There really is a reason why I shouldn't be allowed near growing things. I either kill them with too much attention, or kill them with too little attention. It's sad really because I love to grow things. I'm just not good at it. Which is kind of amazing considering I have sisters that could grow a rock if they wanted to. I must have missed out on that gene.
You know those little cacti I've been growing from seeds? I tried to drown them. Not intentionally. I was concerned that they weren't getting enough water because there were so many of them in that plastic pot. They didn't seem like they were plumping out when I watered them, so I kept watering them more and more. This week I watered them again on Thursday, and the water rose above the level of the dirt and stayed there!! Those baby cacti were sitting in a lake! I realized that the plastic pot had no holes in the bottom, so I bored a few through and the poor thing was still draining water into my sink on Saturday.
Yesterday was so beautiful out that I decided to "potter" around (instead of "putter"). I bought more pots and potting soil and transferred 15 of the cacti in that red plastic pot to three new pots. I left 13 cacti in their original home. Now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they survive the transplant. They look okay so far, but some of them didn't seem to have much root . . . or I didn't manage to take the root when I dug them up. Luckily it seems like cacti are pretty hardy because, as I said, they looked pretty good so far. I'll see how they do.
I also discovered that the tall stringy succulents (which I think will grow up to be aloe - kind of hard to tell at this point) have impressive roots. I transplanted one of those and it's roots almost circled the pot. I thought I wouldn't get it out without uprooting everything else in the pot, so I know I broke that root somewhat. So far it seems unfazed by that.
The other re-potting I did yesterday was one of the peach seedlings. When I was salvaging them from the yard I didn't have enough pots so two of them ended up in the same big pot. They're growing so fast though that I didn't want to leave two of them together. Yesterday I moved one to a separate pot. It looks like it survived that move just fine.
At any rate I keep trying to grow things despite my obvious lack of skill. I really hope the cacti survive. The mini peach orchard is doing extrememly well, but then they aren't counting on me to supply their water needs. So far I've only watered them when I transplanted them. The rest they've gotten from the rain we've been having.
Addy's being very needy this morning. She's sitting on my lap as I type this and uses her claws to let me know when I need to stop typing and supply strokes for awhile. Both cat kids were out in the yard while I was potting stuff yesterday. I also took the opportunity to dead-head the roses . . . or anyway start removing some of the more blown blooms. That at least allowed that bent branch to raise up off the ground so I won't have to move it to mow today. There are still a fair number of blooms on the red and the yellow is also blooming well. I'll have to plant roses at my new place if there are none there. I love roses. Of course I'll be planting a mini orchard of peaches too, unless I can give away little peach trees to relatives.
Yup. It's raining today. I mowed my lawn yesterday because they were calling for 80% chance of rain today. They called for possibly severe storms though and it's just been a nice steady rain with misty, drippy bouts in between. Not complaining, believe me. I'll take the steady mild rain over the frog-chokers that wash everything down the drain.
I'm actually mowing grass now rather than just weeds when I mow, so the grass is coming up nicely. Everything likes this wet weather, including my roses which are currently totally covered in blooms. The blooms are so heavy they're bending one limb down.
I'm taking a break from house hunting for a few weeks. I'm pretty set on what I want now, as far as features, size, etc. We decided to take a break because I really want to buy in June. Finding something now would not put me buying in June. So we decided to start again in May. This weekend, I've been doing my usual puttering around the house . . . and cringing when I think about packing all this stuff to move. I think I'll spend the next several weekends starting to clean out, and throw out, everything I don't plan on moving. I'm also looking around at my early-graduate-student furniture and thinking I'm going to be purchasing a good bit of furniture for my new house. Good thing I've gotten my credit card balances down so low right now.
I'm also noticing that I'll have to have some repair work done on this house before I sell it, if I decide to sell it. At the very least it needs to be painted throughout. There are also some minor cracks showing which I'll have to have looked at. I've had the foundation checked and been told that the foundation is fine, so just a normal amount of settling is probably making the cracks show up, but I'll have to get them looked at.
I'm cripping around the house right now because I pulled a muscle in my back this morning lifting cat litter. Yes, yes, I know the proper way to lift things. I just don't always use it. And usually when I don't, I regret it, like this morning. Hopefully it will be okay enough to exercise this afternoon. I've been using my little exercise machines three times per week since February 1st, so I don't want to break my routine. It's too easy to break it and not go back to doing it. So I'm diligently exercising. I want to be at least cardiovascularly fit before I go hiking this summer, even if my weight is too high. The weight is another matter I'll have to work on, but that's going to require a diet change, which is more work than the exercising.
The cat-kids are pretty lazy today. Yesterday they were outside wandering the backyard for a bit. This picture was from yesterday morning, before I got the grass mowed, and you can see that it needs it. It's nice and green and growing fast.
I guess that's all today. Laundry calls.
Have I mentioned before how much I like Spring? Green growing things. Flowers blooming everywhere. This is by far my favorite time of year, even if I have to mow my lawn a lot (yes, I'll be doing that again today). We got a lot of rain again this week, with the tornado storms that came through, so weed and grass growth is immense. I was lucky not to be affected by any of the 11-15 tornadoes that came through Tuesday, other than to be evacuated from my office which is on an outside wall and has windows. I was a little nervous driving home and not knowing what to expect to see, since all I knew was tornadoes had been on the ground in my city. So many homes were damaged or destroyed completely. Yes, I've seriously been counting my blessings this week.
Another thing I'm grateful for is that I'm not an allergy sufferer during the Spring. To be suffering when it's this nice outside would be a shame. The guy in the office next to me - bless his heart! It's a rough time of year for him. I have a few allergies, but luckily not to growing things apparently. I have an allergic reaction to most types of beer, some wines and some hard liquors. Which can be a pain in the ass, but at least I'll never be an alcoholic.
This morning I have the house opened up and the cat kids are laying inside, watching carefully for any birds that might try to encroach on their domain. They're perfectly happy to watch from inside the house, Addy on the couch and Zoe in the doorway. Not spoiled, those two old ladies. Nope, not much.
The house hunting is going fine. I looked at 6 more houses last weekend, and 6 more yesterday. I'm taking notes or I'd never remember what features were in what house. Interestingly, several of the houses I've looked at are within spitting distance of the baseball and football stadiums here. I saw one house I really liked yesterday, with lots of cool built-ins (one whole wall of built in bookcases). But the place is 3500 square feet! What in the world would I and two cats do with 3500 square feet of house? It had 5 bedrooms, 3 living areas, a nice open kitchen, big yard. Maybe someone will buy it so I won't be tempted.
My problem really is that I want a house that I don't have to put any work into - no painting or having to replacing flooring/carpet, kitchen appliances, etc. But realistically, I'd need to buy a new house for that to be true. And I don't really want a new house on a tiny lot with no landscaping at all. I kind of like the older neighborhoods with trees and a little breathing room. So I guess right now I'll keep looking.
I'm going to mow my lawn as soon as the grass is dry enough. There was seriously heavy dew this morning. I dead-headed the roses this morning, taking off the remains of the big red blooms which bloomed before the little red ones, and the yellow blooms. They suffered somewhat from the storms, but ragged roses was really the only affect I had (lucky!). The little red ones are now blooming like crazy (see above), and the little peach seedlings are growing well also. I'm growing a mini peach forest. My aloe vera are perking up also. *happy sigh* I love Spring!
Sadly it doesn't look like I'll have any nesting birds this year. I haven't seen any swallows or finches. And I just went and looked, and startled away a female finch! Maybe I will have nesting birds. One of the houses I looked at yesterday had a swallow nest and swallows working on it, so it made me think that it was time for them to be returning to nest. Since I hadn't seen either the swallows or finches at all yet, I thought maybe the business with the snake last year had made the finches decide to nest elsewhere this year. I'm encouraged to see the little female finch. Maybe they'll nest there again after all.
That's it for today. Got a few things to do today before the grass dries enough for me to mow.
It's another spectacularly gorgeous Sunday. I'm doing Sunday chores, but also kicking back a little since I mowed yesterday. Yes, I've now mowed my yard three times this year, and it's still March! The grass is still working to gain a foothold, while the weeds are going gangbusters.
My rose bush is a mutant creature, I've decided. When I planted it 10 years ago, it had the most gorgeous huge, deep red roses. A few years ago certain parts of the plant began to put out small clusters of paler red roses with fewer petals. Now it's definitely a plant with a split personality. The right side has long runner-type branches, with small pale green leaves and it puts out clusters of small pale red roses. The left side has mostly larger, deeper green-to-reddish leaves and it puts out the original, big, full, deep red roses. You can pretty well see it's split personality from this picture, and see also that my smaller yellow rose is still surviving after last summer.
Both sides of the red rose are covered with buds right now so the whole bush should be in bloom soon. In this picture below you can see the difference bud types with clusters of tiny buds on the right and single larger buds on the left. The runner-types are encroaching onto the left side also. I wonder if one day I'll lose the big deep red roses completely.
The trees are all leafing out so soon I'll have my privacy back. When the trees are bare my neighbors with 2 story houses can look down into my back yard. When the trees have leaves they can't. Needless to say, I like leaves.
I've started serious house hunting. I've looked at 11 houses in the last 3 weekends. I'm actually more seeing things I don't want rather than things I do want. I have figured out though that I want a big kitchen and an open floor plan so I can see from the kitchen out into the living areas. I don't have a preference for wood floors or carpet, although the carpets I've seen so far would all have to be replaced. I don't have a preference for 1 or 2 story, although you can get more square footage on current small lots if you do 2 story. I don't have a preference for a pool or no pool. Nice to have one, but lots of work to maintain. I'm leaning toward a split floor plan with the master bedroom separate from the others. Either the master downstairs with the others upstairs or vice verso, or the master on one end of the house and the other bedrooms on the other end. I don't mind Home Owners Association fees, within reason. (<300/year). I saw a house yesterday that had HOA fees of $900/year. No location or house is worth $900/year HOA fees. I'd prefer to have some yard. I don't think I've looked at anything that's been on more that 0.15 acre. My current house sits on 0.2 acres. Of course my current house is about 1480 square feet. The ones I've been looking at are 2200 - 3200 square feet. It's interesting to think my little house would fit twice into some of these I'm looking at. It's not really the square footage that I'm interested in. It's the floor plan. Some of the big ones waste so much space.
At any rate, it looks like I'm getting serious about buying a house. Then I'll have to decide whether to sell this one or rent it. I really hate the thought of moving, but I kind of like the thought of creating my space in a bigger place. As I'm looking at houses, I think about what I would put where if it were my house. Most of the places a lot of my current stuff just doesn't fit into. Looks like I'll also be buying furniture.
That's about it today. Gotta do some puttering.
I've been puttering today. Or at least I've been puttering this afternoon. This morning I was cleaning in case my sister and brother-in-law came by the house on their way to east Texas. Like everything that you leave until the last minute, the house cleaning didn't go smoothly. My vacuum cleaner wouldn't pick up!
The vacuum cleaner came on when I hit the switch and seemed to be pulling but the roller brush wouldn't turn, so it wouldn't sweep anything up into the cleaner. I've replaced the belt on that cleaner before so I was pretty sure that a broken belt was the problem, but this morning I didn't have time to mess with it. So I pulled a little canister vacuum cleaner out of the garage and use that. That little canister cleaner had 10 years of dust on it. It's been in the garage since I moved into the house so I wasn't sure it would even work, but it did. I have to tell you, that little cleaner probably was okay in an apartment with so-so carpet. In my house with thick carpeting, I worked myself to a frazzle just getting the house vacuumed. I now remember why I bought the heavy duty upright after I moved in here. It's been spoiling me big time.
Anyway, after going to lunch with my sister and bro-in-law I came home and my handy-woman gene kicked in. I happened to have another belt for the upright because they come in packages of 2. So I took the upright vacuum apart and replaced the belt. I think this will be the last time I'll be able to repair it though. There's a broken part that holds the roller brush in place and although I got the belt replaced and the parts back where they belong, I think it won't hold forever, and certainly won't hold if I take it apart again. Since the broken piece braces the brush, which is very taut with the belt in place, I don't think even epoxy would hold the piece in place if I tried gluing it. Currently it's mostly held in place by the rest of the vacuum cleaner structure, but I don't think it's a long term fix. Next time it breaks it'll be time for a new vacuum cleaner. Which is okay. It's 10 years old.
I figure it never hurts to pull a broken item apart and see if you can fix it. For one thing, it's broken and I'm going to throw it away anyway. If I can't fix it, I haven't hurt it any more than it was before I started. And if I can fix it I feel very competent. I won't mention that I just happen to like taking things apart to see how they work. Mostly I limit myself to broken things and can keep from taking working things apart.
I mowed and weed whacked on Friday afternoon. The grass is seriously coming up now. Thursday evening I transplanted 4 more peach seedlings out of the yard into pots, so I now have a mini-orchard starting in pots on my patio. I suppose you could consider 7 peach tree seedlings a mini-orchard. I also officially moved the aloe vera from their rolling winter platform to the back and front patios.
Along with my other puttering today I sprayed some wasps who were starting nests in the bird boxes out front. I need to get up there before the birds start nesting with some Bounce sheets to keep the wasps away. I planned to do it later today, but I think I may have puttered myself out now. I'm feeling unmotivated after fixing the vacuum cleaner. Partly because my hands hurt from holding the broken roller brush brace in place while I worked to snap the rest of the vacuum cleaner back together. I think I'll take a break and go watch some TV. Plus Addy is demanding attention. Time to feed her or end up with scars.
I love Spring. I love when things begin to get leaves and green up. I'm not much into dead and barren looking, and in Texas we rarely even have colors in the Fall or snow in the Winter to make it pretty. Just dead and barren looking. Of course this last year with the drought and heat, most of the year from July on was pretty dead and barren looking. Except for areas that watered like crazy anyway. My water bill rivaled my electricity bill in August and September.
Because of the heat and drought last year I've become slightly less of a sun person, wanting sun all the time. Granted I'm still happier when it's bright and sunny outside, but lately I'm not at all unhappy when it rains. In fact it's been gloomy and overcast the last several days, but sadly, it's not dumping rain like I want it to. The forcast has been calling for rain all day today and yesterday, but there's only been some scattered misty rain yesterday and nothing yet today. Come on! Rain already! I think a lot of the rain by-passed us and dropped east of us.
Anyway, back to the Spring thing. I love it when things turn green. The Bradford pears have bloomed and are leafing. The redbud trees are blooming, and I expect the wildflowers will be coming out pretty soon. My little peach trees are putting on leaves as you can see from the picture above. I found another peach tree seedling coming up when I mowed the lawn and transplanted it into a pot. It's the same size as one of the two I transplanted last year. In the picture below, the new seedling is in the green pot. I'm not sure why the little from last year didn't really grow. Maybe it will decide to grow this year.
Yes, I've mowed my yard this year already. I mowed it last Sunday when I got back from my business trip. I'm not really ready to call it a 'lawn' because the grass is just beginning to think about growing. The weeds, on the other hand, are growing like gangbusters, so I mowed and weed-whacked last weekend. My roses never really went dormant this year since the winter was so mild, but I need to get out and trim them back. They're putting on new growth, but some of the old growth looks pretty ragged.
Tomorrow I begin house hunting for real. I'm meeting my realtor and we're going to go look at three houses. This first time out is really just for my realtor and I to meet and for both of us to get a better idea of what I'm looking for. There's so much to decide: older vs newer home, 2 story vs 1 story, split floor plan?, master bedroom upstairs or down?, open floor plan?, zero lot line? home owners association?, etc, etc, etc. We've been emailing back and forth and she's been sending me listings, but this will be our first meeting. Considering how much I like my little house and enjoy puttering around it, it's amazing that I'm looking for another house. Basically I'm looking for something with a little more friendly commute to work, either closer or nearer the light rail. Plus I want something a little larger than my current house. Yes, two cats and I have outgrown this house. Which is a nice way of saying I'm collecting too much junk. If I do find another house though, I'm going to have to have to decide whether to sell this one or rent it. We'll see.
So that's it for today. Nothing much to say, just thought I'd touch base and mention that I'm house hunting. I'm sure I'll post blogs about the search as I go along.
It's another gorgeous Sunday morning, so I decided to blog again although I really don't have anything to say. Well one thing I have to say is that last Sunday when I was blogging I should have looked at the date and realized it was my Mom's Birthday. Yup, I forgot my Mother's Birthday. Geez, Louise! Where does the time go? That was a rhetorical question, but if you have an answer, please let me know. I'd like to hope that I'm not really becoming more forgetful than usual, but I usually try to at least remember Mom and Dad's birthdays, no matter how bad I am with remembering dates in general.
I'll send her belated wishes this week.
I sent my passport renewal application in yesterday. It expires in September so I figured I'd renew it before it expired. I really hate putting my passport into the mail, though. It just feels so chancy to mail it to the passport office. Or maybe I just hate being without it. My only travel plans for the next little while are domestic, so I should be fine, but still.
I'm going to Palm Springs next week for a Board of Directors meeting. That should be interesting since it will be our first time meeting with our new CEO. Our CEO of 23 years retired at the end of 2011, so it will indeed be interesting to see how the new CEO and the Board interact. Palm Springs should be nice too. I've never been there, so I'll take pictures and post them if any of them turn out okay. Last year at this time I was posting pictures of my very first BOD meeting from Tucson. I was elected to the Board for a three year term, so I'm still on it for two more years. I enjoy spending time with the other Directors as well as the work of the Board. Some of them are colleagues I've known for years, and some are colleagues I've only just met through the Board. I've worked previously on other things with both of the two new incoming members this year.
I need to mow my weeds. I'm vacillating back and forth on whether to do that today or not. It's somewhat cool out, but the weeds are taking over, even though the grass hasn't yet decided that it's really Spring. I should probably mow and whack the weeds down. Neither the dogwood nor the holly I tried to grow last year survived last summer, but the two peach tree seedlings are both beginning to put out tiny green tips of leaves. They currently look like stick in pots, but the green tips are showing. I put the obligatory cat-kid picture that I took this morning into this post. The cats aren't much into cold or wet weather, but since it's sunny today they did go check things out this morning even though it was chilly. You can see the peach twigs in their pots, as well as the weeds that are coming up by the patio. The Bradford Pear trees in my neighbor's yards are beginning to blossom, and the crane flies are out in force. It looks like most plants are deciding that Spring has come. Even though we all have stories of freezing weather in March and even into April, I think I agree with most plants this year that Spring has come, especially given how mild a winter it's been overall. Yesterday morning the temperature gauge at the side of my house read 31 when I got up though and I thought, damn, I froze the aloe vera again. But the temperature gauge on my back patio read 36, although there was a thin skim of ice on the birdbath. So the temperature was probably right at freezing just before sunup. Poor aloe vera. They look pretty bad, probably because it's been a mild winter. I haven't been religious about putting them into the garage, so they've taken a couple of hits when the temperature dropped just below freezing. I've mostly left them out though to take advantage of the rain we've been getting.
Anyway, that's about it for today.
You know those little cacti I've been growing from seeds? I tried to drown them. Not intentionally. I was concerned that they weren't getting enough water because there were so many of them in that plastic pot. They didn't seem like they were plumping out when I watered them, so I kept watering them more and more. This week I watered them again on Thursday, and the water rose above the level of the dirt and stayed there!! Those baby cacti were sitting in a lake! I realized that the plastic pot had no holes in the bottom, so I bored a few through and the poor thing was still draining water into my sink on Saturday.
At any rate I keep trying to grow things despite my obvious lack of skill. I really hope the cacti survive. The mini peach orchard is doing extrememly well, but then they aren't counting on me to supply their water needs. So far I've only watered them when I transplanted them. The rest they've gotten from the rain we've been having.
