Long July 4th Weekend

It was certainly nice that July 4th fell on a Monday this year. Long weekend! Yay!! Sadly the weekend is almost over now, but I think I've got time to get a post in.

It's been a very productive weekend for me, as well as a very hot one. The thermometer on my back patio read 108 yesterday and 109 today. Yes, it's in the shade, but the patio itself radiates heat, even when it's shaded. So no doubt it hasn't actually been 108 and 109 in the area, but it has been over 100 both days.

I did something new yesterday, or anyway something I've never done before. I washed my house. Yes, the house. I had siding put on the house a number of years ago, and lately I've been noticing that it's pretty filthy. So a couple weeks ago I bought one of those scrub brushes on the end of a long pole, that you can fill with soap and attach to your hose. Then yesterday morning I tried it out. It wasn't hard at all! I started with the front porch and front area around the garage door because that area is in the shade in the morning, and like everything you do outside in Texas at this time of year, you try to beat the heat as much as possible. Then I moved to the back yard and did about a third of the back before the sun got too hot. Then I quit and went in for lunch. My house is partly brick, but the back is all siding, so I knew that would take the longest and be the hottest.

Anyway, I figured I'd quit and eat lunch and wait for the sun to move over the house and enough shade to appear in the back to be able to go out and do the rest. The back is the area all across the back of the house and around the back door and patio. The same patio where the thermometer was reading 108. When there was enough shade for me to be in shade while I worked I braved the heat and went back out to finish the job. I was determined to finish it because I had a lot of odds and ends around the house I wanted to do this weekend, and that was one of them. So I started again and as I was getting into it, and thinking how glad I was that at least I was working in the water if I had to be out in that heat, a couple of huge thunderheads built up! In less than 30 minutes the whole sky was overcast and the temp reading on the thermometer dropped from 108 to 88! It was amazing. I finished the house in relative comfort, and 30 minutes later the sky was clear again, without ever dropping a drop of rain. I was a little sorry about that actually because I could use the rain. But I was really grateful for the heat reprieve while I was working. Of course when the sun came back out the temperature bounced back up to 103.

So, I would say that I'll probably never take a job washing houses for a living, but it wasn't bad. As long as you don't mind being wet and doing some manual labor. I wonder if I may discover I have some sore muscles as time goes on though, reaching up over my head and scrubbing with a long pole scrub brush. The house looks absolutely great! It was even dirtier than I thought and it looks beautiful now. Maybe I won't wait so long in between washes now that I know how relatively easy it is.

This morning I mowed the lawn before the main heat of the day. Even so, it was plenty hot out there. Even the cats are staying inside, and they usually like laying on the patio in the shade because it radiates heat. Just too much heat right now. I hope everyone thinks before using fireworks tonight, given how dry the area is.

Other things I've done this weekend that make it fairly productive include taking my car to the shop for them to replace the heat/exhaust shield, some minor shopping to get more potting soil and pots, some minor trimming of the shrubbery out front, changing all my anime calendars to the new month, basic cleaning and laundry around the house, fixing my door lock so that the deadbolt will work and transplanting the peach seedlings, which I actually did on Thursday evening. This picture is Zoe, also trying to figure out why only one tree is growing. This was before I transplanted them. I put the big one in a larger pot and moved the small one to the ceramic pot. I figure if it's going to grow at all, maybe transplanting it again will help. We'll see how it does. The holly is still putting on new leaves but is also struggling big time in the heat. I tried rigging some shade for it, but I'm not sure it's helping much. I think the only thing that will help the holly is cooler weather, and I don't see that happening anytime soon.

The car trip to the shop was because my car decided it didn't want to start 2 Friday's ago. I managed to convince it to start, both before and after work, but after work I drove immediately to the dealership for a new battery. I figured I'd have them do the scheduled maintenance too and while they were doing it they discovered my exhaust shield was ripped and mangled around my exhaust pipe. I seriously don't know how it got that way. I haven't bottomed the car out or hit any road debris that I'm aware of. Anyway at that time they took off the mangled shield and ordered a new one. So this trip was to install the new shield.

I did something else this weekend which I haven't done in a long, long time. I sat down and read the Declaration of Independence. What an amazing document. Then I sat there trying to imagine the feelings of Thomas Jefferson who drafted it, and the other amazing men, all of whom believed so strongly that we should no longer be British Colonies, but should be our own free Country. They had so much courage of their convictions that they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to make it be true. Considering all their sacrifices to make the USA what it is today, I think I should try to take some of the freedoms I enjoy a little less for granted. Although, perhaps they would be happy that those freedoms that they fought for are now considered the inalienable rights of every American. Still, I think I'll try being a little more grateful.

Bye, bye, long weekend. It's been fun.

Growing?!

I swear. I totally do NOT understand green growing things. Don't get me wrong, I really like plants. I like to watch them grow and flower and especially to see them leaf out again in the Spring and put on new growth. I even like to try and grow things, but why they grow or don't grow seems to have absolutely nothing to do with anything I may try in my attempts to grow them. How did my sisters end up with such green thumbs while mine is positively black? It's a mystery.

What am I ranting about? Well, I'm just puzzled and amazed by things growing and not growing around here. Two cases in point:

Peach seedlings: On March 20th I rescued two tiny peech seedlings from my lawn rather than mow over them. I planted them in side by side pots using the same potting soil, etc. They were approximately the same size, as you can kind of see from the picture to the left, about 3 inches tall maybe. Now, check them out in the picture to the right. Three months later, one is still about 3 inches tall and the other one is over a foot tall! I've treated them both exactly the same. They get watered at the same time. I spray them both with insecticide for flowering and fruiting plants, at the same time. They get the same light and temperature. The only difference is one is in a ceramic pot and one is in a plastic pot. Really? Is that what makes the difference? I just don't know. I have another ceramic pot, so I suppose I could shift the little one over and see if it helps. I'm actually considering transplanting the bigger little tree out into the yard, but I'm a little afraid just my transplanting it will kill it. Maybe I'll wait until it's a little larger. Or until I see if the other one will survive, in case I need to try again.

Holly tree/bush: On April 2nd my friend and I planted baby dogwoods and a little holly stem in the back yard. I call it a holly stem because I don't know if it's supposed to be a tree or a bush. Anyway, as you can see in the picture to the left, the holly started out looking and doing fantastically well. But over the last two and a half months, despite everything I've tried, and all my tender-loving care, the holly has looked progressively worse and worse. The leaves finally started to blacken and curl up and crumble away. It didn't look as though anything was munching down on them, they mostly looked like they were burned. Black spots that got larger and larger until the leaf curled up and dropped off. So a couple of days ago I had just the stem and a couple twigs left. I figured I'd leave it and next Spring I'd mow it down if it was still being a stem there. Today when I was mowing the lawn, I discovered that there are new small leaves sprouting from the end of the three little branches!!!! I'm not kidding. You can see in this picture to the right. I have no idea! It just began putting out new leaves.

See what I mean? Growing things are a complete mystery to me. Basically I think it's safe to say that anything that grows around here does so despite my efforts, rather than because of them. I think I'll stay away from the little holly, other than to make sure it gets water when that area gets dry. Maybe it will stand a chance that way.

And yes, despite everything, there are still signs of life from the little dogwoods. *shakes head* Quite amazing.

Mailbox and virus

I figured I'd better post a picture of the fruits of all my labors yesterday. I attached the mailbox itself to the post this morning and here's the finished product. Who knew it would be such a struggle to accomplish this? I hope my mail carrier is properly grateful. The old mailbox did indeed come out with one not-very-strong yank. The post on the old one was wood and the 4 x 4 was rotten at the point where it was cemented into the ground. It's amazing it hung on as long as it did. That old mailbox was hit by a vehicle at one time and probably cracked at the cement level, which I imagine is what allowed it to rot slowly since then. It definitely wouldn't have lasted much longer since it took so little effort for me to pull it out. The new post is metal so I shouldn't have rotting issues. I'm a little proud that I managed to put this mailbox in. I hope it decides to stay there. It feels solid, but you never know.

The other thing I was going to discuss this morning is: I have a cold. *unhappy frown* My immune system is really good; I'm one of those people who is almost never sick. And like most people who don't get sick, I'm in serious denial that a tiny little virus can lay me low. However, my immune system has been struggling with this damn thing for 5 days now. Last Wednesday morning I got up with a scratchy throat. It was one of those scratchy throats that could be due to allergies, or I slept with my mouth open, or a cold is trying to take hold, so I didn't worry about it too much. By Friday, my ear canals and ears were also burning/hurting, but the throat was still just scratchy so I basically just tried to ignore it all. However Friday night I slept badly, waking up coughing multiple times. So I got up Saturday morning thinking, "Okay, so now I have to admit, I have a cold, but so what? It's just a cold. I'm draggy and don't have much energy, but I'm going to put a new mailbox in and mow my lawn , etc. etc." That lasted through the mailbox post, but then I had no energy left. Last night I had more coughing bouts, and this morning I got up with a raging sore throat and aching ears and ear canals. Plus I'm losing my voice. *sigh* Five days out, and the virus seems to be winning. Today I need to mow my lawn, which I will do as soon as the dew dries up a little. And I'm doing all my usual Sunday chores, along with finishing the mailbox. I'll admit though, once I get through those I'll probably try to rest and let my body concentrate on this "tiny little virus". I hesitate to say, "at least it hasn't set up house-keeping in my sinuses and become a head cold also" for fear of jinxing myself. I'm also to the stage of considering taking something, instead of just letting the body deal with it. My immune system and sleep usually cure whatever ails me without resorting to meds. But the coughing and sore throat may need some sort of treatment. We'll see.

This weekend was supposed to be slightly cooler than last week, but it hasn't been so far. Temperatures are hanging just below 100 in the afternoon, and this morning when I stepped out before sunrise it was still 80 degrees. Not a cloud in the sky. HOT. Seems that it will probably be a hot and dry summer. My poor water bill. Still, I need to do my best to keep my lawn alive this year since it's making a comeback from late last year.

On the other hand . . . tsukareta!!!!! Damn I'm tired. This heat is not really conducive to outside stuff. I just finished mowing the back yard, and it's probably a good thing I decided the front yard didn't need mowing. Now why do I want to keep this lawn alive? Oh, yeah. It's pretty out there.

I'm going to go cool off . . . somehow. Later.

Bees and Birds

*laughing* No. This post is not about what you think. It's just about some observations and some things I've been doing around the place.

The bees first. There must be a hive of honeybees around here someplace. The little birdbath I have on the back patio has become a watering hole for the little things. This bee girl in the picture was enjoying it yesterday evening. There's always at least one out there, and usually more that that. Yesterday evening there were five or six of them taking their evening drink. The picture below shows them although you can't really see them clearly when I don't blow the picture up. It's interesting that Zoe ignores them completely, and vice versa. They buzz around when she first approaches, then everyone settles in for a sip. There's also a big black and yellow striped hornet that likes the birdbath. He's really much bigger that the yellow jackets I'm used to, but maybe they grow bigger here than in Colorado or Utah. I leave them all alone. Honeybees are important pollinators. If they want to take a sip at the birdbath now and then, they're welcome . . . and they don't drink much. *laughing*

It's really the birds that make such a mess of the birdbath. Besides drinking out of it, they like to bathe in it and wash their food in it. The birds I've seen use it this year include the big grackles, plus multiple blue jays, a couple of mockingbirds, a male and female cardinal and multiple morning doves. Occasionally I see a robin or two. This time of year when it's so hot I try to keep clean water in it, so all the little creatures have something to drink.

This morning I hung a bird feeder to the remains of the peach tree. Yes, I know I said I wasn't going to because I have cats, but I've realized that my cats are so old and fat and slow that they are seriously no risk to the birds. Now I'll have to see how long it takes the birds to discover it.

This morning I began my attempt to put in a new mailbox. The post on my old one is broken almost all the way through at the ground and it's only a matter of time before it falls over, either when the carrier pulls it open or when she shoves things into it. Plus the carrier once told me that I could really use a bigger box since I get so much mail. So I finally broke down and went by Lowe's last weekend and bought a new post and box. This morning, I began digging a hole at about 6:00 am (beat the heat as much as possible, I always say). That damn hole almost defeated me. Actually it did defeat me. It always sounds so easy in the instructions: dig a hole 20 inches deep by 9 inches in diameter. Okay, sounds easy enough. Unfortunately, the ground where I want the mailbox is run through with tree roots. I gave up attempting to dig at 9:00 am. Covered in clay-ey mud, sweating like a pig, I had managed 17 inches deep and about 6-7 inches across. I tried everything I knew of to make that hole deeper, and was seriously wishing for dynamite before I was through. And I have the blisters to prove it. So I finally gave up and modified the damn mailbox post so it didn't need to go down so far. It was also my very first ever encounter with cement, so I just hope that tomorrow when I attach the mailbox to the post, the post stays firmly in the ground in the cement where I tried to fix it this morning. Now I remember why I usually pay people to do these projects for me.

Speaking of paying people, I payed the plumbers to come and replace my garbage disposal this week. Last Sunday morning about 6:00 am I was semi-awake, rinsing out my coffee pot, getting ready to make coffee. I looked into the sink and thought: 'huh! this sink isn't draining', at the same time water began flooding over my feet. The garbage disposal had sprung leaks everywhere and was fountaining water onto and into everything under the sink and out across the floor. I suppose it just finally gave up the ghost. The house is 20 years old and I imagine it was the original disposal that was put in here.

The people at work tell me I practically have a new house since I've replaced about everything on this one. That's mostly true, but I do like this little house.

I'll have to mow the back yard tomorrow. The front isn't growing so fast, but the back is still growing like crazy. I was going to do it this morning. *laughing* The original plan was to put in the mailbox post and then mow the lawn before it got too hot. After the mailbox post, I had zero energy left for mowing, so tomorrow it is.

Anyway, that's all I have to say today, so until next time!

Memorial Day Weekend

I am in SUCH a good mood. I really like 3-day weekends, and especially since I've been traveling so much. This weekend I've been puttering around the house and yard, cleaning, mowing, trimming, just generally catching up on all the house/yard stuff that's been on hold for most of the month. Add to that, it's sunny outside, if a little windy and hot. Sun always improves my mood.

The temperature hit 100 yesterday afternoon by my thermometer. I was out mowing the lawn by 9:30 yesterday morning, so it wasn't too bad and the wind helped make it not quite so hot. We had three days of rain last week so the lawn was in dire need of a mowing. The picture here is a good indication of what my backyard currently looks like. I have a multi-colored lawn these days. The green-green grass on the right side of the picture is thriving St. Augustine, and you can see on the bottom center of the picture where it's sending out runners to fill in the bare areas. The blue-green grass to the left and wrapping around the St. Augustine on the top of the picture is Bermuda grass. And the yellow-green patches are weeds that the TruGreen people have sprayed and are slowly dying. Altogether that makes it fairly colorful out there, but I'm happy that the grass is filling in and the weeds are going away.

The little yellow rose that I planted 2 years ago is much happier this year. It's put out multiple blooms this spring and is also putting on some height this year, so it may survive after all. The red rose bush is thriving as always. Both bushes are between blooming sprees right now, as can be seen by this picture. The two little peach seedlings I rescued from the lawn and the little dogwoods are still hanging in there. With this heat already I'll need to remember to water everything regularly if we don't get rain. I really like growing things, or I should say 'attempting" to grow things since I'm just usually fairly bad at it.

Yesterday when I was mowing I was rescued by my neighbor two houses down and across the street. It was the first time we'd met, even though he and his wife have lived in their house 22 years and I've been in my house 10 years. Not very social are we? I've seen him come and go, and before yesterday morning what I knew about him is that he drives a corvette and keeps his lawn neat. He turns out to be a really nice guy named Eric. Anyway, what happened was that as I was mowing the front yard, a dog came by. He wasn't a big dog, about medium-sized, looked like a cross between a pit bull and a shepherd, but maybe pit bull size. He started following me as I mowed the lawn, and kept getting around behind me where I couldn't see him. Pretty soon I was afraid to turn my back to him because every time I turned to look at him he was rushing at me with teeth bared. I tried to yell and stomp at him to frighten him away and he would just snarl and growl and rush me again. So I stopped mowing and went to get a water hose to try and shoo him off, but he went on down the street when I quit mowing. I started mowing again and he came back and stood in the driveway watching me. I was afraid to turn my back on him so I was mowing a strip, backing up and mowing the next strip. About that time, Eric came over with a big stick in his hands and the dog went on down the street. I talked to Eric for a little bit about it and he said he'd keep an eye on me to make sure the dog didn't come back, as he'd had trouble with that dog before. He went back home, I started mowing, and the dog came back!! 10 minutes later, the police pulled up, Eric came over and the dog moved down the street a couple of houses. Eric had called the police since the dog was so aggressive. I talked to them for a bit, then went and mowed my back yard. When I finished and came back out I picked up my mail, saw Eric and talked to him again. He said there ended up being three police cars and two animal control vehicles. They didn't catch the dog, but they did locate his owner and ticketed him for the dog being loose, etc.

So I had kind of a freaky experience. I'm not normally afraid of dogs but this one was pretty aggressive. Maybe he doesn't like lawn mowers, but I don't know why was he rushing at me growling, teeth bared and tail between his legs. *shivers* I'll take cats any day. A deranged cat may do some damage but probably won't be able to kill you. You really can't say the same about a deranged dog. Well maybe you can say it about a deranged Pekingese or Pomeranian, but are those really dogs? Anyway, it's nice to have met my neighbor and to know that another one of my neighbors is a good person who will watch out for me. For the most part, I've found that to be true in this neighborhood.

I guess that's all for today. I threw in the prerequisite cat picture. As you can see, they're also chilling today. Lying in the open door (it's not yet hot) in case anything they need to know about should happen outside, but basically cat-napping. I'm going back to puttering around the house. Maybe I'll even break down and dust - my least favorite chore of all. We'll see. I'm not sure if I'm in quite that good of a mood, or maybe it's that I'm in too good of a mood for dusting.

Finches this year

This year the finches arrived and claimed the nesting box out front before the swallows returned to the area. I got to watch baby finches grow up instead of swallows. I will say that it wasn't as easy to watch them as it is to watch the swallows. Swallows are bold and the adults will dive bomb you if they don't like your proximity to their nest. The young will hide, but not to any great extent. The finches on the other hand are scaredy-cats. The female will fly away at any tiny sound and the babies hunker down into the nest and become invisible at the slightest provocation. None-the-less, it was fun to watch them.

I almost didn't have any babies birds at all this year. One afternoon right before my traveling started I came home and when I was walking back from the mailbox I glimpsed something brown hanging from the nesting box that isn't being used. I walked over to see what it was . . . and this bad boy in the picture was about a foot away from a tasty meal of finch eggs. This is a small rat snake, maybe about 2 1/2 feet long. What I had glimpsed was the part of him looped below the box. I'm not sure which of us was more startled when I stepped onto the porch and turned to see him there. At any rate, I spoiled his meal by making him go away. No, I didn't kill him, just convinced him to leave with a long stick and persistence. Then I quickly got a step stool, climbed up and took pictures of what was in the nest so I would know what I had just rescued. Then I quickly left the nest to Momma Finch. Surprisingly, she came back immediately after I left. This next picture down is the finch eggs that were in the nest. It still amazes me how close they came to being snake food.

I managed to get one sort-of picture of the young finches. They were very adept at hiding, not at all cooperative like the young swallows. Although I did see them fairly frequently, all I managed to catch in a picture was a little beak, top of the head and a beady black eye. You probably can't see that in the small picture below, but this was all I could do. They were VERY skittish. They've all flown now, which also amazes me. The young birds grow up so fast. It's been just over three weeks between when I took the egg picture and when they flew away.

My poor peach tree is dead. The growth that was on it two blog posts ago, broke off in the high wind a few days after that picture, and there's no other growth. *sigh* Too bad. I suppose it's time to buy a tree to put back there. I'll have to do a little tree research I guess. A couple of the small dogwoods are still managing to survive. They look terrible, but they're hanging on.

This morning I went out and trimmed up the shrubbery out front. It was looking a little raggedy. We're finally getting some periodic rain, so my lawn's beginning to look like a lawn. One of the most amazing things is how strongly the St. Augustine grass is coming back in the back yard. Granted the yard is still about half weeds, but at the end of last year I had two sickly-looking patches of St. Augustine left, in opposite corners of the back yard. The patch down by the fence has spread out and up to the peach tree and continues to put out runners across the bare areas. The patch up by the house is also spreading. And both patches are dark green and thriving. Sugoi. The Bermuda grass in the front yard is still struggling, but beginning to fill in. Apparently early rainfall is really important to Bermuda, less so for St. Augustine.

The cats are being furry leeches. They really hate me being gone for extended periods, and become really clingy when I get back. If I sit still for a minute, they're right there to get attention. Like right now. Zoe is making my leg look like I've been running through briers, trying to get me to stop typing and start petting her. Zoe is not the brightest cat in the world, and despite years of trying, she doesn't get the concept of sheathing claws. When I'm wearing jeans it's no biggy, but with shorts on she's guaranteed to get my attention. *laughing* Yes, yes. Time to call this a short blog and go pet the cat.

Traveling

Here it is as promised . . . my next blog coming in mid-May. Well, okay, mid-to-late-May. So many things have happened that it's hard to know where to begin. I think I'll devote this blog to the traveling.

My travels have been good, but I'm really glad to be home for a while. I started on April 30th with a 7:30 am flight to San Diego. Or so I thought. Being obsessive-compulsive, I called the airline before leaving the house and they had canceled that flight because of "lack of a flight crew to fly it". So they had re-booked me on a 9:00 PM flight. No, no, no. I worked with them to get a 5:30 pm flight which wasn't what I had wanted, but better than a late flight. I went to San Diego for a 5 day review course and had originally wanted to arrive early enough to do a little sight-seeing, which obviously didn't work out. San Diego is a gorgeous place and the weather was just lovely. But of course I spent 8:00 am until 8:30 pm in the review course while I was there, so that aspect of it was a little wasted. *rueful sigh* Still it was a great course. I had a blast giving the lectures I did, especially the evening case studies. The participants were exactly that. Very interactive and questioning, which is a teacher's dream class. As an added bonus, I met some really great people along the way. And I did get to spend lunch hours soaking in the sun and ambiance. Plus I had this really outstanding view of San Diego Bay from the balcony of my 7th floor room in the hotel. The picture above is right about sunrise. Overall, it was a very fun and productive trip.

Then May 5th around noon I left San Diego and flew to Charleston, SC, arriving about 11:15 pm, which put me at the hotel around midnight. I was surprised to find that they didn't have a room for me . . . which probably translates into, they gave my room away, even though I had notified them that I would be arriving late. They ended up putting me into a suite and moving me the next day when a room came open. I didn't really care. I was so tired I would have slept on a couch. But the next morning I had no hot water in their fancy suite, which I kind of DID care about. So that particular downtown Charleston hotel is not high on my list of favorite places. The meeting was good though. It was my second Board of Directors meeting and the meeting and the post-meeting socializing were both very good.

Then I flew home on May 8th and on May 11th I flew to Berlin, Germany. Hmmmm. Well the flight was scheduled to fly on May 11th at 9:00 pm, but since we were delayed 3 hours by storms, I think we technically actually left the ground on May 12th. Very luckily for me, I had a four hour layover in London Heathrow, so I made my connection, unlike a lot of people on that flight. I arrived in Berlin around 7:00 pm on the 12th, met a friend for dinner and then slept for 12 straight hours, getting up in time for the Opening Ceremony of the Congress I was attending. The Congress was great. Great speakers and talks, and again I met some really cool people as well as hooking up with some colleagues I don't get to see very often. The Congress Dinner on Saturday was a boat tour through Berlin on the Spree River. The boat tour was a blast although it would have been better for sight-seeing if it hadn't been raining pretty solidly. You can see from the picture above of the Oberpfarr that taking pictures wasn't very productive. Still, the boat was enclosed, so the trip and the company were lots of fun, and the food and drinks were superb.

Monday May 17th I flew back, arriving about 8:00 pm and I've been trying to catch up ever since. Basically, the trips were good, the meetings were good, the people were great, but I'm really glad to be home now for a while. The only real regret I have is that I really had no time at all to do any shopping . . . at any of the places where I went. *sigh* Maybe in the future my travels won't be so clustered within a two week period and I'll be able to spend a little extra time sight-seeing and shopping.