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Frogs– the other kind

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The teacart drawer

As you, Lovely Readers, know, I have a lot of crappy old stuff. Thus, I have two kinds of dish detergent under the kitchen sink, Dawn and Ivory. Not to take anything away from stuff in general because some general stuff is important, but only the crappy old stuff gets the Ivory treatment.

Occasionally a small, individual crappy old piece of stuff will need to be hand-washed, but for reasons that often have to do with I actually do have a life, rather than wash it, I rinse it well and set it beside the sink where it patiently waits for crappy old stuff washing day. The large glass frog was one such piece. But! Because we hulled out the good crappy old stuff for Mr. Big Food’s Mom’s birthday last evening, its time had come and it has been returned– clean as a whistle– to the drawer of frogs, shells, fans, and bridge tallies.

This little episode got me to wondering just how many folks of a certain age (and not counting The Girls), who are not Martha Stewart fans, even know what a frog is? (As all good questions do, this one could lead to something of an infinite regress. I.e., how many folks of a certain age know who Martha Stewart is? But I want to neither regress nor digress so I shall press forward.)

Naturally, to answer this question, I consulted that infallible source. Nothing. Not a single entry on the “frog” disambiguation page for “frog, used in flower arranging.”

Cross-referencing needs some work.

That infallible source seldom fails to disappoint.

I think I’ll tag this with “homemaking.”

8 Responses

  1. I have some frogs…both glass – with holes – and the metal ones with pins.
    I’ve washed the glass ones, but not the metal ones. I don’t use them – not big on flowers in the house.
    Washing dishes….I’ve been using a palm held brush that has a fill part for liquid soap. I use Dawn, and it works well. It’s an old one, but still good. I also have a newer one I don’t like as well – the bristles are less rigid, and although the soap disperses, the bristles don’t do much. I keep looking for another of the old type, but haven’t found them. If I ever do find them, I think I’ll buy half a dozen!!

    I had a shopping day today as well. We’ve had stock in storage since we closed the store last year. My son and DIL planned on selling stuff. They haven’t. I’m paying for the storage, and it was time. So..first stop, connect with a former customer – an electrician who’s having a few financial problems …his customers are on hold… and he came to pick up stock. Then to Home Depot to buy tomato plants. They didn’t have Early Girl plants either.. Their tomato plant department was a mess – plants all in the wrong place! picked up 2 Super 55 plants… but still looking for Early Girls. But…I’ll give the 55s a try. Then on to Walmart to buy my week’s supply of dark chocolate. Lent’s over!!. Then finally the real stop…Smart and Final for milk and bananas. Hubby is going through bananas like you wouldn’t believe!! 3 to 5 a day! Funny thing is I think others are as well. S&F has always had “red tag” bananas. They put red tape on the ones that need to be sold or they’ll have to be thrown away. They’re cheap, and ready to be eaten _today!_. I usually get one bunch of red tag bananas, and one bunch of regular ones that we’ll eat in two or three days. Well, since this covid thing, they simply don’t have any red tag bananas! Only thing I can figure is that people are eating lots more of them than usual. Strange. The store is returning to regular stockage, but slowly. Still lots of holes. In the first rush, they didn’t hit the frozen foods much – now there are all sorts of spaces in the frozen foods. Meals and ice cream both. Big holes!
    Picked up some chicken that was marked down…different brand that they’ve marked as their own. BIG leg quarters. I picked some up a week ago, and they were really nice…tender and moist. And about twice as big as the regular quarters. So…picked up a few to stick in the freezer. Things look like they might get a big tricky in the meat department over the next few months – or longer. Things look like producers might be in trouble if things continue as they are. We’ll see. But it never hurts to have a bit extra in the freezer.
    Might not be a bad idea for you to pick up a beef calf or two to join with the sheep and mule. It looks like your pasture could stand it, and as long as you don’t get attached to them, could serve as back up or investments…whichever!

    1. What I like about frogs is that I can use them in bowls rather than vases so the arrangements are shorter– we can see each other across the table!

      Your idea about a calf is excellent. I will mention this to John. Would one be okay in the same pastures as Jack & the dummies?

      Bananas. Hipsters. Smoothies. Though I have to say, I do enjoy my mid-morning smoothie.

  2. Doggone it. I looked them up…first they’re not super 55, they’re Ace 55 tomatoes. And they’re Determinate. Celebrities are also determinate.
    I need to find some Early Girls…they’re indeterminate.
    Irritating. Hate it when I do dumb stuff. Shouldn’t buy tomatoes if I don’t _know_ which they are!

    And an oh yeah…have you thought about the possibility of an electric wire around your area where you put your tomatoes? Those deer get “bit” by touching an electric wire and I bet they’ll back off PDQ!

    1. I thought early girls were determinant. ?? How long is your season? Is it too late to start a few seeds?

      Yeah. I have thought about electrifying the fence. Everything is so much work. Farm Hand is out of the question I guess.

      Thought of him the other day and got pissed. He broke our heavy duty weed wacker. Not that it cannot be fixed, but that would require a trip to the local hardware store. Again, not that that’s not do-able. But still.

  3. Indeterminate. And early. Also hybrid…so not good if you want to harvest seeds from your own tomatoes. I don’t know if there’s an heirloom sub or one close to it.

    https://www.gardeningchannel.com/guide-to-growing-early-girl-tomatoes/

    (First link I came to that had the right answer in the first paragraph! Lots more info there that you probably don’t need, but might find interesting.)

    Calf…don’t know about compatibility. Might join the others or might just wander around alone. Wouldn’t expect any conflict in any case. Maybe get two. They can be castrated or not…castrated is probably better. They’d add weight earlier – probably between 12 and 15 months. And you’d be sure not to have problems with any aggression issues bulls might develop, though I wouldn’t expect that to be a likely problem in beef breeds. Still, a more likely candidate would be a local dairy that probably has Holsteins, and probably breed to beef bulls. The calves get size from the Holsteins, and meatiness from the beef breed. They have no use for the calves, so the usually sell them CHEAP at about a week old. They have to be bottle fed for about 2 months – 3x a day to start, then 2x for about a month (dry mik from a feed store). Or buy them well started. You have to pay for them one way or another!

    1. John is down with the idea. So he has a buddy– the buddy that left us the sheep!– who from time to time runs cows on his land. John’s going to call him. He’s talked about doing this before. He’s even talked about fencing in the lower pasture (adjacent to where Jack and the Dummies are now) to get us even more space. In any case, I would expect them to work something out. Like if he puts half dozen or so on the property, we’d get one. Bartering!

      We will see how it goes. Thanks for the idea.

      Also. If I’m not supposed to get attached, I am not bottle feeding!!

  4. “Also. If I’m not supposed to get attached, I am not bottle feeding!!”

    I understand that. Although, it does wear off after a while. My son raised one for Fair, so calf was only about 4-6 months old when Fair was over and was sold at auction. Bottle feeding wasn’t a big deal…with the first blush of a new project…and he was done with it (bottle feeding) about the same time he was _DONE_ with it! By the time we got to Fair, he was ready for the project to be done with and was sure that the last lead down the aisle to the buyer was going to be no big deal. But…on the way home, he admitted to me that it was a bit harder than he thought it was going to be.
    We actually got two calves at the same time…just in case… and the second one we kept until he was about 14 months old. At that point, I had him butchered and put into the freezer. They get very anonymous when they’re packaged and in the freezer. Especially after a year of feeding. You’d have even less connection after about 2-3 months – they’d be on pasture, and you’d just check on them as necessary. You load them on someone’s trailer, and they come back in neat wrapped packages. Assuming you have local butchers who’ll do the whole job. If not…I’m out of my depth!

    1. We do have several local processors. It’s pretty common around here.

      Sounds right about becoming attached. I mean– it’s not like we’d be feeding it carrots every evening!!

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