Posted on 08/01/2025 6:03:57 AM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
We do a lot of hand washing, though I do use the machine, too. I’ve called it my sterilizer. One thing we do is collect mugs from various trips, and we’ve noticed that the print on the sides starts to disappear when we wash every time in the dishwasher, so now I hand wash any special items like mugs and certain glassware. Some of my vintage stuff is so pretty, and I want it to last decades more, so I hand wash a lot of stuff! No pots and pans in the DW, no cutting knives, either. So it usually takes a full day or sometimes more to fill up the DW.
Sounds like you had quite the trip!
I have only ever seen two owls at a time. Five would be really cool! Except for them distributing your sleep!
Ready for an early frost?? I was watching ‘This Week in Weather’ (WxRisk). He’s pretty accurate, turned me into a bit of a weather ‘nerd’ because he explains ‘why’ certain weather is happening (patterns, etc.). If you watch, just ignore the opening ‘sick twisted weather freaks, Captain of Chaos’ stuff .... :-)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D85d71y61KE
This lovely, cool weather will continue for a while & will actually get colder before there is a warmup again. It looks like Sept.8, somewhere in there, the flow will be not only from AK, but from Siberia. He said the temps will be in frost territory for WI & MN. In the video, start about minute 15:00 for the potential frost mention.
I thought September might warm up again & it looks like it will - not super hot like earlier, but definitely ‘warm’. There’s also no rain/drought, for the next couple of weeks. Now that we have a new roof, no rain ... go figure!
The roofers will be back this morning to “tweak” a few things, but should be gone by lunch. Once they’re gone for good, I’ll be taking our giant magnet & going over the yard to make sure I don’t getting roofing nails in Clyde or Little Red (or the truck for that matter). I did ask to keep the pallets the shingles came on, so I am 2 pallets richer - I have plans for them.
The roof looks fantastic ... no lichens or growth, slipped shingles, etc. The flashing is all very neat. The color is great ... “Moire Black” ... not a black black - looks a lot like our former (woo hoo) slate roof. Now I can go upstairs without constantly looking at the ceiling to see if I spot a leak. We can get insulation in the attic & get the vent to my gas cooktop fixed .... both require walking on the roof & we could not do that on slate shingles without causing massive damage.
I’m exhausted ... not sleeping well the last couple of days, nervous about the roof ... what would they find under the old shingles, how bad would they mess up things (they were careful), etc. Silly to worry, but I couldn’t help it. I got a lot of knitting done - very calming :-)
Not sure. I bought smoking meat and the ribs are longest at 6 hours so I can start a pot of something inside and then it can simmer in the smoker for 6 hours.
*** I’m exhausted ... not sleeping well the last couple of days, nervous about the roof ... what would they find under the old shingles, how bad would they mess up things (they were careful), etc. Silly to worry, but I couldn’t help it. I got a lot of knitting done - very calming :-)***
I know what you mean. That’s how I was with those ginormous trees dropping branches with every rainfall. I was very worried, and of course, that does NOTHING for anybody. Too bad I haven’t ever learned how to knit or crochet. I should try that again sometime. I used to do cross-stitch and embroidery, but haven’t done either in years.
Tha landscaper team came out yesterday to measure the meditation garden for setting down flagstone for me. I expect we will have an estimate by early next week. I hope this one is more affordable. I’d like to have the project finished by mid-September so we can reseed at the end of the month.
Any ‘skilled’ labor is expensive, but I hope you get a good price on the flagstones. I figure that putting in our fairly simple paver sidewalk myself, I probably saved a couple hundred bucks minimum.
It’s gotten quite breezy as a dry front is pushing through. Every now & then the breeze has a colder edge to it. Temps for next week look like 70’s over mid-50’s & the following weekend, lows in the 40’s. Our dogwood is totally bronze & the grass in places is noticeably turning. A Fall vibe is definitely in the air. The nursery where we bought our Cinnamon Heart rose bush already had a huge pumpkin display - really pretty.
Took a caffeine pill to see if I can wake up enough to get something constructive done today - no energy at all. I feel like such a slug!
I have some nasal drainage with a teeny tiny cough yesterday and today. I’m slugging it some today, too.
I’ve been keeping an eye on my Monarch patch every day. Today there are at least 30 caterpillars munching. I decided to do some pruning in the meditation garden where we will be working for the next few weeks. I saw that I had never removed the old dead blossoms from the peony out there.
Well, what do you know? There on a dead maple leaf stem was a Monarch caterpillar hanging on for dear life. He wouldn’t last long with the work we will be doing soon. So I found our portable butterfly shelter and brought him over to it with a milkweed stem, in case he had gotten there by mistake. He is still running around inside all over eat. Not eating, so I think he will go into J formation sometime today.
Once I had it all zipped up, I found another teeny tiny caterpillar on the floor of it, so used a twig and moved him over to the leaves. He’s munching away. Hopefully, both of these will have successful pupation.
I am out of ‘slugville’.
Our hidcote lavender is not doing well. I don’t know if it’s too much water or too little. One of the two spots is not sunny enough. Our Little Missy boxwoods are doing great so I am digging up the lavenders & moving them to my new raised beds (better dirt, more sun). We are heading over the mountain to the nursery where we bought the lilac - they have Little Missys.
I am a glutton for punishment it seems. I have to plant the 5 RoS bushes, a rose bush, a 3 gallon lilac, 2 new Little Missys after we buy them & transplant the 2 Hidcotes. Whew!
PS - they have 1 gallon & 3 gallon sizes of the boxwoods. I am going for 1 gallon unless they look awful. The lavenders were 1 gallon so I shouldn’t have to dig much of a new hole.
Eating from the Garden, Your Hand, The Land, etc.
A few weeks ago I was complaining about the POOR quality of a bunch of green onions that I ordered from Walmart. I used what I could (I just wanted the greens to garnish a dish) and tossed the rest in the compost.
I noticed today that I have some fresh, beautiful and FREE onion greens growing at the top of my compost pile! Going to clip them and use them! 🙂 Ha-Ha! I win, Walmart! Sell me sub-par produce? I’ll show YOU!
I like to wash by hand too. I use the upper dishwasher rack for a drying rack. We didn’t even have a dishwasher for the first 25 years after we built the house. It comes in handy but rarely.
Thanksgiving and Christmas? That’s when my DW gets a workout.
Nursery trip report:
There were 6 1-gallon Little Missy boxwoods & all looked good. We picked the 2 best per our opinion.
In addition to the boxwoods, we looked at plants that will tolerate virtually total shade & are deer resistant so we also brought home four Lenten Roses. Mom had never heard of them & while I had, I’ve never grown them before. This is the one we got ... North Star Ruby Heart:
https://www.terranovanurseries.com/product/helleborus-north-star-ruby-heart/
Super showy winter time flowers. Semi-double flowers covered in ruby dots and freckles. Heavy flowering with minmal effort. Easy in containers or the garden. Rewarding and long lived. Bred for reliable tissue culture production planning. Plant in spring for flowering the following winter.
USDA Hardiness Zone(s): 4-9
Size (HT/W/FL HT): 13″ / 17″ / 17″
Exposure: Full Sun, Part Shade, Full Shade
Bloom Time(s): January, February, March
*****
I hope ours will Bloom this winter.
After all the holes I have to dig (12 1-gallon, 1 3-gallon), I may never walk upright again! I’ll space them out over the next week. I am VERY picky about how I dig holes/plant shrubs & flowers & so far, most everything has survived & thrived.
More like Christmas and Easter. LOL
I’ve never seen it either. It was kinda spooky and kinda cool! Except... If they’d continued making so much noise, I was gonna launch a bottle rocket at the nearest two!
Dang, I caught a big opossum in the live trap (2nd this week) and I’m still getting digging in the garden...
This morning I broke off the top 2/3 of a big tall Giant Ragweed not too far from my east-most garden plot, and actually beginning to shade around 10 a.m. the spot I’m trying to establish catnip in. I had estimated that Giant Ragweed plant at almost 20 ft. tall. I walked off the piece I broke off, and then got a tape measure. Sure enough, adding the two sections, that thing was 238” tall, and that was after the very top had wilted slightly from the top 2/3 being broken off. It was more “greens” than our chickens would eat.
That’s cool.
That’s when we use our garage fridge for extra food storage, too. It gets jam packed!
We have Lenten Roses, too! Here they bloom during Lent, every year right on time! They last a long time and are evergreen once the flowers fade. Great plant! Yours are very pretty!
I have decided that this cough is the latest CoVid variant. The Uber driver on Sunday was coughing just like this. The timeline is perfect. It’s pretty mild, but the fatigue is the tell tale sign for me. So I’ve been taking it easy most of the day, just puttered around here. I am not the kind to take a nap in the middle of the day, but I wanted to today! I didn’t, but I wanted to.
I hardly had enough stamina to make dinner tonight, pizza and a salad. Used a pre-made crust to make it easy. I like being able to control my ingredients as much as possible. It’s almost 11:30 pm and I feel like I’m getting a second wind. I hope I can sleep tonight. I expect I’ll feel a lot better tomorrow.
First thing I do in the Dutch Oven might be chicken soup. I have saved chicken part, neck, gizzards etc in the freezer for stock. New lunch food for my son is that he likes Campbell’s spicy chicken soup that comes in the microwave cup. It’s egg noodles, chicken, carrots, celery and spices, chili pepper, paprika.
I could make probably $40 worth for $10.
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