Days 4 & 5

Tuesday was just a quiet day with some more rain showers. I did sell my mantis tiller so that's a little more to pay the hospital with. As a treat we went to see Transformers 2 on it's last night at the local theatre.

Today was beautiful. I got the lawn mowed and some more weeding done. I never seem to catch up completely. My mom is already canning beans and mine are still blooming! It looks like the tomatoes are going to be a complete failure. I'm afraid they're just too sensitive to the black walnut trees to prosper here.

Day 3

An interesting day to be sure. My parents had been away for a few days so I went over to visit them. We decided to get some work done on the greenhouse while the weather was cooperating. My dad and I loaded it onto the back of the pickup to haul it up near the house. Unfortunately, it's much larger than the truck bed and he put a 10 foot long 4x4 board under it to prop it up. I walked behind the truck to balance the greenhouse...and naturally, when the board fell off it bounced off my foot. Sigh, a nasty bruise and we were barely out of the shed. We kept going until he drove under a tree and the branches pushed the greenhouse off the truck. I yelled at him to stop before the whole thing came crashing down. Finally, it was in place.

Neither of my parents are interested in reading obscure and poorly illustrated instructions and messing about with the fiddly bits (which is why the greenhouse kit has been lying about the shed for years). Lucky me. Everything was done except the louvre window and the door. Actually the window was easy enough, but the door was horrible. I've given my dad the assignment of buying longer bolts so the door track can be mounted properly. I'd still like to finish the job completely this week.

On a lighter note, I've been watching Midsomer Murders from the beginning and last night dreamt about a murder. The funny thing is that my dream had theme music...it might be a sign of a few too many shows.

Day 2

The day began with a torrential downpour. So I've been spending most of the day inside reorganizing the pantry and making an inventory/shopping list. When it stopped dripping I took the camera out to my favorite places...the gardens.

The part that got weeded yesterday is looking not too bad. Marigolds, peppers, red cabbages, onions, carrots and bush beans.

A close up of the flowering beans.

A quick peek at the small garden. I LOVE how the squashes are so vigorous that weeds can't compete. Definitely cuts down on maintenance.

All of the voluteer squashes are yellow crooknecks. Good thing I didn't plant any by plan this year!

Day 1

Today is the first day of my vacation. A REAL vacation without having to finish that last project over the weekend! Thanks to Matt for wanting to do some more testing. I've got lots of things I'd like to accomplish so I'm going to keep track of what I work on as I go.

So far today has been laundry and weeding in the big garden. I've also pulled out the spent pea plants. About half the weeding/hoeing done. It's amazing how fast the weeds come up when we get so much rain. I smell like mosquito repellent...bleah. I'm going to clean out the guinea pig cages yet this evening and have a look at the mid-month bills. I received the last of the medical bills from my son's hospital stay today.

My brother

It always makes me smile when I see my brother has visited the blog. Just knowing he takes an interest in my stuff is rewarding because he is...awesome. And that's not just leftover hero worship of the eldest sibling either.

Of the entire family, he is the one who is the most together. Debt-free (including the house), work he enjoys, a happy and stable relationship with his partner, good friends, and a balanced view of environmental/green issues. All that, yet he doesn't boast and make others feel bad about their situations.

He definitely thinks more deeply than I. My thoughts tend to skim along the surface where he searches out the depths.
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With no reservations I can say I'm proud to have him as my brother.

Phew!

Yesterday my computer updated to IE8 and I hated it. Annoying little popups, extra junk all over the toolbars, even the tabs got messed with...so I uninstalled it and hooray! it went back to IE7 without any hiccups.

This was the second year that I've skipped the fireworks show. I simply couldn't be bothered and I find myself more than a little irritated that the town spends so much on the show when our streets are rubbish and in a horrible state.

At least the lawn is mowed! Small victories.

volunteers

This is the story: last fall there were a few squashes that either were too small to bother with or rotted on the vine so they were left in the garden over the winter. This spring when my son tilled up last year's squash patch for root vegetables he went right over the bits left and tilled them under with the compost.

This is the result:

Mixed in with the beets and turnips and doing an excellent job of keeping the weeds down are my volunteers. These are all weeks ahead of the squash I planted this year.

What I'm wondering is if this is something I could try for next year (except where I'd planned). It could be a bountiful year.