Scrapper

Yesterday we got started early on the yard work and finished the lawn - mowed short, top dressed, fertilized, and overseeded with a tall fescue bred in North Carolina so it can take the heat. Andrew programmed the sprinklers to lightly water the lawn until we get a good germination. The nice fall temps should be perfect for the new seedlings. As a reward, we went shopping and bought a new recliner lounge chair at Sams, to replace the old and torn Ikea lounger we have been using since we got married. Andrew loves it and it will be his reading chair and movie watching chair. He broke it in last night when we watched 'Confessions of a Dangerous Mind' - a quite funny movie based on the true life tale of the inventor of several TV shows, including 'The Dating Game' and 'The Gong Show'. He claims to have been a hit man for the CIA, but who really knows. This movie was George Clooney's directorial debut, and it wasn't bad.
This morning did not go well for Harley. Around 9:00am I was in the kitchen making the meal plan and grocery shopping list when I heard really loud and horrible sounding cat screams. I opened the door thinking the fight was right below our deck, but it turned out to be somewhere behind our neighbors. I hoped our cats weren't involved, but nope, later when they came back to the house, I could see that Harley was not sitting down to eat the way she normally does. Andrew picked her up and her left back leg had some scratches and blood. Harley then took the morning off to sleep and she would meow, sometimes sad and sometimes angry - the little scrapper. She didn't want anyone to bother her. But later on this afternoon she came outside and so I took her and Sidney on a long forest walk. Harley wasn't limping as bad and so hopefully by tomorrow she will be feeling better. I wonder which other cat was involved and what the fight was about.
While I was outside this afternoon, I noticed a new ground yellow jacket nest. These bees are nasty. So Andrew had to go out and do bee control. I can't do it because I would swell up like a balloon if I got stung. Last year Andrew was getting rid of another nest and got stung twice, once on his forehead and once on his shoulder. I put meat tenderizer on the stings and by the next day you couldn't even tell he got stung. If that had been my forehead I would have had a tennis ball sized bump. Nevertheless, Andrew didn't want to get stung this time and so he dressed up pretty good with lots of protection. He put the SOS pad dipped in Sevin on top of the nest hole and then took off. I took photos using the zoom and then I ran too. Hopefully those yellow jackets will be gone by the morning. I feel bad having to kill them but I can't have a nest so close to the house.
This evening while making the corn chowder for dinner, I must have got some of the jalapeno pepper juice inside a tiny cut I had on my baby finger. Man does it kill. It feels like someone has a lit match under my finger. Andrew googled and found out that alcohol will neutralize a capsaisin burn so I dumped some on, but it is still burning about 50% as I type this. I sure would not want to get that in my eyes.