Thursday

Thursday was noticeably less humid, although it did hit 82 degrees in the afternoon.

At lunch, I stopped at the Newburgh Grill and got a cup of beef vegetable soup and a patty melt (I’ve been eating too much chicken and pork). Then I stopped and filled my gas tank. The light hadn’t come on yet, but it was almost empty. It cost me $47.00 US and I only have an 11 gallon tank!

Then I went to Lowe’s and bought a new spark plug, air cleaner and pre-cleaner for the riding tractor. That only cost me $23 US.

When I got home, the stump was neatly ground up (the other two times I had that done, it looked like a small bomb had gone off). I took a couple of pictures, before changing clothes. When I went back out to start watering the container gardens (next chance of rain is supposed to be this weekend), my neighbor was filling in the hole with some dirt he got from his yard.

It’s not enough, of course, but it’s a start. This is the third time I‘ve done this and, unless you mound the dirt, over the year or years, the ground sinks. You can still tell in the front yard where I took out that gigantic evergreen, even though I add topsoil and grass seed every spring.

We chatted a bit and I paid him the money we’d agreed on ($270 US). He said he noticed I’d trimmed the ends of some of the branches last night with my pole lopper (I forgot to write that in the Blog entry). I said I just didn’t want them to get any closer to my cable wire. He offered to take the whole branches next to the trunk for free if I let him have the wood. I readily agreed as it will both protect the cable wire and let more sunlight onto the front grass and gardens. Also, it will help my continued efforts to keep the black walnut trimmed right as it’s a beautiful tree.

The cats had barfed on the bedspread so that and the clothes I wore today went into the washer. Then I hooked up the oscillating sprinkler to water the garden around the reflecting pool and, as a side benefit, the arborvitae surrounding the St. Francis garden. I’d like to get those fertilizer spikes in soon.

When the timer went off, I moved the sprinkler to water the garden in back of the house and the raised bed herb garden and then tried to pound the fertilizer spikes in and around the St. Francis garden. Some were in the mulched garden and went in easy. Others needed to be in the grass, but since I had just watered (and in some cases, using the claw on the hammer to open a hole) I managed to get the rest planted all along the drip line of the four arborvitae back there.

Back inside, I made dinner: another BLT with a tomato I just picked from my garden and the last of the bacon. I put the now-dried bedspread back on. The timer went off at 8:16 PM and I went outside. I turned off the water and reeled in the hose under the glare of the security spotlights.

I shut everything up. checked all the locks and watched some TV until 10:00 PM when I went to bed.