No Market For Me

Our local farmer's market on the square opened this morning, so after enjoying a leisurely cup of coffee, I got dressed and went down to walk around a bit.  Honestly, I wasn't expecting much because it's so early in the season yet, but there were a few booths open -- including the lady with the really delicious tea cakes.  

If I weren't currently battling my blood sugar, I'd have gotten some.  Maybe later on in the summer when I've gotten things under control, I'll splurge, but not right now.  

They also had a new vendor that was selling spice blends and meat rubs.  I looked, but again didn't buy anything.  I stopped by the Little Free Library before I left, and even that was empty.  Slap empty.   I got back into my car completely empty handed, and said to myself, "I'm not even going to go walk those trails.  I'm just going to go home."  

However, by the time I'd made the square and got back onto the road, I'd changed my mind.  "I think I will go walk that trail after all."  And I did. 

I chose to walk the bottom land trail this time, even though it's not a Pokémon Go route.  

I need to walk this one more, because it's such a nice trail.  

And there is always interesting flora, such as this mushroom -- the like of which I've never seen before. 

According to Google, it's an American Ceasar's mushroom.  Of course, I didn't touch it, since 1) I didn't know at the time what it was and 2) it's a state nature preserve and that would be illegal anyway.  I just took the photo and walked on. 

I was also finally able to find and identify this spiderwort. 

I've seen them growing on the sides of the roads, and really wanted some for my native pollinator garden, but you can't really stop on the highway just to run off and identify a flower.  I mean, you could....but anyway, I know what it is now and can add it when I finally get that part of my garden going. 

Speaking of my garden, lookit!  I have a baby cayenne pepper!  Woo hoo!

And...I have a zinnia!  

I have a couple of them, actually.  I chose this variety thinking it would make it look like my fairy houses were in a forest, and I think I did pretty well in that regard. 

The only issue is that it is hard to see the houses now that the zinnias have grown up a bit.  Next year, I'll know better.  No matter, it's still fun to have a fairy garden.  

In other news, last night a bird got into my wood stove, and while I was catching it and putting it back outside, I realized I hadn't cleaned out said stove since the ice storm.  I decided then and there that this would be my weekend project -- to get the stove cleaned out and this entire corner tidied up and ready for summer. 

I'm almost embarrassed to tell you I got an entire five gallon bucket of ash out of the bottom of that stove.  Oh well, I burned a lot when I didn't have electricity, and by the time it was over, so was I.  

I think I've only lit one fire since then.  Oh well, it's cleaned out now and all of that wood ash is mixed into my compost pile.  All the tools and stuff are tucked away behind the stove until it's needed again, and that corner looks so much better.  

I still need to wipe down the walls, and will probably have to take a scrub brush to the grout between the bricks on the base.  That isn't going to happen today, though.  It probably won't happen tomorrow, either.    Maybe not even next weekend.  Cody and Bren have to be completely out of their house by the 25th, and I told them if they needed help next weekend, just let me know and I'd come down and give them a hand if we're not working.  

Cody made a flying trip up here to bring some stuff for me to store for them, including this rocking chair.  

They didn't have room for it in their apartment, and Bren didn't really want to get rid of it, because it was a family heirloom.  She also asked if I had room for her wedding dress and one of the bridesmaid's dresses, and I said I did.  I'm going to have to buy a garment bag before I hang them in the closet, though.  Just for a little extra protection. 

A couple of other things she sent were a calligraphy pen and a wax stamp, because she knew I'd like them. 

It's a letter B, and a different style from the B I already have, so it works out. 

The only problem is that the only pen pal I still have is the one in Australia and I don't trust the international mail enough to use wax seals on those letters.  All of my American pen pals have quit writing, and aren't likely to start again given that postage has gotten so astronomically high these days.  In fact, it's so high I'm going to have to cut back even on my Christmas cards this year, so if you don't get one, don't take it personally.  And if you do, don't feel obligated to send one back, even though I love to receive them as well. 

The last thing she sent was one of those diamond dot kits.  I don't know if she bought it or if it was given to her, but she hadn't even started it. 

I'm not sure I will, either.  I've seen them on craft store websites, and it looks like something that would drive me absolutely nuts.  I told Cody I'd try it, but can't promise that I'll finish it.  But if any of you want the thing, holla at me.  I'll ship it right out to you. 

Cody didn't stay long, saying he had to get back to cleaning that house out, but before he left, I sent those three tiniest basil back with him.  I said maybe he could baby them and get them to grow.  And if not, he can always stop by here and cut some.  

That's about it for my Saturday.  I'm going to go get me something to eat and watch some TV. 

Laters.

Doldlrums

I have a case of the doldrums here lately.   

There is absolutely nothing happening in my life at the moment.  I get up, go to work, come home and go to bed.  Rinse and repeat, ad infinitum.  The only thing that is different is what time we have to be there in the morning. 

I've even finished all of the available episodes of The Great British Sewing Bee, and am going through a bit of a withdrawal.  That was such a fun show.  By the way, if you're watching it, make sure you find the Christmas specials.   For some reason,  Roku Channel skips those and you have to go to each season manually to watch them.  At least it did on my Fire Stick. 

Now I'm watching The Repair Shop on Roku Channel, and re-watching Time Team on Prime.  And that's the most exciting thing I have to tell you...unless you want to hear that I've discovered I'm not crazy after all. 

The way that happened is as follows.  I've mentioned before that I needed to put in some of my ETO -- earned time off-- because I was about to max out my hours.  I did that Monday morning, and a few moments later, I was chatting with Demi-god.  I mentioned to him that I'd put in those hours because I was about to max out, and he said he didn't even know you could do that.  

Sometime later that day, I was talking to another sub-brazer and the subject came up.  She said she didn't know you could max your ETO hours, either.  At this point, I was beginning to wonder if I was having a Mandela effect or something, because I was sure the HR person had told us that in a meeting.  

The next morning, it was still worrying me, so I asked two more coworkers if they remembered HR saying that we could max those hours. Neither of them did, and at this point I was really beginning to wonder if I was losing my mind.  Then one of my coworkers asked, "Did you check the handbook?" 

Well, there's a duh moment if ever there was one.  She said, "So And So has her handbook on her stand," so I went to ask So And So if I could borrow it.  She handed it to me, I opened to the correct page and found the section on ETO.  Skimming down the page, I exclaimed, "HA!"  Reading the appropriate sentence out loud, "'Accruals are capped at 24 hours!' I'm not crazy!"  

Some of you may disagree, but I have the proof.   And apparently I'm the only one in the plant who lets her ETO accumulate that high.  

Other than that, there is absolutely nothing happening -- not even in the garden.  We're in that awkward pre-teen stage where everything is still growing, but nothing is producing yet.  I will say that threatening my basil seems to have worked, as they look a bit more perked up now. 

Even so, I took the three smallest and weakest looking plants, moved them to smaller pots, and placed them in my raised bed with my Bachelor's Buttons. 

They will get good morning sun here, but will be shaded from the harsh afternoon light by the fence.  We'll see. 

In piano news, I have been practicing.  I'm zipping through my Faber book pretty quickly, but it is level 1 stuff.  I don't think I'm going to go on with this course beyond this book.  In fact, I think once I'm done, I'm going to put it into the Little Free Library on the square so someone else can enjoy it. 

Speaking of, the Farmer's Market opens this Saturday!  I'm going to get up and go, but I don't expect there to be much produce this early in the season.  They said they've got some new vendors this year, too, and a petting zoo.  I might even go walk the trails at Lee Tartt, too.  

I'd thought about going up to Batesville to their Walmart and Lowe's, but I don't know if that's going to happen.  I say that every Saturday, but haven't made it yet.  

I'll let you know how it goes. 

That’s More Like It

Welcome back, Gentle Readers.  I hope all of you who are moms had a very nice Mother's Day.  Mine was OK, I guess.  Cody and Brennan stopped by on their way back from Memphis, where they had spent the weekend with Bren's family.  Her sister graduated from college Saturday, so they drove up Friday after Bren got off work.  They were going to stop by on the way up, but Cody said he didn't take Brennan's work schedule into account when he said that.  She didn't get off until 8:00 PM, so it would have likely been after 10:00 when they got here.  He said they'd stop by on the way back instead, which is what they did. 

They took me out for dinner, and I kind of wanted to go to Pizza Inn, but by the time they got here, it had started raining.  I told Cody, "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather just go through a drive through somewhere and not get out in this."  And that's just what we did.  We went to Wendy's and got Baconaters.  I'd kind of wanted to go picnic out at the lake, but the rain prevented that.  Since I didn't want to make a mess in their brand new car, we just came on home and ate here.  Wouldn't you know it, right as we got off the highway, the rain stopped and a beautiful double rainbow came out. 

"Dang it!" I said.  "I left my phone at home!"  So Brennan whipped hers out and took some photos for me.  If you look very closely, you can see then end of the rainbow -- especially the one in the front -- hitting the ground in front of the trees.  

I think that's the first time in my life I've ever seen something like that.  

After we'd finished eating, I dragged the kids out into the back yard and made them look at my little garden.  Brennan was totally captivated by my fairy garden.  "It's adorable!" she exclaimed. 

Cody replied, "You know we still have that planter Mom gave us for Christmas year before last.  We could set it up on our balcony and you can have a garden there."  And Brennan said, 

AI generated photo

She told me their balcony faces some woods, and she likes to sit out there in her egg chair and just enjoy nature.  They couldn't do that in their old house. 

Well, since I made them look at the garden, I'm going to make you look at the garden, too. Here is the tomato and basil bed. 

And look!  The littlest tomato is putting out true leaves!  

It might eventually catch up to the others before it's all over.  

By the way, I was watching a video by Epic Gardening, and he tried the three popular methods of planting tomatoes -- normal, deep, and trench.   The results at the end of the season showed there wasn't any one method that was better than the others.  The plants and yields were almost identical with all three methods.  I mean, the deep method and the trench method had the plants growing more roots, but not any more tomatoes.  Eh, I've linked it above if you want to watch for yourself.  

On a similar note, here is my leftover basil in the planter.  

The ones I up potted are so much bigger than the ones I didn't, and none of these are as big as the ones I put into the raised bed.  So, I guess it's better to up pot sooner rather than later.  Or it could be that there is much more root room in the bed than in this planter.  I didn't know what else to do with them, though.  Hmmm, I wonder if the smaller ones would do better in pots on the front porch where they'd get better light.  I may move them tomorrow afternoon and see.  

In other news, the new magnesium supplements arrived today.  Chewable gummies.  That's more like it. 

Even better, the doctor told me to take 300 mg, and these are exactly that each.  I know the label says 600 mg, but that's for a serving size of two.  I'm not sure why they do things like that.  Why not just put 600 mg in each gummy if that's what you're marketing?  Or label them as 300 mg?  

I have been sleeping and feeling much better since I started taking the magnesium.  I used to take magnesium supplements, but when I started my cholesterol meds, the doc said it could interfere with that, so I'd stopped.  But I did ask and he said this kind doesn't interfere with my other meds, so that's good.  

And finally, just so this post isn't a total waste of your time, here is some knitting. 

Yarn:  Life DK by Stylecraft

Colorway:  Teal

Pattern:  Trekking Is For Necking

Needles:  US 6 / 4 mm

Brennan has decided to make a Tetris blanket out of granny squares.  She showed me her design and it's going to be pretty cool.  She told me she underestimated how big it would be, and now it looks like it's going to be 10 feet long.  

I can't wait to see the finished product. 

I Don't Think

I don't think I'm going to be able to move tomorrow.  Seriously.  

I'd thought I'd get up and go walking some trails, either at the lake or at the nature preserve, but changed my mind because I had to go to Walmart and do the shopping I'd skipped yesterday.  I figured that would be enough walking for the day. 

Then what did I do?  I came home and mowed.  Between Walmart and mowing, I got nearly five miles done.  That ought to help the ol' blood sugar come down a bit.  

I'd said I was only going to do the front yard, but ended up doing the back as well.  That was a bit of a pain mowing around all of my clover patches, but I got 'er done.  I did not do behind the fence.  Maybe I'll get that done sometime tomorrow morning. I don't know.  It's not my property, but I do knock it down a few times per year, just so it doesn't get out of hand. 

While I was doing all of that mowing, my package from Amazon arrived, and look what I bought.  

This year's new Christmas ornament.  I know, I know, it's a long way until Christmas, but I had originally thought I'd hang it from my car's rear view mirror.  Now that I have it and see that it's plastic and not glass, I don't think I will.  I'm thinking it might fade in the sun, so it's put away until November when the tree goes up.  

Also in the order was the final piece of this year's fairy garden -- a picnic table.  

Now, my little fairies can get together and have a little fairy picnic, all under the watchful eye of Oberon the fairy king, of course. 

The final two things in the order were spare chains for my mini chainsaw, and my magnesium glycinate.  "Easy to swallow caplets" the description said.  Yeah, right.   For a horse, maybe.  Obsolete coin of the realm included for scale.   

I immediately cancelled that subscription and found some gummies instead.  They'll be here Monday.  

Next up on the agenda was the weedeating, which went pretty much without a hitch, and the whole yard looks so much better. And now that the necessary chores were done, I could get to the fun stuff!  Putting in my tomato cages!  

And yes, I do realize how pathetic that sounds.  Don't envy me my exciting life.  Those cages were a bit of a pain to put together, but in the end, I got 'er done.  After I took the photo, I went back and straightened up some of those wonky bits, and it looks pretty OK.  Most importantly, they'll support my tomatoes. 

While I was doing that, I put in my drip irrigation system -- which is a 1 liter water bottle with holes punched in the bottom.  

Some of the channels I've watches say to cut the bottom of the bottle off and punch the holes into the lid.  Then you put the bottom in upside down to keep dirt and debris out of the water.  I guess that's OK if you want to go that route, but to me, it made more sense to put the lid back on to keep things out of your water.   

I was kind of worried that I'd buried them too deep, but I think as the tomatoes grow, it'll be OK.  Speaking of growing, do you see what I see?  

Yes!  True leaves!  Go littlest tomato!  Go!  

Speaking of growing, the cayennes are really taking off, so much so, I went ahead and tied up the three biggest ones, along with one of the banana pepper plants. 

It may not be strictly necessary, but it won't hurt.  I'm trying to remember if I had to stake my last cayenne plant, but I can't.  I know I had to stake my last banana pepper, but then, it didn't have nearly as much root room in that raised planter as it will in this bed. 

Look, it's starting to look almost like a proper garden!

Oh, and before I forget, even though we had some rain a couple of days ago, we only got .3", so I was able to try out my new watering wand this morning.  It was right handy to have.  I was able to get the water right down to the bottom of the plants without having to bend over, and the little lever thing controlled the water flow so I wasn't blasting them into oblivion.  

On the other hand, it was strong enough to clean the bird bath, getting all of the algae off the sides and bottom, then gentle enough to fill it without splashing.  It's probably the best investment I've made this month...

The last thing I did before coming inside and taking a shower was to make a frog pond out of an old food bowl.  

I've seen a lot of toads in that part of the yard.  Hopefully, they'll stick around, and maybe I can even attract more to come.  Toads are one of the best slug controls you can have. 

Now that I'm all nice and clean after a hot shower, it's time to settle in with some knitting and Lark Rise To Candleford.  

Laters...

Whelp...

Whelp, that didn't go as planned.  OK, so I took my new magnesium glycinate Wednesday night, hoping for a good night's sleep.  Then I turned on Ryan Hall's livestream and stayed up anyway, so fat lot of good that did.   

Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep and didn't really feel like blogging yesterday.  I don't much feel like blogging today, either, especially since nothing noteworthy has happened.  I didn't even go do my weekly shopping.  They handed out Mother's Day nachos at work, so I just came straight home and ate mine. 

At least it wasn't a bunch of sugar, like they usually do.  In fact, I almost didn't go into the break room because I was so convinced it would be cupcakes or candy or something, but I'm glad I did.  Those nachos made a nice bit of supper  -- mostly because I didn't have to cook them.  

Other than that, all I did was to catch up on some of my DVRed shows and knit a bit.  And three loads of laundry -- one of which is piled up on my bed.  This is my life.  All day at work, I tell myself I'm going to get so much accomplished when I get home, but then I don't do anything.  

I also say I'm going to write deep, thought provoking posts, but then I don't do that either.  It's like, the older I get, the less I want to talk about it.  Whatever it may be.  I just keep it to myself.  Of course, the topic of the day today would be all of the tornadoes that hit down south, you know, the ones that kept me up half the night.  If I felt like talking about it, I mean.  But I don't.  Not even the kittens they rescued -- one of which made national news.  Because you need a bit of good news when there is that much devastation. 

I'm sure having to get up at 2:30 AM has a lot to do with that.  Not wanting to talk about stuff, I mean.  Not rescuing kittens.  

What I do want to talk about is my baby tomato.   Look, it's trying very hard to develop true leaves!  

Keep on trying, little guy!  I'm rooting for you. 

And my next project is, weed tea!  

 I've seen several gardening channels talk about doing this.  Basically, you pull a bunch of weeds from your yard and ferment them in water for a couple of weeks.  As they break down, they release a lot nutrients into the water.  In fact, it's so potent that you have to seriously dilute it or you'll burn your plants.  Most of them say 1 part weed tea to three parts water. 

Best of all, it's completely free!  Your only cost is the time and energy it takes to pull the weeds.  And a bucket to put the into, of course.   Not only that, it's perpetual.  As you use it, all you have to do is add more weeds and water.  I think I might even sacrifice some of my clover to this.  Eh, I'm not worried.  It'll grow back.  

Whelp, I don't have to work tomorrow, so I can sleep in, but I still got up at 2:30 this morning, so I'm going to go fold those clothes that are piled on my bed and get into it. 

Goodnight, all.  

P.S.  Seriously considering doing a garden vlog tomorrow.  If I get around to it. 

Annual Physical

Yep, it was that time of year again.  Time for my annual physical.  That's one of those things that you need to do, but nobody really wants to.  I'll admit I had to giggle a little when I saw that someone had glued googly eyes to this turkey painting in my doctor's office.  

Overall, everything looks pretty good, but my blood sugar was a bit high, which I already knew. 

Ever since I got that flu/COVID/whatever it was back in February, my sugar has been high.  It spiked right when I got sick, and I still haven't gotten it consistently low since then.   I've had a few good days, but for the most part, it's been above 100 each morning.  He said being sick could trigger that, and we discussed some options to get it back down -- one of which was to just walk right after each meal.  It didn't take much, only 10-15 minutes.  I can't do that at work, of course, but I can after supper.    

When I said that my fasting glucose this morning was 114, he said stress could also trigger high sugar.  It's part of the fight or flight response, because your body says, "Hey, we need energy to fight or flee from this perceived threat," so it dumps a bunch of glucose into your blood.  That was probably it, because between when I took it, and when he did two hours later, it had actually gone up, and I hadn't had anything to eat.  

I was thinking that I may have overscheduled myself, because when you have a day off, you tend to want to get as much done as you can.  So, after I left the doctor's office, I went to the post office and finally mailed those hats off to the Seaman's Church Institute, then went to Walmart and got my oil changed in the car. 

But I'm getting ahead of myself...One more thing he said could cause high blood sugar is not sleeping well.  I mentioned that I never sleep well.  When he asked if I was taking anything for it, I replied, "Melatonin, but I'm fixing to stop because it doesn't seem to help."  He agreed, saying, "If it's not working stop taking it."  Then he suggested something called Magnesium Glycinate -- which won't interfere with my Crestor.  

I also mentioned some of my finger joints are getting stiff, and asked if it could be arthritis.  He said it could, but when he checked the joint, he said I could have trigger finger.  Either way, he told me to keep working it -- bend it and stretch it to keep it from stiffening up.  He suggested turmeric for its anti-inflammatory properties, so while I was getting my oil changed, I picked up a bottle of that, along with the magnesium stuff he recommended. 

I want to try to come up with a turmeric - cinnamon blend I can put into my coffee or make tea out of it.  I'll have to do a bit of research on that.  Oh, and he said to take 300 mg of the magnesium, but Walmart only had 100 mg gummies, so when I got home, I got onto Amazon and found some.  I ordered some, and put it on Subscribe and Save, so hopefully it'll help me sleep. 

Last night, I hardly slept at all.  I fell asleep watching a Fat Electrician video, but then woke up and didn't get back to sleep until probably midnight.  Thank goodness I had today off, because Group Leader Shark told us to start coming in at 4:00 again.  

I'm dreading going in tomorrow and seeing what kind of mess second shift left of my stand.  Yesterday, oooh, it was awful.  It looked like a tornado hit it.  There were pieces of rod everywhere, scrap headers, and jigs left on the stand.  The weirdest thing was, I'd left an order all set up and ready to be brazed.  Whoever was on that stand on second shift moved the headers off the stand, but left the adapter tubes.  We looked all over for those headers, and finally I had the dispatcher to put in a rework order for them.  

Some two hours later, someone found them.  The second shift person had taken the entire bin off my stand, put them onto a different stand, then put some other bins on top of them.  No wonder we couldn't find them.  And I'm like, why????

But that's second shift for you.  They do what they want, and we have to come in every morning and clean up their mess...

Oh, and while I was at Walmart, I ran into an old coworker -- "old" as in from a long time ago, not necessarily age-- whom I hadn't seen in ages.  We had a little chat, but most of the people that were out there when she was aren't there any more.  Except for one of the tap fitting brazers.  I told her that I don't think he'd ever retire.  

On a similar note, when I got to the doctor's office, the receptionist greeted by name and asked after Cody.  The only problem with that is, I had no idea who she was.  I asked my doctor, and as soon as the told me her name, I remembered her.  I had gone to church with her for years, and her son is only a year younger than Cody.  I didn't recognize her at all.  Then, of course, the lady who works at the atomotive counter at Walmart remembers me from when she worked out at the plant, only I don't remember her.  It's kind of a shame.  I mean, I know her more from WM than work, but she said she wasn't out there very long.  I guess that's why.  They remember me, but to me it's like a constant stream of people coming in and leaving...It's a right regular revolving door out there.  

Speaking of messes, I'd thought I might call the clean up man and get him to help me straighten up the shed this afternoon, but as it's been drizzly and rainy all day, I put that off for a sunnier day.  It's supposed to storm tonight, but the worst of it should pass to the South of us.  I've already checked the Weatherwise app, and most of the storm chasers are down between Jackson and McComb -- with a couple of them over into Alabama.  

I was a bit disappointed, because I wanted to try out my new watering want I bought. 

It extends to 42" and I figure it'll be much easier on my back than bending over to get the water down around the roots of the plants.   

Instead, I sat inside and knit, while watching The Great British Sewing Bee, Time Team, and The Repair Shop.  

 Not a bad way to spend a day off, eh?  

My Next Trick

Apparently, it was scarf weekend this past weekend here in the Fine Martial household, as both of these scarves finally got a bit of desperately needed attention. 

On the left:

Yarn:  Life DK by Stylecraft

Colorway:  Teal

Pattern:  Trekking Is For Necking

Needles:  US 6 / 4mm

On the right:

Yarn:  Red Heart Supersaver

Colorway:  Hunter Green

Pattern:  Seaman's Scarf from the Seaman's Church Institute

Needles:  US 7 / 4.5mm

They each got about an inch longer, but hey, it's better than nothing.  

And now for my next trick, I decided to make an earthworm tower.  Now, all the videos I've seen said to use a piece of 4" PVC pipe, but I didn't have any.   My first inclination was to go into one of the local groups and ask if anyone had a scrap piece they'd give me, but before I could do that, I found this old cotton candy container that I'd been saving for ages now. 

I'd kept it with the intention of making a yarn barn out of it, but never got around to it, so it's been getting moved around the junk room for probably a decade now.  As of yesterday afternoon, it has a new lease on life. 

I drilled a bunch of holes into it, then buried it in my tomato bed. 

Next, I filled it with vegetation -- mostly weeds from my yard -- and as it decays, it'll attract earthworms, which will then leave their castings in the bed.  That's the best fertilizer in the world, or so I'm told.  And I was able to get it almost smack dab in the middle of the bed.  

I have no doubt the worms will find it.  After all, they found their way into my raised planter.  How they got up there -- , since the thing is 3' off the ground -- I have no idea, but they're there. 

Later that evening, I went back outside and planted the three biggest tomatoes into their forever home.  

I felt like I had to.  They were running out of room under their protective cloches, and I wasn't quite ready to throw them to the wolves just yet -- so to speak. When they get to the top next time, I'll take the cloches off and put the tomato cages around them.  I've also been saving my 1 liter water bottles to make a drip irrigation system for them.   There will be posts...

This little baby is still struggling, but hanging in there.  

I think that cold spell may have set it back a bit, because when I got home from work this afternoon, it seemed a bit perked up.  Except for watering it, I'm going to leave it alone, which is probably the best thing for it.  I hope it lives, but if it doesn't, I'm going to just buy one.  If I try to plant from seed a fourth time, that plant will be so far behind the others, there would really be no point.  

Before we leave the garden, look at this!  

I'm going to have some cayenne peppers soon!  Woo Hoo!  

And finally, I can neither confirm nor deny that I may or may not do something that might possibly resemble...this...

Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some messages to ignore...

Laters. 

Busy Saturday

I think the nicest thing about Saturday is that I can spend pretty much the entire day doing exactly what I want to do.  Except that I can't because I get overwhelmed by thinking about all the stuff I need to be doing, but don't want to. 

I saw on social media that the inability to get started doing anything is a symptom of burnout.  Maybe that's been my problem here lately.  I'm just burned out.  I wish I knew how to not be burned out, but I don't.  

I'll give you an example.  I've needed new glasses for a while now, only my eye doctor has retired.  I have to find a new eye doctor and I don't do new well.   The eye doctor by Walmart doesn't accept our insurance, and I had a bad experience at 20/20 a while back.  That leaves a relatively new place, A Look Ahead.  

I went to their website to get their phone number, and much to my surprise, they had a form online to request an appointment.  I filled it out and submitted it, and got a message saying one of their friendly staff would be in touch with me.  

A day passed, no word.  Two days, three...after a week, I decided to try to call them.  I went back to the website on my phone, and lo and behold there was a button that said "Call Us".  I clicked it, and nothing happened.  I clicked it again.  Nothing happened again. I clicked it a few more times with the same result, so I backed completely out of the website and punched the number in manually on my phone's keypad.  

It said my call could not be completed.  I did it a second time and got the same message, so I went back and filled out the form on the website again.  It's been three days, and I haven't heard back from them.  At this point, I'm wondering if it's just me.  Am I doing something wrong?  

What is wrong with me that I can't even make a simple eye appointment without screwing it up?  I guess I'm going to have to go back to 20/20 if I want new glasses.  I'd never intended to buy glasses from there anyway, though.  I'll just go to the eye doctor and get my glasses from the optical center in Walmart.  

OK, on to more pleasant things.  I finished another sailor hat this afternoon.  

Yarn:  Red Heart Bitty Stripes

Colorway: Rainbow

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5mm

Before I did that, I got up and did a thing.  A thing that required me to leave the house.  If you know me at all, you know I'm totally not a thing doer, and I'm totally not a house leaver.  But I did it and need to tell you about it. 

I went down to the Spring Market on the square.  It wasn't much, though.  It's a new something they're trying to get going, but so far it's not going well.  There were only a few booths, and the so-called entertainment was just a guy with giant speakers playing a playlist.  So, I left there pretty quickly and went to the Spring Wings event at the Lee Tartt Nature Preserve.  

Only I got there too early and they were still setting up.  I did talk to one very nice young man who is doing his Master's Thesis on the Chackchiuma people who lived here before.  He had a table showing some arrowheads, pottery shards, and other artifacts from their archaeology site.  

There was another man selling native plants, but he didn't have anything that I wanted for my native pollinator garden.  So, I just walked the trails and came on home. 

I was pleased to see that they'd removed the tree that had fallen across the Old Man Of The Swamp, but he still needs a little sprucing up in the form of fresh pine needles rewoven into the wire frame. 

I also walked the river loop trail, but didn't do a Pokémon Go route.  I just walked it.  Even though I knew we are in extreme drought, I was still a bit shocked at how low the river is.   

I even walked across the street and walked the Bottomland Trail part way.  By this time, I was getting tired.  My legs were getting heavy, and my bladder was getting full, but I kept walking.  I didn't want to leave the woods. 

I walked to my second favorite sitting bench -- which used to be my favorite until they built the one overlooking the swamp-- and sat there for a while.  

So, I somewhat reluctantly walked out of the woods and came on home where I had a whole list of chores waiting to be done. 

One of those chores was cleaning out the two remaining snake tanks, which I did pretty quickly.  Those had paper pulp bedding in them, but I figured it's still biodegradable, so I used it as mulch in my tomato bed. 

I saved a little back for when I get those tomatoes planted, which at the rate they're growing won't be much longer.  Heh, I'm sure the gardening experts on YouTube would have something to say about me using old snake bedding as mulch, but hey, I've been putting it into the compost for years.  It would have gotten there in the end anyway. 

On a similar note, I finally got around to making paths in my fairy garden.  

I took the leftover stones and made sort of a central patio area where the fairies can gather. 

Maybe I'll buy some fairy chairs and put them out there, too.  And look what I found while I was doing that!  

It's a bud!  I'm going to have zinnia blooms pretty soon.  

And finally, remember this guy?  Just a few weeks ago, I thought it was dead and was going to put it into the compost.  Just look at him now, all perked up and happy. 

I just wish I knew why it was struggling so much, so I don't make the same mistake next winter.