Your Neck of the Woods 2015 Part 4

Well keep in mind I work in an air conditioned office all day so I look forward to my drive home with the windows open no matter the temps. I'm sure my point of view would change if I worked outside all day.

Well... maybe it might just droop a little. ;)
Even working outside all day (or inside the un-air-conditioned store), most days I drive home with window down and a/c off.. however, today I had it CRANKED UP. GOSH that cold shower felt good when I got home! < =D

I become a grouch in the humidity and heat. It is hard to breath. VERY thankful the AC guy fixed the 'whatever' on the motor. Also thankful it was still under warrantee.

Just a little pic from 42 years ago.

I was hopping around the garden today, mostly working in the utility area, still potting up plants, cleaning up old pots filled with dirt that the plants didn't make it. Cut back some of the wisteria again, it keeps eating up my walking around space. I am just about finished cleaning up that area. Only have a few more pots to stuff with plants then I will rake it out and it will be all clean and nice.

Just love that pic Jan, how happy you both look.

Sweet pic!

Happy Anniversary Jan! Great picture. Love the 70s style :-) Mine was last week - 32 years.

Huge storm with hail just rolled through here. Pond is soooooooo close to being full.

another downpour, another overflowing gutter! I had cleaned up from the last one, but my new little trench wasn't enough. I think the water has not gotten into the house but we need to fix something in front if we want to stop this.

First thought is a nice 'dry creekbed.' Easiest thought is a bigger little ditch.

uh oh, if THAT storm just rolled past YOU, then WE might see more tonight.

speedie's customers won't need any watering...haha

Thank you, guys.

BIG thunder boomer moved through pretty quickly. Temp dropped dramatically. YAY!!! Oops, sorry, seq!! I just prayed that we wouldn't lose power. We did, but it was momentary.

After Sunday I won't be on DG much. Heading to Oregon for our family's reunion. May be back by the end of July...or not. Hehehe. Jeff does want to go to the Adirondacks in August so the trip out west probably won't be as long as the last few years.

I love you guys!! I just felt a huge rush of emotion for what you all have meant to me. Can hardly see the screen. Sniff, sniff.

And back at you Jan!
I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know you and Jeff and super lucky to have met your family here in Annap. They are as sweet as the pic you just posted. Via con Dios on your trips and family convergences this summer. Love you muchly and look forward to any meetups we can do here or 'up north'! J

I am glad I have a level of tolerance for hot weather. Does not mean I like it..
I sweat like a pig...I wear a towel around my neck....

I worked today--WATERING all day--what else? That IS NOT fun! Been up since 5:30AM.
Heat index over 100* and I was out there from 8:15 till 4PM. I was scheduled until 1PM.
There was no one else scheduled to water after me.. Good Lord!
Everything was dry and in this heat--it is hard to tell. Wet? dry? Humid? Moist?

Curtis (SM) came in and I said I will be watering just until 1pm as that is my schedule.
I also told him there is no one else after 2PM in Garden! Nada!!
The only other person we had leaves at 2PM,and he has been watering since AM too.
Curtis asked me if I could stay and do more watering. Pleasse???

OK! Boss...But that will be at least 2-3 hours over my scheduled time.
He IS the BOSS--and said--that's OK. So--I ended up watering non-stop from 8:15AM
until 4PM. Took just a 1/2hr. lunch...have to..cannot go more than 6hrs. w/o a lunch breat.

I think my body sweated out a gallon of liquids...It was really brutal!
Jeff--you love heat---would you like to be doing this in 100* heat all day???

Of course--after I went home--in another hour--the deluge came. Like the sky just opened up.

Well-I suppose--no one will need to water tomorrow. I am not in again until Sunday.
This cutting hours scheduling sucks! Watering HAS TO BE DONE--and then there
is no one scheduled to do it?? It is ALL about $$$$ coming in or going out---
yet they ask the impossible from a couple people that happen to be working that day.

YES! Sally--today was Energy savings day. Since i was not home most of the day--
I hope I contributed my share to it....I turned off all my electronics and lights.

G

Many of you by now have heard my song and dance about how hard it is to find a substitute for the paper route so I can take off for Vermont or sleep or attend an out of state wedding. Well neigh impossible said I.

Well, last week Tues, in the middle of the night, in the middle of my paper route (5 am) one of my customers was waiting for me because he really wants a newspaper route to supplement his income and did I know of any openings. As of today he will be learning our routes and do one of them for July and August so Wayne and I can be Grandparents in the flesh! WooHoo!

Pretty amazing universe we live in.

When the rain stopped--I decided to go outside and check things out.

You should have seen the sky!!!! Never seen anything like this before!
I cannot even describe it.. little upside down puffs of clouds all over! Like huge
pop-corns. CRAZY!!!
Wonder what I may have missed if I had gone out earlier....bummer!

Look at these clouds! I cannot even describe them.....These were all over the sky!
And then they started to fade a bit---and then when the sunset colors came--
the bottom of the clouds seemed to "lift" and only the typical sunset clouds took over.
Spectacular! That is all i can say!!!!

Have to remember to go out front after another storm hits! g,

Coleup said........"Pretty amazing universe we live in."

What an appropriate comment after my cloud pictures!!!!

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Judy! Good for you! Glad you will have some time off to see your G-Kids.

Come back sometime! We would miss you!!!! But--You DO deserve a break!!!

Gita

Judy how great it will be for you both. What fun you will have.

Gita, Great pictures, I noticed a beautiful hue outside and went out what a beautiful sunset we were having. Mist from the creek filled the hollow and the sky was just a mass of beautiful color.

Yeah, the sunset tonite after the storm was awesome. Here we had double rainbow, too! and at one point, the setting sun lit up big fluffy clouds that had blown over to the East and the sun through the clouds to the west was so intense where it peaked thru that where it hit the eastern clouds great shafts of reflected sunlite shot up into the sky (like a God cloud but of reflected lite!)

Thanks Gita and HOlly....Hopefully 'unscheduled play time is like riding a bike and I've not lost my capacity to indulge and enjoy! Wayne goes next week, then it is my turn. And even if the appraisal says I have work to do on house, I'll have time and where with all to attempt.

Speaking of attempts, Gita, I was at local HD and it is loaded to the gills with plant material...lots of trees and shrubs and larger perennials. In the heat of the day I could hardly stand to look at the mass of plants dependent on humans for their very lives and remembering the years when that life sustaining watering fell to me and how sad to see them fade like Jeff's leafless fruit trees for lack of care. Shamefull write offs...It is not inevitable to sustain such losses as a cost of doing business. Just shows IMHO a lack of care for the very life one's livelihood is based upon, a blatant disregard of the Plant Kingdom by us animals. Hopefully with some cooler weather and this weekend, many will find their forever homes and not be left to "dry up, like a raisin in the sun" (Langston Hughes:"What Happens to a Dream Deferred")

Good on you Gita and Speedy for keeping those lovelies alive. I know for both of you that your work in the industry is more than a job!

GIta, I don't know how you do it.

Coleup, I'm SO glad you've found a willing partner for your paper route. I was thinking that's been a demanding schedule nowadays.

it's nice to wake up to these praises for the wonderful sunset. Cheery!

Have a great trip Jan! Wow, 42 years is amazing and very admirable! Darcy and I are on 2.5 years married, 10.5 years together so we have a long way to go :-)

Glad to hear about your paper route sub Judy.

Gita, I'm not sure I would enjoy watering for 8 hours in the heat that you experienced. When I was working on that landscape project it was nearly that hot and after working hard all day, it was time to cool off in the a/c for sure.

We too had a nice sky for the sunset last night. It was very enjoyable.

OH, coleup, I am doing a HAPPY dance for you. I know how much you desire to go north. Ecstatic I am!!!!

We had that same orangey sky last evening. Before that some horrific winds and a sky that I've only seen once before up in MA. Turns out there was a tornado or two in the county above us. Thankful the flicker of our lights was only momentary, but I know others lost power. I'm very thankful for the cooler day.

Dance on Jan! The really remarkable thing about getting a sub is that I didn't get a sub! The sub found me ! in the middle of the night in the middle of nowhere! Love when the Universe works like that.

Last week I asked Wayne to put on some music to inspire us while we did some drudgery tasks put off too long. This is what he chose.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf3oYCJEbEc

I've been praying. Oh, Happy Day!!!!!!

Apparently what they thought were tornadoes were straight line winds.

Jan, OH MY.... a belated HAPPY ANNIVERSARY to you both!!!!!! ♥ That is so beautiful, that you 2 have been together for all that time! The funny thing is, to look at you both, neither one of you looks old enough to have been together for more than half that time! =)
I sure am gonna miss you while you're away; please try not to forget about us too much! ;)

Judy, YEEEHAAWWW, Praise the Lord!!!! Soooo glad your sub found you! < =D You try to not forget about us too much too, ok? < =P You are sure to be SORELY missed!!
Here's a little suggestion for a piece of ROAD TRIP!! music:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRDivUb5EeA

We got that wicked storm the other night too... power went out for a few hours which was pesky 'cause we were RIGHT smack dab in the middle of a movie. Grrrr. Stormed night before last as well, for only about 1 1/2 hours. No power outages then though, thank goodness, just lots and lots of nice moderately-hard steady rain.

Yesterday I FINALLY got out there and raked up those leaves under the deck (the ones from last Fall.. how embarrassing!!).. got those picked up, trimmed back the trees along the side yard (so they don't attack DH when he mows), weeded The Big Bed (including pulling up LOTS of that mint that's running rampant), and installed all those "rescues" from work. Now there's more Lamium "Pink Pewter", Dianthus "Tiny Rubies", Artemesia "Silver Mound", Yarrow "Paprika" and "Strawberry Seduction", Columbine (some "Mix"), and 2 more Bleeding Heart "God Heart". There's a couple others that I just don't remember. Pheewww I'm all sore and achy this morning, hope there's lots of hard work for me to do at work today, will help to ease these sore muscles! =)

Lol...glad you got the leaves from last fall Speedie. Before you know it, you'll have a new crop of leaves to rake.

$21 credit from BGE for minimizing our electricity usage during the peak day. I think it makes a lot of sense.

Sally, you go girl!!! That credit is great.

PHEWWW!, speedie, I have sore muscles just reading what you did!! Hehehehe.

I'll pop in when I can.

Hmmm...My credit was just $11.63.

I wasn't even home until late afternoon. Had the A/C set on 80*, not sure it ran a lot--
besides--I it was on 50% cycling.
Had all the electronics turned off--unplugged. No outside lights on.
Dehumidifier not running....don't know what else i could have done??
Of course--the fridge and freezer were still running...

Our electric bill is lower since we're paying 7.5 cents rather than 10 or 11 cents per KWhour, thanks to the solar panels. The new A/C and duct sealing are helping with efficiency, too.

Jan, happy happy anniversary!! 42 is The Ultimate Answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything :-)

Coleup, great news that you'll be cuddling grandkids soon!

Gita, I think (not sure tho) that they compare your usual usage to your usage during the peak period.

That is correct--Sally! it stated that in some literature i got....

G.

LOL Critter - yes, 42 IS the magic number! =)

Thanks for all the anniversary wishes. It has been a wonderful experience.

All this rain we have had lately has really encouraged runaway growth of some of our plants. Photo below is of an Agastache nepetoides, Yellow Giant Hyssop. Note the word "Giant". The plant seeded into the sand between tiles of the patio and has grown to a full 9 feet as of yesterday before this latest rain, and it hasn't even started a flower spike. Several more shorter plants (less than 8 feet) can be seen in the background in a bed beyond the patio. Haven't removed it as I want to see just how tall it will grow.

Holey moley!

GT, You have yourself a tree there. Just a little more growth and it will shade the whole patio.

Just a little wildlife excitement here yesterday. My GS was asking about the big corner closet in the mud/utility room and I told him what was inside hot water heater, well pressure tank and a couple of shelving units that hold nasty household chemicals. I opened the door for him and he asked "what is that?" I look in don't see anything unusual, he says it was long and skinny and moved. DD asked like a centipede he said no it was long, skinny and black. I said maybe a small snake got inside, we had one in the laundry room a good 20 years ago. Didn't think too much about it but when Ric woke up I told him we "might" have a snake in the house. He thought maybe a small garden snake could have come in the access panel to under the house or up where the pipes come thru. A bit later he comes inside and says come look at this. A good 4ft fairly thick back snake had just crawled out of the mud room via Alfie's dog door and was running along the back deck edge for parts unknown.

long skinny and black...wow! next time better ask how long

YOWSA!!!!!

Annnd...it is raining again!. would those who DO NOT have water in the house please stand up? lol