Football Is Back!

Football is back baby!  And yes, I had the multi-screen thing going for at least part of the time, and I'll set it back up once I'm done with this post. 

Texas and Navy both won.  LSU is in a lightning delay, and I've got Little Brother on the tablet.  I'll put Mississippi State on the computer once I'm done.  Alas, it is still way too hot to even think about putting out Fall decorations, but I did put my wreath on the front door. 

That's all, though.  I might get them out and put them up during the week.  Or I might not.  I don't know.  Depends on if it gets cool enough for me to be in the mood.  I'm not holding my breath on that one.  It got up to 103° on my thermometer, but I did manage to get the front and side yards mowed before the heat advisory took effect.  I was still drenched in sweat and suffering heat exhaustion, but I got 'er done.  In the morning, I'll go spread my fire ant granules, but other than that, I'm going to sit inside in the air conditioning and complain about the heat.  

You know, my usual.  At least they finally got some air conditioning in the plant.  I guess they had to since they are moving the lines back up to the front.  These young folks coming up aren't going to work in a plant were it's 99° in the summer!

They've put this new water dispenser thing up in the break areas, too.  It's pretty cool.  You can mix and match up to three flavors, plus two additives such as electrolytes and vitamins.  You can choose between hot or cold water, and still or fizzy water.  I'm still figuring it all out.  I tried one flavor called Autumn Sky, but didn't like that one.  The coconut was pretty good.  When we get back, I want to see if they have lime, so I can put the lime in the coconut and then I'll drink it down...

OK, I'll stop now.  

Oh, and I keep forgetting to tell you my Stalker is back to driving a truck these days.  Is it wrong that my first thought when I found out was, "I'll bet he's hit every lot lizard in the country!"  

Now, I'll really stop.  Back to your regularly scheduled blog post. 

I didn't even do anything in the garden today, other than fill up the drip bottles.  Well, I put together my three new raised beds, but I did that inside, in the air conditioning then I toted them outside and put them into place. 

I had these on my list, but hadn't planned on getting them until my wooden planters had rotted beyond usability.  I was going to put my mint into them.  But a week or so ago, Amazon had them on sale for only $35 for the set of three, so I gave in and got some.  I'll probably end up getting some more later on down the line, too.  

This isn't their final location, but it's pretty close to where I'm going to put them.  I still need to level the ground a bit, which I'll try to do in the cool of the morning this week.    

I'm thinking I'm going to move my rosemary into one, and put my lemon balm into one.  If I can find a pineapple sage, I'll put it into the third one.  I used to have a pineapple sage, but at the time, I didn't realize it was a perennial.  After the first frost killed it back, I pulled it up and put it into the compost like a dummy.  And I haven't found one since.  

I'd gotten the first one at Walmart, and have looked every year, both there and at Lowe's.  No dice.  Oh well, maybe one will show up.  I've still got that broad leaf sage, but I might pull it out.  It smells like feet to me.  I don't see how people want to eat that stuff.  

And finally, I made it up to the Farmer's Market on the square this morning, but left without buying anything.  I was hoping to get some muscadines, but those people weren't even there today.  That's the chance you take when you wait until the last market of the season, I guess.  I really wanted the seeds so I could start my own vines.  I've read that muscadine seeds are very difficult to get to germinate, but I'm taking that as a challenge.  

Hmmm, off to google where to buy them...

Laters.

Stuff

I said I wasn't going to sit around on my day off watching TV all day.  I said I was going to get stuff done.  And I did get stuff done.  Some stuff, that is.  The first stuff I got done was to take the Incarnation of Evil in to the vet for her shots and stuff.  

She did not like that, and she let everyone in that vet's office know just how much she didn't like it.  I almost felt sorry for the poor vet when the cat started hissing at her.  I told the vet that it was the cat's previous owner who'd named her Cutie, and I'd taken her in after he had died.  I left her name the same on her vet records, because I figured it'd be easier like that.  The vet said, "I've found that these animals named things like Cutie, Precious, Sweetie and the like are absolute monsters.  It's the ones named Killer and stuff that are the real sweethearts."  

Anyway, the cat is updated for the next year, and the vet escaped any bodily injury.  Me, on the other hand, I got bitten while trying to stuff the aforementioned Incarnation of Evil back into the cat carrier.  By the cat, not the vet.  Just wanted to make that clear.

I thought about going out to the lake and walking after I took the cat home, but by then, it was already starting to get hot, so I just piddled around the house and yard a bit.  I had a bit of a disappointment when I discovered another of my banana pepper plants had died. 

I don't get it.  It was fine yesterday, and this morning it was suddenly dead.  I went ahead and harvested all the peppers from it, and got a good deal of them. 

Then I pulled the whole plant up, just in case there is any disease it might be spreading.  My first thought was root knot nematodes, but I didn't see any sign of that.  The root ball looked perfectly healthy.  The only thing I saw on the entire plant was a bit of what looked like mold right at the base of the stem where it meets the soil.  I'd seen the same thing on that first one which had died, too, but at the time I didn't think anything of it.  After seeing it on this second plant, maybe there is something to it after all. 

My second thought was that there was something on the cardboard I'd used to mulch, but they were all Amazon boxes.  They are printed with soy based ink, and even the tape is all natural and 100% recyclable, so they should be fine to use in the garden in that aspect.  The only other thing I could think was that maybe some of the cardboard had shifted over time --I'd made sure that they weren't touching the stems when I put them down, but maybe they'd moved and were trapping moisture at the base of the stem causing mold to grow and somehow damage the plant.  I don't know, but I went back out and made sure there was plenty of space around the remaining plants in that bed. 

For good measure, I also checked the plants in the newest bed and pulled all the mulch away from those stems, too. 

I hope that helps.  I'd planned on trying to overwinter my pepper plants, but if they keep on dying, I won't be able to.  I do know one thing, though, next year I definitely need to rig up some sort of shade cloth for my garden area.  Also, I had a clever idea for my drip system -- not the soaker hose, but the bottles.  I'd been using 1 liter water bottles, like the one in the photo above.  This morning, I emptied out one of my coffee creamer bottles and thought, "Hmmm, these have a flip top.  That would make them so much easier to fill than having to unscrew that top."  So I washed the first one out, and will save those from here on out.  

Now that the pumpkin spice creamer is out, I ought to have plenty of them.  😊

It looks like I'll need them, because all of these storms that have rolled through have completely missed my part of the county.  State.  Country.  It's so dry, my grass is brown and crunchy and even the weeds are dying.  If we don't get some rain soon, I'm going to run out of the rain water I've collected for my Venus Fly Trap.  Speaking of, I do want to eventually get some gutters installed with a couple of rain barrel collection systems.  That ought to help a bit with my water bill. 

Let's wrap this segment up with a bit of good news, I haven't found any more hornworms in the last two days, so maybe I got them all.  

In other news, you would be proud of me.  Why?  I made another phone call!  Yep, I called the eye doctor and made an appointment.   She said the first available appointment is Friday, October 9, which works out perfectly because I already have that day off.  Better yet, I was able to finally mark something off of my list. 

Alas, I had to add calling the electrician, so I'm still at 8, but I'm counting it as progress. 

Better yet, I might finally be able to see again.  

And finally, a bit of humor to top off this Friday. 

IYKYK

I Forgot

I forgot to mention yesterday that when I was doing my deep dive into my deep freeze, I found nearly an entire sweet potato pie that I'd cut up and frozen right after Thanksgiving last year.  I'd put it into the bottom of the deep freeze before the ice storm and completely forgot it was even there. 

I'd been doing so well with my blood sugar here lately, I decided to thaw a slice and eat.  It was a tiny bit freezer burned on the crust, but the filling tasted fine.  Also, when you put a pie into the freezer, the crust tends to turn soggy.  Honestly, I'd intended to have it eaten up within a few weeks, until the ice storm threw my entire life out of whack.  Well, I suppose I should blame my memory for forgetting what all I had put into the aforementioned deep freeze.  And the ice storm didn't quite throw my entire life out of whack, but that's more exciting than to say it mildly inconvenienced me for a few days. 

Now for a bit of good news, they're saying we may get a break from this heat by next week, and by "break from this heat"  I mean they're predicting the lower 90s instead of the lower 100s.  My air conditioner will be glad of that! 

So will my electric bill.  By the way, the power stayed on all day at work.  Bummer.  I heard someone at work say that the reason the power went out is because someone hit a light pole, which is highly plausible.  People were saying that there was a large part of town that was without power, not just the plant.  I don't know about that, because it was the Tallahatchie Valley EPA, and I'm on Entergy.  

I know a lot of folks complain about Entergy, but back during that ice storm I keep bringing up, they had all of their customers' power back on long before either Tallahatchie Valley or Delta Electric did.  I've never had any complaints about them, me.  

By the way, they're saying this winter could be even worse than last winter thanks to the so called Super El Niño.  I guess that's why the ice storm has been so much on my mind here lately.  And I guess I really ought to get an electrician out here to check that breaker and replace it if necessary, just in case I need to use the generator again.   Oh, and last winter was actually pretty mild except for that whole ice...storm...thing...

Cold and sleet I can deal with.  Just not ice.  I'd have said snow, but we so seldom get it here.  Everywhere around us could be getting snow, and all we get is sleet.  I'm telling you one thing, you can not make snow ice cream out of sleet.  It won't work.  Trust me on this one. 

Be that as it may, except for that pesky breaker, I'm all ready for a cold and snowy -- or sleety, rather-- winter.  I've got plenty of firewood, plenty of power banks, and this year, I have a woobie.  

A good woobie will solve a world of problems. 

A Great Upheaval

It was 100° when I got home this afternoon.  Actual temp.  In the shade.  I don't even want to know what the heat index was, or what it was in the bald sun.  I waited until around 6:30 to go out and water, and it was hot then, too.  It is now 7:30 as I type this and it is still 93° out there.  

Funny thing, I've seen videos from British people talking about Americans couldn't handle a UK heat wave -- you know, when it gets up to the unbearable temps of 85°.  In one video I watched, they were discussing how they deal with the heat, since they're too morally superior to buy air conditioners.  One lady was talking about how she slept under a wet sheet.  I don't care how hot it gets, there is no way I'm going to do that.   Ugh, how slimy that would feel!  She also said she paints her windows with yogurt. 

Seriously?  I thought it was a freak thing, but then I saw a video from Ben at GrowVeg mentioning the same thing.  Painting your windows with yogurt is apparently a real thing in the UK.  Why?  What is it going to do except sour and stink?  If you want to block the sunlight, put up some drapes or something.  

If you can stand a bit of salty language -- quite a bit, in fact -- The Fat Electrician recently did a video on the greatest invention of the 20th century, air conditioning.   

Now for a bit of good news, the little tomato that was nearly eaten to death has really picked up. 

It's still quite a bit smaller than the others, but at least it's growing again.  Aaaand, I've got a few volunteers coming up in my zinnia bed. 

Alas, one of them will need to be thinned, but I'm going to give them a couple more weeks before I do that.  

By the way, Walmart has their bags of bark mulch on clearance for $2.  I might just go up there tomorrow and get a few bags for next year. 

In work news, apparently there is going to be a great upheaval at the plant.  I'd been hearing whispers in the wind for quite some time now about how they want to put the plant back to the way it was before that one plant manager messed everything up.  

For those of you who don't work there, back around 7-8 years ago, they decided to split up the plant, and put the component area in the front, and move the assembly area to what was once the warehouse.  I won't go into the gory details, but things haven't been the same since.  There isn't any flow to production, and it's much harder to get our parts out.  They've been talking about putting it back ever since, and now it looks like they're actually going to get started doing that very thing. 

This morning at the meeting, Group Leader Shark told us to take everything out of our lockers, because they were going to get rid of them.  I'm not too happy about that.  Without lockers, we don't have a secure place to store our tools.  Right now it's not too much of an issue, but it will be once second shift starts back up -- whenever that happens to be.  Our options then will be to leave everything out and hope it doesn't get stolen, or lug our tools back and forth through the metal detectors every morning and evening.  

Then they're going to tear down the wall between the front and back part of the plant.  That's why they are doing those weeklong shutdowns instead of putting us on four day weeks.  Supposedly, they're going to move the brazers again, too, and bring two of the assembly lines back up to the front.  I mean, they're not going to do that all in one week, but that's the plan.  

For now at least, the brazers will still be in our own area, but one of the quality guys told me he wants to put us back on the assembly lines.  He said, "When y'all were on the line, you could braze 700-800 headers a day and still have time to walk around and help out on the line!"  And I said, "I want some of whatever it is you've been smoking!"  Then I sniffed him to see if he smelled like skunk...

Anyway, every brazer I've talked to says they do not want to go back onto the lines, because those group leaders treated us like we were nothing more than built in floaters.  My last assembly line group leader once told me she'd never allow both brazers to be on our stands at the same time because she "couldn't afford to pull two people off the line like that."  The one I had before that used to put me onto the line, then come yell at me on the line because they'd run out of headers.  Well, DUH.  What did you think would happen?  I think if they do try to put us back on the lines, I'm going to go ahead and retire from out there.  

And finally, I asked Grok to make me a meme of this quote by Sir Francis Bacon, and this is what he came up with.

Then I asked Gemini the same thing, and somehow he changed fear to fart and gave me this:

Not sure what he was thinking....

A Tisket A Tasket

A green and ....green basket.  

I've been wanting a harvesting basket for a while now.  I was even looking on Amazon for one, but the ones I like are pretty expensive.  But then I remembered, Cody's old Easter basket is still out in the shed!  

As soon as I got home, I went out and got it.  It's still in pretty good shape, so I'm going to clean it up and disinfect it.  

I think it'll do for now, and I'm going to need it this weekend because all of these peppers are going to get picked and pickled. 

Well, maybe not all of them, but most of them and certainly all of the bigger ones.  And most of these cayenne peppers will be harvested and hung to dry.  

I'm not sure about these tomatoes, though.  

Some of the channels say that this is when you pick them because this is when the flavor is at its peak.  My only concern is whether they'll last long enough for the rest of the tomatoes to ripen.  I've looked at several recipes, and they all say around two lbs of tomatoes.  I know at least one of them will be put into a tomato sandwich, but I chose Roma tomatoes so I could make something I could freeze-- like soup.  There is no way I could eat that many tomatoes before they all went bad. 

Last year, I only had one plant, and I still ended up putting a bunch of tomatoes into the compost.  It was such a waste. Thus, soup to go into the freezer.  

Now for a bit of bad news, one of the little marigolds didn't make it.  

I'm not really surprised, though.  Between being eaten down to a nub by slugs, smothered by my lemon balm, picking up what I believe to be powdery mildew, and on top of all that, being moved, the poor thing had been through the wringer.  The other one is hanging in there still, so maybe it will make it.  I'm thinking that I might buy some seeds and direct sow some instead of trying to move another plant.  

While I was out there piddling, I managed to catch a shot of a giant bumblebee on my zinnias. 

This morning at work, Demi-god was telling me he has a water leak under his house.  Someone had told him it would take $20,000 to fix it.  I said, "Noooo, it shouldn't cost that much," and advised him to call around and get quotes from different plumbers.  I gave him McCrary's name, which is who I use.  He inherited his grandfather's house, which is old and has lots of problems, but still a plumbing repair shouldn't cost near that much.  

He told me they were also considering tearing the whole thing down and just buying a trailer house and putting that up on their property.  Considering the state of the old house -- Demi-god told me it's burned down twice --that would probably be their best bet.

And finally, I'm watching The Repair Shop right now.  

Well, not right this very second, because I paused to go take a shower, but I'm about to put it on again.    It's good for what ails you. 

First Harvest

There I was in the garden, just a puttering away, when I saw...

cayenne peppers!  It's my first harvest of the year! 

After I brought them inside and washed them, I think I probably should have left a couple of them on the plant just a tad longer.  

Oh well, they are strung up and hung up to dry.  Next time I won't be so impatient.   Let me rephrase that, next time I'll try not to be so impatient.  

And look!  Some of my banana peppers are starting to fully ripen, too. 

You can actually pick them while they're still yellow, which is what I did last year and the year before.  But, one of the gardening videos I watched said that if you let them turn red before picking them, they'll be sweeter and not have that peppery tang.  My mind interprets that as they'll taste less like a bell pepper.  

I don't like bell peppers.  I have gotten to where I can eat them, but they're not my favorite.  When I was a kid, I hated them so much I used to tell people I was allergic just so I wouldn't accidentally get something with bell peppers in them.  I do like sweet banana peppers, though.  They add just the right amount of crunch to a chicken salad.  Most of mine will end up getting pickled, though.  I've got more than I'll be able to eat before they spoil.  

In other news, I had a bit of insomnia last night, so I made the best of it and finished reading The Museum Of Second Chances.   I really enjoyed this one -- much more than I thought I would.  It's going to be released July 1, but I got an early copy through the Kindle First Reads deal.  Now, I'm back to plodding my way through Bunker Hill:  A City, A Siege, and A Revolution, by Nathaniel Philbrick.  I'm about 100% sure this will be the last of his books I read, and I'm only reading this one because I'd already bought it.  Oh, it's not a bad book, but it's not exactly edge-of-your-seat reading. 

At work this morning, Group Leader Shark went on a tear in the morning meeting, and it's about time if you ask me.  What had happened was, one of the other brazers had gotten an order in which one of the adapter tubes was bent wrong.  The funny thing is, last week, I had two orders with the exact same part bent in the exact same way.  

We decided to go tell GLS, and she said something about needing to get someone to check the programs in that particular machine.  I said, "Yeah, but if they'd done a first piece inspection like they're supposed to, they'd have caught it before running the entire order wrong."  Then the other brazer said, "Or does that whole first piece inspection requirement only apply to us (brazers)."  To which I added, "Because it sure feels like it," and pointed out that Demi-god also had an order with parts bent wrong that he was going to have to get re-done. 

 So, at the meeting, GLS said that from now on, when we get an entire order done wrong, we have to put the re-work in through the dispatcher so that the quality department can keep track, and for us brazers to take the parts back to whoever did it wrong, and they can write up the scrap tickets.  She said that if they get tired of writing up their scrap, they'll learn to pay attention.   She told them, "It's not fair for them (the brazers) to have to keep writing up your scrap!" 

That's exactly what I've been saying since we started this!  Will it work?  We shall see...

And finally, I still haven't watched a World Cup game, but if I did, this would be me. 

Anybody know how the American team is doing?  

No Market Again

I did it.  This morning, I actually got dressed and drove down to the farmer's market on the square.  Alas, I had forgotten about the BBQ cookoff they have during Thunder On Water weekend.  Oh, they still had the farmer's market, but their booths tend to get pushed off to the side.  Not only that, they had the entire street leading to the square blocked off, so I couldn't even drive down there.  

Yes, I could have driven around and parked on the South side, but I didn't want to.  I turned around and drove right back to the Lee Tartt Nature Preserve and walked the Bottomland trail.  I'd made it almost to the .8 mile marker when I saw stretched across the trail the most perfect little spider web I ever did see, with a teensy little spider sitting right in the middle.   

The web was so perfect, and the spider was so tiny I just couldn't blow through it.  And with that, my walk came to a screeching halt.   Except I still had to turn around and walk back to the car, so I didn't quite screech.  

But there is one cool thing on that trail.  You can put your phone into a bracket thing and take a photo, 

then email that photo to the address on the sign, 

and it will add it to their photo stream of that location.  Maybe if I start walking that trail more often, I can record the change of seasons.  

It wasn't that hot out yet, but it was so humid that by the time I got back to the car, I was still drenched in sweat, so I didn't do much else the rest of the day.  I had done most of the laundry yesterday, and had to set up my clothes horse in the kids' room because it was raining. 

I'd said I was going to tear into that dryer and see if I could see what the problem was, but truth is I didn't really feel like it, so I left that for another day.  Instead, I told the cat we were going to take it easy today.  I did the rest of the laundry.  I piddled in the garden a bit.  I mended the garden hose -- telling it that this was the last time and if it broke again, it was going into the trash.  I tore up some more cardboard boxes and added them to my black compost bag.  I separated the little tomato seedlings and put each one into its own cell in the tray. 

After I took the photo, I brought them inside and put them under the grow light just to give them a minute to recover from the transplant shock.  I'll put them back outside in the morning. 

In other news, I watched the episode of House Hunters last night, and they actually did show the town.  There were a couple of drone shots of the downtown area, and I could clearly see the gazebo on the square.  Somehow, they miraculously managed to hide that falling down building.  Maybe because they were so high in the air, it wasn't that noticeable.  They showed a couple of shots of the lake, and the husband was very excited about the fishing prospects here. 

The realtors showed them three houses, one of which was in the nearby town of Carrollton.  As you can imagine, I was shouting at the TV, "Oh, come on!  Don't put them in Carrollton!"  Local folks will understand.  

They chose a house in Grenada, and it's funny because I'd been looking at that very house on Zillow.  No, I'm not looking to buy another house.  I can't even afford the one I have, much less a new one.  I just like looking at houses and dreaming.  

Now for something I have done in a while -- a meme debunkeration.  This one is so stupid, I can't even believe I'm having to debunk it. 

It's common sense, really.  Ticks are everywhere, just like fleas and mosquitoes.  They don't need to be "delivered" anywhere, because they're already here.  True they crawl slower than a snail, so how do they get around?  I'll give you a hint:  They bark.  They meow.   They moo.  They neigh.  They cheep, cluck, or screech.  Yes, ticks hitch rides on animals and birds.  I can't believe I even have to say that.  

The reason we're seeing "outbreaks" is because the weather is warming up and the ticks beginning to move.  Or if you're in the south, they're already moving.   It happens every spring.   Seriously, people.  Not everything is some deep dark plot to get you.  Sometimes nature is just nature being nature.  

And finally, your humor for the day. 

I feel this to the depths of my soul.  I miss the days when you turned something on and it worked.  No app.  No account.  No signing in.  You turned it on and it just did what it was supposed to do. 

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to sign in to my TV so I can sign in to my Pluto account, so I can watch reruns of Digging For The Truth. 

Laters...

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. 

Down To Earth

As I'm sure you know, the big story of the day was the astronauts of Artemis II returning to Earth, or coming down to Earth, as it were.  Of course I was there to watch it, and I vividly remember my dad calling my older brother and I in to watch Neil Armstrong take the first step onto the moon's surface back in 1969.  

I'm so glad they timed things so that I could be home and able to see it.  I miss so much having to work so much. 

Speaking of work, today was one of those golly what a day days.  I only had two orders all day long that was bigger than a 12 piece.  I spent more time setting up, breaking down, and doing paperwork --oh, the paperwork!-- than I did actually working.  And I'm telling you what, when it takes longer to do all of the associated paper work than it does to braze an order, you are burdening your employees with too much paperwork.  And so much of it is completely unnecessary.  

I mean, if it were that important, they'd have been making us do it from the beginning instead of waiting 30 years to decide it was so urgent, right?  

Oh, and funny thing...well, I think it's funny.  Back on Wednesday, I had a rather large order that had been split among three brazers.  I had two adapter tubes that I was 20 parts short on my third.  I asked the other two brazers if they had any extras, and both said no.  So I went over to tubing and ordered them.  

I waited and waited and waited, and when I finally got my parts, they had been done wrong.  I took them back to the person who'd bent them and she said, "Well, I didn't do the first ones, so I didn't know."  Um, what?  It shouldn't matter who did the first ones, or what machine they'd been done on.  If you do your first piece inspection -- like you're supposed to, but never do-- your parts would have been right. 

So I waited and waited and waited and waited and waited... and finally got the parts right before the shift ended.  After 2 1/2 hours.  And the really funny part is, that machine operator hasn't been back since.  

What's really, really funny is that right about the time I got my rework and went back to my stand, I saw one of the other brazers bagging up a bunch of extra parts to scrap.  The exact same amount of the exact same parts I needed. 

What's really, really, really funny is that I had gotten another order to work on while I was waiting for my rework, and three of the adapters on that order were bent wrong...And they wonder why we get so frustrated.  There's a duh moment if ever there was one. 

In better news, I bought the second set of companion plants for my tomato bed -- marigolds!  

They are supposed to keep nematodes, hornworms, aphids, thrips, and a whole host of damaging insects away from your plants.  Alas, slugs love marigolds, so I'll have to keep them well dusted with diatomaceous earth for their own protection.  

I probably should have waited until the tomatoes were ready to plant, but they were so gorgeous I couldn't resist.  I was going to buy some tomato cages, too, but decided the ones at Walmart were way too short.  They barely came up to my waist, and most tomato plants can get several feet high.  Roma are supposed to grow from 4-5'.  Instead, I ordered a modular set from Amazon.  It comes in a pack of six, but you're supposed to be able to interchange the parts and customize your supports.  I should be able to put them together so that I get four taller cages instead of six shorter one.  

They're supposed to get here Tuesday, and I'll be able to assemble them and put them where the tomatoes will actually be planted when it's time, and then I'll be able to gauge where the marigolds and basil plants need to be.  

OK, enough about that.  

When I went out to check my garden this evening, I noticed two more of my little seedlings had sprouted, but I also figured out I had a problem.  Every video I've watched on growing plants from seed has suggested watering from the bottom.  This has many benefits, but mostly because it encourages the plants roots to grow deep.  

Alas, since I moved the cups to the raised bed, there really wasn't a way to bottom water my little tomatoes.  Then I had an idea.  I've got several of these little macaroni salad containers that I keep around in case Cody and Brennan want to take leftovers home after Thanksgiving or Christmas. 

They were just the right size and fit under the protective cloches just fine. 

I set the seed cups to one side, just to make it easier to fill the containers with the garden hose.  And yes, I'd poked drainage holes in the cups before I put the seeds into them.  

Speaking of seeds, look at this!  I'm finally getting some action in the bed where I planted the bachelor's button seeds. 

I hope these are actually the seeds I planted, and not just some random stuff that's growing.  I think it is, because there are too many of them to just be random.  Even the beds that have been out there since last fall don't have this many plants growing in them. 

The last thing I did garden wise was to buy two bags of topsoil and spread them into the bed I'd put all the sticks and stuff into. 

My reasoning was that it would help the beds retain heat and the stuff underneath would compost faster.  As it breaks down, I'll add more dirt to them, but for now, that's all I'm going to do. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, the astronauts are about to come out of the capsule, and I need to go watch, so I'll just leave you with this bit of humor, which is even funnier because it's true. 

 Laters.  

Unbelievably Beautiful

Today was one of those unbelievably beautiful days.  Sunny and warm, but with just enough breeze to keep it from being too hot.  Naturally, I stayed inside and knit all day. 

Yarn:  Mainstays

Colorway:  Blue Blend

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8 / 5 mm

Just kidding!  I spent most of the day outside, enjoying the daffodils and the blue sky while I finished reading Much Ado About Nothing.  

Hard to believe just a few short weeks ago, we were buried in ice.  Now it's almost warm enough to turn the air conditioning on.  Almost, but not quite. 

My main project was to shave some more off of the high spots in my garden spot, then start moving this pile of dirt

into the back corner of the yard

where it will be out of the way for now.  When I finally get someone out here to scrape up all of that red clay, I'm going to tell him to haul it off, but I do want to keep some for future projects.  

I made a good start, but I have to remind myself that I'm not as young as I used to be and I have to be careful not to over do it.  Even so, it's not supposed to rain again until next weekend, so if I move a wheelbarrow or two every day, I should have most of it done before then. 

In other news, I used my silicone air fryer basket thingy to cook some pizza rolls, and it worked a treat.  Clean up was so easy!  I was going to use my Dutch oven to make some red beans and rice, but forgot until after I'd already started cooking some fish, so that will have to wait until tomorrow.  For now, I'm going to pop some popcorn and watch a production of Much Ado About Nothing on YouTube.