The Boss's Vacation - June 22, 2022

The Boss left town Sunday on a two-week vacation.  She'll come home for a day or two, then go out of town for another week.

"While the cat's away . . . ."

Monday was a federal holiday.  The Husband had the day off.  It was scorching hot, and the garden was in pretty good shape, so I spent most of the day reading, and he spent most of the day playing his ukulele.  

Yesterday was Granddaughter #1's birthday.  Granddaughter #3 had a birthday two weeks ago, but she and her family had covid and did not have a birthday party.  I'd promised her I'd take her shopping for her birthday when everyone was well, so yesterday I loaded up all the granddaughters (except for the Little Rotten Baby) and took them to town.  Granddaughter #2 won't have a birthday until next month, but I did not have the heart to leave her out of the fun.  We hit four stores and had lunch at the local IHOP (their choice).  Came home with shopping bags of toys and clothes for everybody, even the LRB.

Today I am at home, waiting on a refrigerator repairman.  He's supposed to be here in 10 minutes.  Our refrigerator has been doing a weird, sporadic leak.  

I'm not quite sure what I'll do the rest of the day.  There's a quilt top in my sewing room that needs to be quilted, and I've promised myself to get it done during these three weeks when The Boss will be gone.  A couple of years ago, after I sewed TOTALLY THROUGH my pinkie finger while attempting to quilt this thing on my own quilting machine, I dis-assembled my quilting machine frame and haven't quilted a stitch since then.  I'll have to rent a machine at the local quilt shop to finish this quilt.  I might just be too lazy to tackle it today.

...And Plowing - June 18, 2022

I worked in the office ALL DAY yesterday.  On a Friday.  I know!  Crazy!  But The Boss is leaving town this weekend and had some work that needed to get out before she leaves, so we hung in there until it was done.  Didn't even stop for lunch.

On the way home, I stopped to buy some insecticide for the garden.  As soon as I finished supper, I put on my gardening clothes and walked across the road to kill the Japanese beetles on Aunt B's rose bushes.  It wasn't an entirely unselfish gesture; they needed to be nixed before they polished off her rose bushes and moved to our vegetable garden.  

After that, I went straight to the garden to do some weeding.  

Weeding is the devil.  

Son #1 still has our big black tiller that would make quick work of the job.  I filled up the gas tank on the little red tiller and went to work.  There was still a lot of daylight left - and two or three more rows to weed - when the gas ran out, but I didn't even consider filling it up again.  Just rolled it back to the shed and shut the door.

When I poked my head in Nanny's back door to tell her I was leaving, she said she had some sprouted potatoes that she wanted to plant.  "As high as groceries are now, it's a shame to let them go to waste," she said.  I've never had any luck with potatoes, but I promised to dig up some rows for her this afternoon.  We'll see what happens.

Planting and Plowing - June 16, 2022

It's 9 p.m., and still 87 degrees.  I just got out of the shower after working in the garden for about an hour.  I planted the 6 tomato plants that I bought yesterday, and watered them and the tiny Hossinators I planted a couple of days ago.  The Hossinators look about as pitiful as they did when I planted them.  Maybe they'll perk up.

Weeded the tomato rows with the little tiller.  

Tomorrow there'll be a run to the garden store for more seeds and some insecticide.  Aunt B's roses across the road are positively crawling with Japanese beetles.  I don't want them to come eat my stuff once they finish off her roses, so I intend to sneak over there and "off" them with the insecticide, then I'm going to give my squash plants a preventative dose.

There are still two unplanted rows in the garden, and several half rows.  If I can still find some butter pea seeds, I'm going to plant some this weekend.  They've done well in our garden in the past.  I'd also like to plant one or two hills of zucchini.  I wish we could grow corn, but . . . raccoons.  :(

Planting, Round 2 - June 15, 2022

It was powerful hot again today.  According to my computer, it was 91 degrees at 7 p.m., but after supper I put on my gardening clothes and went to the garden with a pocket full of seed packets and a 1-pound bag of purple hull pea seeds.  I must have lived somewhat right for the last day or two, for the little red tiller cranked after a bit of coaxing, and I set about pulverizing some dirt in what was to be the okra row.  Planted those seeds by hand, covered them up.

The first planting of purple hull peas sprouted on the dry half of the garden, and there were three more rows empty rows, designated for peas.  I moved the tiller to the first half-row and dug up the rest of the row, and when I turned around to start up the next row, I looked up and saw Nanny at the far end of the garden with a hoe in her hand, chopping, and bending over to pull grass.  She has been complaining of dizzy spells and has no buIsiness chopping in this heat.  I throttled the tiller down and hollered, "Nanny, you're not supposed to be doing that.  I don't want to be picking you up." 

Little woman ignored me and kept on chopping, like she didn't hear.  

I cut the tiller off and walked up to her.  I told her nicely that she was worrying me, but she insisted she was fine and wanted to help.  

My choices were (1) quit working, myself, so she would quit, or (2) find her something less strenuous to do.  

It was about to get dark, but I really, really wanted to get those peas planted.  I pulled out the bag of seeds and said, "How about I start planting what I've plowed, and you cover the seeds up."  The dirt was soft and loose, easily maneuvered with the hoe.  I dropped seeds in the half-rows where I'd plowed.  While she covered them up, I RACED up the rest of the rows with the tiller.  She'd caught up with me by then.  I planted the new rows until my seeds ran out.  Planted them WAY too thick, but at least they're planted.

As I was leaving to come home, Nanny said she might do some chopping in the morning.  I begged her not to do that, as she would be home alone.  And I told her I was going to tell The Husband on her.

And I did.

Today was a real scorcher.  No clue what the high temperature was, but it was too hot to even sit on the back porch under a fan.  I stayed in the house most of the day, reading yet another Inspector Gamache novel.  (I have a secret crush on him.)

About 5:30, The Husband said he was going to finish mowing Nanny's yard.  Since I'd planned to tie the tomato plants to their stakes, I went with him.  After finishing that job, I remembered that I'd intended to plant the Hossinator tomato seedlings that have been sitting on our patio table for weeks.  Came back to the house to get them and a watering can and got them in the ground by the time the mowing was done.

Those tomato seedlings look pitiful.  They've been sitting on the patio table in a seedling tray for weeks.  For a little while, they looked really good.  Then a storm came while I was at work.  I'd forgotten to put the clear plastic lid on the tray, and the rain beat the tomatoes right out of the soil.  This happened more than once, and the tomatoes began to look not so healthy anymore.  I don't know if they will make it, now that they're in the garden.  Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Garden Check - June 11, 2022

Today is Granddaughter #3's birthday.  She is feeling better from her bout with covid, but her parents and two of her sisters are still testing positive, so there was no big birthday party.  About lunchtime, The Husband and I showed up on their patio with a balloon bouquet, a stuffed hedgehog, and some cupcakes.  We lit a candle, sang "Happy Birthday," blew kisses, and skedaddled.  

Late this afternoon I tied on my gardening apron and went to see what was happening in the vegetable garden.  Hadn't even peeked at it for nearly two weeks.  Everything is growing well, including the grass.  I put on my gloves and got the hoe out of the shed for the first time this season.  It seemed mighty dull.  I sharpened it on the bench grinder, but it didn't seem any sharper.  After a little bit, I decided, Screw this hoe! and went to the shed to get the tiller.  Son #1 has borrowed the big black tiller, but he'd left Gloria, the little red tiller, which never wants to crank.  I dragged it out, filled it with gas, pumped the squishy button, and it fired off after a couple of pulls.  Miracles do happen!

Half of the garden was too wet to work, but I got the dry half weeded.  Tomorrow I need to go back and tie the tomatoes to their stakes.  They are growing like crazy.

When the first horsefly zoomed my head, I decided it was time to call it quits.  Before I could get away, two of them got me on the leg.  They chased me into the car, all the way up the driveway, slamming themselves at the windows.  They followed me all the way to the front door.  

And the Winner is . . . - June 10, 2022

Yesterday as I was sitting in a gazebo on a courthouse lawn, waiting for The Boss to come out so we could go home, I noticed that there were ants crawling around on the floor, the benches, and the railings.  They didn't seem to have a particular destination in mind; they were just strolling around rather haphazardly, zig-zagging here and there.  As I watched, an orange "lady bug" trundled out from beneath the bench where I was sitting and started across the floor.  A big black ant happened to be crawling less than four inches away from the lady bug.  I thought, Uh-oh, lady bug, you'd better run, and before I could scarcely finish the thought, the ant leapt forward and attacked the lady bug head on.  I was sure the lady bug was a goner.

It was a vicious but short-lived battle.  Almost as soon as the ant attacked it retreated, and the lady bug continued on its merry way, eventually disappearing over the edge of the floor and out of sight.  The ant, however, began to stagger around on the floor, as if it was drunk.  It was shivering, and furiously swiping its antennae and legs over its face.  Pretty soon it spat out (I guess) a little piece of something orange.  The ant staggered a little more and spat out another tiny orange bit.  It was still staggering and quivering and swiping at its face when The Boss came out, and we got in the car to start home, so I did not get to see the ant's ultimate fate.

If it died, I imagine its compadres ate it.

Unless it tasted really bad from lady bug juice.