Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes
Just us! Robin, Mary, and I had our morning coffee and chatted for a while before getting to work. Mary and Robin headed to the office so Mary could get her 1099s downloaded with Robin’s help. I headed to the garden and worked for the next six hours transplanting strawberries, moving blueberries to the west wall, fixing the drip system, and straightening up the vineyard.
Mary and Robin made an observation.
By the end of the day, I had placed the tomato cages, sorted by size, in the beds. All we need now is plants and mulch!
Sorted by size???
There was some Swiss chard remaining in the big garden, so I transplanted it into the small gardens as it looked healthy!
I am getting hungry already!
The strawberries are all transplanted and lined up, each with its own drip line running to it! The blossoms are forming, so we should begin seeing strawberries in about a month!
This display made Mary a happy girl! Now, if they don’t produce, I will sneak to the market every few days, buy a basket of strawberries, and bring them in the house like a cat bringing a mouse to its owner.
Yummy!!!
I felt like I was behind bars. The old labels remaining from last year were removed from the cages, and I straightened them where needed. They await the tomato plants!
The support is ready to go into action!
We harvest oranges all summer long thanks to Jim and Doris! Their tree goes wild, and we help tame it every day!
The tree is loaded, and I make sure it is properly fertilized!
Trimming the plants in the rotary pots turned into a surprise treasure hunt: strawberries are in there, blushing and almost ready to snack on.
And the herb garden just hit the terrible twos—so this year it’s getting the gardening equivalent of a cozy blanket and a stern talking-to: serious mulch.
Turn, turn, turn! That’s an excellent name for a song!
Robin headed for the hills around 11:00 am, and Mary assumed her post in the Living/TV Room—remote in one hand, HSC (Home Shopping Channel) on the TV, and bargaining instincts running at 100%.
She was on standby for Benny, our vintage-clothes wheeler-dealer, to roll in and work his magic. When he arrived, Mary unloaded her stash of old costumes and vintage dresses like it was a one-woman estate sale. Verdict: successful mission—Mary was thrilled with the haul, and Benny left looking like he’d just raided a very stylish time machine.
Speaking about “vintage”, I love the 1955 Caddy (although I love the ’55 Packard Caribbean better).
1957 Cadillac ElDorado Convertible.
Benny, Mary, and Benny’s whole crew rolled in to visit Farmer John (me) right as I was out positioning tomato cages for the 28th. Perfect timing—nothing says “welcome” like watching a grown adult wrestle metal circles in the dirt.
By the time I was done, I looked like PigPen from the comics: not so much “farmer” as “mobile dust exhibit,” with a personal weather system following me around the yard. The need for a warm shower was not too distant.
We sat back and watched TV for a while. I finished off “The American President”, a movie I could see over and over. When the movie was over at 10:00 pm, we headed to bed. It has been a long day! Mary mostly checked for light leaks! I made sure her embroidery equipment was stowed away safely.
Before crashing, I checked my messages, and we got a Vicky-Gram which said, “This is a big giant ship, I think 16 floors, and there’s all kinds of things to do on it, so let’s see how much we can get done. I’m going shopping tomorrow, thank you. We will be in Key West.”
We told her the big ships will be fine, and her seasickness will not occur. YEAH!
