Name That....

 Emotion! 

The Mister has been working on finishing his workshop for weeks. When we had the RV barn built, extra space was included and designated as his workshop area. Our contractor for other jobs around the house framed in the workshop, put in joists for a loft storage area, put down sheathing for a floor and built stairs to the loft. 

The Mister took over the rest of the job, and has been working at wiring the shop for outlets, putting in lights and adding additional power for overhead fans and a vacuum system. A while back he began purchasing and ordering insulation batts for the interior walls and the ceiling. The insulation for the ceiling  has been delayed. The Mister is less than happy as he wants to get moving with the sheetrock and flooring so the finish details can be completed and he can begin to enjoy the workshop. 

Today he finally got a notice that his shipment of insulation would be delivered. And, it arrived. Here it is:

Some day we may laugh about this! But, not today. He is/was fuming. He stormed into the store (I wasn't there...but I am making an assumption here) and addressed customer service. He did not receive a warm reception...until it was noticed that the "part number" for a bundle of batts, and that for a pallet of insulation bundles is in fact, the very same number. 

Oops! 

Oh, and he paid for a pallet, not a single bundle. 

Oops! 

Someone coulda, shoulda noticed! 

So, he is back to square one. He is waiting to learn when the order will be shipped and when it will arrive. 

Lots of emotions swirling around here. I am sure you can name more than a few.....

May Showers Bring....

 Weeds!

I love the garden that the previous owners of the house installed and maintained. Between the weather and our removing some trees that changed the amount of light that the garden receives, it is not faring well. And yes, it could be that I don't give it the right amount of TLC, or perhaps don't spend enough time out there telling the plants how lovely they look! Oh, and yes, it could also be that it is only the beginning of May, and with the freeze we had, some plants have to come back to their glory from the roots. And, they are working on that! 

Our rain yesterday was lovely. And, no, the rain didn't mean that the weeds grew overnight. They have been there. However, the lovely rain means damp soil, which translates to it being a tad easier to get weeds out of the garden, along with their roots! 

I spent my morning kneeling and sitting amongst the emerging ferns, digging out, and pulling out baby palms, smilax, Virginia creeper and all manner of nasty, ugly, stubborn, prickly, deep rooted, obnoxious weeds. Look at my haul....and I only covered about 20 feet of the garden bank. 

Of course, I had help (???) from the dogs. One or the other would come over to see me periodically, when I had my face closest to the ground with my hands buried in the dirt, and thus in a vulnerable position, to give me a kiss. I'm sure you can tell from the picture that Vickie is rooting me on....yeah, go mom! You got this! ...whatever!

Rain, Glorious Rain

 It's raining! 

Our last rain was on April 8, and we had < .02 inches of rain. Not even enough to wet a  whistle! 

We have already had close to 3/4" of rain in the last hour.

Everything looks greener - mostly because all of the tree pollen and dust has been washed off everything. My car is back to its usual color; I'll no longer lose it in the parking lot because I don't recognize it with its yellow-pea green coat of pollen! 

Sadly, the weather patterns show us going back into a long spell of dry weather, but I'm enjoying it at the moment and I'll take anything I can get. 

Daylilies

Evan as a kid I recall enjoying the daylilies that grew along the roadsides in the northeast. I had a growing daylily bed when we lived in Colorado, and years before that I tried to grow some on our property in NC, but they were simply yummy dessert for the deer.  

I have a partially sunny bank in my garden that lost most of the plantings on it last winter. I decided to try some lilies. I looked online for local farms, but didn't see much that had much inventory. So I looked further afield. I stumbled on the website for Oakes Daylilies. I called and chatted about what type of lily might thrive in central Florida. The gal on the phone indicated that they have dormant and evergreen, or semi-evergreen varieties and anything that doesn't require a period of dormancy would grow in our area. 

I took a leap of faith and ordered some plants. I ordered three of each of the following: 

All Fired Up

Touched by Midas

Jungle Princess

I was also given 1 bonus lily. I don't know what it will be....and I'm thinking they don't either!

The lilies came in a box with some air holes. 

The plants come in fans, with anywhere from 3-5 blades. 

A few of them were bundles of two fans, perhaps one with 2 blades and one with three.

Each fan had a nice label identifying the plant. I appreciate the the labels also specified the 

average height of the plant/flower spike (?).

Before the plant's arrival I raked the mulch and oak leaves off the hillside, and dug 10 holes. 

Once the plants arrives they were planted with peat moss to amend the soil,

and were thoroughly watered. A few of the bundled fans were separated (if they were not 

entwined), giving me a few extra plants. I will replace the mulch after I know that all of 

the newly planted bundles are settled in their new homes. (sounds like a reasonable excuse, right?!)

The plants should begin to grow with 2-3 weeks. I know I can'd hold my breath that long,

but I am anxious to see the end results of my investments (time and money). 

Reversion

Last summer I had beautiful impatiens. They have long been one of my favorite landscape flowers, perhaps because we have always lived amongst the trees and impatiens are one of a few flowering plants that will flower profusely with low light. 

This is one of the two arrangements from last year. 

Impatiens are annuals, and even though they were sheltered from the cold, the plants died back. But, not before leaving a healthy crop of seeds to assure that there would be offspring to carry on their genes! The plants began growing this spring as soon as it warmed up and they are now producing flowers. Here is the other pot:

I can't find a picture of this pot from last year, but I know it had several colors of impatiens, and now all the blossoms I see are red. It seems to me that I recall having a similar experience many years ago when I had impatiens bloom in my garden from the previous year's seeds. 

I asked Google about my observations. Mr. A-I-nstein tells me, "Most commercially bought impatiens are hybrids (F1). While they produce seeds, those seeds rarely inherit the specialized color of the parent, instead, reverting to the original dominant color of the species (typically pink, white or red.)"

So I have a bonafide genetics experiment going on in my garden!  Hooray for Mendel!

Potted

 We lost several plants to the freeze. One was an Asparagus Fern that came with the house. The fern was planted in a unique concrete pot made by the previous owners. I wanted to replant with something else, but I couldn't get the rootball left from the previous tenant out of the pot!

I tried carefully turning the pot upside down. Maybe gravity would do its work on it.

It didn't.

I tried taking a dowel and plunging it down the hole, thinking maying that would push the root ball out.

It didn't.

I tried water, thinking that if I forced water in the hole it might wash dirt away from the roots, and the remaining roots making up the ball could fall out.

It didn't.

So today, I went out to the shop and asked the Mister if he had a saw I could use to cut into the root ball and take it out, piece by piece. "Of course," he said, "there's a DeWalt for that!"

I went back to the plant, cut and pulled, and pulled and cut, and used my saw-tooth trowel, and the saw some more. I was finally able to pull the rootball out of the pot. 

I'm thinking the rootball basket that is left (on the right in the picture) may make an interesting planter in its own right! 

A Sew Sew Day

 I am ready to quilt my Lupine and Laughter quilt, but I didn't have a wide backing, or five yards of a coordinating fabric to make a backing, or even five yards of ugly fabric to use as backing. But, I have lots of leftovers from making Lupine & Laughter, and I have lots of other scraps, so I began sewing small pieces together to make larger pieces. 

My process has been to create 9 pieces that are roughly 30" square. Those will then be sewn together to make one piece larger than 80" X 80". It is almost relaxing to grab pieces, sew them, trim them and then find another that kinda fits that spot. 

Sew, I worked on that for a bit, then gathered pieces for the Desert Oasis quilt I've been working on, grabbed my smaller sewing machine and all the necessary sewing accessories (accept the ones I forgot and had to come back to house to get 😜), and trucked it all to the community center to sew with my friends. 

Did I take pictures while I was there? No....did you expect that of me? I was busy sewing, and trimming, and babbling, cackling, blabbing and simply chewing the fat. There were five of us. I found it interesting to hear what all we chatted about. Our conversations covered the gamut: what's for dinner/lunch, silly/stupid things we did as kids and didn't kill ourselves doing, what we are sewing next, what our husbands are doing while we are sewing, our pets, our health (or lack thereof), the wellbeing of our friends, when our next opportunity to sew will be, and sew on and sew forth! 

It was enjoyable. It was relaxing. And then it was time to pack up and head home. Once there I worked in the garden a bit, ran out to ALDI to pick up some veggies and bread (we love their sour dough and their Italian breads) and then back home to feed the wee beasties and water plants around our home as 'hand watering' is permissible after 6 PM.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?