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Today’s chores include, but are not limited to:

Mowing the hay field that is my house yard.

Puppy wrangling and all that entails (massive cuteness!)

General dog chores, exercising, training and kennel cleaning.

General Household straightening - to make it look like I’ve accomplished SOMETHING while Beau was off fishing.

Watering the garden at some point. We’ve had three days without rain! Yay! :)

Fertilizing the roses. 2nd round of three for them. Black Spot is a problem with the wet Spring we’ve had, but the blooms are perfect.

Uploading photos so I can PROVE to you all that I’ve really been raising puppies! ;)

Other duties as assigned, because something ALWAYS comes up that needs my attention...

It was mostly warm and dry here in Central Missouri this past week. One squall passed through a few nights ago that dumped 2”-3” of rain and caused a lot of wind damage 20 miles north of us. We were just on the edge of it. Lots of wind here but no serious damage and only .3” rain.

Yesterday I picked up the load of posts and planks that I ordered from the sawmill a few weeks ago. Past times they’ve had the material bundled and banded so it could be picked up with a chainfall and set down on a trailer without a lot of effort. The mill is growing and as luck would have it the chainfall dock is out of commission for awhile so we hand-loaded 20 6”x6”x9’ white oak posts and 60 1.25”x6”x9’ planks. No way am I going to handle that stuff twice so it will stay on the trailer in the barn until I’m ready to use it. Not ideal but that’s how it’s going to be.

I expected to be down for the count today but instead I’m just a little sore. Seems that all of the PT time this spring is starting to pay off. We’ll see how today goes.

After the mill trip yesterday I laid out a plot in the new garden patch and got the sweet corn planted. Soaker hoses are down and the first watering is done. I’ve got a little extra soaker hose hanging out of the corn rows so this morning I’m going to put in a couple or three hills of zucchini.

Tomato plants are starting to take off and are due for pruning and fertilizer so I’ll get that done after the squash is planted. If I’m still mobile after that I might hang the last gate on the garden fence or I might do something else. We’ll see. lol

I’ve got a nice mess of bluegill caged up in the pond that are going to be guests of honor at a fish fry Tuesday evening so I need to make some time today for fun with the fillet knife.

And the house yard needs mowing again.

Whew!

“Somebody” did not water anything the 10 days I was gone. Grrrr. The gorgeous hydrangeas I transplanted spring before last, that are loaded with blooms, were in total ‘collapse’. I gave the 2 of them 15 gallons of water last night (measured in a 5 gallon bucket) & this morning, they have perked up, thank goodness.

This morning, so I didn’t have to carry a heavy bucket, I measured how long it took to fill a 5 gallon bucket - 2 minutes. All the plants in the beds mostly under the roof overhang, where they don’t get a lot of rain, got 5 gallons: boxwoods, lavender, & a couple of echinaceas. The large pots with hostas got watered as well. The hostas outside of the beds are going to be left for ‘somebody’ to water, if it even happens. They are blooming & the deer ate off most of the blooms last night & have started munching on the leaves. I will likely do a deep watering once a week, maybe twice when the temps are in the 90’s (like this coming week - may be 100 next Saturday). The hydrangeas may need watering more often.

The herb garden looks like it’s doing ok - I took my hose to the other house (now I’m wondering ‘why’ since I have nothing planted there!) so I will use mom’s house & give the herbs a good soaking. I will probably bring my hose back.

We may be taking a day trip this coming Wednesday to NC - mom has some old HS friends that have been trying to get together for a while. If that trip happens, I will be turning around Thursday evening for a trip to the other house to meet a furniture delivery truck on Friday, then cutting grass Sat/Sun. If we don’t go to NC this Wednesday, we’ll likely be going Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. I am getting tired of the back/forth, but see no end to it until maybe this Fall. I did manage to stay 10 days this last trip & worked on that slab project, getting grass cut, etc.

The slab project is finished in that the 4 big ones are in place & I am happy with them, but I want to extend the ‘paving’ out to the side and I need options from this house to take to the other house, specifically paving stones (the kind you can buy at the store) I have used in my soon-to-be-abandoned garden. The double wash tub that I am using for a planter needs to go as well so I can figure out where I want it - it’s rusting badly & needs some paint. The original color is silver & I would like that again, but it will be in full sun at the back of the shop & I might need sunglasses to look at it ... maybe another color? I will be painting with Rustoleum (rust stopping primer, then paint). I did miss one dahlia tuber in the old bed last fall & it came up & has bloomed - really pretty, can’t wait to have some next year (my niece is saving me some Kelvin Floodlight (dinner plate) tubers from her plants this year. :-)