Thursday 13: Around the Yard

There’s so much going on in the yard this time of year, so I thought another Thursday 13 featuring things around the yard was in order.

I apologize that the light isn’t the best in some of the photos.  It has been HOT here, and it was just too miserable to go around taking pictures until after the sun started going down.

1.     This week, we’ll start with the white hydrangea that’s just starting to bloom. 

Here’s a close-up. 

2.    Next up, we have the Shasta daisies, which aren’t looking good at all. 

The free-range chickens like to dig in the front flowerbed, so I thought I’d chicken-proof it with some decorative fencing.

3.    Clearly, the fence failed to keep them out.  I’m working on another solution.

4.    We’ve recently put a birdbath on a shepherd’s hook next to the front porch.  It’s in direct sun, so I’ve been trying to put ice cubes in it at least once a day.  The birds are definitely using it.  We’ve seen several, and we have to refill it every night. 

5.    The rose of Sharon trees are blooming. 

6.     We have full flowers.

7.    We have buds.

8.    And we have some that are right in the middle.

9.    We have a birdfeeder in the backyard now.  It’s solar and lights up when it gets a little darker than it was when I took the picture. 

10. Next, we have the flowers in the planter on the rain barrel next to the birdfeeder.  I can’t remember the name of these flowers.  I always think of them as mini petunias. 

Here’s a close-up.

11.  There are more flowers that look like mini petunias in the planter on the second rain barrel.

12.   There are also some regular petunias in that planter.  I think these look absolutely perfect.

13. Lastly, in answer to Live & Learn’s question about the groundhogs eating plants we don’t want them to eat, here’s what’s left of the basil.  They ate most of it two weeks ago, and it had started growing back some earlier this week, but they feasted on it again.  Apparently, they’re not planning to share the basil with us.  

Thursday 13: Hot, Fun, and Productive

1.    I just want to start off by saying thank you to everyone for your awesome comments on my post about growing up as a JW and leaving the cult.  I appreciate all of your kind words, and you’ve made me feel good about having written it.

2.    I finished with a fairly large project at work.  The deadline got moved up it, so I ended up working late a couple of days, but it’s finished now, and it went well.  The coworker I worked with was very kind and very adamant about making sure my name went on the finished product.  They said I’d worked really hard and deserved credit.  It’s always nice to get good feedback at work.

3.    My sister, Gabby, and her girlfriend, Amy, came to visit.  They arrived Saturday just before lunch and stayed until late Sunday afternoon.

4.    Amy got some good pictures of the cats while they were here.  Here’s one she took of Frankie.

5.    We had a great time.  Gabby and Nick get along well, and Nick and I both get along well with Amy.  Gabby recently referred to me as the founder and CEO of the We Love Amy Club.  She’s not wrong.

6.    We went to an awesome local restaurant for lunch on Saturday.  Gabby had been before and loves it, but this was Amy’s first time eating there.  She says it’s one of her favorites now.  We grilled out for dinner Saturday night and stayed up late talking and playing trivia games.

7.    Gabby and Amy both went out to give the chickens snacks with me.  They didn’t realize that some of the chickens are free-range and thought there had been a chicken escape when they pulled up in the driveway and were greeted by chickens.   Fortunately, no free-range chickens were captured, and Gabby and Amy enjoyed feeding all of the chickens their snacks.

8.    It seems like sometimes, with a long weekend, we end up feeling like we’ve wasted it by not doing anything productive, or we vastly overestimate how much we can do with the extra day, and it feels like the weekend wasn’t at all fun or restful.  This time, though, we actually hit a good balance.  We had a lot of fun visiting with Gabby and Amy on Saturday and Sunday.  We spent Sunday evening reading instead of our usual, getting ready for the week.  On Monday, we went to the gym in the afternoon and spent more time than we usually do, went out for an early dinner, went to the grocery store, and spent some time getting ahead on things for the week.  It was a nice balance. 

9.    Mortimer spent most of the weekend chilling out.  Amy took this picture of him.  He was completely zonked out in this position.  It doesn’t look very comfortable to me, but he was happy.

10. It has been HOT this week.  We’re back in the high 80s and low 90s, with high humidity. 

11. The air conditioning was out at work on Tuesday.  By 10:30, it was 85 degrees in the building, and efforts to fix the air conditioning thus far hadn’t worked.  Since we hadn’t even hit our high temperature yet (and it was hotter in the building than it was outside), my boss sent us all home to work from home for the rest of the day. 

12. It’s supposed to cool down to the mid-70s over the weekend, which everyone is very much looking forward to.

13. The immortal tomatoes (also known as cherry tomatoes) are back.  It has been years since we’ve planted any of these, and we never planted them where they’re currently growing.  Yet, every year, they come back, so I’ve taken to calling them the immortal tomatoes.  

So, how has your week been? 

Thursday, Not Quite 13

It has been a fairly busy week at work, and I’ve had an extra office day this week, so I don’t have 13 interesting things I can share, but here are a few highlights.

Howard seems to be feeling pretty good this week.  He just seems perkier and was very excited about his breakfast this morning.

I ended up working pretty late yesterday, so I only had one chicken visitor when I came home from work.  She seemed pretty happy not having to share her treats with her sisters.

It has been hot and rainy here, which the marigold has loved.  Look how much bigger it is this week.

One lone pansy has perked back up.  I think the rain helped, but it has been too hot for the pansies.

How has your week been?  

A Few Random Things

This is kind of a miscellaneous post since none of these things are enough for their own post, but I do want to start blogging more regularly.

Since this kind of post isn’t complete without a random cat picture, here’s one of Caroline.  This was one of the times she “helped” me while I was working from home. 

Speaking of working from home, after doing it for so long I seem to have lost all faith in my ability to dress appropriately for being at work.  I seem to text my sister about once a week asking if something matches.  This was the latest.  We decided that it does match. 

It was HOT here yesterday.  It rained a lot earlier in the week, then got really hot, which is perfect weather for the yard to turn into a jungle if we’re not careful.  So, we agreed to make sure we cut the grass after work yesterday.  I mowed, Nick used the weed-eater for all of the places the mower doesn’t fit, and in some of the places where the grass was so long that the mower needed a little help.  It had only been six days since we cut the grass the time before!  I’m not kidding when I say it can turn into a jungle.  Quickly!

Did I mention that it was hot?!?  Nick doesn’t normally sweat, but he was sweaty yesterday.  I always get sweaty, but yesterday I could actually wring sweat out of my clothes, which is really gross.  We’ve definitely reached the part of the summer when we are completely over cutting the grass. 

Apparently, Duke found it exhausting to hang out in the air-conditioned house and watch us mow his yard.  He has a hard life.

After we finished with the yard and got showers, we were starving, but it was still too hot to want anything heavy.  So we opted for a snacky dinner of fruit, hard-boiled eggs, cheese, and crackers.  

The cheese was a Wensleydale, which I’d never had before.  I bought it at Aldi.  And I’m honest enough to admit that I bought it because of Wallace and Gromit.  I’ll also admit that we discussed our Wensleydale in very, very bad British accents.  No disrespect to those of you with British accents.  We both love the accent but are both terrible at doing most accents. 

Our Wensleydale (Are you reading that in Wallace’s accent?) was honey lemon flavored.  After Googling it, we learned that the texture is somewhat dry and crumbly.  We both liked it.  I think it might have been a little better served with something that wasn’t also dry like the crackers were.  We still have some Wensleydale left, and I’m thinking about getting some strawberries or melon to serve with it.   I’m definitely open to suggestions on how best to serve Wensleydale. 

So what about you?  Are you a fan of Wallace and Gromit and/or Wensleydale?  Do you doubt your ability to dress appropriately after spending so much time at home?  Is it HOT where you are?