Of Doing Jury Duty, speicality sodas and the drought~~~

Hello My Darklings,

Yes I know I haven't post for a while, BUT.....

Well what is more Elder Gothic than being on a Murder trial?   Being On a Murder Trial.

Oh I know Darklings bad pun.   But I am stuck doing Jury Duty and it is a murder trial.   I cannot talk about the case itself, but I can tell you it was 3 of the most excruciating days of jury selection I have ever gone through, and because I'm semi-retired I cannot claim hardship.

Well to be honest, this may be interesting to see unfold.  You know see how the lawyers do things, I mean Darklings it's totally different from "Perry Mason", "Boston Legal" or even "The Good Wife". 

One thing I'm grateful for is the chairs in the jury box are comfortable if they weren't I'd be screaming.  

And I'm glad we got off early today, the Judge had something to attend to, there is no trail tomorrow and the courtroom is air conditioned, yes Darklings we are now having a bit of a heat wave.

So Dinner is going to be light a spinach salad with shrimp (grilled),  lime sherbert for dessert, no wine, but a delightful specialty soda called "Portuguese Blend"  it's green in color, but lighter in flavor than 7-Up and it's made with cane sugar not corn sugar,  we had it after dinner last week, so Sis went and bought 6 bottles of it.  Doyle prefers the Root Beer called "Rat Bastard"  I told him we cannot serve a root beer with that name to the children when they come over to visit.  So we'll stick with "Dad's"

I know---- What??  The Elder Gothests is off of wine??  No Darklings I'm not, but once in a while in a playful mood we do like to try specialty soda's, and just see what they come up with.  And really with the heat, it's best to drink water with a hint of lemon in it for a sense of freshness. 

We did have about a week ago a very nice rain storm which did wonders for my water cisterns, so I'll be able to water the plants for a while without having to use the districts water system.  But because of this drought I've decided to not plant any new exotic plants in my garden, however to make up  for any sparseness, I've decided to increase the plantings of Lavender, Sage and Rosemary, these plants encourage the honey bees and humming birds and I've made sure that the moveable bird baths are in area's of shade for the birds, bees and humming bird feeders are in the shade for them as well.  

I've been happy to see a few Monarch Butterflies as well, which cheers me up a lot, at least the flowers on those plants are lavender and purple, may be not too dark but enough to keep things interesting.   And at least they can tolerate the weather conditions much better.  Towards the back in the Pet Cemetery area nasturtiums have sprouted, I did not plant any seeds so either the birds brought them over or something, I think they are rather pretty in their own wild way so I will leave them to grow, something as natural as that is fine.

Poor Belladonna and Wiener Dog are just to tuckered from the heat and have chosen to lay down on the kitchen floor near their water bowls, I have a fan rotating in here  to help cool them down.  But I'm going to ask Doyle when he comes home if he could up the fans from the storage room, we may not need them all the time but at least they will be available. 

I've advised my Sister in Law to buy fans as well and she has mostly for the bed rooms, she wants something more Victorian for down in the main rooms so I suggested she check out the Victorian Trading Company that is where I got mine.

I have no idea how long this murder trial is going to run, but my Boss is not exactly happy, because already several of the staff have summer vacations planned, I said ..."It is what it is..." and left it at that. 

And now I'm going to take a nap my Darklings, the heat is getting to me.

Later Darklings