What kind of day did you have today?

[applestar]

… I ask because I had a pretty good day.

I had the kind of day in which the bank teller was helpful when I called to ask a question, and was even more friendly and helpful when I went in … and as I was leaving, even the teller at the next window, who I couldn’t even see, called out to wish me a great day.

…I had the kind of day in which I ran into printer trouble and wasn’t quite able to get my mail ready before the mail courier came through my street — I could hear the mail truck approaching my house … and pass … and gone— and I was STILL futzing with the envelope.

But on reflection, I decided I didn’t want to wait until Monday pickup to send the mail, since that would mean it wouldn’t actually go out until Monday evening,

So I got changed and got myself ready to go for a quick ride to the post office to drop off my mail … BUT! … when I started off in my car and as soon as I reached the end of my street and turned, I SAW THE MAIL TRUCK only 4 houses ahead!

Realize it could have been ANYWHERE — one of the side streets, back in the other direction, etc. But THERE IT WAS right in front of me!

And when I stopped alongside while she was sorting and stuffing the curve side mailbox for the house, and rolled down my window and asked her if she would take my mail, she cheerfully said “SURE!” and when I drove past her truck and parked to get out and take her my mail, I realized she’d actually gotten out and followed me on foot and was standing right there on the sidewalk to receive them. Wow.

Yep. Good day for me.

[PaulF]

Nice that the tired out saying,"Have a nice day", or even more repetitive these days,"Have a good one", (A good one what is what this grumpy old guy thinks to himself) is experienced.

These days a good day is not talked about enough. Glad you had on. My day was pretty good, too. Too cold and windy to do anything but lean back and read most of the day. but then those are my kind of days. I would rather spring would sprung but it will get here.

Thanks for reminding us to look for the good in days.

[Vanisle_BC]

Friday I drove the 5 miles into town with just enough time to collect a book at the library before my dental appointment. At the library counter I discovered I'd left home without my wallet and was already running slightly late. You can construct your own story about the rest of my day!

Today looks not too bad and tomorrow's really looking up - finally, long overdue signs of spring are forecast; so I can re-sow all the pea seed that has failed to emerge.

Well, C'm-o-o-o-o-on sunshine!

[digitS']

I should have visited HG, yesterday .

With a new sander for a belated birthday present, I pulled a heavy closet door off and wheeled it out to the back deck on my daughter's old skateboard with DW helping me hold it and steer it through 3 doorways, coming and going. Once outside, I sanded the edge hoping that it would fit better. It does! Painted and back in place.

After an errand this morning, I pulled off 2 cabinet doors and attempted to sand them down to a better fit. This house is over 100 years old and the kitchen was rebuilt at some time but it was long ago. Painted cabinets and too many layers of paint. I have them better than they were but it required about twice as much time and effort as that closet door. Really wonder how long they will okay. Saved the touch up painting for another day .

Steve

[imafan26]

It was a good day. I watered the yard , nothing was wilted, so I wasn't too late.

My sister gave me some pad Thai sauce and some salted radish. I had the pad thai noodles but I had to rummage through the refrigerator to find it. Found some expired cream cheese and dry mushrooms that weren't dry anymore. So, I did a little frig cleaning and checked some of my storage buckets and I found another bag of mushrooms that weren't good anymore. It could have been worse. I found a head lettuce that went bad that I never got to use. It is a recurring problem. I don't go to the store often but I can't buy more than one vegetable or I can't finish it on time. I had head lettuce from the garden at the same time, so I could not eat it all.

I had a small shopping list for Costco. I went about 2:30 p.m. I was lucky and got a stall 4 cars in. There were no shopping carts in front of the store, but someone kindly offered me theirs so I did not have to wait for more shopping carts to be rounded up. I only had three things on my shopping list. Costco doesn't have the electric brush refills. I may have to get that online. I only went for bacon and eggs, but you know how that goes. They were just refilling the eggs so I got the freshest egg they had that is dated May 23. What a score! None of them were broken, even better. They are small though. As usual I did pick up a few more things, brownie mix for my club meeting, ice tea mix, Shrimp for the Pad Thai, and a Caesar salad. I know I threw out the lettuce, but I actually usually get to eat the prepared salad most of the time. I got some tortillas. I don't know what I am going to do with them, but at least they last awhile. I passed up the canned meats, pasta (I have too much), I would have picked up a rotisserie chicken but they weren't out yet and I don't have room in the frig for it, so next time. The line at the food court was still long so I passed that up too. (Actually that is not a bad thing, too much salt and calories.)

I have tofu but I did not want to deal with the leftovers so I left it out of the Pad Thai, I substituted dried shitake mushrooms. ( yes, I still have more of those mushrooms even after throwing out two bags.) I did not want to get beans sprouts because while I like it, there would be leftovers and I still have too much other stuff to eat. I substituted a small bok choy from the garden that was just right. I was going to have some of the Caesar salad with it, but I am quite satiated. My sister said the sauce and radish was for two servings, but it is more like four, so I guess I know what I will be having the next few days.

[Vanisle_BC]

Yesterday I had a good morning tidying my pseudo-greenhouse, then had a TIA (mini-stroke) with mental confusion & garbled speech; went to hospital by ambulance and spent 4 hours there with my wife, mostly sitting/lying around waiting & gradually recovering. Had an ECG & CT scan showing no permanent damage and came home. Had a poor night's sleep (till 9.30!) but this morning looks bright, the forecast is good and I feel OK. Sorry this is off the gardening topic but I just feel like talking - and getting out in the garden. Hope my joint pains will let me plant spuds this week.

Whine, whine - but every nurse & doctor I saw yesterday was close to angelic. They're all working 12 hour shifts, some of them even on call the other 12. What a strange mixture humankind is! (been watching the news.)

End of ramble.

[applestar]

Goodness! Take it easy Vanisle_BC — relax and soak in the gentle breezes and garden sounds.

I’m so glad you are home.

…me, I’m wielding my big scythe to cut down giant patches of grass and weeds, volunteer plums and other treelets in the back yard.

I am reminded that it’s early yet in spring and I’m only just coming out of winter sloth and hibernation.

It’s not my arms or back so much as my heart — thumping and thumping, leaving me out of breath.

Am sitting here at the picnic table, “admiring my work” with the scythe by my feet — thinking I don’t have the energy to do the finishing trim work to take care of the rascals I missed especially along the various objects and fencing around garden beds.

Catching breath and gathering strength before taking apart the scythe and putting it away.

…I do enjoy doing this though—I prefer the quiet whoosh to mechanical weedwhacker racket.

Got to build up endurance in the garden again. Neither of us are a young whippersnapper any more

[Vanisle_BC]

I too have a scythe. When scything goes well it's almost therapeutic - mentally if not physically. It's the twisting of the spine that gets to me. I used to know an old man who'd spent much of his working life using a scythe. He told me if you advance more that 2 inches on each stroke you're doing it wrong and killing yourself, but I never got anywhere near that sort of skill.

[Gary350]

Door opening between kitchen and dining room is too small 3 ft wide. About 9 am I worked about 3½ hours cutting the door opening 6½ ft wide. Wow, we love this, why did we not do this sooner.

[imafan26]

My day is just beginning here. But, I had a pretty good day yesterday. I got up early and got some gas at Costco. It is better to go at 6 a.m. than 10 a.m. because there are fewer cars and the tanker is usually not there filling the tanks. I got the house cleaned, except for the kitchen sink. I have to get my work clothes to do that otherwise I end up bleaching my black shirt.

I got the yard watered and pulled a few weeds. Since, I cannot work for a long time in the yard, I slowly removed the soil from the old pots to refurbish them and since the soil still looked good, I am chancing remixing them with new soil. Some of the old soil was spent, so I put that out in the low spots in the yard gouged out by the rain. I found a lot of red worms in one of the pots and moved a bunch of them to the worm bin. I made a new worm bin since the worms were escaping from the old one. I put smaller holes in this one.

I planted one container with roselle. It was overdue for planting, it was starting to bloom.
The second planter took me a couple of days to mix and fill. I will be transplanting a tomato into that pot hopefully today.

I moved more potting soil and fertilizer from the garage to the lanai. These 18 gallon pots take a lot of mix. I tested the pH of the containers and they are about pH 7.3 so I won't need to add much lime. I am using one cup of 6-4-6 citrus food, plus 2 tablespoons sulfate of ammonia and 3 tablespoons of k mag per 18 container. This is half the food that a new container would get, but I don't want to add too much phosphorus so I will have to supplement with sulfate of ammonia and k-mag later. This soil previously had okra growing in it.

The price of peat moss has not gone up yet, but I anticipate it will, so I have to try to use any of the soil that still looks good. I still have 3 bags of spent soil to take to the dump. I tried using half synthetic and half organic fertilizer, but the phosphorus is too high and the organic fertilizer did not contribute much. In fact, the beans I planted looked good and had big healthy leaves and then stopped growing at about 2 ft tall and I had to start nitrogen and kmag supplements every 3 weeks after that.

Some of my seedlings waited to long to get planted out and there was all that rain, so a lot of them died. I did take my second tower apart and redid that. I have 3 tiers reset and they are mainly planted with the surviving peppers. 2 tiers currently have lettuce going to seed, so they won't be replanted until after I collect the seeds.

The six tier tower was replanted with bush beans. Some of the beans did not make it. Some sprouted but died later, so had to be replanted. But, now they have started to bloom. I am actually getting more beans from the bush beans than the pole beans. The pole beans are starting to flower again. It does have some fungal disease from the rain.

I thought the cucumber was done and I was just waiting for the last 4 cukes ( turns out only one was good, the others got damaged by pickleworm and the rain). But I had fertilized the cukes because of the fruit and now it is producing more flowers and fruit. I think I see at least 3 more cukes, but they are too small to bag yet. I still have 3 cukes in the frig to eat.

Turns out that most of my hot peppers are jalapenos. I may have to pull some out, because I really don't need 30 of them and I don't have a lot of takers for jalapenos. They are not my favorite pepper either. The shiso peppers are not having a good time a couple of them have gone downhill. I replanted Hawaiian peppers in a container in a bag. It grew an alyssum, go figure!

I have more wild tomatoes growing and black nightshade. I don't know where that came from but there is also one in my neighbors' yard coming through my fence. I have some volunteer tomatoes to pot up and I can give that to the free store or the next share whenever they are ready. I have two more 18 gallon pots to refurbish. One will be for the cucumber and the other will probably be for another tomato. I am probably going to try to get another determinate tomato in the main garden. Red snapper that is in the main garden still has green fruit, but the vine is now touching the top of the hoop so it is about 6 ft tall at this point. Some of the vines are also sprawling a bit on the ground. I have to tie them up. This is the second fruiting from this determinate tomato. I will see how long it lasts. It was started in December 2024 and it is supposed to have good heat set. It is averaging around 84/ 71 degrees. Tomatoes start having problems setting above 88 degrees. I will try to get the shade cloth on the hoop house before that.