Dinosaur

“…a person…that is outdated or has become obsolete because of failure to adapt to changing circumstances.”

I really don’t like the idea of being obsolete so I do a lot of googling to try and understand new thinking including a lot of words thrown around that I definitely have to look up.

Having spent years in Human Resources, and being responsible for some of those atrocious emails announcing ‘involuntary resignation to pursue other interests’ I find titles interesting.

They use to be simple – assistant, manager, director, etc. Recently I received emails signed “Chief Experience and Equity Officer” and “Public Engagement Program Manager.” I spent a minute chuckling and then thought – customer service.

I like things that are simple and comfortable including clothes. I had a t-shirt bought on a vacation that I wore periodically to sleep in, but when I pulled it out over the weekend I realized it had to go because it was even too ratty to sleep in, but it got me to thinking how old was it – 29 years. Who has a t-shirt that is 29 years old? What’s your oldest piece of clothing? After I stopped laughing, I thought about why I’d kept it so long, and it was simple. It was 100% cotton, soft, and in a simple square shape that made it comfortable.

No gardening to start the week off because it is raining. I have a long list of fall chores I’m working on, and while I’m working a few folks stop by.

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If you’d like some watermelon with your lunch, come quick because this is the last Sugar Baby of the season. Will we plant them next year? Yes. Not only have they been fun to grow and delicious to eat, but the chickens love when I visit with the rind.

Since it’s raining, I think I’ll make some blackberry pie bars with a quart of blackberries fresh from the garden. A person has to keep busy, right? 🙂

Before you go, let me say thanks for stopping by because I look forward to your visit.

Silent Sunday

Happy Sunday from my garden to yours. 😎 Have a fun, safe Labor Day.

Flashback

Over the weekend, we decided to get some iced coffee on the way home from an errand. Around the circle we went, ready to make the turn, when I saw a little girl sitting on the ground next to a car in the parking lot. Strange.

We made the turn, pulled around the building to get in the drive thru lane, and there she is sitting right next to the lane. A cute, blonde, 2-3 year old little girl, with her dress hiked up and her bare bottom exposed sitting on a tiny potty chair while Dad stood nearby scrolling his phone.

After I stopped chuckling, I had an aha moment. Because of the rising Covid numbers and the lack of employees, most fast food companies around here have closed their inside dining areas which also means no restroom facilities. I guess, a girl has to do what a girl has to do.

I’m mature enough to remember the days when if you had to ‘go’ between gas stations, you had to get creative, but I don’t remember such a public display or a little girl exposed like that in a society with some individuals with strange proclivities and cell phones. Here’s hoping that little girl doesn’t even remember the episode and Dad gets a little wiser about choosing potty locations.

The rest of the weekend involved weeds – lots of digging and pulling of invasive weeds. I’m covering the cleared area with black plastic. Next spring I’ll plant some native seeds and see if I can deter them from coming back. I already know I’ll need big time luck with that.

The Cannas are still blooming, the Sugar Baby watermelon has really produced some delicious slices, and we had visitors. A total of nineteen turkeys strolled through one morning, and I was very glad I had my blackberries covered with netting.

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Rain in the forecast for several days this week leading up to the long holiday weekend when we stay away from the tourists.

Since it is tourist season, the local news doesn’t report Covid numbers half the time because we don’t want to deter visitors and their wallets. Our Covid test positivity rate is at 6.0%, 16 died in a five day period, 2,736 active cases, the hospitals are crying for help, and we’re still only at 54% vaccination rate. It’s good that Covid is a thing of the past. Sorry for the snark, but geez this is not over by a long shot.

Hope this finds you all well and having a good start to your week. Have a good one!

Wet and Humid

I’m not a fan of humidity. When we left the Midwest, I thought I’d said goodbye to it, but global warming had other thoughts. So, here I am gardening in NH, and the humidity has been up in the 80-95% range for several days.

In the midst of this wonderful weather, a friend called and asked if MGs were interested in digging up a few plants before she put her house on the market. With shovels and forks, three of us headed over.

A few plants amounted to two full pickups. A wonderful bounty, but then the question arose as to what to do with them until the fall potting party. We stored some that were potted up and heeled the rest in the ground. I’m the proud caretaker of about 70. It’s definitely a good start to next year’s sale.

I remember reading somewhere about sweating versus glistening. I always wanted to glisten, but the reality is I sweat in that kind of humidity. That was why yesterday morning when it started raining while I was finishing a project, I just kept on going.

I planted a small Kousa Dogwood and an Elderberry right off the lawn area which meant I needed to put a tree ring around them to keep weeds out and build a fence around and over to keep hungry animals from snacking. Will that work? We’ll see.

Last Thursday we logged in 2″ of rain, and yesterday Henri dropped a whopping 3/4″. We’re suppose to get more rain today, but it sure doesn’t compare to the scare tactics employed by the local news media. Do you ever picture the news and weather folks gathered around a conference room table or on Zoom trying to figure out what words and photos to use to scare the heck out of us? It gets old.

During my down time, I enjoyed reading “Fallen” by Linda Castillo, “Ocean Prey” by John Sandford, “The Island” by Ben Coes, and I’m almost done with “Dead of Winter” by Stephen Mack Jones. I do love my local library for allowing me to pursue my reading interests and for buying and storing the books I like.

We have a couple of young neighbors across the road who have literally turned their entire yard into a garden. They’re down to mowing strips of grass between garden beds. On Friday, they dropped off a care package. Picture tomatoes that with one slice can cover the bread from side to side. Nice.

While it was raining, I baked some delicious Zucchini Crumb Cake. It’s almost health food, if I forget about the sugar, butter and glaze.

I won’t bore you with my thoughts on Covid, vaccines, and those unwilling to help right this ship, but if you want a good post on the topic check out Marty at Snakes in the Grass.

As I sign off, I’ll borrow a word from my blogging friend, Maureen, and say we’re ‘coping’ with this new wave of cases and some times in life that is the best one can do.

Hope life is going well for you and thanks as always for stopping to chat.

I look at these photos and keep hearing “Raindrops keep fallin’ on my head…” ☔️

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And so it goes

Here we are halfway through August heading into fall. Yes, the leaves of some trees are starting to turn.

At home, we worked through several days of sweltering heat and humidity. It was wicked hot and swampy humid.

The temps this week are suppose to be more normal, but the humidity is staying with us. I’ve started on some gardening changes for next year.

I added 8′ to the left of my shed so I could move the potting table from the other side, and then put a container in its place so it would get more sun. Pull up edging, put it back down, take grass down to the soil and cover with landscape fabric which is one of the only good applications for fabric, shovel wood chips, and it’s ready to go.

Why did I do all that work in the summer, well, because I had several examples of plants doing extremely better in full sun including the Cannas, Mexican Sunflowers, and the Dahlias, and I wanted to be ready to go next season. In the top right corner, inside a green plastic fence, is a small elderberry that is about 3′ tall. I’m trying to keep the deer from eating it. We’ll see how I do with that. 🙂

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  Mexican Sunflower

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  Crocosmia Lucifer in front of a peony

We’re also back to staying out of crowds since the Covid numbers seem to be increasing almost 30% every week. NH is stuck at a 58% vaccinated rate, and that doesn’t seem to be increasing. We had a taste of somewhat normal, and now it seems to be raging again only with different variants. Last year the hospitals were full of seniors, and this year the beds are occupied by young people. Does this concern you? We’ve never stopped wearing masks inside, and it looks like that won’t be changing anytime soon.

Last week, we took a couple of rides to check out the water at New Castle and Alton Bay – beautiful and serene even though it was hazy.

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  New Castle

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  Alton Bay

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If you are in the area and see a local restaurant, Johnson’s, and stop for ice cream, beware. When you order a sundae, it is delicious but could feed a family. No dinner that night.

Happy August 16th, hope all is well in your world.

Life

Life gets complicated sometimes doesn’t it? If you add in the normal ups and downs plus Covid, we’re left with something quite challenging.

We’ve had two losses recently. A brother-in-law passed away after a wonderful, long life, and a friend lost her husband suddenly after a recent hospital stay. As people leave your life regardless of reason, it is never quite the same.

Covid numbers have moved up on the charts here as in most states. We’re still wearing masks inside places although that is definitely not the majority choice. The way I look at it, each person has to do what feels right to them.

July delivered 15″ of rain which for sure ended our drought and brought other challenges. This is the year of the $64 tomato because tomato plants are not happy with this much water. The marigolds I always plant next to the tomatoes have died. Now, there’s a weather statement.

The flowers, however, keep on blooming and enjoying the weather.

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  Blackberries are loaded

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  Canna lily

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  Coneflower

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  Cosmos

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  Day lily

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  Mexican Sunflower

I checked on a MG project garden last week and almost fell over. The last time a friend and I had been there, we had spread a couple of yards of what looked like beautiful mulch. That mulch must have contained weed seeds because I never, ever saw so many weeds including 5′ tall Pokeweed. How many weeds? I completely filled my truck bed and struggled to get the cover over it. I got it cleaned up, but I sure didn’t move the rest of the day.

It rained last night and could rain again this afternoon, but then we have a break for several days. That is a good thing because I want those berries to ripen, and I have a day adventure planned with a friend for tomorrow.

Life – it’s a journey, and I hope yours is going well.

It’s Soggy

It’s daylily season in my part of the world, and I must admit it brings a lot of smiles as I work in the garden beds. I’ve never counted how many I have or the varieties, but I’m guessing it would be too many for some. 🙂

We’ve been getting an inch or two of rain at a time, and the western part of the state is experiencing flooding and road cave ins. Drought? Floods? Mother Nature is on a tear.

Keeping myself busy while it rained, I decided to put wood treatment on the inside of the shed door and during that process a New England quilt block pattern came to mind for the top half. (Thank you, Joyce and Nancy, for the idea.)

Normally, one uses rulers and tape to make crisp, clean lines when making a barn quilt which this kinda is if you stretch the meaning a little. 🙂

I used both a ruler and tape but with the variance of the wood slats, I decided to keep it rustic looking and not worry about crisp lines.

I also only put one coat of paint on so it would look worn. Then I added some gel stain to the top and wiped that off. That part took a lot of work since the wood surface was definitely not smooth. Now, I have a quilt block that looks old to blend in with the shed.

As you can tell, it has been raining a lot, and I’m reaching for things to keep me occupied.

I’m still picking at least a pint of raspberries a day and made a really delicious raspberry custard pie last week so the eating is good around here.

I also went on a short road trip with a friend last week and found upholstery material for recovering my bench. That will be this week’s project in between the water works.

It’s sprinkling right now, and the humidity is 84%. Pulling weeds is going to be fun this morning. 🙂

Happy mid July, and I hope you are all well and keeping busy at your house.

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Not to go on a tirade this early in the morning, but in case WordPress is listening, I’m really curious about what’s with the fact that sometimes you want to correct a word, and it deletes the entire paragraph, or you can’t insert the cursor at all and you end up rekeying everything. I wonder if they care to know how annoying and time consuming that is. Now I’ll quietly go back up and reinsert my paragraph that just blew out.

Rain and DIY

Last week we received almost 7″ of rain which certainly made a dent in our moisture deficit. We’ve gotten 1.5″ of rain this morning, it’s still raining, and showers are forecasted a couple of days this week. With a plus there is sometimes a minus, and in this case, the vegetables and fruits are struggling.

Black mold has covered some perennial plants while aphids are decimating others, and it’s hard to address because it keeps raining.

While it rained, we put in some hours in the barn shop and the garage. We built a very helpful work table on wheels for the garage last year and this year we added a drop down extension by using heavy duty shelf brackets. It’s the third drop-down table we’ve built, and each one provides good work capabilities.

We were trying to find heavy duty pressure treated lattice to put at the bottom of the garden shed to discourage folks from setting up house underneath it. With the lumber shortage, it was a challenge, but we found some.

When we cut it up into 11″ and 9″ pieces, we had wiggly wobbly pieces that were literally falling apart. We did some research on a pneumatic crown stapler, and we found a cost effective one at Harbor Freight. Usually, you get what you pay for, but in this case it was a good deal. We used it to stabilize all the pieces and to attach screen to the back.

I treated the lattice work with the same product, ECO Wood Treatment, the shed builder used so it would weather.

The shed is made of rough sawn cedar, and we found there were some gaps on the door. Although they weren’t real noticeable, they certainly would allow blowing snow in this winter. We covered the gaps with two inch strips of wood and used the stapler to attach them. I also treated the outside of the wood with ECO before attaching.

My husband has all kinds of tools to make certain angles, but my mind thinks like a quilter which requires a pattern.

He cut the plywood in the barn in 2″ strips which I took out to the shed with me.

I put pieces of duct tape over the gaps on the inside and because of the light showing through I could get the tape perfectly centered. I cut both ends with a utility knife, pulled the tape off and placed it on the 2″ strip. He then only had to cut the ends, and we were ready to attach. I know, I know, some of you are laughing, but all I can say is that it worked, and it was quick. 🙂

We’ve been picking about a pint of raspberries a day, the dahlias are starting to put forth a few blooms, and the daylilies and hydrangeas are going strong

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While it’s raining this week, I think I need some fabric to reupholster a bench, and I have Linda Greenlaw’s, “Slipknot,” to pick up at the library. I just finished Paul Doiron’s, “Dead by Dawn” and James Patterson/David Ellis’, “The Red Book.”

What are you up to this week?

Steamy

Happy Monday!

Hope your weather is a little more normal as we close out the month of June. We’re under our second heat advisory for the month. 96°F with real feel of 103°F today. 🥵

Last week, Master Gardeners had an invitation to visit a large wholesale perveyor of perennials here in NH. This time of year is not the ideal time to plant, but an opportunity to buy specialty plants at wholesale prices is like going to a candy store for gardeners.

Watering was done this morning before 8:30 a.m., and that will be the only gardening done today. We have a couple of errands, and the rest of the time will be inside with the A/C and ceiling fans running.

Short post on this hot day, but I’ll leave you with a few photos. Have a great week!

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  Blackberries covered with blossoms.

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  Maine blueberry sod I bought last year. Interesting experiment, but so far, I wouldn’t recommend it.

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  Cosmos

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  New Japanese Iris

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  Daylily

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  Foxglove and Sprirea

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  Bloom time for Lavender

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  Potato bed is full of blossoms

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  Raspberry Season is here

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  Tomato in window well planter.
  I mount silver pinwheels on stakes to deter the birds. It works pretty well.

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  Vegetable garden is looking pretty good. 😎

Expiration date

I grew up poor in the city, my husband grew up poor in the country, we both had part-time jobs at a young age, but neither one of us walked up hill both ways to school. 🙂

As adults, it has served us well. We’re both resourceful because of it, but sometimes things just can’t be cost effectively fixed.

Last week, I used my serger with some old jeans fabric, and the thickness kicked the foot and bent the shaft it was attached to. I emailed the manufacturer, looked up how far an authorized dealer was, googled, checked YouTube, and on Saturday, I dropped it in the electronics box at recycling.

It was a week of reality, since our DR Trimmer didn’t come home from the repair shop either. The estimate was over half the price of a new one, and there are other parts ready to go.

We aren’t complaining because the serger was 10 years old, and the DR Trimmer was 25+.

Of course, it does make me wonder if I’m closing in on my expiration date. Hmm. 🙂

White I contemplate that, I can’t leave without a couple of photos.

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My Asiatic lilies are blooming, and I ran across a NH female entrepreneur who is selling an interesting product – ‘Stink’N Cute Septic Vent Cover.’ You take your top piece off and snap her piece on. The cost is $85 plus shipping! Who knows, she may get ‘stinking’ rich’ based upon the number of these blue lollipops you see all over this area. 🙂