Freakin’ Friday

It was hot here again in Michigan with no rain in sight. I went home and cut the side lawn at lunch (its heavily shaded and the only grass that’s still growing). I also watered the container gardens and the raised bed garden. I really should have switched shirts as my back was damp on the trip back to work (I hope I didn’t smell).

I spent the afternoon both doing and trying to document a ridiculously complicated process of entering or deleting IT asset information into PeopleSoft (our ERP system). I think I have about 1/3 of it written down, but it’s a bugger!

When I (finally) got home after work, I’d planned on hooking up the new sprinkler and watering the front lawn. But, the sun was still shining on it (and most of the water would evaporate), so I decided to wait until later in the evening.

Instead, I went inside and started the weekend wash (well, just the pants this time as I’m out and will probably need some to go and get my hair cut in the morning).

I walked out back to secure the few tomatoes that had reached the second tier of the support with the Velcro tape. I love that tape as it works so much better than the twist tie stuff. As I recall, when I was a kid, my Mother used to use her old nylons to tie tomatoes to a stake, but I don’t have any...

I noticed the last few sweet pea pods had matured, so I picked them, shucked them and ate them raw. To me, there is nothing that tastes better from a garden than fresh, raw sweet peas. I also noticed one of the hot pepper plants my neighbor had given me was leaning over, so I staked that. I also noticed it had about a 3-inch pepper on it (with a thickness of less than half a pencil). Unfortunately, I was curious (since none of them came with tags as to what they were), so I picked it and bit into it.

HOLY SH*T!

My mouth was on fire (worse than Jalapeños). I spit it out and ran into the house. My milk (the usual advised remedy) was rancid, so I drank copious (and I do mean copious) amounts of water trying to drench the fire. That didn’t work. So, I chewed five or six salted pumpkin seeds (see next post) and that seemed to help a bit. I don’t know what those peppers are called, but they should be illegal in the US.

About 8:00 PM, the shadows had lengthened on the front lawn, so I went out and hooked up the new sprinkler. I put down a cake pan (to gauge the amount of water), turned it on and immediately checked the pattern. Uh, oh... I placed it in the same spot as the old one and on the house side, it did reach the garden, but on the roadside, it was about 15 feet short!

I went inside to read the box (there were no instructions) and, yes, I had it at the maximum settings. Dammit! I cheaped out and bought a $9.00 (but name-brand) sprinkler. But, I figured some water was better than none. So, I let it run.

I went inside, baked another frozen pizza and watched Turner Classic Movies (they had a Gene Autry movie marathon on) and every hour or so, I’d go outside and check the level of the water in the cake pan.

Finally, about 11:30 PM, I gave up. You need 1/4 to 1/2-inch of water to save the lawn and I still had less than 1/4 inch in the cake pan.

So, I went out back to turn off the water and the security spotlights lit me up. I shut it off and I heard a voice say, “Hi!” I looked around, but since I was in the light, everything else was dark. Finally the voice said, “How ya doing?” and I realized it was coming from my neighbor’s house. So, I walked out of the light and saw my neighbor’s wife, sitting on the deck of their pool in her bathrobe, enjoying the coolness of the evening.

I walked to the fence and we had a rather lengthy conversation. We talked about our kids, grandkids, our respective ages, the economy, past histories, jobs, pets, my garbage disposal (she offered her husband's help) and so on. It was very pleasant and the fireflies added a nice touch (but the mosquitoes did not). We finally ended our chat a little after midnight and I dragged in that piece-of-sh*t sprinkler, shut the gate, locked the door and went to bed.