brewing

Things have been a bit hectic lately.  Classes going on – fortunately, all are online just now.  Emily is home for the summer (still working her part-time hellish retail job, but she is done with school until August).  She has inspired me to begin going back to the gym.  I love going…I have no idea why I haven’t gotten back into the habit since retirement, but we’ve gone together more days than not for the past two weeks.  Honestly, I have no excuse.  The gym is only less than 10 minutes from where we live.  Lord knows I’ve become a turnip over the past few years…it’s time to turn back the clock a bit.

I had some spare time one day last week and ventured to two greenhouses BY MYSELF…it’s a wonderful thing to go by myself so that nobody is rushing me or whining.  Actually, Sarah is happy in a greenhouse and that’s something we could do together if only she lived closer.  I bought five flats of flowers and vegetables.  I’ve planted little more than one flat so far, but I already know that more begonias and impatiens are needed.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate this weekend…and I’ll find some time to putter around in my flower beds and garden. 

Five flats of impatiens, petunias, alysum, begonias, snapdragons, zinnias, tomatoes, cucumbers, and green peppers. 

Meanwhile, look what sprang up around Timothy!!  Some beautiful Rocket Snapdragons decided to winter over.  I suppose because they are close to the house, the wall protected them.  We had a mild winter too.  The snaps that I planted in pots did NOT winter over…sadly.  It’s OK, because I bought MORE. 

This flower bed has not been planted yet. 

I planted seeds in my raised bed the other evening.  Going clockwise from the top-left of the U, we have lettuce, carrots, radishes, another variety of lettuce, and then bush green beans.  I noticed that a DAMN carpenter bee has chewed a hole in one of the posts and was buzzing to himself inside the post, all cozy and pleased with his destruction, as I planted.  I could spray him with poison, but I probably won’t.  I hate to kill things. Then this morning, as if I might see signs of life after two days, I stepped out on the deck to have a peek.  GRRRRRRR!!!  There in my raised bed, right there in that pristine, glorious black dirt, sat a chipmonk eating my seeds (I presume it was a carrot or radish seed he was snacking on).  I barked at him – “NO!!!”, and then he scrambled to find a way out and panicked when he realized he couldn’t get through the net.  I ran down the deck stairs, taking my eyes off him only briefly, but he vanished.  I have no idea how he got in or out.  If he comes around too often, Molly will take care of him.  She’s quite the huntress.

Carpenter bee 😠

So, my girls and I are planning a mini-vacay to Philadelphia next month.  I’m excited about spending time with them, and also to see something new.  We’re going to drive to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and then Amtrak the rest of the way.  On the way over, we’re going to stop and tour the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.  We’re also going to take a day to visit Hershey, Pennsylvania.  The Hershey stuff I’m not as excited for, but Erin and Emily are totally pumped.  We’re going to Chocolate World, apparently.  Really?  I looked up the visitor sites to see if there was really anything worth doing there.  There are photos of a chocolate-themed amusement park.  Instead of Build-a-Bear, you build your own candy bar.  Instead of people dressed up like Micky Mouse and Pluto, there are people walking around dressed up like candy bars.  I asked Emily if she was really all that excited about having her picture taken with somebody dressed up like a Reese’s Cup.  She said, “Mom, I want to marry the Reese’s Cup.”  I guess she is all that excited.  The highlight of the trip, at least our expectation is that it will be the highlight, is a private tour of the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia.  There are plenty of things to do in Philadelphia – we will have 2.5 days there.  Then it’s home again.  We are all just too busy, sadly, to get even a whole week together.

Gracie is a snarly beast – she is nasty to other dogs and strangers.  As such, I don’t take her for walks in our neighborhood because there are too many dogs running loose, and there are always people out walking around.  I take her to a road, over close to where the gym is, that is mostly deserted.  It’s a nice place to walk because there are very few cars, lots of deer and other wildlife, honeysuckle that smells heavenly, and wildflowers everywhere.  This time of year, there are millions of daisies and coreopsis.  The milkweed is just starting to bloom too.  We parked about a quarter mile from the road, and when we got to it, the road department had apparently decided to spray the sides of the road with herbicide rather than mow - this morning.  Really??  Let’s just pollute all we can because who wants to spend money to run a mowing truck along that two-mile stretch of abandoned road? That would take at least 10 minutes, so let’s just poison the deer, rabbits, turkeys, and anything else that happens to drink the water.  Stupidly, I thought Gracie and I could just walk and I would keep her out of the blue poison that blanketed all the beautiful flowers along the side of the road.  Long story short, no I couldn’t.  She and I both got into it.  Her legs were blue, her nose was blue, and her tail was blue – like robin-egg blue…or Easter egg blue. As soon as we got home, I gave her a bath and washed that shit off of her.  She didn’t appreciate the bath - she even growled at me a few times. Then, I took a shower too.  Maybe I’m too paranoid, but I don’t like poison.