the weekend

I accomplished two things Saturday. Two months after Big Mama made her last and successful break for the wild life, the pond pump quit working. These dudes cost around $80 and I wasn’t springing for another one for a pond full of minnows. Minnows survive in puddles fer cryin’ out loud so I’m not worried about them and besides now they get their fill of mosquito larvae. Good job fishies. So Saturday, six months after Big Mama’s big prison break I finally dismantled the pond filter and cleaned it out for the last time, for the time being anyway, left it all out to dry in the sun and then put it away in the barn.

The other thing I did was use the hedge clippers to cut down all the gone by and dead red salvias between the long day lily bed and the fence sections between my property and the Wicked Bitch of the West’s property, which her son finally did come out and mow last week. Do I have a before picture? Who are we kidding, it’s me, of course not. I could take a picture of the pile I accumulated or the now clear stretch of ground but, eh, boring. So trust me, it’s a big improvement and I can now walk back there. I came in hot and sweaty and sat under the fan nekkid until I was dry enough and cool enough to put some clothes back on. And then of course I was useless the rest of the day.

I did manage to work on my skirt a little bit. Took me two tries and the use of the seam ripper to get the pocket back in correctly and then I sewed the side seam. Now I’m ready to gather it and sew on the waist band, run the elastic and be finished.

I had planned for Sunday to be a lazy day, not work outside, not get hot and sweaty, make progress on the book I’m reading, work on my skirt but my grandson Mikey called yesterday, he was over at the shop. He had come by on Saturday to talk to me about renting space in the shop to do some side work on cars. We struck a deal and he showed up Sunday to start cleaning out, moving the stuff in the bay he will use. So he and a friend not only moved everything out of that bay but they moved stuff around in the big bay getting it more organized, more organized, but it’s still a mess in there. So I spent a good deal of time in the shop trying to make decisions about what to throw out and where to put things getting hot and sweaty anyway. I did manage to gather and pin the waistband on my skirt later.

The orange cosmos are in full bloom, 

been seeing a few butterflies…a queen, a few fritillaries, a sulfur, and some long tails but mostly they won’t cooperate for pictures.

One more picture, the night blooming cereus, the whole plant (you can see some of the spent blooms dangling). It’s huge and very hard to get it moved into the garage for the winter. I’m probably going to have to prune it back some before it’s time to move it this year.