Missing in Action

It's been a while.  I've started getting texts and emails again asking where I am. I guess I am still trying to work out a blogging schedule and obviously it isn't working. Every morning I start with two cups of coffee while I read daily entries from other peoples' blogs. I don't comment on them at the time because I think I will be writing late in the afternoon while waiting on dinner. But instead I find I am watching the evening news at that time. While reading those blogs and my email in the morning, my family starts the daily conference call. There are five households (my dad and 4 grown kids/spouses) who check in with Facebook Messenger. It's actually great that we all do this. But by this time, it is already 10 AM or later and that is when I make my breakfast. I decide on dinner, empty the dishwasher, make yoghurt or bake keto bread or buns, and water the indoor seedlings.  This may also be the time that I go on-line to request groceries and make up the grocery list, or do some on-line shopping for delivery or curbside pick-up. I don't usually get outside until around 11:30 for about 2 hours. If I don't go outside, I am making cards, or writing out cards and mailing them out.

 I mixed 6 wheel barrow loads of my triple mix to place on this small garden bed. Because the peony bush I found in the front of the house had no buds on it, I decided to dig it up and replant it here in this bed. It may be that the plant was too deep in the ground, so since it isn't going to flower this year anyway I decided to move it now. It seems to be loving its new location. I also planted the forget-me-nots that I rescued from my sister's back yard. She also gifted me with two sedums...Autumn Joy and Dragon's Blood, which are already planted. "Dee" gave me some chives to plant as you can see in the pot in the foreground. The irises were not affected by the move either and they are in bloom (purple and white). I have the promise of more transplants later in the year, as my sister and "Dee" come across any of theirs that need thinning. I guess I will have to get to work on making this bed larger.

I only had one bag of mulch to put down on this bed, but I won't buy any more until I finish making all the transplants this year. I also got some "garden fixtures" from my family members to plant in the gardens until I get real flowers. LOL

 I was able to empty the screened topsoil from all of those Rubbermaid bins and have washed them out. Two of the larger ones still have working lids, so I will keep those on my lower deck to hold outdoor furniture cushions. The other bins have no lids, so I will drill holes in the bottom, fill them also with triple mix, and plant some zucchini and cucumber seedlings in them. I raked up TWO huge compost bags filled with the roots I dug up and screened from the topsoil. All those large rocks I removed are  underneath the back deck.

Look what else I finally planted. It took nearly an hour but I was able to finally erect this clothesline on my own. I have been using it and I am loving it. It is a parallel line and holds so much more than the umbrella line I left behind. So I have made some progress on my outdoor space, but still lots to do. While the roofers were working next door (for a whole week), I did not go outside at all. I stayed indoors and made cards.....a Father's Day card which I hand-delivered this morning, two more masculine birthday cards, three more feminine birthday cards, and 8 "Hello, Thinking of You, Just Because" type greeting cards. I went to my dad's house one morning to help "Dee" move eleven 30 lb. bags of cement from her driveway to the back of the house. My sister had a social distancing birthday party for her husband in the backyard. I had already mailed his birthday card and didn't want to show up empty-handed, so I made him a survival kit for his BIG birthday. It was fun. It was just me, my dad and "Dee" but it was the first time we have all been "together" in 3 months.

We are still meeting on Zoom every Saturday for our Trivia Club. I have to come up with 25 multiple choice questions every week, so that keeps me busy and off the streets, but I am still enjoying that. Sometimes I feel there aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I want to do, so I guess that is a good thing. I will try not to wait so long to write next time. Hope everyone had a fabulous weekend.