The lofty goals for the day went right out the window with a change in the weather and circumstances. Instead of brief rain in the morning, it ended up being all day off and on thundery rain. Less than a quarter inch of rain fell - but it was enough to make the day something of a wasted effort. Well, sort of.
The morning started well enough- got another 10 feet of weed barrier run with mulch on top and got the dahlias I potted the night before moved down onto it. Then it started thundering, so I unboxed the irises that came in this morning and got them spread out on my covered shelving, just a couple small orders from Facebook groups.
Went back indoors to get something else done while waiting on the weather to clear- went to vacuum my closet and found a couple mouse droppings and freaked out. As one does. Now all my closet things are in bins on my bedroom floor so I could sanitize all of that, set traps, seal the chew hole they made in the drywall. Found the spot they were digging into the crawlspace, covered that in mesh and steel wool, traps in the crawlspace. Went around looking for any other gaps in cabinets or so on where they could be accessing. Used spray foam around plumbing and all that fun stuff. Smell checked every single thing in the closet and had to throw out a couple ruined items. So annoying! This closet was spotless a week ago, cleaned for my mom's visit. I hate how fast you can get mice up north.
Then my sister called to say that a guy an hour away had some swan bird bath bases- would I like to go for a drive to check them out? Met her, then she had a flat tire, then filled the tire and followed her to a shop to get the tire changed, left her car at the shop and took mine instead. Tired yet? This is like 1 pm at this point.. lol It was already too much of a day.
We were driving and realized, hey wait, we pass that pretty cool nursery on the way there. So we stopped and filled the car, as one does when a great nursery is running their end of the season sales.
Of course, if you are a thinking person- you can see the mistake we just made right?
Anyhow, turns out the guy is actually 2 hours away. We finally get there, middle of nowhere, three turns on dirt roads, no street signs, just trusting Google and hoping for the best. BUT, totally worth it because these things are awesome, they were made 60+ years ago, then the place went out of business with these abandoned on the property. The owner of the property has been letting this guy buy them in lots for resale. Only drawback was that all the bowls were damaged because they were all just left out in winter for decades so they were all cracked and broken. We have a relative though with the same bowl, so we're just going to make a mold and try to pour our own.
But yeah, I ended up getting one also, because who could leave them behind?
Anyhow, so we pay the guy and he brings them to my car on a wheeled dolly. BUT, oh yeah, the car is full of plants. Like I had to put a plant back, full of plants. So, we unload the plants into his driveway, load the swans and lay them down, then pile the plants back in onto the swans as strategically as possible. The wagon of plants is just my plants- my sister bought at least as many. I drive a compact SUV.. lol Overall- went as fast as we could, but the guy had to think we were off our rockers.
Here is my supervisor, watching me grunt this 100lber into place.
This is Lucy- she was part of my feral colony back in Florida. When we moved to Michigan, we brought as many of the colony as I could trap or catch again. Many I could not trap again because I had previously trapped them for spay and neuter and they simply could not be recaptured. If you look close, you'll notice the ear tip. Unfortunately, Lucy hates other cats with an abiding passion- she occasionally asks to come inside to watch a movie with us- but she hates other cats so much that keeping her inside is impossible. As she is semi-feral, nobody else can touch her. She loves our barn and has decided that's her abode. She has a heated box in the barn for winter- it's a heated small henhouse I found online. When she wants out, she yowls and scratches the door. When she wants back in, she comes to the sliding patio door and glares at me until I come out and open the barn for her. I wish we could do a cat door, we tried briefly, but pretty much had a skunk in through it the first week. She's the most fantastic mouser that ever moused and I desperately wish she would consider moving inside.
Anyhow, finished lugging the bird bath pedestal to where I wanted it. Unloaded the car- photographed all the plant tags and added them to my excel sheet.
Then spouse let me know he had finished setting up new enclosures for two tarantulas who had outgrown their old enclosures- unfortunately both sort of easily spooked ones. I don't panic quite as fast as spouse does when a tarantula decides to teleport- so usually I rehouse the runny ones. They really don't like getting a new home- but, sadly that's the easiest way to clean an enclosure is just to do a whole new setup so you can deep clean. Our enclosures these days are a lot more bioactive- plants and cleanup crew, so rehousing is less necessary than it used to be- but, still about every other year you just have enough things the cleanup crew have skipped that it's just time to rehouse. Went pretty well- everybody behaved themselves- but it's always a bit tense because they are just so fast and you never know if they will cooperate or be a stinker about it.
There we are then, Saturday is over and all I managed to do was substantially increase my gardening and household tasks without accomplishing anything in particular. High of 90 tomorrow, but doesn't hit the 80's until 11 AM- so I should be able to really hustle until noon with anything out in sunshine and then I'll just up pot in the shade after that.
No comments:
Post a Comment