The Husband and I have been busy today doing high-tech stuff. Well, high-tech for us old people, at least.
The coronavirus has thrown wrenches in some seminars/meetings that The Husband was to attend this fall. Instead of cancelling the seminars altogether, they're going to try to do them "virtually." The Husband is part of a team that is putting together one of the seminars. He is scheduled to be working from home on the week that his seminar is to take place, and he's been trying to test-drive his plan today.
About 10 this morning, he asked me if I had a large piece of green fabric. I had several, though none in quite the correct shade for a "green screen" to put behind him so that he could project the seminar logo behind him, like the weatherman does, while he is hosting seminar participants in a "Zoom room." It didn't quite work, so he will either have to go back to the drawing board, or I will have to go to the fabric store for the correct green fabric.
I would SO hate to be sent to the fabric store. (*snicker*)
I was doing something completely different on the back porch. A number of my Etsy customers have told me that they own digitizing software but don't know how to use it, so I have been producing digitizing tutorials to upload to YouTube. I bought some software that records what is happening on the computer screen, and it also records my voice so that I can explain what I'm doing. It may seem counter-productive to teach my customers how to do what I do - they might make their own designs instead of buying them from me. But I'm all about learning, and in addition to learning the software and processes for making these tutorials, I've taught myself a few things about digitizing. Win - win!
Over the past few days, we've had quite a bit of rain from the fringes of hurricane Laura. Nevertheless, I sloshed around the yard a little bit today to see what's going on in the yard. It was a surprise to discover that the Sweet Autumn Clematis is in full bloom. There's some growing up a crape myrtle tree near the back porch. The crape myrtle is blooming now, too, and it gives the effect of a bi-color bush. What really surprised me, though, was walking around to the end of the house, where the phlox beds grow, and seeing how the autumn clematis has climbed over the garden arch.
The rain beat the phlox down something fierce, but just look at the clematis on the arch.
Back in March, when my cousin's daughter's wedding venue cancelled the wedding because of the virus shut-down, I loaned her this arch as an emergency wedding decoration. It was still entangled with last year's clematis, which was nowhere near the top of the arch. I hacked that stuff down to the ground, and we peeled the twisted vines off the arch, and the thing nearly came apart in the process. Her husband took it home and welded it back together, and they brought it back better than it was. We plunked it down in the same spot. A couple of times this summer, as I've walked under the arch, I've dragged some straggling vines out of the phlox and twined them through the arch, and moved on. And today I walked around there and found this. It was a gift.
After more high-teching in the afternoon, we walked down to the garden to stretch our legs. Ugh. What a mess. Nearly every tomato cage had fallen over, plants and all. Since the tomato row is right at the edge of the garden, near the grass, we were able to stand the cages up, plants and all, at least for now, without marring up in mud. The butterbean rows are as flat as pancakes. I may have to pry the runners off the ground when the soil dries up.
The squash? Well, they look just pitiful. Since I was in the garden a few days ago, more of the vines look stressed, and I didn't find a whole lot of squash that needed picking (not that I was willing to wade out there to get it today if there had been). But I still saw lots of blooms. If it survives the drowning and the inevitable fungus that comes with hot, wet weather, it may make a while longer.
The 2nd crop purple hull peas will probably be ready to pick by the time the soil dries up enough to pick them. Before I step off in that pea patch again, I need to hunt down the source of the fire ants that tried to eat my foot off last week, and dispatch them all to hell. Nasty, mean little assholes. I only had four bites on my foot, but they stung like fire, and itched all night and the next day, and festered up, and swole my foot up enough that it puffed up around my shoe!
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