Category Archives: garden

Reactions: Installment 2

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Mr. Aitch wears white socks.  Every.  Day.  He used to get holes in the toe so I started buying him Gold Toe® socks*.  No more holes in the toe.  Yay!  Now he gets holes on the bottom of the heel.  I need “Gold Toe and Heel” socks for him.  It seems that no matter how often I wash whites, he always runs out of white socks.  So I bought him another package of six pair last week.

Socks

Now the rest of the story:

This past Saturday I planted all the flowers and herbs I bought the week before.  I had to wait for a day when Mr. Aitch was available to move the bags of soil for me.

No sooner than I got started, I felt something on my arm.  Without looking I just brushed it away.  I have no idea what is was but my arm started itching immediately.  I ignored it until I was finished.

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Please ignore my faded and stained planters.  I scrubbed them first.  Really, I did!

I got myself cleaned up and noticed the raised welt on my arm.  A drop or two of hand sanitizer usually calmed the itch for hours.  This time it worked for about two minutes.  I figured it was a spider bite since this has happened to me before.  In the past the site of the bite would swell up to the size of a small grapefruit.

Mr. Aitch suggested I take some Benadryl.  Benadryl and I don’t get along very well.  It makes me drowsy enough to be nonfunctional then causes nightmares when I do sleep.

When I went to the market Sunday morning after church, I asked the pharmacist what I could use to stop the itch.  Hydrocortisone cream.  I felt relief instantly.

I applied more to the bite area (including the gelatinous glob forming under the skin) before I went to bed but needed to cover it so the cream would stay on my arm and not get all over the sheets.  So I cut the top off of an old pair of holey white socks Mr. Aitch threw away as a way to cover the bite.

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You’re going to have to trust me on this.  I cropped out the discolored holey part.  You can thank me later.

I asked Mr. Aitch to help me get the sock top over the medicated mess.

arm

I told him I cut the top off of one of the new pairs of white socks I just bought him.

Wha…..?

The look on his face was priceless.  I thought he was going into shock.

Just kidding, Honey!  It was an old sock.

Rarely do I pull one over on Mr. Aitch but I did this time.

*Note:  The opinions expressed here are mine and mine alone.  I received no, nada, zero, zilch compensation from the fine makers of GoldToe® socks.  I just wish that I did.

My view

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My view from the breakfast table of a small part of our backyard provides me with a variety of happenings in nature.

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Most mornings one or two rabbits who live under our deck nibble on grass.  At least one chipmunk scampers across the deck.  Various birds such as robins, wrens, woodpeckers and the occasional blue bird peck at the ground and surrounding trees for bugs and worms.  No fewer than four squirrels defy gravity with their aerial antics as they jump from branch to branch, tree to tree.

This morning a hummingbird frequented the hummingbird feeder and several squirrels ran helter-skelter across the ground.  A large hawk swooped down several times towards the squirrels.  Was he successful?  I’m not sure but the backyard became a ghost town rather quickly though the hummingbird (circled in the photo below) seemed oblivious to the drama.  I could hear other song birds in the trees.

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But all the small furry creatures where nowhere to be found.

My windowsill garden

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I started a mini windowsill garden last week.

Romaine lettuce.

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What I did was save the short stalk end of the Romaine lettuce, put it in about a half-inch of water, and place it in a sunny window.  I change the water every day.  The progress is as follows going clockwise from the top Chobani container: Sunday – April 28, Tuesday – April 30, Sunday May 5 and Friday – May 3.  The first Romaine stalk I started is in the Chobani yogurt container.  I experimented with the clear vs. opaque containers to see if it made a difference.  Apparently it does.

I can cut and use the lettuce and start the process all over again until the stalk sends out a thick seed shoot, then I need to find a new stalk and start over.  I read someplace that these can also be started in the ground but I have a lot of rabbits and doubt I would get any produce before they nibbled it all up.

I understand you can grow celery this way as well.

Will this mini windowsill garden keep us in Romaine lettuce all spring and summer?  I doubt it.  But it’s fun to watch it grow.

Spring has sprung

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We went from snow flurries last week to 80+ degree temperatures today.

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My car has the salty remains of the slick, snow-covered roads and a windshield covered with kamikaze bugs that couldn’t wait for warmer weather.

Some of my early bloomers burst out from under the leaves still covering my flower beds.

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I love daffodils.  The lilies-of-the-valley shouldn’t be too far behind…

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