who is that person in the mirror?

I think all my wrinkles underwent mitosis the other day.

I did take the truck over on Sunday and gathered up all the pruned branches off the white orchid shrub and the tallow tree and the vines of the virginia creeper and Eric emptied it onto the burn pile for me. Eric works with my grandson Mikey at the same auto repair shop and he and his wife rent a room in my daughter’s house (long story about how that came to be but it’s working out well for all parties) and so Eric is often over at the shop too after hours and weekends. Works for me. The boys are quick to help me with whatever I need. And since Paisleigh was also there on Sunday she tagged along with me. We ‘played chalk’ and she’s getting better at drawing a hopscotch and writing the numbers with a little help and guidance and then we came in and played doctor with one of the stuffed toys. Then she wanted to look at some pictures on my computer and when we got to the picture of the carrots I pulled the other day we went out and she pulled a carrot for her Pop Pop (my son in law) for him to cook and eat.

Then we looked at more pictures and then she wanted to write with my keyboard on the computer and this is what she wrote:  l pxooxaos-0qs0iqi  q os oq  iiufhofofooioir4utlkkhdjjcjkjkkjksjkjglllhskslljfojf’lofjrfhfljj. Then we played taking a nap and after that I took her back to her dad over at the shop so that I could go back home and take a shower and an actual nap. Only I sat quietly and read for a while instead.

I caught my neighbor Gary on Monday coming back from his evening walk and while he doesn’t have a pole chain saw he has a pole saw and he said he’d come cut the branches for me the next day, which he did Tuesday morning cutting more of the high branches above the weatherhead and some that were close to the end of the house. 

So already I have another load of branches to pick up and haul to the burn pile including a pile at my house from Monday when a windstorm blew through bringing a little rain that dropped a bunch of small to medium branches and one fairly large limb. I love that my house is surrounded by trees but why do they have to all be ones that self prune and drop branches all the time! 

Small forays out in the yard Wednesday, watered the plants in pots in the morning then later dead headed the zinnias which are still blooming but waning. Flowers are smaller and some of the smaller plants have died back. Pulled a few weeds. This will be the modus operandi for the foreseeable future entering the dog days of summer. 

Last spring you might remember that I moved a bigger table into the barn to keep my gardening and potting stuff on and put up a small shelf which almost immediately wasn’t big enough. I cut a longer shelf board a while back and today I finally put it up where the short shelf was and then put the short shelf underneath it. 

The mexican bird of paradise, also called pride of barbados, is still blooming as is the rangoon creeper,

the morning glory bush, 

the aforementioned zinnias, and the yellow bells.

On a closer look this young lady was looking for her next meal. She’s only about 2” right now but will get much bigger.