December 2001
Hi!
Between work and school, this has been a hectic year;
the cards and letters are going out a little later than usual. Jerrel is closer to retirement - down to 6 months.
He has been doing a monthly countdown (every day) for over a year now -
Laura is glad when a new month flips over!
At any rate, he continues to practice for retirement with piddle patch.
If only he could find a sure fire way to deal with the deer population up
there! The summer garden was not
bad for deer - Laura did the usual canning and freezing as a result. The peas did not come up well and the dead electric fence did
not stop the deer at all from eating what did come up! We bought peas for freezing!
For some reason, Jerrel really, really, really likes peppers.
Unfortunately, the freezer will only hold so many bags of peppers.
Laura is now the proud owner of a dehydrator and only one bag of dried
peppers. Our only problem occurred when Laura put the dried peppers into the
peas she was cooking. Jerrel came
behind her to check on the peas and started removing the peppers,
fussing the whole time because she had not picked through them carefully
enough - all those pea hulls left!
There was on overabundance of winter squash - neatly stored under the bed
- and spaghetti squash. The
spaghetti squash had the same storage place but started sprouting so now have
moved to the compost pile. We are rethinking storage for spaghetti squash.
Jerrel has not done a winter garden at piddle patch before so tried one
this year. We have only collards
left - apparently collards do not suit the palate of the deer.
He and our sister in law picked 2 garbage bags full at Thanksgiving for
me to freeze.
The various animals in the yard are still pretty much doing as usual - a
couple of fish need to be replaced in the pond.
Laura left for a meeting in Chicago and the pond got overfilled with
leaves. The resident frog loved it - the frog lived in goop! The frog
left me a message on the refrigerator that his home needed cleaning.
I did so and he left - gratitude!
Jerrel had the snake sighting this year.
He walked out of the house and saw the snake coming toward the house.
He chased it with the nearest thing available, his walking stick.
Then left the stick outside in case we needed it again - Laura came home
from work and promptly put it away! The
stick now stays near the back door at all times - just in case.
The birds are still flocking to the yard and working diligently on bug
patrol We have had an abundance of
butterflies this year. Friends and
relatives have given us plants that really attract them and Laura has made good
use of the plants.
Although Jerrel is getting ready to retire, Laura is going to continue to
work at the clinic and part time at the college.
We plan to do traveling and let Jerrel get caught up on his sleep.
He also is looking forward to going to some Ole Miss as well as
Taylorsville HS, MS football games.
We have been able to do some traveling this year.
We both went to Savannah in February and Mississippi in June and Sea
Island, GA in October. Laura went
to Charleston, SC for a garden tour sponsored by Horticulture Magazine -
absolutely lovely. She also went to
Orlando for a meeting in the spring and Newport, RI in July.
The sunset cruise on Narragansette Bay was a lot of fun. Then to Tampa to visit brother and sister-in-law in August
and a meeting in Chicago in November. We
have just enjoyed our holiday visit to Callaway Gardens with a brother and
sister-in-law (Jerrel stayed home and cooked supper for us) and are now down to
cards, letters, and decorating. We
still have a few days to go before Santa arrives so should be able to get the
tree ready for the presents and the stockings hung in time.
We hope you have a very happy holiday season and a wonderful 2002.
Jerrel
and Laura Yates
layates@mindspring.com
jkyates@mindspring.com