Paul & Mary's Daily Diary

We woke up before 6:00 am and walked the garden.  The poor trellis is currently stuck playing referee between the tomatoes and the green beans. It’s like the vegetable equivalent of a high-stakes wrestling match!

The trellises are wonderful!

Mary collected some tomatoes to take to her hairdresser.  We sometimes even kiss under the trellis!

Our morning walk in the garden!

At 9:00 am, we were ready to go to Huntington Beach for our hair appointment.  We go to the same place (saves time), and in my case, she gets done in 6.8 seconds unless I opt for the ponytail.  We arrived early and got a bagel from the store next door.

I read my new book, ChatGPT For Dummies, and made it through the first three chapters. It was rather interesting reading since I was involved in AI during the Space Station proposal at Rockwell in the 1980s. It’s come a long way!

We posted a memory jogger on the door leading to the garage but determined that to be complete, we have to add “hearing aids” to the list.

Please don’t laugh; it works!

Returning home, we dug out the Independence Day decorations and started outside in the front!

We hoisted our “We The People” flag and took down Father’s Day!

I adjusted our under-the-eve lighting system to traveling red, white, and blue!

They look OK at dusk!

I may add a subdued sound and change the colors according to the music. I love the Govee lighting systems.

At 10:00 pm, we walked outside to check the light and were happy with the initial settings.

They look great at night.

See you tomorrow!

Like a rifle shot, we zipped to the backyard for the pesky rabbits, and no evidence was found!  I think we did them in!  There is no place to go, so they are likely with the homeless in Santa Ana smoking pot and getting tattoos.

Mary and I are bringing some tomatoes to the gym this morning. We hope this veggie peace offering will distract our trainers from tearing us limb from limb during our workout! Who knew tomatoes could be the ultimate gym buddies?

Wish us luck, and may the tomato power be with us!

Gift basket for our trainers

After exercising and losing almost 400 calories, we went to the bagel store and put them right back on! We met the owner this morning, and he mentioned he bought the place eleven years ago from some folks escaping California. The shop has been in business since the 1960s.

Mary gets the energy bar, and I do my best detective impression, searching for a bagel with jalapeños hidden inside! Crumbs everywhere, clues nowhere.”

From there, we went shopping at our favorite store, Home Depot! We got hose equipment to water the last of the pots on our patio in preparation for our trip to the Caribbean in a few weeks. We also got some additional rabbit fencing, as they can jump three feet; now, they have to jump six feet over a sharp fence. Bye-bye, bunnies!

This is our onion drying rack. Onions are typically dried, or “cured,” to fully dry their outer skins before storing. Depending on the method and weather conditions, the drying process can take a few days to a couple of weeks. When the onions are dry, their skins should be papery, their leaves shriveled, and their roots dry and wiry.  The leaves turn brown, and after a week, we put them inside the HeShed until needed.

We dry the onions outside when the weather gets hot.

This tomato gets a longevity award!  This is his second year of producing excellent Toma tomatoes. Tomato plants are considered perennials, but they typically die during the winter due to frost and must be replanted annually. However, in some tropical and subtropical regions with mild winters, tomato plants can act like perennials and continue to produce fruit for multiple years if they are protected from cold temperatures.

Year number two and still producing.

Our peppers are coming along nicely! Mary cuts them open, stuffs them with cream cheese, and wraps them in turkey bacon. We call them Ratonas or little rats because we are careful when preparing to leave their stems on (tails).

Mild peppers are always good!

The rest of the afternoon, we worked on the patio and in the yard, away from our cleaning staff.

We rested the rest of the day watching some TV and having a lite dinner.

First things first!  Were we attacked by bunnies last night?  I jumped out of bed, put on my work uniform, and inspected the garden.  I found one single turd, and it was probably a leftover from yesterday!

We are not claiming victory yet because Bob was working on the gas line, and all that noise may have kept them at bay.

I spent some quality time in the front yard, tying the Hollyhocks to the wall to try to convince them that vertical is the new horizontal. At about seven feet tall, they were reaching for the stars, and I had to bring them back down to earth!

Hollyhock flowers are pretty fascinating. Did you know that they are part of the mallow family and are native to Asia and Europe? These vibrant flowers can grow up to 8 feet tall and come in various colors like pink, red, white, and yellow. Another cool fact is that hollyhocks have been used for medicinal purposes in traditional medicine.

No more bending over and kissing the grass!

I’m thrilled to report that our Japanese Maple is thriving. Its stunning deep red foliage creates a beautiful contrast against the lush greenery in our front yard!

He needs a more substantial base around his bottom.

When Bob showed up, we said hello, and then I hit the office with a vengeance! I can see the top of my desk for the first time in weeks, and every bill has been paid! We went through all my clothes and reordered them in the closet, clearing off the office table and leaving only a picture on top. Mary came in and said, “I’ll go get a puzzle!” So the table will be full again soon!

We binge-watched “The Good Doctor” all afternoon. The series debuted on September 25, 2017. The Good Doctor has received generally mixed reviews from critics, who praised Highmore’s performance but criticized the series’ storylines and portrayal of autistic people. In April 2023, the series was renewed for a seventh season and premiered on February 20, 2024. It was later announced to be the final season.

Bob and his son finished the trench for the new gas pipeline.  Before the party, we wanted the line buried in the ground so we could remove the temporary cover as it was easy to see but also easy to trip over!

The gas line is now below the bricks, and there will be no tripping!

Bob is an excellent contractor and even moved the gas line and shutoff valve to be as close to the bricks as possible.  I can now turn the gas off in two places.

Tomorrow, after a night of drying, it will look like it’s had a spa day and emerge looking fabulous!

I will be so happy because we will no longer trip on the temporary cover!

Bob finished about 7:00 pm and headed home.

While continuing to watch “The Good Doctor” Mary made us a little lunch, I call it Mary’s Dagwood!

Oh my my my!

Mary and I went to Jeff’s home across the street and visited him for a while. We tried to entertain him, but the highlight of the visit was when his pet parrot started impersonating us!

Yesterday I had many flashbacks to mt wonderful father.  He was a man’s man! He passed way too early at 63 years old in 1970.  I often wish I could talk to him again and thank him for the lessons he taught me.  He was and is MY HERO!

Today was as eventful as watching paint dry – we had nothing on the calendar! So we begrudgingly took on the role of garden warriors, battling weeds and unruly plants. We even conquered the treacherous two sheds, organizing them with military precision. And let’s not forget the epic battle to get the potting bench in shape – it was a close call, but we emerged victorious!

We did some harvesting, and around 1:00 p.m., Mary headed for the kitchen. She had something on her mind. Maybe she finally decided to confront the vegetables for being too seedy.

I quickly assumed my role in the kitchen as chief Chopper.  With a razor-sharp knife, I made short work of the kohlrabi, onions, peas, mushrooms, and several different colored peppers.  I guessed it; Mary is doing stir-fry!

Sometimes, Mary calls me “Chop Chop.”

Mary knows the order in which to cook the various veggies.   The first is the kohlrabi because it is thick and hard, and the last is the mushroom, which cooks quickly.

Mary uses her creative culinary skills.

Using soy sauce and Mary’s secret ingredients is like having a party in my nose—and everyone’s invited! The house smells so good that even the neighbors are coming over to take a sniff!

Chop Chop provides the ingredients.

The Chef (aka Task Master or Slave Driver) asked for more onions, so I chopped one in half. This onion is so fresh; it still has its baby teeth!

The onion was picked ten minutes ago!

Now goes in the cabbage and Swiss chard, also fresh from the garden!

Our cabbage tops off the stir-fry.

The rabbits are a pain in the tucass!  So, today, we did some severe bunny-proofing.  The gate shown below is where the beasts get into the backyard from the street. Mary suggested we close it off with a seal under the gate.   While at the gym yesterday, I developed a solution.

There was a four-inch opening at the bottom of the gate, but that was eliminated!

The Bunny Wars Continue

I used my heavy-duty stapler and fastened the 1/2″ by 1/2″ galvanized fencing to the bottom.  It scrapes the cement, but no crazy rabbit will be coming into the yard via this entry point.

They are not getting under this gate!

Every time we saw the rabbits, we would scare them. I would yell obscenities, and Mary would give them the “Mommy Look.”  They ran away to the back of the Shed.

So, we cleaned out the back of the shed, which had some large watering pipes, and I placed a small fence so they could not get to the back of the shed!

It was wedged into the space using the spring already in the fence because it was rolled up.

We will see tomorrow morning.

We went to the front yard with several things in mind, including checking out the sprinkler heads, getting rid of the bird nest under the eve, planting our new flower, putting up the 4th of July decorations, and washing down the patio. We succeeded!

The front yard watering system gets a check!

We came inside around 7:30 pm, had a small dinner, and watched An American President, one of my favorites.  Tomorrow we are going to do Casablanca.

Good night all and sweet dreams!