What I did today

Another hot week! 3:00 Sunday morning I was awakened by frantic rooster cries and looked out the window to see Rocky running onto the deck. I no more than asked him what was wrong than a possum came around the corner of the house in hot pursuit. Woke hubby and out we went, finding him huddled in the yard. Between the near attack and hubby catching him, his lone, long tail feather was sacrificed. I decided to put him in the garden to roost as I'd be up by 5:00 to let him out. Sure enough that evening he flies into the garden to roost but thankfully it wasn't to his liking and now hangs out in the dogwood tree at night. I managed to drive the back row of fenceposts for the new garden addition and it wasn't easy coupled with the extremely dry soil and the fact that an old rubble driveway exists a few inches underneath. Because I was on a deadline to get some paperwork in by the end of the week and because the postal service had already delayed getting the papers to me by two weeks, I enlisted mom as my navigator and she, kiddo and I headed to Clarksburg. Plan was to take backroads and avoid the interstate which went well. What I hadn't planned for was for kiddo to develop diarrhea and we ended up stopping at every convenience store on the way, which in rural areas are few and far between. Dropped papers off and stopped at the world's slowest McDonald's to eat, which was made better by an employee who went the extra mile to make kiddo happy. Managed to get the new cattle panel arch planted with beans that morning except for one variety I planned to grow on the end as they and a whole envelope of seed were missing. Gave up and finally found them the next morning. Did some research and discovered that that variety only grows about 5' tall, so maybe it was a good thing I didn't find it as it would be much better suited to one of the shorter trellises in the old garden. Planted cucumbers in their place

On our trip I picked up a set of drill bits as hubby managed to lose or break all but two of mine and I broke one of them the day before. Drilled holes in ten #10 cans, filed off the barbs and six of them now house ornamental peppers. Also enlarged drainage holes in one of the old washtubs, filled it with soil and will be taking it to the new garden today unless the rain is pouring. Rain is forecasted but not holding my breath just yet as previous week's storms have given us less than 3/4" of rain in total. I guess I've managed to strain my ankle more as it was pretty painful to walk yesterday and as luck would have it, I was at the doctor last week and it was on the mend. Our fourth will be spent at home as family get-togethers are scheduled for the weekend.

We had a sudden torrential downpour last evening, lasted about 10 minutes, 3/8". This morning was very cool and sunny so we walked 2.5 miles. Then it got cloudy with intermittent showers, feels really cold out there at 70*. Went a mile on treadmill. Managed to pick beans before they got too wet again. Picked beets and lettuce, all that goes to sis tomorrow when we meet up at the quarry for fishing. I kept the beet greens and got 3 pkgs to freeze. Of the 3 kinds of beets I like the white ones the best, way sweeter than the others. The golden ones have very little sweetness. The red are sweet but nothing like the white albino! I see a Casper eggplant forming, it's long and white, new to me. Yellow banana peppers forming. Moved the broccoli seedlings to the garage under lights. Next week they will go outside for a few days, then into the ground. Have to clear out part of the onion bed to make room. The Red Globe onions will be pulled, not a happy crop of those. I'll freeze the greens from them and of course the little onions will be used too.

This afternoon I'll be making basil pesto, then putting the hydroponics away for now. Time for another batch of banana/oatmeal/nut/choc chip granola bars. Nice cool day to do that since they need the oven for 20 minutes.

Made a trip to junk shop. Found a Cuisine Art Microwave popcorn popper for $2.25. The staff didn't know what it was which is why it was so cheap. They sell for $15 on Amazon. Now I have 2. They are collapsable silicone and also useful for storing pre-made salad in the fridge. Had they known what it was I'm sure it would have been priced much higher. I also found a Thirty-One bag one day for $2. They didn't look hard enough for the label.....LOL.

Tennis and yoga. Removed the shade cloth over the greens for the rain that never came. Grrr...

I need to harvest some lettuce in the morning, and buy some block parmesan cheese to make Caesar salad dressing for the romaine. And yes, I grind up some anchovies to put in it.

Hubby woke me up this morning and said he had AFib and needed to go to the ER, so off we went, dropping a half-asleep kiddo at my parents. So multitudes of tests and hours later he was released from the hospital. We decided to go ahead and grab what groceries we needed at Walmart and pick up kiddo, getting home around 3:00 this afternoon.

A little over 1/2" of rain last night and plants really perked up. Red noodle beans planted under the new arch are sprouting. Beds in old garden are extremely dry and plan to water deeply unless we get more rain tonight.

Didn't want to get out of bed this morning and didn't go outside until 7:30. By 9:00 I decided it was just too hot to be out in the sun and decided to tackle some of the rooted cuttings I've been putting off potting. I still had a few stray flowers from Mother's Day scattered about and decided to get them planted. Geraniums I picked up on clearance at Walmart were looking pretty shabby and I decided they needed separated and repotted as the soil they were in looked to be mostly wood. Pulled out the concrete planters we picked up last year and planted a white geranium, purple petunias and a Persian shield in each and added another tier of impatiens to stacking planter. Thoroughly soaked two beds with the soaker hose this morning and decided to try and use a washer hose as a siphon and attach it to a hose to empty kiddo's pool into another bed. The hose lacked about 5' of being long enough so had to attach another. With all the twists and turns, the water was flowing slower than the seven-year itch and was still emptying when I came inside for the evening. Harvested the fall-planted fingerlings and had a decent harvest considering only four plants came up this spring.

Hubby is still in AFib and quickly gets out of breath. I think we were both surprised he wasn't admitted to the hospital. He has a cardiology appointment in two weeks but I think I'm going to call Monday and see if we can get it bumped up.

Going to my parents tomorrow and my broccoli, bacon and cheese salad was requested. Also plan to make some s'mores bars as I just saw the recipe a few days ago and thought it sounded good.

Walked yesterday morning before heading to the quarry. Sis overslept so I was able to go to Farm & Fleet before fishing and pic up online order of dog food, orders over $79 get $15 off, plus 10% discount for EMS, front line and healthcare workers. Doesn't matter if you are retired or not. Then headed to Dad's. Visited for a few minutes, then sis arrived and we got out on the water, beautiful and calm day, perfect for fishing. Low humidity and no bugs. Bass were slow to hit, but sunfish was very active. We ended up with 30 fish, mostly sunfish/bluegills, all very large. We figured out they were 10-15' deep, so just put line in water off the edge of boat and keep dropping line til they hit. Then brother shows up and says Dad can't clean fish anymore, he told brother that a week or so ago. I don't mind doing it, but sure hate surprises after catching 30 for him!!!! Didn't have my filet knives, sis had come crappy knives. So all said and done sis and I kept part of the catch and left around 12 for Dad, filleted and pan ready.

Walked 2.5 miles early this morning, getting cloudy and looks like rain again. Thinking about putting some broccoli seedlings in the ground before heat wave late this week.

Last Thursday my garden helper couldn't come. Instead, my son, his wife and 2 kids all came to help. Son spent several hours cleaning up the driveway, throwing out the bags of trash and the weeds that had accumulated and neatly stacking the hay bales, bags of wood chips and pine shavings and other stuff. Also moved seven bags of chicken feed to the garage. Meanwhile the kids gathered eggs and went hunting slugs and snails for the chickens. DIL and I finished caging the eggplants and tomatoes I had planted in the morning, and then started weeding. Some late planted carrots had begun to flower and while looking at the plants my younger grandson discovered about ten more that must have come up in the spring and were medium sized. Also found a few shallots. They took the carrots home to snack on. Love kids in the garden. 

Today is rainy but I will try to plant a few more potato bags. They are neatly lined up in pairs on the driveway. Ordered some more ten-gallon bags and some smaller ones for greens and small root veggies. Was thinking of buying some metal raised beds for flowers on either side of the walkway out front, but then again, it would be cheaper and probably prettier to just get out the mantis tiller and make a regular bed. When I have time, I can edge them with bricks.

For this week, I am planning to plant the peppers, beans, cukes, squash and corn. I am thinking to mow the strawberry/ poison ivy bed to the dirt and then use the paint on root killer on any that come back up. I can always replant with strawberries or something else there in the fall.