Bits and Pieces

The garden is coming up beautifully, albeit a little fast. I've been enjoying watering in daylight every morning.

I spent part of Memorial Day weekend thinning out portions of the garden, including the lavender. I should have snapped a photo before I began, but I didn't think of it. Lizard was the lavender expert. He wanted to have a small lavender farm one day. He studied how to care for them. He's the one who knew how to prune the plants at the end of the season. I hoped last October I hadn't killed it by cutting off too much and too deep.

The main plant started looking pretty dead, although even dead, it's the best-smelling growth on the planet. Most of it looked as if it wasn't going to come back this year, and I'd been wanting to trim off the old wood ever since the weather began warming up.

I spent more than two hours trying to gently trim the old seemingly dead branches because there was growth deep inside the main plant. I accidentally cut off two branches with live growth, and I put them in a mason jar with water to see what will happen. I don't know if you can start a new plant with cuttings, but I intend to find out. Plus, for now, the branches are still alive. And they smell so wonderful!

The result of my lavender hair cut isn't very pretty right now, and my back was so sore by the time I got done. But man, there is nothing more pleasant than trimming lavender! I could have stayed down there on the ground with those dead branches all day!




I often see baby bunnies scampering from the garden as I begin watering. I guess there's no getting away from the garden terrorists.

One morning last week, I found a deep hole in the flower raised-bed garden. It appeared someone dug all the way to the bottom and all through the mouse tunnels. Bulbs were not eaten but tossed aside, as if that wasn't what the digger wanted to digest. We assume it was a fox, and I was happy to replant my bulbs, hoping the mice were at long last gone.


No such luck. Three days later, a mouse was right back in the same place, with new tunnels, and chewed bulbs. Argh!!!

I went right back into high security mode, layering the spices on my garden and digging the soil every day.

Two days, three days, four days... no mice... Perhaps this time, they realized this wasn't a safe place to nest.


blink, and you miss it
Then I found one again. He (or she) had moved into the tomato and pepper garden, which also is loaded with onions and spicy oregano. And carrots, which is what this particular mouse was feasting upon. I used up all the rest of my cinnamon, cayenne pepper and black pepper layering both the veggie gardens, and I'm digging up the chewed up carrots. But I think I'm losing the battle.

I don't have a whole lot more energy left to fight them!

So I looked up kittens available for adoption in the area. They wouldn't be mousers until next year, but perhaps we would have so much fun with new members of the family, we wouldn't care so much about the mice and the bunnies.

I'm waiting to hear back from two different kitten parents, and I hope I have a big announcement soon. However, what we're looking for seems to be in high demand, so perhaps it won't be in the next week or two. I think, once our filed adoption applications are approved, we'll likely be put on a waiting list.

I think a new family member (or three) will be just what Lizard needs right now to restore hope and optimism. He took a turn for the worse about 17 days ago and is having difficulty walking now. We haven't given up hope, and he's working as hard as he can to regain his skills. We're hoping these latest changes aren't permanent.

Due to some balance issues, we've had to make some modifications at home. I'm still not going out much, and we needed supplies, so I ordered them.

I picked up some primo wash cloths rated very soft and thick. The manufacturer supposedly supplies hotel chains. The new stash arrived last weekend, along with more men's socks. We washed everything before putting them away, and I forgot about the comments some buyers made about the "incredibly soft and thick but high quality" cotton in the face towels. Many people said there was a ton of lint after the first wash.

No kidding.




I spent nearly an hour trying to hand-pick the lint off Lizard's new socks. Packing tape didn't work. I tried.

When I first pulled the wash cloths out of the packaging, Lizard commented, "Oh, you can dye those!"

Oh, how I love this guy!

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