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. 

Eye Candy Friday

There I was, laying in bed snoozing away when I heard the tell tale ding of my phone...

Cody and Brennan have finally moved out of that horrible house they'd been renting for the last three years.  And I'm telling you, it was awful.  Chilly and damp, and the floors were rotten so bad in spots, I thought I was going to fall through a couple of times.  They've moved into an apartment, and Cody messaged me a couple of days ago asking if they could bring me a rocking chair.  

They didn't have room for it, and Brennan didn't want to get rid of it, so I'm getting a new to me rocking chair, at least until they find a bigger place.  And the ding I heard on my phone last night was my beloved son in whom I am not so well pleased at the moment texting me at 10:38 PM letting me know they were going to bring the chair next weekend. 

I said I was going to text him back at 3:30 when I got up for work, but I forgot to.  Lucky him.  

So, anyway, after that I couldn't get back to sleep, so naturally, I picked up my phone and scrolled through Facebook until I got to the end.  Seriously.  I got to the end of Facebook. 

It wouldn't let me scroll any more, and it wouldn't let me refresh, either.  I'm like, Dude, just show me stuff from six weeks ago, like you normally do.  I eventually fell back to sleep, but all of that made it a mighty short night. 

Then, we had a little excitement out at the plant.  I walked over to the computer to confirm an order and one of the parts stagers asked me who had gotten into a fight.  

"Fight?  This is the first I've heard about a fight."  She said that another employee had heard about it on her radio, so I tracked that employee down and asked her.  She told me two forklift drivers had gotten into a fight in the parking lot.  Wow.

One of the other sub brazer's husband drives a fork lift so I told her to ask him if he knew what was going on.  A bit later, she came over to my stand and told me that it was two new guys who were supposed to be going to second shift next week.  So new, her husband didn't even know their names. 

Then one of the brazing trainers came in and said that when the security guards called the police, one of the guys took off walking down the road and made it about 1/2 mile before the cops showed up.  That's all I know, except that the whole time, I had this image in my mind of them fighting with their forklifts like they were on bumper cars or something...

And finally, I remembered your Eye Candy Friday today!  

 Yay for me and for clover.  

What A Week

How did April go by so fast?  Seems like just yesterday, it was April Fool's Day,  and I still feel like it's March.   Yet, in a few hours it will be May.  But I'm not going to post that meme.  IYKYK

I meant to post yesterday, but I got home from work, turned on the TV to watch the latest episode of NCIS....and about halfway into the episode, the internet dropped.  Then it came back.  Then it dropped again.   It was out so long that time, I gave up and put in a DVD of Keeping Up Appearances.  

I watched one episode of that, and the internet came back up, so I turned NCIS back on...aaaand the electricity went out.  Only for a minute, but by that time, I was so fed up, I just went to bed.  

I needed that sleep, too, because Tuesday night, we had some pretty loud thunderstorms come through.  Those weren't so bad, but then the phone started ringing off the hook.  A while back, I'd signed up with the county EMA office to get weather alerts, and that was what I was getting....just not for MY county.  I was getting them for Hinds county, for Holmes county, for Attala county, Yalobusha county, Lafayette county, Humphreys county, Panola county, Oktibbeha county, Coahoma county, Tunica county, Calhoun county, Pontotoc county -- every county BUT Grenada county.  

I finally blocked that number just so it would stop ringing and I could get some sleep.  I think I'm going to sign up for local meterologist Matt Laubhan's Weather Call thingy.  It's only $15 per year.  I can spring for that, and delete a lot of the other weather alert apps I have. 

Well, turn them off at least.  I won't delete a weather app.  

Since it appears we're done with rain for a few days -- by the way, we got 1.4" over the last three days, but it's still not enough to alleviate the drought conditions -- I stepped out before work this morning and took the Walmart sacks off of my baby tomatoes so they can get full sun.  

They are all doing very well, even the tiniest baby tomato.  

This is the biggest one, and probably tomorrow, I'll snip off those bottom leaves, then give it a few days to heal and add more dirt to the cup. 

That's another one of those things I learned from YouTube -- to let the wound heal before putting it into dirt.  Maybe it's not necessary, but it doesn't seem like it would hurt, so I'm going to do it.

Good news!  I don't know if you can see it in this photo, but my baby rosemary is putting out new growth!  Maybe it's going to survive after all!

In other news, I went to the store today instead of tomorrow and decided to treat myself to some fancy soup. 

I had intended to make two meals out of this, but it was so good, I ate the whole thing.  

Look what else I found:  

Reduced sodium beans and rice!  I'd made some a few weeks ago, but it was just so salty I could hardly eat it.  I don't like salt.  Weird, I know, but that's just who I am.  It's supposed to get cold again this weekend, so this will be a perfect meal for a chilly day.  Oh, and I bought smoked sausage to put into it.  

After I'd eaten my soup, I finally got my new flag hung up. 

And I totally stole this AI generated image from social media, because it's awesome. 

 Finally, in memory of David Allen Coe:  

Dear Coworker

Dear Coworker,

If you knew the parts were wrong when you made them, then why on earth didn't you re-do them?  Why send them to the brazer anyway?  

Next time, do them over.  It'll take you all of two seconds. 

Thank you,

That is all

*Image courtesy of ChatGPT

Terrible News

I've got some terrible news today. Terrible. 

Group Leader Shark announced it at the morning meeting, and it's just terrible.  What is this terrible news?

Second shift starts next week!  You know what that means!  No more coming in to a neat and tidy work area where I can get straight to work.  Nope.  As of Monday, we'll have to spend the first 30-60 minutes of our day literally putting the department back together.  Tracking down my parts trays...tracking down my rolling table...playing my favorite game:  guess what the unlabeled order is...and hearing management crow over them about how much they're out-brazing us.  (Dear management:  it's because they skip down in the schedule and pick out all the easy orders to do!)  That's not just sour grapes.  They really do do that. 

You want to hear something funny?  When Demi-god first came to day shift, it didn't take him long at all to start complaining about second shift doing the same things he used to do when when he was on second shift.  I laughed and said, "Welcome to day shift!"  

All that said, I do have some good news.  I'd been wanting something for the 250th, but didn't really want a t-shirt, which would eventually fade and get worn out.  I'm still thinking about getting a hat, though.  And maybe a challenge coin or shot glass or something.  One thing I did already buy arrived today.  A garden flag: 

And if you look carefully, they gave me a free patriotic gift:  that little lapel pin on the left side of the flag.  This won't go in the garden, though.  Nobody will be able to see it back there, so after tonight's storms pass, I'll hang it up on hanger on the car port. 

More good news, I got another sailor hat cast on yesterday while I was watching TV.  

Yarn:  Red Heart Bitty Stripes

Colorway:  Rainbow

Pattern:  Basic Beanie

Needles:  US 8/ 5mm

I'm kind of surprised that I got that much done, because I kept wanting to be outside.  It was such a beautiful day, I couldn't stay in.  One thing I did do was to get some of my herbs cut and started drying.  So far, I've cut my tarragon, my spearmint, and my so called orange mint.  I say that because it said orange mint on the tag, but I don't smell much orangeness in it.   It may be plain mint for all I know.  

Maybe next weekend, I'll cut some lemon balm and rosemary, as well.  I probably ought to invest in some regular herb jars to put it all in, too.  

And one last bit of good news before I go.  LOOK AT THIS!  

I know it's hard to see in this picture, but it's there.  The last little seedling has finally arrived.  I have to confess, I cheated.  I dumped all the old soil out and started completely over.  You know what they say, the third time's the charm.  

At least it wasn't three strikes and you're out.  

Even though we are supposed to get some storms tonight -- nothing severe -- the three older plants were looking a bit droopy, so I took a chance and put them all back out into the garden spot.  Even the new little sprout.  I did cover them with Walmart sacks just in case the rain gets heavy, but at least they'll get pretty good light, and I can pull the sacks off as soon as I get home tomorrow.  

This is the last time I'm going to move them -- except for planting them when they've gotten big enough, I mean.  Severe weather season is almost over, so they should be OK from here on out.  Plus, I can always cover them again if needs be. 

And finally, I was watching an archeology series on Hulu with Dan Snow called Lost Treasures Of Ancient Civilizations, and one of the episodes was on Machu Picchu.  It was all very interesting, but every time he mentioned Pachacuti, all I could think of was the Horrible Histories song...

And now I want to go watch a few episodes of Horrible Histories, so I think I will

Laters...

Score!

There was a rumor going around the plant that we would be working this weekend, and honestly, I have mixed feelings about this.  As much as I love having weekends off, I also love those big, overtime checks.  That's where I get my fun money.  You know, for things like my garden...

But it turns out only a few departments are working.  Sometime back, they came up with a new line of products that use a different size of copper tubing for the adapter tubes, hairpins, and such.  We're finally starting to get some orders for those units, so they brought in a few departments to get ahead on the parts for them.  My department was not one of them.  

Since I didn't have to work, first thing I did was to lie in bed until....um...4:30.  Oh well...it's better than 3:30 at least.  I laid in bed until sometime after 5:00, when my bladder insisted that we get up.  

I somewhat reluctantly got out of bed, answered nature's call, and had a nice leisurely cup of coffee, before getting dressed and going into town to do my shopping that I didn't do yesterday.  

As is my custom, as soon as I arrived, I made a beeline to the garden center and scored big time!  I wanted to get some more marigolds for pest control, and look at what I found.  

A four pack of marigolds with different colors in it!  I really lucked out with that one, because it's usually one color per pack.   And they're all safely tucked into the garden.  They were in direct sunlight in the garden center, so I didn't really think they'd need hardening.  

We're expecting more storms early next week, so I haven't put the tomatoes back into the garden yet.  I've put them out onto the back porch for now, but I'll bring them back inside at night.  Even in the shade, they'll get better light than they will on the windowsill. 

I figured that I already had them disturbed by moving them, so I put a little more potting soil into the cups. 

A lot of the gardening channels say to do it this way, because tomatoes can develop roots all along their stems.  This helps them grow into stronger, healthier plants.  Some even suggest that when you plant them, you should lay the stem down for several inches, but I'm not going to do that.  I'll plant them pretty deeply and hope for the best. 

By the way, does anyone have any tips on how to keep fire ants out of your compost bag?  I was going to add more stuff to mine, only to discover it's slap full of fire ants.  I've dumped a good bit of diatomaceous earth into it, but so far, it hasn't seemed to help any.  The problem is that there are so many fire ants, I can't even get the top unzipped to open it up.  There is a little flap where you can add the stuff you want to compost, but even opening that got me rewarded with multiple bites. 

If you don't have to deal with these little spawns of Satan, consider yourself very fortunate.  

In other news, I started cleaning snake tanks today.  I usually do it in January and in July, and obviously, I'm pretty far behind on that chore.   On the bright side, I was able to get enough wood shavings from just two of the tanks that I was able to mulch three beds.  

By the way, I'm thrilled at how well my lemon balm is doing.  I really need to go ahead and cut some to start it drying.  On the other hand, I don't see how anyone can eat sage.  It smells like body odor to me. 

I think I'm also going to cut some of my tarragon, probably tomorrow morning.  

It seems to be struggling a bit, but then they only live 3-5 years, and this is year three.  Once it's gone, I don't think I'll buy another one.  

I almost had enough shavings to mulch this bed, too.  

I made sure to put it around the two plants, and will fill in the rest when I do the other two snake tanks.  I hope the mulch helps the little rosemary pick up a bit.  It's been struggling since I've transplanted it.  The mulch should keep the soil moisture more consistent, and maybe cooler, so it should help.  

Speaking of, we got 1.9" of rain last night -- so much so, they've lifted the burn ban!  It's still not going to be enough to relieve the drought conditions, but every little bit helps.  We're supposed to get more rain next week, too.  

The only downside to all that rain is that the yard needs to be mowed again.  Oh well, it ain't going to happen today.  Today, I'm going to watch TV and knit.

Later, peeps. 

Other Boring Stuff

Before I get into the other boring stuff, let me tell you some boring stuff.  

Back about a year or so ago, the plant took all of the vending machines out of the front break room and replaced it with what everyone now calls The Store.  Really, it looks a bit like a convenience store.  It's got shelves of products -- chips, candy, snacks, and a couple of coolers of drinks.  

You go in, choose what you want, then there is a little self check out thing where you pay for it.  It's on the honor system.  I think.  I've never used The Store myself.  I hear the stuff there is massively expensive, so I always bring my own snacks.  But that's not the point...

As I said, it's on the honor system.  Apparently, we have some other than honorable people that work out there.  I say that because for the last two weeks, Group Leader Shark has mentioned it several times in the morning meeting.  "Pay for the stuff you get from the store!"  

And I'm wondering, who didn't see that coming?  The same person that makes us walk through a metal detector to enter the building thinks people aren't going to steal a bag of chips? 

The irony is thick with this one...

OK, let's get to the other boring stuff.  Like my knitting. I know you all must be bored out of your minds seeing my knitting projects all the time, so here is another boring knitting project. 

Yarn:  Euphoria Knits

Colorway:  Illegible

Pattern:  Sockhead

Needles:  US 2.5 / 3mm

In boring weather news, we are getting some pretty heavy rain this evening -- so much so I didn't even go do my weekly shopping after work.  If I had, I'd have been leaving the store just as the storm arrived.  The first wave, I mean.  It's supposed to storm pretty much all night, but no severe weather for us.  

Not like that massive tornado that hit Enid, Oklahoma last night.  I saw that one on Ryan Hall's live stream, which I'm also watching tonight.  Speaking of, I've been in the local weather watchers group for a few years now, and it used to be a fun group.  Not so much any more, because about a year ago, some guy joined and boy is he obnoxious.  Very preachy, and such a know it all.  So much so, I've considered quietly leaving the group.  

Well, today he posted this:  

That was the last straw.  I didn't leave, but I did unfollow the group so I won't see its posts any more.  I mean, seriously.  Why not just watch the local meteorologists?  Matt Laubhan and Gabe Mahner always go live when there are storms.  They'll take care of us better than some guy in Kentucky.  

Don't get me wrong, I love Ryan Hall.  I'm watching him right now as I type this, but when there is weather in the area, local meteorologists are always the ones you need to watch.  

On a similar boring note, since we were expecting heavy rain, I brought the baby tomatoes inside for the duration.  

I've got them in the windowsill in my kitchen, but before I put them up there I decided it was time to thin them.  So I did. 

I always get a bit nervous doing that.  What if I picked the wrong seedling to save?  What if I should have kept the one I cut?   Well, it's too late now.  I hope I did right...

This one still hasn't shown any sign of life, so I put it on the heat mat, hoping a more consistent temperature might encourage the seeds to germinate. 

I'll be sure to bore you with updates. 

I guess I'm done boring you for today.  I think I'll run take a quick shower while there is a lul in the storms. 

Laters...

Mulching Day

At long last, Tuesday was mulching day for one of the beds.  I got out there after work, cut up a bunch of Amazon boxes, and laid them out around the little plants.  

I was going to come in and post about it, but realized I didn't really have that much to talk about, so I skipped blogging that day.   By the way, since we're expecting storms over the next few days, I went back out and put some of those landscape staples into the cardboard, so hopefully the pieces won't blow away.  

If I can find my box cutter, I want to cut some longer strips of cardboard and lay them down over the top of all of these little pieces.   I know it's not the most attractive, but long time gardeners swear by it.  

Speaking of YouTube, after thinking about it, I'm not doing so much wrong as I'd thought.  For example, they say that raised beds need to be 24" or deeper.  Mine aren't that deep, but I've got good native soil underneath all of that red clay the land scammer dumped into my garden spot.  The main reason I wanted to go with raised beds in the first place was so I wouldn't have to bend over so far.  

I do wish I'd thought to dig the clay out of the first three beds before I planted them, but once the zinnias and bachelor's buttons die back after the first frost, I can remove the soil from that bed, then dig the clay out.  

As for the perennials, I don't know what I'm going to do about those.  I don't want to dig them up if I don't have to.  I'll just keep an eye on them and see how they do.   Nothing is going to happen until fall anyway, so I can make a plan before then. 

Also, yes, I bought wooden beds, but I sprang for fir -- which is rot resistant, and I used water sealant on it.  There are mixed feelings on doing that, but I think it will be OK.  I really want to switch to metal garden beds as I expand and replace the wooden ones, but I'd always thought they were kinda ugly.  I found some on Amazon that are brown and look like wood, so I might give them a try.  

I've also seen that there are mixed feelings on how to fill deep beds cheaply.  Some say to use logs and such.  Others say not to.  I can tell you right now that I'm definitely not going to use logs.  If they're big enough to burn, they're going to the firewood pile.  I will use smaller branches and twigs and such -- like these I have left over from cutting that oak limb that fell the other day. 

I got the bigger limb cut up and stacked, but haven't done much with these yet.  I'll cut the twiggy stuff off and put it into the compost.  The rest can be used for kindling. 

Now for a bit of good news- bad news.  I noticed that this planter was sinking into the dirt on one side.  It was causing one of the legs to start splitting.  I went to pick it up and move it to higher ground, but as I lifted it, the other leg split.   The good news is, once I got it settled on more solid ground, I found that I still had some wood glue and managed to fix the legs up pretty quickly.  

The hardest part was finding where I'd put the clamps after the last time I used them.  I've got to get my tools more organized.  

I've got to get my life more organized...

But the basil is doing well, at least the ones I had up potted that is.  The ones I'd left in the tray are much much smaller and aren't seeming to grow. 

Maybe they'll catch up.  We'll just have to wait and see.  

Not that it matters.  I'm still going to have basil running out of my ears before it's all said and done. 

I guess that's about it for today.  I don't know what it is.  While I'm at work, I can mentally compost long, eloquent, interesting posts.  But the minute I get home and sit down at the computer, they vanish from my mind just as if they'd never existed.  

So you get stuck with garden talk...and other boring stuff. 

In fact, I should change the name of my blog to Other Boring Stuff.  What do you think?