A Little Bit of This....a Little Bit of That

Today was a "This. That, and a little bit of Everything" sort of day. I managed to get out before 7:15 again, trying to beat the heat a bit. My first chore was to reseat one of the stepping stones. 

You may recall that back in June the Mister used his tiny excavator to remove our perished Pygmy palm. In the process, the machine broke one of the round stepping stones you see in front of the excavator in this picture, and unseated the other. One end was considerably higher than the other and I kept tripping on in. I knew it was a disaster waiting to happen. 

This morning I dug out some of the sand, and removed some of the weed cloth, which after many years was not really keeping the weeds at bay as so much sand and dirt had been deposited on top of it, the weeds are fine with growing on top of the disintegrating weed cloth. I replaced the stone and filled in sand around it. I finished my task by raking all of the surrounding area and seating everything with some water. I haven't decided if I really need to add another stepping stone closer to the gate, and I need to get some more pea gravel to bring the entire path back up level with the stones. 

If I get really energetic I could clean the timbers on either side of the path and stain them. 

And, if I get really, really energetic I could dig up the gravel and sand over the entire length of the garden path, cut a few roots that are intruding, level the sand base and reinstall weed cloth, stepping stones and gravel. I'm not certain I'll ever have that much energy - 😂

After I finished this task I did some weeding. I have a new crop of palm seedlings emerging. 

I planted an elephant ear plant of some sort that I bought a while back. I first planted it in an area of the garden that was too sunny. I put it back in the pot and moved it into a shadier area. It has been growing beautifully. It now has a permanent home (on the left in the picture), next door to the Caladiums. I just learned a few things about Caladiums; the plants from successive years will be smaller, and not as full, and using fertilizer with too much nitrogen will effect the color of the leaves...which makes sense since the nitrogen component of fertilizer is what makes plants have healthy, green tops. 

I trimmed a few things,

I blew leaves and grass off the driveway on my way to retrieve the garbage bin,

and finally retreated to the air conditioning for a shower. 

A friend was coming over and I realized that I had spider webs on the glass panes of my front door. Perhaps not the nicest welcome. I cleaned the panes of glass, inside and out, and then went on to clean a large window in our kitchen. The view is ever so much better now! 

The morning continued in this fashion, seeing something out of place, moving it where it belongs,

seeing something there that needed cleaning, taking care of that....

Before I knew it, it was lunch time....

left over salads.

Then I was off to play Mahjong. 

I won a few.

I lost a few.

I came out a bit ahead of the game, bringing back about $ .85 above and beyond my starting pot of $3.00!

We are heavy bettors!

I mentioned to the Mister that I didn't know what to cook for dinner.

He suggested we go out...and so we did!

We ate at Seagrass Waterfront in Homosassa.

We do not eat out a lot, and we are still exploring restaurants in our town and surrounding towns.  

Seagrass Waterfront has a covered porch next to a dock, as well as inside seating. While we were there a boat came in and the folks on the boat joined friends for dinner. 

There seemed to be a number of locals as several of the diners were on first named basis with the waitress and the manager, who did come over to see if our meal met our expectations. 

I decided the day, with temps near (exceeding?) 100°,

deserved a "Pain Killer".

It worked!

I loved the tipsy glass! 

I chose to have Shepherd's Pie, one of my favorites. 

It didn't disappoint!

We arrived home, and I watered some areas of our newly sodded yard that were showing the effects of a hard day, and I called it a day!