Flowers

Last of them except the pansies I need to plant around the mailbox and deck pots...

Asters.

 Balsams.

US Election

In every election, someone wins and someone losses.  My choice "didn't win"...   So we will have President Trump (again), a Republican Senate, probably a Republican House, and a Republican Supreme Court.

I won't get into the politics involved.  I'm not here to start any political or social arguments (I do that elsewhere).  But I will say that I am  thoroughly depressed and worried.  There are likely to be some domestic and international consequences that many people are not going to like.

I will not be watching the political news channels much for a while.  I read The Washington Post newspaper while I eat lunch.  Just skimming the headlines of the various articles will tell me everything I need to know for a while...

There is plenty for me to do in the yard before Winter sets in, and plenty to do in the house after that.  I will post about that.

Standard Time

 Change to Standard Time took time, but went well.   Except the wristwatch!  The evil thing has 4 buttons which are all a bit confusing.  Sure, I keep the instruction pamphlet in the box.  But the instructions are nearly impossible to follow.

I spent an hour Sunday night trying to simply change the hour.  I couldn't get it to work.  

The instructions say to press and hold the A button in Timing Mode.  What, like through the whole process?  Or just for a while?  Then, it says press B (with the A button pressed or released?).  

Supposedly, the hours flash first.  No, it switches to 24 hour time.  The C button is for start/stop.  Should I press that to start changing the time?  The D button is supposed to advance any mode you are in.  Pressing it just changes 24 hour back to 12 hour time.

So I gave up for the day.

Monday, I had some better luck.  Sometimes doing the same thing over and over does result in changes!  Suddenly, I saw the hours blink.  I was able to reduce the hour by one.  HURRAY!

Another continuing problem has been laptops.  My old one had 23 letters that came loose and I coud repair that even with superglue.  A replacement (refurbished) would just not work (and I waited too long to return it).

So I bit the bullet and just bought a real new one.  It is charging up now.  I'll connect it to the main internet connection later to get updates and my personal choices online later.  It will be nice if I can use it in front of the TV replying to blogs again while watching Univ of Maryland men's and women's basketball and Washington Commander football games all Winter.

A Personal Political Statement

 I like to vote on Election Day itself.  It is so easy here, you are in and out in 15 minutes.  And I love the "I voted sticker.  I have been collecting them this century.

I have a preference, of course.  But more importantly I vote.  

I've researched every item right down to the School Board.  I have my choices made.  This isn't a contested State at the Presidential level, but some down-ballot issues are important and those matter too.

So if you haven't already voted, go to the polls and VOTE.

Personally, I would say "vote for the non-Trump candidate of your choice", but vote.  But if Trump is your guy, vote for him.  Just vote!

It matters that you participate.  You can't complain about an election if you don't vote.  

I am about to make breakfast.  Too eggs sunny side up, 2 country links, and two pieces of raisin/cinnamon bread with milk and green tea.

Then I am going off to vote.  If I did nothing else for the rest of the year, that would be OK.  Voting is that important.

And then I'm going to get good and drunk tonight, sleep for 12 hours, and hope to wake up Wednesday with results I hope for...

Some graphics...

I am leaving now to go vote...

Too Much To Do

I mentioned previously that I have about 500 Spring bulbs to plant.   That is going to take some time, but my drill auger does make it a lot easier to create 6" holes.  And that I have about 2 cubic yards of topsoil/compost mix to use up.  I bought it loose-dumped into a trailer for filling 11 ten gallon pots and way over-estimated the requirements.

Well, at least I have good use for the excess.  My raised framed garden bed soil has settled 4" lower over the years.  And I can cast some of it thinly over Fall-planted meadow and pollinator seeds I have to plant soon.

But I messed up an order with the local DIY store.  I have cheap 6" plastic edging around a bed in the front lawn.  It keeps heaving up in Winter and has no strength and is hard to mow around.  So I looked at concrete edgers

that are designed to allow curves (notice the round right and the curved left).  And 12" pavers to both support them and create a "no grass zone" on 4" inside and out of the border.  

Have you ever planned to order something, then decided not to, but discovered you did?  Well, a 4'x4'x4' pallet arrived Wensday while I was still in bed (I never even heard them unloading it).  Now I have to pull up the bad plastic edging, dig a 2"deep x12"wide trench around the bed (about 60') for the pavers to sit at ground level (so I can mow across the edges and have no grass growing there), and pile the edgers on the top.  

And with Standard Time arriving, I have less time for outdoor work.  I may have to start getting up earlier!

I am going to be so totally worn out in the next couple weeks.  

Standard Time Returns

I hate it when Daylight Saving Time ends!  My schedule doesn't change, I just have one less hour of daylight.  Since I watch TV after dinner (and their schedule doesn't change) I go to bed at about the same time.  It just gets dark an hour earlier.  And since I get most active after lunch, I have an hour less to do stuff outside.

I personally wish we would just stay on Daylight Saving Time.  I know it benefits some people, but I am sometimes very selfish.  The change bothers ME.  

It will get dark at 5 PM here, limiting my outside activity.  And I still have lots to do outside.  More about that in a couple of future posts...

But I have so many clocks to change.  The analog ones are not that tricky but I have some everywhere.  And there are a few digital clocks to change.  I've been switching to radio frequency-adjusted ones but there are still old ones around.  And I always forget the one in the car!  

My wristwatch drives me crazy.  There are 4 buttons on the sides and I can never find the instructions, so I have to look it up of the manufacturers website.  And it always takes a few tries to get it right because it is hard to tell when the tiny buttons have been pressed sufficiently.  

And I am a bit obsessed about precision.  I read once that "a person with one clock always knows what time it is; a person with more clocks is never sure".  

OK, I'm just annoyed by the change...  😖

Frustrating Stuff

 I mentioned previously that I couldn't get my CD player to work and kept thinking it was the wiring.  But then just replaced the CD player with a new one and that fixed it.  

But I then discovered that the glass door in front wouldn't close.  Well, the rack cabinet is really old.  It came here with me, so I suppose it is 40-45 years old.  I had recently had to push it sideways to get it to close the door so I assumed the box itself needed some corner reinforcements, which I put off having more urgent things to do.  

But yesterday, I noticed the small box that connects the optical fiber to the TV cable box was on the floor next the the TV stand.  Well, one of The Mews must have jumped on the cable and pulled it off the stand.  But when I tried to put it back, it wouldn't go back.  One cable was too tight, and I couldn't tell by feel what was wrong.

So I had to pull the stereo rack out.  Well, I'm glad I put the stereo rack on a wheeled support stand, but I have to raise 2 levers in the back to engage the wheels.  Which is not really easy to do.  It involves twisting my body around the sides and that usually results in rib muscle cramps.  And I could feel the muscles threatening to cramp as I did it.  Thankfully, I got the levers raised just before they went full cramp.

When I pulled the rack out, I discovered that some kitty had looped a cable around a lever, effectively shortening it.  I got that loose and got the optical fiber box back on the stand.  Hurray!  And pushed the rack back close to the wall.  Then had to release the wheel levers (another threat to my rib muscles).  

And then the glass door still wouldn't close properly.  Since I was dealing with the rack anyway, I examined the glass door.  At first, I thought it was bumping against CDs I had stacked in there.  But when I took them out, it still wouldn't close.  ARGGHHH!

So I examined the glass door.  Hinge on top and hinge on bottom.  Both were tight, so that wasn't the problem.  So I looked at the hinges with a magnifying glass and a flashlight.  The glass door slides into the hinges and is held in place with 2 screws on each (not touching the glass, but squeezing the metal hinges.

The glass went fully into the top hinge.  The bottom was out of fully in the hinge by just 1/8th inch.  Loosened the screws, pushed on the glass door, and retightened the screws.  I still had to push the top of the rack sideways a tiny bit, but at least it closed!  Good enough for now; I have other things to do.

I'm no real handyman.  A real handyman has experience fixing a lot of stuff over and over.  What I have is persistence.  

It almost sounds like a Murphy's Law (of which I am a dedicated believer).  If you recall that, the basic Law is "If anything can go wrong, it will".  Over the years, other people have added to that Law.  In fact, I have 2 books of "Murphy's Laws".  Some are silly things like "You can't fall off the floor" or serious ones like "If you drop something, it will fall to the most unretrievable place possible" or "No matter what you want to do, you have to do something else first".

I will add a more positive Law.  "If you stare at a problem long enough, you will find a solution.  That's MY motto, anyway.

Election

 Well, I guess I'm ready to vote.  Most of my choices were settled months ago, but there were some local elections and ballot questions to research.  Yeah, I even look up Judges and School Board Members...

The Judges are just "retain or not",  I was pleased to find that the 3 current ones had excellent credentials and experience and were on the defense side in the past.  I'd rather have a guilty person get off once than an innocent person imprisoned.

The School Board election was easy enough.  Maryland has 4 year terms.  The one at-large is elected in presidential years, and all the other in the mid-cycle elections.  This was an at-large election, so it was easier.  One had experience, emphasized science and teacher-training, and suggests "slow-retirement of teachers so they can mentor the new ones.  The other (as far as I can tell) manages a day care center.  Nothing wrong with that, but apparently has little actual school-management experience.

That left the 2 ballot questions.  One was for encoding women's reproductive care into the State Constitution.  I'm going for that without any hesitation.

The other was more complicated.  All about changing the County Government.  The choices were the current form ("home rule"), and a  "charter" form with more county-wide consolidation of organization.  I visited 3 sites discussing them and still couldn't really understand the consequences.  But 1 site showed a map of the State counties showing which each had.  The 3 counties I think are best-run all had the "charter type".  The 3 most conservative (and kind of "run-down") counties all had the "home rule" system.  So I'm going with "charter".   Might as well advance with the times and what seems to work best...

Yardwork

With 500 Spring Bulbs arriving in a few weeks (what was I thinking?) I had to prepare some places for them.  

Most are daffodils with different colors/flower shapes to add to the existing daffodil bed around the bird-feeder.  Some will go into the front yard daffodil box for the same reason.  I decided that masses of the same flowers needed some additional/contrasting colors.  

The hyacinths, tulips, and crocuses have to protected from deer and voles.  Both consider them candy.  The voles eat the bulbs below ground; the deer eat the flowers.  I can protect against the voles by planting with wire cages underground.  I can only protect them from deer because the deer won't jump the tall fence into the back yard.

So I mowed one 10' diameter bed in the back yard. and one larger one in the front down to 1/2".  I have never grown pollinator plants in it (as I intended it for), but a few dozen hyacinths will smell sweet in Spring and I can try other plants there (slightly shady in Summer).

The crocuses will go into the back lawn in mesh cages too.  I need to keep the moles away.  They don't eat the bulbs, but the voles use the mole tunnels to travel around and they eat the bulbs.

I need taller edging around the various beds.  6" is not enough.  Set 4" deep just to stay upright barely protects against mowing.  I need 12" edging.  Or landscaping bricks that stack securely.  

The Two Mysterious Objects

 On Friday, I displayed 2 odd objects from Temu.  They have many, and I click on them often just to see what the heck they ARE!

But no one guessed what they were after a few days, so I owe you an explanation.

Is a tactical camo belt.  I expected someone to notice that the ends connected, but the rigid shape and the angle was a bit confusing.  LOL!

The other one was weird.  

It a cooked meat shedder.  You put cooked meat in it, turn the top, and you have shredded chicken/pork/beef.  Basically, it makes "pulled pork" fast.  But I just HAD to click on it to discover what it was.  

I'm not pushing Temu.  But they sell some of the weirdest stuff I've ever seen.  And no, I did not buy either item.

But I did need to at least tell you what those 2 items were.

Gettiing Some Stuff Done

It is so nice to be done with having taxes hanging over my head like The Sword Of Damocles!  I'm back to regular stuff.

1.  I mentioned a couple weeks ago that my handcart tire was flat.  Actually, both of them were but I didn't realize that at the time.  "Unknown" suggested that I use a winch strap to tighten the tire to the wheel (always appreciate good advice).  I've done that before on other garden equipment tires though and those long straps can be tedious to tighten.  

So I had the cart propped upside down and clamped against my workbench and happened to glance at my other bar clamps.

Well, maybe that would work.  I clamped 2 across the tire.  It worked!  And much easier than the strap.  Yay!

2.  Last March, I bought a 5'X8'x18" trailerload of topsoil/compost mix for filling 10 gallon pots for planting tomatoes, beans, and corn (My regular garden needs some renovation).  I got the containers filled but then my right hip went all bad in April. 

This gets all complicated, but I'll try to keep it short.  I went to bed April 15 feeling fine.  I woke up April 16 and fell to the floor when I tried to get up.   And I screamed in pain.  The x-ray technicians said it was bone marrow cancer.  My Dr said I had a liver problem and suggested further tests with specialist Drs (who were booked for 3-4 months).

I had to buy 2 roller/walkers (one in the car, the other for in the house) just to get around.  But before those appointments,I suddenly could walk normally again after 2 months.  It was obviously "just" a very badly torn groin muscle.  

But I still had a half trailerload of topsoil/compost mix leftover (I miscalculated how much I needed for the containers).  So half the stuff has been sitting in the trailer for 7 months.  And I need the trailer for other reasons.

So most is going on a front yard island around a tree and boulder.

I have 500 Spring bulbs arriving in November.  Many daffodils will be planted there (the deer won't eat them).  Along with a couple dozen Japanese Painted Ferns I will transplant and a few remaining 'Snow-On-The-Mountain' plants which I hope will spread (which also the deer won't eat).  And no tulips; the deer love to eat them!

The hyancinths and some random daffodils will go the space around the birdfeeder for more color.  I made it too uniform originally.  Large clumps of identical bulbs.  Boring...

The crocuses will go in the lawn.  In vole-proof cages.  I planted a few hundred in the back and front lawn 10 years ago, and there are barely any left.  If deer love tulips, voles love every bulb but daffodils.

That should keep me busy for a week!

3.  Bought 40 pansies yesterday.  Lowe's has great prices on 8-packs.  In some past years, I have planted a 100 in one spot in the back.

But I want to cover that area this Winter/Spring in brown packing paper to smother encroaching weedy grasses.  So this year I will be just planting them in the deck pots and around the mailbox post.  I think that will be more visible and cheery during the Winter anyway.

4.  Bought a mop-wringer recently.  Which sounds a dirty and janitorial, but a damp mop is easier on the wood floors than a sponge-mop.  And a wringer will help.  Dipping a dirty mop in the toilet and then squeezing it clean get tiring.

So I started declutterring the floors the past couple days.  I can't mop the floors when they are covered with cat toys, turbotracks, tunnels, and my own odd junk!  And even then, I will have to move and/or lift all the furniture.  But a wringer seems "cleaner" to use.

And then, I'll drag out the carpet water-cleaner machine.  It will probably go into shock since I haven't used it for 10 years.  And the dirty water it sucks up will be depressing (and leave a bad smell for 2 days).  But both the wood floors and carpets need some serious cleaning.    So declutterring the floors was a start.

5.  Cooking,,,  I found 2 interesting ideas in both a cooking magazine and the Washington Post newspaper recently.  The first was that adding some salt to eggs you are scrambling makes them smoother (by relaxing the whites).  Tried that yesterday and I agree.

The second idea was adding sugar to the salt and pepper in cubed beef (in any recipe).   The sugar promotes browning and adds some flavor.  And making a slurry of beef stock, cornstarch, soy sauce and steak sauce seriously enhances the flavor (I add minced fresh garlic separately) .  

Add the sugar, salt, and pepper an hour beforehand to relax the meat proteins.  I overdid it though.  Too much salt (I don't normally use much salt on my food, so the recipe was a bit more than I wanted).  But it did brown better with the sugar and the salt kept the meat moister.  

Which when tossed back into a skillet of shallots, and red bell peppers heated with the slurry, actually came out very well.  But less salt next time.

6.  Went to Petsmart Monday for "Marley-food".  By which I mean his kidney-care diet stuff.  Usually, there is just Hills Tuna&Vegetable flavor or Royal Canin T (Royal Canin just uses initials).  But this time, they had Royal Canin E and D.  There is no ingredient list on the cans.  So I asked a clerk if they knew what the letters meant.  He didn't but looked it up (which took some time because apparently Royal Canin doesn't want you to know).

But he found out that one is chicken, one is chicken liver and pork liver, and one is chicken liver, pork liver, and salmon.  Pork liver ans salmon seem gross together.  I didn't buy that.  But I'm not a cat, maybe Marley would love it.  I have to go back to get a few cans of it as a taste-test for him.  

That's enough for today...