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.  

In The Deep End

I decided to go ahead and jump into the deep end...or off the deep end, one.  I guess we'll find out here in a few days. 

And what exactly did I do?  I moved all four of my tomato cups out into the outdoor bed, even though some of them haven't shown any signs of life yet. 

I figure it will be better for them in the long run not to have to move them around so much, and since we're pretty much past the danger of frost, I figured it would be the right thing to do.  By the way, those aren't going to be their permanent locations.  I just kind of stuck them approximately where they'll go to see how well spaced they would be.  It looks like they'll have plenty of room, plus room for the companion plants.  So, that's good. 

I did notice two more seedlings have come up -- in a different cup.  

They sprouted while I was at work today, so I hope I didn't mess them up by putting them out into the sun right away.  Since one of them hasn't even uncurled yet, I think at least that one will be OK.  

You know what else I think will be OK?  My bluebonnets! 

Just look at all of the seed pods they're producing!  

I'm going to go ahead and let these fall and re-seed the bed naturally, because I've got five packets of seeds in the freezer that I bought this year.   I'll scatter them in September, but I hope some of these seeds also take and I can get a stand going.  I know I'm sounding like a broken record, but I'm pretty hyped for this.  

You know what else I'm hyped for?  My new water bowl! 

It arrived today, and when I took it out to the fence, I noticed the old one was suddenly holding water again, after leaking for a week.  Go figure.  

No matter, I emptied it and put it somewhere out of the way and filled the new one up.  It's pretty good size -- holds 6.5 gallons, and is lower to the ground so it will be easier for rabbits and squirrels to access.   That'll be good for them because we are already in drought conditions, the entire state. 

My county is in severe to extreme drought, with no rain in sight.  Well, not much rain at least.  

Well, I guess I'd better get off of here.  I still need to practice my piano and read a couple of chapters in my book before I go to bed.  By the way, I've been reading In The Heart Of The Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick.  It's much more readable than In The Hurricane's Eye. 

So, the whale rammed the ship and it sank, and the men have been in lifeboats for...umpteen days now.  They're floating along, starving and I'm wondering why they're not even trying to fish.  I sure would be.  

And that reminded me that I probably ought to get some fishing gear to put into my bug out bag.  Then I said to myself, "You're too old to be bugging out anyway."  But I think I'll still get some fishing gear. 

Just in case...

WIP Wednesday

Back in the day, when knit blogging was much more of a thing, we had something called WIP Wednesday.  WIP, of course, meaning works in progress.  We'd all take photos of our knitting projects and show them to you.  I did it myself for quite a while.  

So, today, I thought...I'm not going to do that.  I am going to show you one single work in progress.  The latest sock yarn hat. 

Yarn:  Euphoria Knits

Colorway:  I don't know.  It's illegible. 

Pattern:  Sockhead

Needles:  US 2.5 / 3mm

I've made a little progress since I last showed you, but my knitting mojo has been on spring break, apparently.  I even cast on 20 stitches for a new sailor hat, but that's as far as I've gotten.  

I had a bit of a surprise when I got home this afternoon.  I doubt you can see it, and I'm not even sure if I'm imagining it or not, but I think, right there in the center of this cup I see a tiny green tomato seedling. 

I don't know if I've made a mistake or not, but I took a chance and moved the entire cup out into the bed where the tomato will live the rest of its life -- provided it lives in the first place.  I hope I didn't mess up, but most of the videos I've watched have said that by the time it gets to April (in my growing zone-- 8a) you might as well direct sow them.  I figure this is the next best thing.  

Plus, it will be in full sunlight from day one, so I won't have to harden it off when I get ready to plant it.  

I covered it with one of my little garden cloches for protection, then moved the sweet basil tray out there, too, since that's where it will be living.  

We shall see.  And as promised, here is a photo of the rosemary.  

This is the little one I tried to root from a cutting.  

It's been sitting here for a few weeks now, so when I pull up the plastic stuff to harvest my garlic, I'll go ahead and pull it out of the pot to see if it's developed roots.  If it has, I'll plant it.  If not, I'll buy one from the garden center, as soon as they get some in.  Or maybe I'll take a new cutting and just stick it into the soil right there and see if it takes.  It's kind of fun experimenting like this. 

On a more positive note, I'd thought this cactus was dead.  It was all wilted and had turned dark red -- which is a sign of distress.  I didn't know what was going on, because I wasn't treating it any different.  Finally, I'd decided it had kicked the bucket, so I put it out on the back porch to deal with later.  I'd intended to put it into the compost, but look at it now!  

It's perked right back up!  

The temps have warmed up enough now that I can move them all back outside, so probably this weekend I'll move the little bit of firewood that is still by the house into the back and put their plant shelf back into its summer spot. 

But right now, I need to grab a shower and get ready for bed.  Because when one gets up ridiculously early...well, you know they drill by now. 

Good night.  

Short Post Today

Because I'm really tired and want to go to bed early.  But I did want to tell you that I finished watching the playlist of instructional videos by Mr. Let's Play Piano Methods for my Alfred's All-In-One level 2 book.  I still have to learn to play the songs, but once I'm done with those, I'm done with the book.  Woo hoo!

I think I might go back and go through my Faber's level 1 book before starting Alfred's level 3, but after that, who knows?    

In other news, Demi-God met me this morning and said, "My daddy is mad as ****!"  I thought, but didn't say out loud, "Your daddy is always mad as ****."   Out loud, I just chuckled and asked, "What's he mad about this time?"

As it happens, he'd gone turkey hunting and had killed a big old tom turkey.  He had the fan all laid out drying so he could get it mounted, and his daughter-in-law's cats decided to turn his fan into a cat toy.  Not Demi-God's wife, but one of his other sons'."  

I couldn't help but laugh and say, "That's cats for you!"  

It reminded me of a time when my cousin was cutting up a deer, turned his back for one moment, and Rylea swiped a big chunk of the meat.  Boy, he was furious.  But she was just doing what dogs do.  I told him next time to let me know and I'll keep her shut up until he was done.  That was a long time ago...

In other news, I bought this little weather radio, flashlight, power bank, SOS signal, reading light gadget back in 2019.  

It's been really handy to have around, especially during the recent ice storm after my Harvey lantern's batteries ran down and I didn't have enough of the right size to replace them.  You could almost say it saved my sanity.  

Well, I was poking around on Amazon, and discovered they had a newer, updated model.  I wasn't going to get it at first, because I already had one and didn't really need another one.  But the thing kept haunting me, and eventually I gave in and bought it -- reasoning that I could give it to Cody for Christmas.  

It arrived today, and let's just say, Cody's going to have to get something else for Christmas, because I'm keeping this puppy.  As you can see, it's slightly larger than the old one, and the SOS button is in a much more accessible location. 

The radio sounds so much better, the flashlight has three different brightness levels, and it's got battery percentage indicator lights on the front. 

And look at this!  Built in charger cables for you phone or tablet.  

No more having to keep up with a separate cable!  That is handy if you want to take it camping or hiking or whatever.  Other than that, it's pretty much the same as the old one -- which I will keep.  We've been through too much together for me to cast it aside like a piece of trash.   I'll probably keep one in my bug out bag, and one in my tornado safe space.  

And finally, I'd planned on pinching my zinnias today, but after doing some research, I decided to wait.  Most sites and videos say to pinch them when they're between 8 and 10 inches tall, and mine aren't quite that big yet.  I'll give them another week or so, then maybe I can pinch them.  

But look at this.  It appears my garlic is about ready to harvest. 

In the next day or two, I'll pull one up and see.  If it's ready, I'll have a garlic harvest this week!  Of course, I'll have to cure it before it's ready to eat, but still....I've grown my own garlic!  

If I keep growing so much food, I'm going to have to start cooking eventually.  

But not today.  Today, I'm going to bed.  

Good night. 

Changed My Mind

I changed my mind. 

I'd planted some tomato seeds in my hydroponic sponges Saturday evening, but after watching several gardening videos on YouTube, I decided to take a different tack.  Almost every one of the videos I watched suggested planting tomato seeds in red Solo cups.  The reasoning is that as the plant grows, you can trim off the lower leaves and add soil.  This will make the seedling put out more roots, and result in a stronger, healthier plant.  

But the first thing I had to do was go to the dentist -- and for once, nothing was wrong.  Woo Hoo!  Heh, I told the hygienist that I was at work wondering if it was too late to cancel my appointment and just go home.  She said, "I feel you, girl!"  But I didn't.  I said to myself, "Self, if you do that, you'll just have to reschedule and you'll still have it hanging over your head.  Might as well go and get it over with."  That's just what I did. 

Since I was already in town, I'd thought about running by Walmart after my appointment, but I didn't.  I have all I need for planting this year.  I'll just pick up more bags of soil during my weekly shopping trips. 

When I got home, I found some clear Solo cups, because that's what I had, and filled them about halfway with potting soil.  I didn't want to disturb the seeds I'd already planted, so I just shoved the entire hydroponic sponge down into the soil. 

I put the cups into a plastic container and set the whole thing onto the heat mat, at least until the seeds germinate. 

And I did put the humidity dome over the cups after I took the photo -- at least until the seeds germinate.  

The next project will be to pinch my zinnias.   

I took the difficult step of thinning them last night, and now they're down to one per cell.  I won't need to up-pot these, I don't think.  That's the reason I bought the 16 cell tray instead of the 32 cell tray.  Each cell is big enough that I'm pretty sure they'll be OK going straight into the bed.  The fewer times you have to disturb them, the better it is for the plants.  

I'm going to watch a few vids on pinching before I do that to them, since I've never done it before.  Mainly because I usually buy my plants already started from the garden center.  I want to get more into starting my own seeds because it's pretty fun watching them grow.  

Now for a bit of good news.  Ever since I dug the clay out from under that garden bed, this corner has drained so much better.  At least after that one rain we had. 

I think maybe this fall, I'll empty the other bed out and dig the clay out from under it, too.  I wish I'd thought to do that before I planted stuff in the beds in the other corner.  Oh well.  Maybe once I get started on the other half of the garden, I can shift things over and do that.  

And finally, there has been knitting...and watching Easter shows. 

 When the hat gets a little bigger, I'll show you a progress photo.  But right now, I need to go grab a quick shower and start getting ready for bed.  

Yes, I know it's early, but when one gets up ridiculously early, one must also go to bed ridiculously early. 

Resurrection Sunday

Christ the Lord is ris’n today, Alleluia!
Sons of men and angels say, Alleluia!
Raise your joys and triumphs high, Alleluia!
Sing, ye heav’ns, and earth, reply, Alleluia!

Lives again our glorious King, Alleluia!
Where, O death, is now thy sting? Alleluia!
Once He died our souls to save, Alleluia!
Where thy victory, O grave? Alleluia!

Love’s redeeming work is done, Alleluia!
Fought the fight, the battle won, Alleluia!
Death in vain forbids His rise, Alleluia!
Christ hath opened paradise, Alleluia!

Soar we now where Christ hath led, Alleluia!
Foll’wing our exalted Head, Alleluia!
Made like Him, like Him we rise, Alleluia!
Ours the cross, the grave, the skies, Alleluia!

Rainy Saturday

You know, one of the hardest things about blogging for 20 years is coming up with a new and engaging title every day.  Every single day.  Every single post.  

Sometimes, it just doesn't happen and you get something dumb like "Rainy Saturday."  I hope the post isn't just as dumb as the title...

OK, let's dive right in.  I noticed the one of the little banana peppers I bought yesterday had been pretty chewed up.  I'm sure it happened before I got it, but gave them all a good dusting of diatomaceous earth just to be on the safe side. 

Since we are supposed to get storms today -- nothing severe, but possibly heavy rains, damaging winds, and maybe even hail -- first thing I did this morning was to move all of the outside plants to the back porch

so that when the heavy rain started, I could move them into the house pretty quickly, which is exactly what I did when the first shower arrived.  Kindly ignore the state of my back porch.  Once the oak trees have finished dropping their tassels, I plan on pressure washing it and spraying it with weed killer.  

And I realize I don't really need to show you photos of the same plants sitting on my plant stand 

or my end table, 

but I took and uploaded them, so there you go.  

One thing I wanted to do before the storms got here was to up-pot some of my basil.  In order to do that, the first thing I needed to do was to clean off my potting table.  

Like any flat surface, it tends to become the gathering place for random stuff.  Yes, that really is a jawbone up in the top left corner. 

Pretty sure it's a deer, but I have no idea where it came from or how it got onto my potting table.  No matter, a few moments of organization and the table looks much better. 

Once that was accomplished, in very short order, I had 14 sweet basil seedlings nestled into slightly larger pots, which will be their new home for the next few weeks. 

Once this next cool spell passes, I'll likely leave them outside full time until I'm ready to plant them into their permanent home in the raised bed with the tomatoes and marigolds.   

I still have this many that I don't know what I'm going to do with them.  

I may just plant them at random throughout the herb gardens.  I'm reading the strong smell keeps away those critters that would eat my herbs.  And by critters, I mean deer.  They can be so destructive to a garden.  Oh, and I did shift some of those hydroponic sponges around and planted four tomatoes.  Well, really I put three seeds into each one, so it's 12, but I intend to have four plants when it's all said and done. 

On a similar note, the water trough I'd put out by the back fence for the deer has finally rusted through.  I've ordered a new one from Amazon that's made from heavy plastic, which should get here Thursday-ish.  

I'm thinking about drilling some drainage holes in the metal one and using it as a planter until it completely rusts through.  Maybe I'll plant potatoes in it. Or move these onions into it. 

Look at how much they've grown since I last cut them just ten days ago.  At this rate, I'm going to have more onion than I can eat!  Any locals need green onion?  Come and cut you some!  Just let me know it was you, so I don't think something is getting into my garden. 

In other news, I forgot to show you this yesterday.  I'd ordered it last week, and though it had arrived in the mail, I laid it on the counter and completely forgot to even open it until after I'd blogged.  

I still haven't bought the Bible study for season 5, but now that we're getting a little overtime, I can get caught up on that, too.  

I want to re-watch the first five seasons before season 6 is released in November. 

That one is going to be difficult to watch, so it's kind of hard to say I'm looking forward to it. 

But I am.  

So That Happened

After all my ranting and raving the last two days, guess what happened at work today.  Go on, guess!  

OK, I'll tell you.  I got an order this morning that takes four adapter tubes.  When I started setting up on that order, I discovered that three of the four tubes were bent wrong.  Not just slightly out of specs, either.  They were way wrong.  As in, not even close. 

Did you catch that?  On a single order, 75% of the parts I received from tubing were wrong.  Wrong to the point that they were unusable. THAT is why it's so frustrating and stressful to work there. 

I went over to the computer to pull up a print, just to make sure I wasn't crazy before I went over to tubing and started clowning, only I couldn't get the print to pull up.  Funny thing, instead of just saying "File not found" or something along those lines, our program gives you a whole paragraph telling you what could be said in three little words.  I don't rightly know what it says.  I've never bothered to read it. 

I put the number in a few times to make sure I hadn't fat fingered something, and when it still didn't come up, I took my pick list over to Group Leader Shark, and told her what I'd done and that when I entered the number, it just said those words.  She got on to her computer and tried to pull a print, but it did the same thing.  Finally, she said, "Just give them to me, and I'll take them to tubing.  I'm going over there anyway."  

Fortunately, it was only an 8 piece order this time, so it didn't take long to get the parts re-cut, but still...every single day at the morning meeting Group Leader Shark says, "Do your first and last piece inspection," but for some reason, the ones who do the adapter tubes never seem to think she's talking to them.  I can understand making a mistake every now and again.  We are human beings, after all.  But this is every single order, every single day.  Something is always going to be wrong with something. 

On a similar note, Demi-god met me as soon as I got into the department this morning and said, "My daddy got mad as **** yesterday."    After The Warden left, some of the supervisors had stopped wearing their uniforms -- including Demi-god's dad.  Yesterday, one of the other supervisors tattled on them, so they had a big meeting with New Boss, and he told them they had to start wearing them again.  New Boss told them he wanted them to look professional.  

I'm going to say what I said the first time someone made them start wearing khakis instead of jeans.  "It's a factory.  How professional do you expect them to look?"

Oh, and I'd briefly thought about giving New Boss a blog nickname.  My cousin used to say, "So and so has all the personality of a piece of cardboard."  I was going to call New Boss "Cardboard Boss" but I didn't want anyone to think he was the new supreme leader of Iran or anything like that.  

IYKYK

In other news, I hadn't planned on going to the store today.  Friday before a major holiday and all, I figured it'd be a mad house.  I was going to wait until Monday to go, since I have a dentist appointment that afternoon and would be in town anyway, but then, I got to thinking, "Even though it's just me, I still deserve to have a nice dinner for Easter," so I went.  And I was right.  It was a madhouse.   

I'd planned on getting a ham -- briefly contemplating the irony of celebrating the resurrection of a Jewish man by eating ham, but that same man said it's not what goes in to the body that makes you unclean, it's what comes out of your heart.  By that, he meant that all foods are clean.  (Mark 7:19)

And every Cajun on the face of the earth said, "Whew!"  

That's my story and I'm sticking to it. 

In the end, I didn't get a ham.  The cheapest one I found was $15, and I just didn't want to pay that, so I got a rotisserie chicken instead, and some macaroni salad to go with it.  I also splurged and got some candy, since my blood sugar has been pretty good here lately.   

Naturally, while I was there, I had to go into the garden center.  I'd intended to pick up some Roma tomato plants, but bought seeds instead.  

I'm not sure why.  I might go back Monday and get some plants already started.  Or I might not.  I might go ahead and start these seeds.  I'll decide later.  

I also bought six sweet banana pepper plants.  

I've decided to go ahead and harden them slowly, as if I'd had them inside all along, because I don't know how much direct sunlight they were getting on that shelf in Walmart.  

Speaking of, I noticed a few of my basil leaves have what appears to be sunburned spots, but the new leaves will probably be fine since they'll be used to full sun from the very beginning. 

I'm probably going to up-pot some of the bigger ones this weekend before the storms get here.   By the way, chance of tornadoes is low with this one, but we can still have damaging winds and hopefully some rain.  Rain which we desperately need...

Despite the lack of rain, my newest baby bluebonnet is getting bigger by the day. 

And look what I found on the others! 

Do you know what those are?  Seed pods!  I might just get me a stand going after all.  

In the meantime,  the ones I've got are looking pretty good. 

I think this will be the last of the daffodils, though. 

They kind of surprised me.  I had thought the daffs were done for the year. 

And finally, while I was in the Garden Center, three big Chinooks flew over.  I was able to get a shot of two of them. 

The really cool thing is, after I got home, they flew over the house, too!  I used to see this kind of thing all the time when I lived closer to the airport, but not so much since I moved into this house.  I can often hear them, but usually can't see them due to the trees and such like. 

Maybe next time, it'll be Apaches.

Hey, a girl can dream.  Right?