Yard Work

Well, I guess it's still yard work if it involves digging holes and placing posts!  Bill started building the new trellises for the honeysuckle we're going to plant along the back of the house.  Three trellises, two of them will be separated by our bedroom window.   On the opposite end, the end and middle trellis will be separated by a fan-shaped trellis which will eventually have something else on it.  Possibly a climbing rose, I'm not sure about that yet.

This is a old picture of the rock garden, I'm not sure if it was before it was redone and enlarged or not but the trellis is the one that Bill built for Jessie.  It has morning glories on it but the honeysuckle we planted 1 1/2 years ago is now really taking off and may take over the entire trellis.  The ones Bill is building now are similar to this one.  The iris plants are where the trellises are going to be, the iris will be relocated.  Probably to around the redbud tree and probably around one of the trees in the front yard as well.

 

We're going to plant trumpet vine at the trellises on the back fence.  The ones that had morning glories that were doing wonderfully well.  Until the builder moved the fence, that is.  Although they actually bloomed the last two days.  Even though they have been pulled up!  They don't seem to realize yet that they are dead.

 

Otter's gone over to her friend's house, they have their regularly scheduled Dungeons and Dragons game today.  It's once or twice a month, depending on everyone's work schedules.  Otter worked out an alternating Sunday off schedule with her boss, which means that she'll be working next Sunday which is Labor Day weekend.  Already.  It still seems like it should just now be Memorial Day.

 

Labor Day weekend is when I try to get my flu shot.  That way, I have three days to recover!  Sometimes I need all three days.  Otter has to work Saturday, but we're still planning on getting the shots Friday afternoon.  She doesn't usually have the reaction that I do, she did have a bad reaction one time.  But that was when the Tulsa City/County Health Department stored the flu shot serum improperly and it went bad.  Otter was very sick all that weekend, but we didn't realize what it was since she'd never had a reaction before.  A few months later, she got the flu and was very sick again - along with probably 90% of the Tulsa area!  The reaction was probably because of the improper storage situation.  The only other time she possibly had a reaction was a couple of years ago, she was fine but suddenly threw up on the Saturday night but she'd also had a lot of allergy issues and that could have been the problem as well.  She may have some arm soreness at the injection site.  Me?  Well, I have the arm soreness.  And I have mild flu symptoms for a couple of days.  Not enough to really say that it's the flu, but it is the way I react to the shot and I will feel cruddy.  But it's worth it, if it helps me avoid the flu.  I did get the flu in January, but that was probably because they don't always guess correctly which strains will be dominant and it was a fairly mild case.  So mild that I didn't realize at first that it was the flu.  Otter got the flu a couple of years ago, but it was the same situation - the dominant strain was not one that the shot covered and that is probably the one she got.  But usually, it's for the right strain.

 

I have been calling Walgreen's on a regular basis, their ad has been saying for about a month now that the flu shots are available but the local stores haven't had it yet.  Today, they do have it.  So we're going this coming Friday.  Yes, Froggy.  We will get ice cream!  And it may well be from Braum's.  We'll also pick something up for dinner on the way home.  My reaction can start anywhere from 10 minutes to an hour after the shot, usually it's within about 30 minutes.  So, I like to make it as easy an evening as I can.  We'll get the ice cream before Friday.  Then, we'll pick up whatever we decide on for dinner on the way home.

 

While we were working on the trellis, I found the cutest little thing in the yard.  She had a very long neck and a shell, and I already texted pictures to Froggy.  Otter took a couple of pictures on her camera, but we haven't uploaded the pictures yet.  I'll get one posted in the next day or so.  We relocated the tortoise to the field behind the houses behind us.  Frasier would possibly have killed her, and we don't allow anything to happen to our tortoises if we can possibly avoid it.  Froggy, I know you are not a fan.  But they are very important animals, they play a MAJOR part in protecting our ecosystem.

 

Bill did something else this morning.  He started burning what was left of the limb pile.  He got about half of it burned, but then it started to get windy so he quit adding limbs to the fire and let it go out.  He stayed out with it until it quit smoldering.  He's not sure when he's going to get the rest of it burned, it depends on the weather.  I don't think we're supposed to get rain for a few days, but wind is not a good thing when you are burning anything outdoors.

 

Now, if my arms aren't too sore from the work we did this morning, I might attempt to crochet.  I'm back to thinking that maybe I do want to sell stuff on etsy.  I set up a shop months ago, but then I decided against actually selling.  But now I'm thinking that maybe I should.  I'll figure it out eventually!

 

Time to go make dinner.  Sloppy Joes, I think.