From the back porch - 10/20/2017

It is finally feeling like fall around here, though we don't have much color yet. 

I am enjoying the mums that I bought from the local FFA boys.  They were a little battered in transit, but I planted them, anyway, and they are lovely (if a little one-sided).

The lettuce in the raised beds is coming along.  We have enough young leaves for a salad.  I planted spinach, too, but it's still tiny.  Pretty soon, I'll need to construct some sort of cover for those beds to keep the frost off the plants.

I think I told you about the elephant ears that my sister gave me, the ones I never planted.  Just laid them on the ground near the spot where I intended to plant them, but never got around to it.  They laid there on top of the ground all winter last year, and all this year, and when I discovered them on my first trip around the yard this spring, I figured they were goners.  But not only did they survive and produce leaves, they actually bloomed.  Not one bloom, but SIX.  I've never had an elephant ear produce more than one bloom, even when planted in the ground!

Five spent blooms, one emerging bloom.

I still haven't prepared the vegetable garden for next year.  A couple of weeks ago, we cleaned up the old plants, removed the tomato cages, etc., and I scattered 200 pounds of pelletized lime on the soil.  As I will trying to work it into the soil, the tiller tire came off the rim.  We took the tire off, and I took it to a gas station to be repaired, and by the time we attempted to put it back on the tiller, it was flat again.  I don't know what I'm going to do about this.  I tried to find a solid rubber tire that wouldn't go flat, but they apparently don't exist.  The guy at the hardware store said to put a tube in the old tire.  Can that even be done?

Gloria the Second - September 28, 2017

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered 10 pots of yellow chrysanthemums from the local FFA boys.  They should arrive some time this week.

I knew when I ordered them where I was going to plant them - five in each flower bed on the sides of the porch.  Those flower beds were a mess, full of iris and daylilies and monkey grass that are long over-due for dividing.  The plan was to dig all that stuff up, divide it all, and re-plant it where it made better sense, leaving room for the incoming mums. 

I had the day off yesterday, and it was warm and sunny.  By 9 a.m., I was outside, digging up the plants with a shovel.  When I finished digging everything up, I went down to the garden shed to get Gloria, the little red tiller, who needed a little work.  Her cord was hanging halfway out and wouldn't go back in.  I had ordered a new crank mechanism, and we'd have to put that on before I could till up the soil.  As my luck would have it, the part didn't fit.  Plan B was to start Gloria with a drill (she has a belly button that receives a chuck thing).

Plan B didn't work, either.  I drilled and drilled, but the thing wouldn't start.  The Husband said to check the oil.  I did.  It looked low.  Back to the garden shed for a quart of oil.  The Husband said the manual said to fill it up, so I did.  When I tried to crank it with the drill again, Gloria belched, and a stream of oil shot out of the air filter.  Simultaneously, The Husband and I said, "Oooo, that didn't sound good."

I went to the store and bought Gloria the Second.  While waiting for the cashier to ring up the sale, another cashier checked the records.  Gloria the First had a two-year warranty.  I had bought her in April 2015, so she was five months past her warranty.  My luck holds out again, eh?

I may re-name her, just so she won't quit as soon as her warranty expires.

Anyway, the beds are both re-planted and awaiting the arrival of the mums.

From the back porch - September 18, 2017

My favorite component in this year's view from the back porch is the Elephant Ears.  My sister gave them to me last spring, two bulbs - one large, one small - that I stashed in the "trunk" of my Wrangler.  I open that trunk about twice a year; there's normally nothing in it but a 10-disc CD changer and a ratchet strap, neither of which I need on a regular basis.  So it was that those bulbs rode around, forgotten, in my trunk until the fall, when I discovered mouse poop in the front passenger seat and had to tear the Jeep apart to dispatch the offender and its leavings.  It was when I went to set a baited trap in the trunk that I found the bulbs, and I thought, "Oh, sh*t, I bet they're dead," but decided to plant them, anyway, in case there was still a living cell or two in them.  I brought them around to the back of the house and laid them near the spot where I intended to plant them.  And that's as far as I got.  They laid there all winter on top of the ground and STILL haven't been planted. Aren't they magnificent?

I cleaned out the two of the three raised beds on the left this weekend and planted lettuce seeds in the first one, which still holds the stump of the kale tree.  It looks pretty dead, but who knows?  It might sprout again.  The middle bed had zinnias in it.  They were leggy and unsightly, so I yanked them out.  All that remains is the freebie cabbage that a garden center gave me late this spring.  It currently has four leaves on it.  We'll see if it has any plans.  Beyond the middle bed is the Blue Apron bed. It contains the root ends of the scallions that go into the dinners, as well as several heads of garlic. (Blue Apron folks, if you're reading this, one head of garlic per shipment would suffice).  They grow! Some of the onions are as big as grocery store onions.  I probably should take those up before winter, eh?

Waaaay over to the left, the black thing is my compost tumbler.  I am making a serious effort at making compost to go in the vegetable garden, which is in bad need of additional dirt and apparently is starved of nutrients.  All of our food waste goes into the tumbler, but I had very little "brown" matter to add to it until I decided to shred the Blue Apron boxes and add them to the compost.  It seems to be working.  I hope it's ecologically OK to use the cardboard - things I've read say it's fine, though it apparently doesn't contain a lot of nutrients.  It sure gives bulk to the compost, and solves the problem of what to do with all that cardboard!

It's starting to rain now.  Maybe my lettuce seeds will sprout!

From the back porch - 9/6/17

Supper ingredients are prepped, and after we've eaten and cleaned up the dishes, I intend to have a one-woman Zelda-thon until nearly bedtime, if I wanna.  But I have a little time between now and when The Husband gets home.

It is an absolutely gorgeous evening here.  Temp is about 76 degrees.  It's sunny and still.  Birds chirping.  Crickets and frogs and various unknown things humming.  If  I didn't know that the northwest section of this country is on fire, and the southeast section is (or is about to be) under water, and some crazy guy on the other side of the world is playing with big guns, I might spend this pleasant evening less anxiously.

I might also be less anxious if The Husband had not killed a baby snake on the sidewalk yesterday evening.  Finding a baby snake is WAY WORSE than finding an adult snake.  He thought this one might've been a copperhead.  I'm hoping it wasn't.  I'm hoping it didn't have 10 or 12 siblings living under my porch.  They can't crawl up through cracks in the floor (we had the underside screened to keep mosquitoes out), but I bet they can get it around the screen doors.  If I find one on the porch, I'll be trapped in the house for the rest of my life.

The Husband sprinkled Snake Stopper all around the house.  It looks like it snowed here, and smells like Red Hots.

From the back porch - 8/29/17

The Husband made it to California just fine, thanks for asking.  I'll be glad when he gets home.

Meanwhile, I putter.

I was right irked with myself yesterday afternoon for goofing off the way I did, but I just could not get interested in anything.  I've done better today.  When I got home from work, I made myself sit down and get to work embroidering some towels I bought for a wedding gift.  My cousin's kid is the bride.  They invited me to a shower last weekend, but I was battling the devil at the time (it was a draw) and did not go.  Plus, I'd only learned of the shower a few days in advance, and I hadn't had time to do the towels.  I did them today.  Nothing fancy, just an initial with an oval border around it.  I hope she likes them.

Here it is, nearly the first of September, and I have not started on Christmas things for my craft booth.  Hadn't even given it much thought until I found a table topper I'd not finished last year.  I spent days blanket-stitching felt snowmen on this table topper, and then melted the embossed background fabric when I pressed it.  I wanted to cry.  After a bit of sniveling, I shoved it in a bag and forgot about it. This year, it doesn't look nearly so bad to me.  I think I can patch that melty spot with a snowflake.  ;)

From the back porch - August 28, 2017

Boy, sometimes, things sure don't turn out as we expected, eh?

This week, the boss lady was supposed to be on vacation, and since I try to take my vacation at the same time she takes hers, I was supposed to be on vacation, too.

All sorts of things cropped up.  First, The Husband scheduled a work-related seminar for the same week.  I knew about this months ago and had made other plans for my week off - or, rather, I'd come up with some ideas for things I might want to do this week.  I thought about going to Alabama to do some genealogy research.  I thought about staying home and working on improving the soil in the vegetable garden, or maybe sewing, or painting, or practicing the mandolin, or whatever my little heart might desire.

Then the boss lady's grandbaby got sick, then a hurricane came.  Her grandbaby is much better, thank you, but doesn't need to be back in nursery school just yet, and a babysitter is needed.  And it'll be raining all week at the beach where she was going.  Her trip is off, and so is my vacation.

But it's okay; I hadn't decided what to do, anyway, and I've scheduled another week off in October.  I can just take some "to-go" projects to work with me this week.  Last week, I found a big skein of pretty yarn, so today I started a shawl with it, the most ambitious knitting project I've ever attempted.  When I hunted up my traveling knitting bag this morning, I found a half-completed shawl in it, already.  Ooops.

It didn't take long to open the mail and return phone calls, so while the boss caught up on her reading, I knitted and watched mandolin videos.  About 2 p.m. today, she said, "Let's go home."  I seconded the motion, and now here I sit, listening to the wind picking up, waiting on the rain, and can't think of a blasted thing I really want to do.

The Husband left today to go to his seminar.  He was supposed to have a stop in Houston, but the hurricane changed that.  The airline re-routed him through Chicago; he won't get where he's going until 10 p.m., which will be midnight our time.  He'll be pooped.

I am glad I did not go with him on this trip.  ;)

First Bean Pickin' - August 21

I had a "Maytag Repairman" day at the office yesterday - nobody called, nobody visited.  I knew it was going to be that way, and so I took some things to work with me to occupy my time. 

Snapping green beans is a thing that you can let your hands do while your mind does something else that's not too taxing, like watching movies or engaging in stimulating conversations.  Since I didn't have anybody to talk to while I snapped, I watched YouTube videos - specifically, beginner mandolin videos.  (I told you I got a mandolin, didn't I?)