The Daily Grind

You would think that, being retired, I would have all the time I need to do the things I want to do.  Sadly, no.  My activities expand to fill all available time.

Thursday was a great example (I'm behind a few days in my posts).

I started off the day with a haircut.  It had been 2 months...

I bought a new microwave oven a month ago.  After a couple weeks, it arced and popped twice even burned a black tunnel through a sweet potato.  It is more wattage and interior size than my previous one.  Trust me, I know not to put anything metal in the M/W after 25 years of them, LOL!  Keeping a pyrex measuring cup of water in it stopped the problem, but made me realize that it is designed to cook larger quantities of food than I routinely do.

And I decided there was no way I was going to get along with having a pyrex cup of water in the M/W for the next 8-10 years.  So I called Amazon about returning it.  I order a LOT of stuff from them, so they are forgiving about the occasional return.  They emailed a return label.

I repacked it so carefully I even put the peel-off plastic wrap back on!  I keep EVERYTHING from a box for 90 days, just for reasons like this.  But I had to get it back to UPS eventually and I wasn't looking forward to it.  The darn box was so big I could barely get my hands around it to carry it to the car, and the distance from customer parking to the UPS input desk seemed more than I wanted to do.  But I have a little handcart and that made it a lot easier.

Then I pulled it in the the input desk, the guy said "Wow, what are you shipping"?  I said I had a bad shoulder (sometimes a small lie eases conversation).  He casually picked it up and placed in on his counter.  Hey, he looked 25, and I'm not.  It's something you start to get used to in your 60s.

That taken care of, I drove home, where I discovered that another UPS guy had delivered a 50# bag of Nyger seed for the goldfinches.  I buy it that way because it is really cheaper per pound.  But the M/W was only 35# and this was 50#.  Yet I could lift it because it was a smaller box!  I could get my arms around it.

Ladies, when you complain that you can't reach to top shelfs of kitchen cabinets or lift heavier objects, I understand.  I'm 66 and 5'6".  I know the problems.  I have a few 2 step stepladders around the house for a reason.  Every time I buy a new pair of pants I have to bring then to an alterations guy saying make the inseam 25".  And he goes "Are you sure"?  Yeah...

Anyway, I was able to carry the 50# bag of Nyger seed to the basement (not easily).  So at the workbench, I had a 50# bag of nyger seeds and two 35# buckets of kitty litter and 2 cases of wine.  And 4 litter boxes to clean.  I knew what the next couple of hours was going to be like.

I used to buy kitty litter in 12# plastic jugs.  I saved them.  It is worth the effort to transfer it from the buckets to the jugs.  And I found a 12" funnel to help.  So I set the 12# jugs on a bucket on the floor and lift the 35# tubs to dump it into them through the huge funnel.  I can handle a 35# tub of litter but not a 35# box with a M/W in it.  Smaller!  30 minutes of pouring and I have 5 12# jugs easier to handle for the next few weeks.  Done!

Now I have the 50# bag of nyger seed (I should actually weigh those some day to make sure the supplier is honest).  I got it up on the workbench laying flat, put a 5 gallon bucket right underneth a corner overhanging the bench and cut it open carefully.  As I saw the spilling seeds were going right into the bucket slowly, I cut it open a bit more.  When the bucket was 3/4 filled I lifted the cut corner to prevent further flow.  Stuck a brick under the corner.

Remember the kitty litter jugs I mentioned I saved?   I have more.  I use them for nyger seed too.  They are rectangular and fit perfectly into my freezer with little wasted space and that keeps the seed lasting longer.  Goldfinches won't eat "old" seed, which is one reason I won't buy the smaller bags in department stores.  They sit around, get heated, and the birds don't want them.  The 50# bags come straight from a producer and straight into the freezer.

So with the workbench FINALLY cleared, I could FINALLY clean the litter boxes.  I try to do that daily, but I KNOW I've waited too long when they gather around waiting for the cleaning.  Or maybe they just find it amazing that I do that and like to watch.  Who knows what cats think?

I have found it easier to just lift the litterboxes to the workbench one at a time.  It is easier on my knees and I get to sweep away the loose litter around them.   I sweep the spilled litter (not output) into a dustpan and toss it back in a litterbox.  Waste not, want not.  The cats don't mind; litter material is litter material.

But that wasn't the end of the afternoon.  I had 3 flats of flower seedlings emerging on the bottom shelf and the lights were 12" away.  Way too far.  But 2 bulbs were burned out.  I have what I think is a very good rule.  Cats and plants get what they need before I do.  They can't take care of themselves indoors.

So I had to haul out 3 flats of seedlings, find 2 bulbs, and replace them.  The bottom shelf is the worst.  I had to place bulbs toward the back of the shelf and so crawled in on my back over the shelf.  Which is bad.  When I twist around like that, I usually get some back or rib muscle spasms.

They didn't want to go in.  It took 3 frustrating minutes to get one in, only 1 to get the other.  But 4 minutes on your back in discomfort is never fun.  But I did it and crawled back out.  Sure enough, soon as I stood up, muscle cramps!  Never fun.  But I won't stop gardening because of that.  Its worth it.

After that, since it was still daylight and heavy rains are coming today, I re-planted snow peas where the previous planting didn't come up.  I planted 20 originally and 9 came up.  So I planted 11 more.

And then, just to make sure all my seedlings were growing close the the indoors lights, I took all the flats off the shelves and rearranged the 6-packs.  Some seeds were 2" tall and some just emerging, so the re-arrangement was needed.  Now I have flats of newly-emerging seeds and taller ones grouped together. and each growing as close to the lights as possible.

All are as close to the light bulbs as possible. Matched in heightss

Then I made dinner, watched an hour of political talk TV and came here!  To blog personally and catly.

Quite a Day! 

The Day After

I hope you fell for my April Fool Joke yesterday.  I'm not REALLY having to move.  LOL!

I'm Moving

Oh damn, I have to.  I received a legal notice in the mail today that "The Western Bypass" around Waldorf has finally been approved by the State after 30 years of fussing  It goes right through my property as planned years ago.  I thought after 5 years of no action, it was dead.

I have 6 months to move.  I can challenge that but I don't think I will.  Spring-to Fall is the easier time to move.  I just KNEW this would happen someday.

I started seeing some new road construction last month that suggested the bypass was being built, but I didn't want to believe it.  Sadly, it is.

They have been ripping out trees in a long straight line directly opposite the end on the existing Bypass, so I assume they are moving forward on the idea now.  And it is coming straight toward me...

I am of 2 minds on this.  First, I have spent a lot of time and effort planting stuff around the yard.  But The neighbors' trees cast so much shade that gardening is hard.  They may be doing me a favor.  I will get the assessed tax value of the property and (bizzarely) that is possibly even higher than the actual selling price (they assess taxes to the max here).

I have explored the idea of moving each Fall for the last 3 years but chickened out.  This time, I have no choice...

What I WANT is 2 acres of sunlight and a large 1 story open room house (the kind you can see across without walls).  Getting that without having well water will be trickey, but on the far edges of city water, I can probably afford that.  I love gardening enough to pay for that AND city water.

I'll be busy for a while...

But on the other hand, it looks like I will be able to start fresh from a new house and yard and that IS kind of exciting!  The hard part will be getting my woodworking equipment and all the garden equipment (I've accumulated more than you might think.)  But there are companies that specialize in that work and on online site suggests it is not TOO expensive.

Wish me luck.  It's going to be a very busy year.

Good Computer News

After speaking, yet again, with AOL, they actually got me connected to my Mac mail accounts.  So, now instead of having to log in and out of my 3 email accounts every time I want to check my emails, I can just click on the Mac mail names and see them with no login-and-out nonsense.

And I was annoyed at being told I would be charged $5 per email account per month for the accounts and "free" help desk.   But I couldn't recall giving them any billing information, so I called them and checked.  My accounts are free just as they were on Verizon!

So it is all still free AND I can read my email accounts on mac mail just by clicking on an email name on Mail.  I am almost back to normal, but with a computer many times faster and with 4 times the memory!

I don't like the iPhoto changes much.  Do any of you who use Macs know how to get iPhoto to routinely show the file names on photos?  Other than that, I am thrilled again and getting back on track!

I am keeping the camera in my pocket for pictures of all kinds again.

March was miserable on the computer and I spent on-phone and online about 40 hours, but it is all straightened out now.

I forced it.  They didn't want to let me do things as I wanted, but they did finally.  It took time, but now I have things set up like I want it.  They weren't thrilled, but that is THEIR problem.

I'M HAPPY and I'm going to bed until tomorrow! 

Flower Friday

It has been a strange year for my Spring bulbs.  First, the warm weather encouraged the earliest daffodilsin the front near the house to emerge sooner than they should have.  Then a bizarre hailstorm knocked those earliest ones down and 3 nights in the low 20s finished the job.  The flowers bloomed, but only laying on the ground.  They don't show up very well that way.

But some of those sent up a 2nd wave of flowers, so there was something to look at, though thin.  Still, I have some mid daffodils in front, and the flowers are jusr emerging.    Even that is a bit confused this year.  The new bed in the backyard has 2 kinds also. One is early and one is late, but they are both blooming together now. 

Half of each of those were planted in Fall 2015 and I doubled each type last Fall.  New plantings tend to come up late the 1st year, so I have 4 groups this year.  So the established early ones bloomed and got knocked down.  The new early ones and the established later ones are blooming now, and the new later ones are just emerging.  Things should make more sense next Spring!

Meanwhile, in the good news department, the 6 patches of hyacinths I planted in Fall 2015 never even emerged last Spring, but I let them be hoping some would show up this year.  And they HAVE!  Not as many as I planted but some is better than none.

The Fall 2015 tulips bloomed well  last Spring, but the leaves look rather ratty for some reason.  I assumed they were dying young, but I noticed that they all have bud emerging and that is a good sign.  I can't recall if the leaves were up when the hail hit, but that would explain the leaf damage. 

The soil is not great in the bulb bed, so I plan to fertilize well this weekend and cover the entire bed in 3" of compost when the leaves die back naturally.  I think I will cover it then in landscaping cloth to kill the weeds.  A year of the compost nutrients leaching into the soil should help a lot.  Here is the entire bed.  You can see the daffodils easily; the tulips and hyacinths are in clumps (18 of tulips and 6 of hyacinths).

 I would like more tulips and hyacinths, but you have to bury them in wire cages to protect them from the voles around here and that is a LOT of work digging large deep square holes.  I may just add a lot more daffodils between the cages.  I have an auger that fits in my electric drill and that makes it really easy to plant daffodils.  Drill a dozen holes, put daff bulbs in them, shove soil back over.  Voles don't bother daffodils!

The bottom edge of the bed has a double row of various daylilies.  As they mature, I'll divide and interplant among them.  A 30x3' thick band should look nice.

Every year things will get a bit better!

Political Partisanship

I was politically aware when I was young.  At 10, I stayed up late to see the results of the Kennedy/Nixon election.  It was not as partisan then.  There were liberal Republicans in the NE and conservative Republicans in the SW.  There were conservative Democrats in the South and liberal Democrats in the Midwest.

Both parties had candidates and supporters in each wing and had to get along somewhere toward the center.  So the both parties strategies were to see how close they could get to the center and still have candidates who would promote their general programs.

Nixon changed that.  He managed to move the Republicans away from an economic to a soccially conservative program in the South.  He left the Democrats without a southern base and won.

Since then, the 2 parties have been separating politically.  I used to be a Progressive Republican in Maryland,  It took more years for the Republican Party to purge the NE of Progressive views  and there are still a few rogue holdovers.  My Liberal Democratic party conservatives have been equally purged. 

The "purification" in both parties has damaged our political campaigns.  We used to be able to choose between candidates who 55% liberal vs another who was 55% conservative.  Now our choices are 80-20. 

This can't go on.  Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan would not have a chance at getting the Republican nomination today.  Jimmy Carter ( mildly conservative) or Bill Clinton (a Centrist) could not get the Democratic nomination today.  You now have to be a fanatic, rabid, and never give an inch, to get a party nomination.  I doubt that John Kennedy could get the Democratic nomination today or Dwight Eisenhower the Republican one now.

I think there are 2 main causes for this.  First, Gerrymandering.  Gerrymandering is named for a Massachusetts government  official named "Gerry" in the 1800s where they structured a single congressional district shaped like a salamander.  It has been used over the decades since, but never so successfully as since the 1990s.  The purpose is to make sure your voting district have enough of one party to guarantee victory every election.

Back then, that couldn't be done for the whole State, because the State had many voters from both parties.  That has changed.  When a State hits about 75-80% one party, Gerrymandering works for the entire State.  It is politically wonderful but ethically evil.  But politicians trying to keep their jobs don't worry about "ethics" very much.  Both Republicans and Democrats to it.

I support measures to prevent that.

The other thing that is destroying voters from controlling elections is Dark Campaign Money.  That's  where people with extreme amounts of money can get involved in  even your local campaigns and influence them with negative ads and you don't know who is paying for it.  

I'll create an example.  "Candidate Smith voted to raise taxes twice.  Vote against Smith".  And the fact is that Smith voted against a bill to allow out-of-state industries to dump raw toxins in the local lake for a 1% tax fee on the dumpers 2 times.  Which is actually a pretty pathetically weak response.  But that's how they work. 

And connected to that is the "astroturf" campaigns.  An "astroturf campaign is the opposite of a "grass-roots" campaign.  A grassroots campaign is started by people at the bottom and builds it way up for a local cause of larger national purpose.

An astroturf campaign a fake one (like astroturf).  It starts at the top of industry or politics and works its way down prentending to be real.  They aren't, but the sure sound like it.

1. 'The Center For Consumer Freedom' supports tobacco companies and fast food restaurants.
2.  'Al Gore's Penguin Army' looked like a local criticism of  his movie 'An Inconvenient Truth', but was sponored by ExxonMobile.
3.  'Americans for Technology Leadership and Citizens Against Government Waste' was funded by Microsoft, which organized a letter drive.
4.  'Save Our Species Alliance'  - Many of these false flag operations have vaguely Orwellian names, but perhaps none are so bad as the Save Our Species Alliance. The group describes itself as “a nationwide grassroots organization comprised of property owners, farmers, ranchers, miners, foresters, builders/developers, sportsmen, recreationists, business owners and ordinary citizens sharing the common goal of making the Endangered Species Act friendlier to local conservation efforts, property owners, and local governments while at the same time, doing a better job of actually saving species at risk.” Naturally it actually opposes most of the Endangered Species Act, especially all the parts that inconvenience the logging/timber and cattle industries. Who naturally bankroll most of the group’s operations.
5. 'Working Families For Wal-Mart' was/is a group created by Wal-Mart and PR firm Edelman to give the appearance that a grassroots organization was rising up to support Wal-Mart against unions and labor. The effort mainly consisted of fake blogs including one called “Wal-Marting Across America”.

Another corporate and political trick is to pack the microphones at some town hall meetings with prepared speakers.  The announcement is made that the mikes are open, and a dozen people wearing identical clothes instantly stand in line up to say nearly identical speeches.  They are all sitting at the aisle seats waiting to go.  They use up all the audience speaking time and no one else gets a chance.

We have to find a way to stop this nonsense.  Otherwise, we will go the way of the Greeks and Romans and French and British.  Things can change, but it will take effort and determination. 

Vote for the most centrist candidate in the primary (and VOTE).  Vote for the most centrist moniee in the election.  Get people elected who will stand more toward the center.  The CENTER CAN HOLD!  We just have to all decide to reconstruct it.

Sure, we have had hotly contested elections.  But most were closer to the center than you may know.  Kennedy and Nixon were like 45-60 on the political scale.  Kennedy was hard on the Communists and he wasn't friends with hard line unions.  He expanded our actions in Vietnam.  Later Nixon worked to make peace with China and created the Environmental Protection Agency.  Watergate aside (and Kennedy had persoanal faults)  they weren't 80-20 apart. 

And now we are.  We have to get back to some degree of general agreements.  Or we will fail. 

Spring!

I am glad to say that Spring seems to finally be here for real.  Today was in the 70s and the long range forecast suggests that even the low temps will be in the 40s.  So I can safely get on with planting.

The earliest daffodils are all flower-down from stem freeze, but the new wave of flowers are opening.  There should be some good pictures soon.  The hyacinths that were completely absent last year (planted Fall 2015) are showing small flowers this year.  I am relieved they are alive at all.  I'll hope for a better show next year.  The tulips are emerging but not blooming yet.

I planted 25 astilbes in a re-dug bed last month.  I assume the cold isn't a problem for them since they a perennials.  I have another 25 for an island I created around a tree and 3' rock on the front yard.  Astilbes will appreciate the half shade AND they are listed as being deer-resistant, which matters in the front.  The deer ate most of my hostas last year so I am moving the survivors to the fenced-in back yard.  There are 2 kinds on large crinkly-leaved hostas the deer never touched so I will divide them into 1/4s and fill in the empty spots.  I have been tending toward more of the same plants in large masses, so that works too.

For too many years, I have planted "6 of this" "6 of those" etc.  Which is nice from 5' away, but looks rather jumbled from further away sort of like a pile of mixed tiles on a table.  I'm going for at least 25 sq ft of  the same plants for most of the beds.

EXCEPT I'm also going "cottage garden" along the 75'x 8' bed along the fence.  That should become a riot of self-sowing color of various height I hope!  And if I'm lucky, they should grow tall and thick enough to shade out the runner grass that showed up about 5 years ago and seems impossible to eliminate by digging them out.

Along with the new astilbe bed and the fence bed, I have 3 edged areas in the middle of the back yard.  One is a wildflower bed, one is for an invasive lychamistra, and one is for mostly spring bulbs where I am also planting dwarf butterfly bushes, dwarf roses, yuccas, and annuals that don't need much water (spring bulbs like dry summers).

The wildflower bed was initially planted last year.  I tilled the soil loosely and gaily scatterred seeds from a "wildflower" packet around.  I didn't get much.  So this year I bought specific wildflowers suited to partial shade and poor soil.  Some I planted inside in flats so that I know I have something growing to transplant randomly.  The rest I'll scatter and hope that Nature lets them grow.

And I'm cheating a bit.  I also bought a packet each for Bees, Hummingbirds, and Butterflys.  It might be a very odd-looking bed (about 30' x 15').

The lychimastra (I simply CANNOT ever remember how to spell that) bed is only 10' diameter.  But it is easy to mow around so they can't spread.  Indeed, I thought I killed them 2 years ago, but they keep coming back ("invasive" right, have to remember that).  I admire the purple foliage and the gold flowers are nice.  I just need to remember to shear off the dying flowers before the seeds spread.  Hedge trimmers are good for that.

The spring bulb edged bed is my real hope.  IF they ever grow.  Last year, the hyacinths never came up at all but have (weakly) this year.  This year 1/2 the daffodil flowers froze.  The tulips are looking promising.  And it is the closest bed to the deck.  I have the sunflower seed feeder in the center and there is always lots of activity there.  The birds go through enough seeds that the shells are pretty good mulch.  I might change the pole the feeder is on from an in-ground pole to a free-standing one I can move around to mulch other spots.

This is last year in April.  It will look like this soon, but I have 3x the daffodils and the tulips have multiplied a bit and I have gotten rid up most of the weeds...

I need to mark the spots where the existing tulips are (with cardboard pinned down with tent stakes) after the leaves are dying back so I know where to plant more between them this coming Fall. 

The finches are starting to color up.  I see slightly more gold on the males each day.  Boy can those guys EAT!  I have 2 tube feeders of Nyger seed and I have to refill them every day (about a qt/liter of seeds).  I buy the stuff in 50# bags and fill up qt bottles I've saved and store them in the basement freezer.  I order it from a local home project store, but sometimes it is available from Amazon too.  The 50# cost $75 which is $1.50 per pound; a lot better than the $2 to $2.50 per pound the small bags cost in local stores.

This is from April last year.  They aren't this gold yet, but will be soon.  I can't wait to see them like this again.  And it is good to know I'm helping them get there.  I have no doubt that I have the healthiest, brightest goldfinches in my area!

It is hard to count them, as they flutter around and fuss over perches, but I probably have at least 2 dozen.  I have about a dozen resident cardinals, a vague number of purple finches, a few woodpeckers, some doves, some titmice, some sparrows and and a few random other visitors at the black oil sunflower feeder.  The goldfinches eat more weight in seed than all the birds eating the sunflower seeds.

I watch them using a target range spotter-scope on a tripod.  That's a lot easier trying to hold binoculars in my trembley hands (DDT exposure as a teen, I suspect).  I should buy a serious camera for taking pictures of the birds too.

Quite a Day!

Most people keep regular hours waking and sleeping.  I managed that for 35 years of regular office work, but since I retired in 2006, that went totally out the window.  For example, I got up at 11 am Thursday and stayed up til 1 PM  Friday.  I did some yardwork in daylight and stayed on the computer from after dinner to 1 PM Friday and crashed for 4 hours sleep.  Got up at 5PM, fed the Mews 1st and 2nd breakfast then let them out for the brief daylight left.

Stay with me here...

Made dinner at 8 PM.  I had lots of "refrigerator-fodder" and a packaged 1/2" slice of uncooked ham.  Tghat ham slice is large.  I pulled out my 2 burned Lodge cast iron flat griddle and heated tht baby up for 15 minutes.  Talk about sizzle! 

Then I went to the basement and harvested a dozen leaves of the baby bok choy  and celery I'm growing there.  Destrung (destringed?) a dozen snow peas, cut strips of red and green bell peppers, sliced up a jalepeno pepper, sliced a 1/2 onion and 4 cremini mushrooms and went to work with the wok. 

The celery chunks . peppers, and mushrooms went into the wok first.  Followed by the onions, then the celery leaves, sliced bok choy, and shredded garlic and ginger.  Then, before they were "almost crisp", I added a 1/4 cup cornstarch and chicken broth mix and let it bubble for slightly over a minute.

My friends, it was the most perfect stir-fry I have ever made!

I did not eat it with a salad,
I did not eat it with a side.
I just put the bowl on table
And I put it all inside!

Even the TV choices were great (I eat watching TV).  There was a show about the Broadway hit 'Hamilton', a good Nature show, and MSNBC  commentary about the days political events.

I NEEDED THAT!  These last 2 weeks have been frustrating.  And I haven't even resolved all the email issues yet.  But the new computer is up and running except for that, my backup program is working, and I CAN get to each of my 3 email accounts by logging in and out for each one whenever I want to check.  I'll solve that one soon.

Cavebear

New Mac Computer

Well, the new Mac Mini arrived Wensday, but I was tired.  I had to do errands most on yesterday, but got at it in the late afternoon.  Macs have something called Migration assistant that helps you transfer important files from a Mac to a PC, a PC to a Mac, or a Mac to Mac (from new to old or old to new).

That sounds really great, but unless you have about every cable and/or adaptor in existence, it can be an adventure.  I don't, and it was!

The most direct way of migrating from one Mac to another is too simply have them both up and running with an HDMI cable between them.  Which requires 2 sets of monitors/keyboards/mouses, all of which I actually have!

But Mac Minis have only one HDMI port.  My monitors plug into HDMI ports.  But so does the recommended Mac to Mac. No amount of searching through my box of odd cables and adaptors would make that work. 

I could have gone to a local store and bought the one adaptor I needed, but NOOOOOO, I had to make it work with what I had.  Well, sometimes half the fun in life is the challenge...

And one thing I had was a brand new Western Digital (WD) 4Tb backup drive (my old Seagate 500Gb drive just wasn't able to backup all my files anymore) that I ordered at the same time as the new Mac.

So, I didn't have the right cables to go direct Mac to Mac.  But the Mac Migration Assistant said it was perfectly happy using a Time Machine backup.  So I set up the old Mac to the new WD backup disk and set it to backup the old Mac.  Took 3 hours!  It was an initial backup (copying everything).

I was just finishing a late dinner when the backup completed.  I moved the WD backup and all the other cables to the new Mac and opened Migration Assistant there.  I had to register the new Mac slightly (language, location, User ID, Password, etc.  The user name and password set me back for a while.  In spite of it being a new computer, somewhere, the Mac Universe knows who I am and disagreed with my name.  I finally discovered that my old password on Capital letters and some numbers NOW required a lower case letter also.  Got THAT straightened out, and went through a bunch of stuff about using the Cloud.  Sorry, not yet for that for me. 

They were insistent, so I had to go through a bunch of "Are you SURE?" questions.  But I finally got to the NEW Mac Migration Assistant, and it searched for an external drive.  Found it and started downloading files. 

I was really worried at first.  The progress bar stayed at 1% for 30 minutes.  But then it suddenly progressed faster and only took another hour. 

I amused myself during the wait by changing the water for my 2 Siamese Fighting fish (separate containers of course),  doing a load of laundry, tossing toys to the Mews, and listening to MSNBC commentary in the background.

But even massive file transfers through slow cables do come to an end and the new Mac reported it had completed the file download.  A quick check suggests that all my files are saved, are saved in familiar folders, and my Firefox and Safari browsers have my bookmarks.  I checked iPhoto next for all my photos.

Its not the same.  Nothing I couldn't figure out, but more on THAT soon as there are changes I don't like and may ask questions about to fellow Mac users.

Everything ELSE seems to work pretty much the same, but I checked iPhotos first as it matters more to my blogs than word or spreadsheet programs do.

The important thing is that I am up and running on a Mac with more memory, processing speed and backup.  I understand the programs (generally, given some changes)

It doesn't solve my unhappiness with the transfer of my Verizon email (which I was utterly happy with) to AOL (which seems restrictive, user-unfriendly, and overflowing with ads).  THAT is a problem to solve in a few days.  I can LIVE with AOL for right now, just won't STAY with them for long.  They want to "nickle and dime" me to death for every service to avoid what I don't want them to provide in the first place.  And I have 3 email addresses (for which they charge a monthly fee each).  And I can't simply switch from one to another as I could on Verizon, I have to log out and then back in each time. 

But the migration is complete, my new computer runs faster, and I'm back on line.  For today, that's is enough.

Planting Seeds

I've gotten behind my seed-planting schedule with the computer problems, but I made some major progress last evening.  The delay shouldn't cause too much of a problem.  My indoors tomatoes and peppers and leeks were planted on time and they are up and growing.  And the unusual late cold would probably have killed the beets and peas I should have planted outside anyway.

The late indoors plantings were all of flowers and I got 7 flats of them planted.  And since planting the seeds directly outdoors is scheduled for 4 weeks from now, all I have lost is 3 weeks of a headstart.

I'm trying something new this year.  Most of my existing perennial flowers have died out over the past years, and to tell you the truth, perennials don't bloom for very long and you have the same flowers in the same colors in the same places for years.

So I'm trying a cottage garden.  I bought a dozen packets of seeds of a few perennials and mostly self-sowing annuals.  I planted 6 of each in cell-packs (in my own sifted starter soil I mixed last month), so I know I have some growing plants of each type.  I'll plant the seedlings randomly in the old flowerbed along the fence.

And then, I will scatter most of the rest of the seeds around the bed randomly.  I have already spread 3" of 50/50 compost and topsoil mix around, so the scattered seeds should have a good start.  The indoors-grown seedlings will guarantee me of "something", and the scatterred direct-sown seeds may surprize me.  I'm keeping some of each in case the direct-sowing fails.

Partly, I'm doing this because I've been too organized about my plantings for many years.  It's not that I'm "formal", just rather geometrically-oriented and rather controlling.  Oh wait, that's what "formal" is, isnt it?  I want to force my hand on Nature.  Well, let's see what Nature will do on its own.  It is time to try a different approach!

For anyone interested, I have a real system for indoor seed-starting.  To begin with, I have a metal shelving stand that I added lights to (Ooh, my English Teacher would scream.  That should be "to which I added lights")

I mix my own starter soil from compost, peat, vermiculite, and perlite.  I fill a large barrel with it.

I reuse 6 pack cels each year, but I soak them in the laundry tub with some bleach overnight and then rinse them.  Then I add them to flats that hold water and add a mesh flat underneath for strength.  One 6 pack cel is a 5 cel; I cut one out to make watering easier.

I have a plastic bin that holds a whole flat.  I can just dump starter soil in  and scrape off the excess without waste.  The extra goes back in the starter soil trash can.  So I have a flat of cel packs leveled with soil to plant in.

Most of the cottage garden seeds are surface-sprouters.  They need light to germinate so they are just pressed lightly into the soil.  A few 6 pack cels stacked together make a perfect presser.  Others want 1/8" to as much as 1" depth.  Well that's what fingers are for! 

The surface-planted ones need light to germinate, so they get on the light stand.  The others just get stacked up until the emerge and then they get their space on the stand.  My basement stays at 64F, which is fine for most flowers.  The few that want 70-75 get stacked on the upstairs rack.  They grow better at 65F some they go back downstairs on emergence.

It's a real dance sometimes.  But what is the purpose of a hobby but to take some work?  I mean, if everytime you tossed a bowling ball any way and got a strike, who would bother to bowl?  The purpose of a hobby is to focus some effort and get good at it. 

I am hoping for some very interesting different flower garden this year and for the next few years.

I Surrender

There are times when you make what seems to be a good decision and it just doesn't work.   
I have struggled for almost 10 days now with the new Windows computer and I just can't make sense of it.  And I was a Windows user for almost 20 years.

Nothing makes sense.  Compared to my Mac, the Windows is very hard to organize, the file folders are hard to arrange, and I can't seem to control it much.  Windows FIGHTS user control.  I read that before I purchased it,and I hought I could force it to look the way I wanted, but my confidence was in error.  I can't get used to the loss off control.

If you have Windows and are used to it, wonderful. I don't criticize in the least bit.   Windows has one way of user management; Mac has another.  I'm the Mac kind. 

So, I'm selling the Windows computer I just bought.  

Yes, it will cost me something.  I paid $1,000 for it, I may be able to sell it for $600.  It is not returnable.  Sometimes you just make a mistake and have to bite the bullet.

I had several reasons to try a Windows again.  Several computer sites said Windows was about as stable as Macs (and it has not crashed this week).  Others said there were more apps.  Others said more people used them.   That seems to be correct.  

I don't want to start a Windows vs Mac war here. I just know that Mac software is more intuitive to use and easier to manage and get around.  I have more control over it.  

I had 5 malware attacks in one day on Windows. I had 2 Mac attacks in 6 months.  And my Mac software detected and deleted those.  That may not last forever, but I appreciate it now.

So 'Im going to sell the new Windows computer for what I can get (and it has additional software I've downloaded).  And buying a new Mac.

I hate to waste money.  But I expect this Mac to last 6 years or more and who wants to fight with their computer.  I'm going back to what I understand.  Because I realized I am just not ON the computer (with Windows) much anymore. 

I found a Mac Mini equal in Ram and memory etc to the Windows computer.  It costs more, but I can accept that.  

It will take 3 days to arrive, a couple days to migrate, and I should be up and working again then.  The programs will be familiar, the files will stay, the photos will be accessible again, life will be normal.

I should have just done that to begin with. But like I said, sometimes you make mistakes and mistakes aren't free.  I will be happier afterwards.

When you get down to it, that's what matters...