Leaves are turning fast around here, swamp maples are in their full red dress

Red Raspberries are setting fruit again, amazing

 

We've started watching the Squid Game series on Netflix. We're not normally the series watching type but this looked good.

2nd loaf of bread baked in the Dutch Oven rose more than the 1st loaf baked in a loaf pan, there's a white sandwich bread I'll try and bake next.

More work on the foundation needs to be done if it stops raining, kitchen side, finishing up with some hydraulic cement work and caulking.

We're still getting Blackberries too.  Crazy year

 Yellow Jackets

 

I was out mowing the filed last night, and went to check on the Yellow Jackets, I found something had dug out the nest though there were still a couple bees flying in and out, you can see the combs on the ground.  The entrance hole used to be 2" in diameter now it's 8+" wide.  I read that Yellow Jackets don't produce honey, I was initially thinking a bear looking for larvae, I saw that raccoons, and even foxes will dig into the nests for the larvae too.

 

Bees are loving the Bottle Gourd flowers, they're still covered with flowers and bees.

Supply Chain shortages are starting to crop up again,  At least we don't have to worry about TP shortages any more, the enterprising farmers around here have started growing it!

Now that's just funny...

Wash your Hands!