Britesea - Living the good life in rural Oregon

[Britesea]

Yesterday was one of THOSE days...started with trying to buy some more airtime for DH's and DS's phones. I started with DS's phone; chose the minutes/service days, paid for them; only to find that somehow they ended up being applied to my phone instead (there is absolutely NOTHING on the final page where you pay for this that tells you what phone number this package will be applied to). So I call their customer support and spend half an hour trying to understand what someone from Pakistan or someplace is saying... seems they can move the minutes but not the service days from my phone to his phone... UNLESS I move EVERYTHING- all my minutes and all my service days. WTF??? So then I ask why did it apply to my phone instead of my son's phone to begin with? Because I used his phone number instead of the serial number of the phone (never mind that this is one of the options offered on the site!).
Deep Breath. Try again, this time with DS's serial number, not phone number. Success! Now it's time to do the same for DH, only by now he's on his way to work. I call him and ask him to check what his serial number is and call it home to me, only he doesn't know how so I will have to wait until he gets to work so I can talk him through it. etc.... etc.... etc....
Once that's all done, I discover I don't have anymore staples to hold down the weed blocker I'm putting in the garden, so I have to go into town to pick up more staples. Also a couple of gopher chasers since apparently the battery sleeves for the ones I have are misplaced.

I didn't get anything done in the garden. I didn't get anything much done around the house either

Hopefully, today will be better. I have the materials I need to set up at least three more raised beds, the day is sunny and not too warm. Other than not being able to get my hair cut until next week when I already look like a sheepdog, I'm ok.
DH just asked kind of mournfully if I could get some whites done so he can have clean underwear... add that to my list.

 

[Denim Deb]

Tell him to turn it inside out.

 

[Britesea]

LOL, no, I did get some laundry washed and hung out. Just brought them in this morning.
Managed to plant a block of cornsalad although it's getting warm so quickly I don't know how well it will do.
Got the last strip of weed blocker in place and stapled (we had to pull some weeds first and that took extra time), so two more beds are positioned and awaiting soil. Of course, once I pulled those two beds off the others where they were protecting the new transplants, the birds swooped in on the cauliflower plants as soon as I went inside for a drink of water. They managed to kill 2 seedlings before I came back out, but I was able to cobble together a frame of bamboo sticks I had laying around and covered with bird netting. I haven't gone out there yet to see if it worked.

Have a dentist appointment today. Yay! I had lost my health, dental, and vision coverage when DH's work took spouses off the coverage, so I finally got around to signing up for my veteran's health benefits. One of the things they offer now is a plan through Delta Dental (or Metlife, but I chose Delta) for dental care. I have almost as good a coverage as I had with DH's plan, and it costs 18.30 a month. Now I just need to get some sort of vision plan (the va won't pay for vision unless it's service related) and I'll be hunky-dory.

 

[hqueen13]

I had delta dental too with my Ex, its good insurance. They make it pretty easy to deal with going to the dentist, which is good since that really isn't a fun thing, LOL

 

[Britesea]

No, the dentist isn't fun- but I do like the feeling of cleaned teeth, lol.

Today I had to go to the rental and hang around because the plumber was supposed to come and work on those pipes and the renter took off for the weekend. Finally about 3:30, I get a call from him asking if he can come in tomorrow to work on it instead. I was understandably a tad unhappy, but what can you do? Luckily, the renter's daughter will be able to stay there tomorrow so I won't have to make another trip into town. Plumber will just have to mail me the bill and wait to get paid.
While I was there, I worked on making some seed planting mats for the tiny seeds. I used some lightweight paper napkins that were 1foot square, and marked off the spacing for the seeds. Touch the spot with a dab of Elmer's Glue and stick a seed there. Voila! Once it's dry, I can lay the napkin out on the soil, cover with just enough soil to put the seeds at the correct depth, and start watering. I especially like doing this for carrots because I ALWAYS plant the carrots way too close together, no matter how hard I try. This saves me the trouble of thinning, as well as using less seed ( cuz yup, just like everything else, seeds are getting more expensive).

DH was able to get vacation time next week, so he will be able to accompany me when I go to pick up my ducklings from Holderread's (He wants to stop on the way at a gun store that he found out has black powder for his muzzle-loader). Hopefully we can also get all the rest of the grow bed frames finished, leveled, and filled with soil and compost next week. That way I can actually get all the plants into the ground before the first of June (May 29 is the 'official' last frost date- but that's just wishful thinking). I bought some of this to cover at least the tomatoes and one bed of peppers (have to choose between the bell peppers and the chilies). I made up a watering schedule that should get every plant in the garden, plus the hazelnuts, currants and gooseberries, deep-watered at least once a week- DS is in charge of that.

Next step after all that is to weave a bunch of lathes we have on hand through the weave of the fence on the north side, to make a wind break that (according to the book I was reading) should raise the temperature in the garden by about 5 degrees during the cold months, and cut down on those hot, drying winds that are the bane of baby plants in the summer.

... so when am I supposed to get the dishes done with all this?

 

[Denim Deb]

That's when a dishwasher comes in handy!

I made grow mats last year, but I made a paste w/flour and water. I tried it w/plants I was trying to start, but had no luck. And last year was so crazy, I didn't get other stuff planted I wanted to plant. I don't know that I'll try it this year since it's too late for me to get the early stuff in and the rest of my stuff is bigger seeds.

 

[hqueen13]

Cool on the grow mats! Neat idea!

 

[Britesea]

I wish I had a dishwasher *sigh* In 40+ years of having my own home or apartment, I've only had a dishwasher for about 7 of those years. My problem is I like older homes (incurably nostalgic), and most of them don't have dishwashers, or even room for dishwashers without major 'surgery'.

Did the flour/water paste hold the seed well? I was afraid the seeds would pop off too soon and I would be planting just a paper napkin.

I was thinking these grow mats would be a good little business at the farmer's market in spring, but decided that I just don't have the patience to do that. Making enough for my garden was wearying enough; and I probably wouldn't be able to sell them for enough money to make it worth my while. If I'm gonna be sitting around doing one thing for hours, I would rather knit

So today is the first day of DH's vacation. They waited until 10 minutes to 5pm to let him know it had been approved. They always do this- we had to give up making reservations for hotels because sometimes the vacation wouldn't be approved and we would lose the reservation money.

Today is also Baking Day, yum! We have a fair amount of bread left over this week for some reason, so I think I'll make bread pudding, with maybe a taco salad for dinner.

 

[Denim Deb]

I'm pretty sure it worked pretty well, but that was also over a year ago. I'm lucky if I can remember what I did yesterday!

 

[Britesea]

I know what you mean Denim Deb, that's why I'm trying to keep a journal where I can look things up later on.

The rain yesterday took care of being able to fill grow beds with soil as I didn't want to compact the soil by moving it wet, but at least I had been able to get the seed mats planted before the rain started; and even though it isn't raining today, the sky is overcast, which is good for the seeds. I finally got around to getting the winter tires changed out on the car, and tried to pick up DH's meds. Apparently the doctor's office hadn't called them in yet, so I got the pharmacy to give us at least 3 day's worth to tide him over.
Got a call from the local hardware store today; I had filled out a ticket and entered in a contest they had to celebrate 55th anniversary and it turns out I won a wheelbarrow! I have one already, but it's always nice to have a spare I can pick it up on Wednesday when my order comes in for the angle brackets I need to finish building the rest of the grow beds.

Still waiting on a call from Holderreads Waterfowl to see if I can go pick up my ducklings tomorrow or if I have to wait another month.