Sunday, September 16, 2007

Sunday Afternoon Ramblings


Today started early. Bill got up at 5:00, actually he was up before 5:00, and headed out the door to go scrounge styrofoam for packing material before heading over to the rent house. I went back to sleep until about 7:00, then when I got up I followed him to the rent house. Of course, I stopped to grab us breakfast - and mostly coffee - on the way over. We just had a couple of little things we wanted to do at the rent house, so it didn't take too long. Bill replaced the water supply line for the ice maker - hope the new tenants get a fridge with an ice maker! He checked the cable tv/dish wiring in the attic and then we ran the dishwasher to make sure it worked. It worked fine, it just occurred to us both this morning that we'd never checked it after the last tenant moved out. We only had to make 2 trips to Lowe's this morning, usually we get about 4 a day. We will probably have one more trip to the rent house before the new tenants move in at the end of the month, to mow again. But that's it, we are done and it looks really good.

When we got home, Bill mowed the lawn and split a couple more of the big logs and then I discovered that our dishwasher has a really suspicious "burned plastic" smell. The last two times it's done that, it's gone out shortly afterwards. We've had to replace a particular fuse twice on it in the last 3 years. We still have one more spare fuse. After this, if it goes out again we are just going to replace the entire dishwasher. We've had to replace a lot of "original" appliances at this house. The outside air conditioner unit, the stove and now probably the dishwasher in the near future! Oh yeah, the shower in the master bath but that was a little different situation.

My allergies are really bothering me today. I haven't slept well the last few nights, I keep waking up stuffy and unable to breathe well and I've also had to use my inhaler several times lately. I have a tendency to have dry mouth at times anyway, I have ever since I got the dentures last year, but it's been much worse lately. I think it's allergy related. My eyes are itchy, I'm coughing and sneezing a lot. I'll be glad when winter gets here and we get a good, hard freeze. Then the ragweed will all be gone and I won't miss it!

I've noticed that most of the hummingbirds seem to have vanished. There are still a couple. I took down one feeder that was empty and it won't be going back up this year. I have 3 still up, one is in the kitchen window and will probably come down for the season soon. The other 2 that are left are on the back patio. One of them is in front of the dining room window. It was nearly empty earlier today, I refilled it because I saw a hummer buzzing by it. The 2nd one out there is by the living room window and I'm not sure if it will be refilled or put away, when I take it down. It depends on how many more hummers we see. But probably it won't be put back up, it's about 1/2 full right now and I'm thinking that it's been about 1/2 full for a week or so. But I don't want to take them down too early, in case any migrating birds need a snack on the way. We've really enjoyed sitting out on the deck and watching them. We spend a lot of time out there anyway, the hummingbirds just make it more enjoyable.

I've started to dispose of some of my seasonal plants. The cherry tomato plant has already become a filler for one of the many holes the Excavation Crew known as Frasier & Maggie dug in their search for moles. The bell pepper plants will probably be the next to go. The jalepenos still have several peppers and a lot of blooms, so they won't be disposed of until the last minute weather-wise. And then they might get moved inside, although I don't know if they will still produce or not. They might be seasonal life plants. The parsley, or what's left of it after the last swallowtail larvae, will stay out there for a while and then it might also be moved inside. I have a bunch of parsley in the freezer from my plants, but we still get the occasional swallowtail butterfly caterpillar and they love parsley so we've left it out there for them. Next year, we plan on having an actual garden. This year, we had one planned but my illness happened and I wasn't physically able to garden. Then we had all that rain, so it's just as well we didn't have an actual garden.

I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon goofing off between loads of laundry. The chimney cleaners are coming Friday and we're also going to have them clean out the dryer vent. It was done 3 years ago, just before we bought this house, and now it needs it again.

Oh yeah! We had blues & greens yesterday in Dad's memory. They were good. But then, chocolate always is!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow, I am impressed with your plants! I got a sage and rosemary plant that at first almost drowned in June and then scorched in July so they didn't last long. :( I am afraid I have inherited my mom's ability to kill a cactus. We will know for sure after I get mums, I really hope they survive that way I can blame the death of the herbs on the weather. lol

Anonymous said...

I have finally figured out what I am doing wrong on growing Lavender indoors. It needs a lot of light for many hours. I was not giving it enough light for enough hours. I am going to grow somemore and give it light.
About the turtle picture- some people are smart alecks (have another word in mind,can you guess?) Froggy

Otter Mom said...

Froggy, I don't know what you are talking about! :)
Good luck with your lavendar. I can't stand the stuff myself! Gives me headaches.