Sunday

I slept in until 7:00 AM on Sunday. I warmed up the coffee and posted the Blog entry. It looks like it rained recently, but its not raining right now.

I cleaned up the kitchen, took out the trash and swept the downstairs floor. I shaved and showered during which time I missed a friend's phone call, so I called him back. We caught each other up and then said our goodbyes.

I went out and made my brunch (it was after 10:00 by then). I made my old favorite, roast beef hash, topped with two over-easy eggs. I cleaned up that mess and started the dishwasher.

Then I went to Home Depot. I need some heavy duty wire, a metal fence post and some landscape fabric. I got all that, plus an 8-pack of AA batteries and paid the nice lady $48 US.

Back home, I was hoping the forecasted thunderstorms hold off for a while, because I really need to clean the downstairs shower. The shower curtain, along with the bath mat and the upstairs bath mat went into the washer and I sprayed the shower tiles down with mould killer. After I rinsed that off, I washed them down with Top Job and a brush. I rinsed it all down and, when the washer was done with the first rinse, I took out the shower curtain and hung it back up to dry.

Then I took the fence post out along with my hand sledge and, after determining the optimum location, pounded it at least half of it length into the rear garden. "What am I doing?" you may well ask. Well, ever since the flowering plum grew above the cement wall in back, it has started leaning more and more towards the east.

No, I don't think it's a Muslim, I think it's the prevailing west wind here, maybe mixed with a weak root system. Anyway, I've noticed it for a year or two but haven't really thought and/or done anything about it. But, the last time I chatted with my neighbors, Rick asked me why that tree was leaning over so much. That was the push I needed to fix it.

So, I cut a foot off a small black hose (something or another I had leftover in the garage) and about 20 feet of the wire (14 gauge galvanized wire - the smallest amount I could get was 100 feet, but I'm sure I'll use it somewhere, sometime).

As I said, I determined the optimum location for the stake. How? I walked around the tree and, where it was visually perfectly straight, I put the fence post about ten feet right behind there.

I threaded the wire through the hose and put it around the trunk, just after the first branch (so it can't slip down). I then twisted the hell out of the wire, first by hand but finishing with a pair of pliers.

I admit, I took out my "come-a-long" to bend the tree backwards, but it actually moved when I just pushed on it (which leads me to think of the shallow root system theory. So I threaded the wire through a convenient hole in the metal fence post and started pulling. When it looked more or less straight, I double-wrapped the wire around the stake and then repeated the twisting, first by hand and then finishing with the pliers.

Hopefully that will give it a chance to grow bigger, taller and, maybe more importantly, straighter. I took before and after pictures for you. Back inside, it was almost 3:30 PM, and still no rain. So, I downloaded the Photos and then laid down for a nap.

The doorbell woke me up, and heard Jake and Carla, yelling hello. They had some sort of plumbing problem (I didn't ask and they didn't elaborate) and needed to borrow some tools.

Since I know they are taking a short weekend trip next Friday to celebrate both Jake's birthday and their anniversary, so I asked him if he would like his birthday present, now. He said sure, so I gave them to him, sadly, unwrapped. Still, he seemed grateful and then they left. I went back to bed...

I woke up at 7:30 PM, refreshed. I went out and watered all the container gardens. It dawned on me that I never planned on nor planted the two chair gardens. Damn!

I took the last flat of Violas (Penny's all season mix, BTW) and the remaining two habaneras and moved them out front (they will go in the front garden once it's weeded and fertilized). I watered them as well and finally went back inside after 8:00 PM.

I took out a cup of frozen peas, two cans of tuna in water and two cans of Campbell's mushroom soup. I began boiling water for some egg noodles and combined all the ingredients in a saucepan, after draining the tuna. So dinner was another old-time favorite, tuna and peas over noodles.

I watched my shows until 11:00 PM and then went to sleep.