Monday Mow Day

 Tonight I start my new job.  Hopefully I will remember all the things I need to remember.  Early this morning I took care of choosing benefits and ordering shoes for work.  It is good to have that basically done.  I may have Keziah and Zed look over it all for me in the next few days.  Other things I am happy for today:

• Keziah and Zed have been away since Thursday for their eleventh wedding anniversary.  They are home.  They shared the stories of their adventures and Gideon shared his stories with them.  Beautiful family moments.
• I woke up when I wanted to this morning.  This has been hard.
• For me to continue to reach my 10,000 steps a day goal I need to have that goal reached by the time I sleep before work.  My alarm will go off at 11:30 PM and that is too late to try to finish up the step count.  To achieve that today, I mowed the lawn.  
• The grass was tall and there were some pretty flowers that are now gone.  I used Google Lens to identify them.

Blue Toadflax.

I've seen this in other parts of the yard,
but forgot what it was, meadow hawkweed.

There was a bunch of the toadflax.

☮

Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

Thank you for reading, stay safe.

Happy Father's Day

 On Tuesday at 1:20 AM I start a new job in a warehouse.  Glamorous, huh?  I think it ticks all my boxes for a job at this point in my life.  One of those is that I want a job that doesn't come home with me in a bad way.  I'm not feeling successful with changing my sleep pattern.  I have done quite a bit of virtual learning yesterday and today.  All those not quite connected sentences are just to say that I have just over a day left and there isn't much more I can do to prepare, other than sleep.  Things I am happy for today:

• Winston, the orange tabby, playing on the cat tree.

Just lounging there while attacking a feather.

• Clear skies with the moon saying hello to the afternoon.

•  The SCA is a medieval recreational non-profit educational organization.  Keziah and I are Baron and Baroness to our local SCA group here in New Hampshire. This position is appointed by the Royalty after the local group has voted for who they believe will best do the job.  The initial appointment lasts three years.  This can be extended with a vote of confidence by the local officers.  Today was the meeting where this vote took place.  I am happy to relay that we will remain in this position for a total of six years.  I am also happy that one of the officers thought to ask if we wanted to remain in this position.  

☮

Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

Thank you for sharing my happy moments, stay safe.

Juneteenth

 The preparations I have been trying to do for starting the new job have not been going as well as I had hoped.  I know it will all be fine, but I also know I should have tried harder to sleep today.  Most of the day was very restful, and that was good.  I just didn't sleep.  Other things I am happy for today:

• Getting out for a walk with my friend, Amy.  She has been off visiting her daughter's family in Virginia.  
• There were two woodchucks in the garden today.  The happy part of this is that I learned more places that the fence needs to be more fortified.  Where this little critter is, did not seem to be one of them.

Woodchuck/groundhog.

• Lens helped me identify a butterfly on the vetch.

Silver-spotted Skipper.

• The milkweed that I let grow in the yard (shh, don't tell the lawn/weed police) is blooming.  This, as well as the butterfly weed in the front of the house, are supposed to attract monarch butterflies.  

Common milkweed.

☮

Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

Thank you for reading, stay safe.

Friday at the Park

 Today my early morning was used cleaning my room up a little.  There is more to go, but a few things that I had forgotten were in there cluttering are out.  The best part is that I did this sorting and going up and downstairs without waking anyone else in the house.  Other things I am happy for today:

• Walking with a friend and her grandchild.  We were on the trail a little after eight this morning.  The more leisurely pace with a four year old was just what I needed today.
• There was a small section of trail littered with white flowers.  Looking up, these flowers had fallen from a catalpa tree.  My friend's grandchild carried a flower a little way along our walk.  When I was a young girl, the neighbor's house had a large catalpa tree in the yard that I loved to look at in the spring.

Catalpa tree.

• We sat and rested on one side of Dorr's Pond and I noticed a beaver swimming among the lily pads.

In this picture, look for the ripples from the wake.
The beaver is among the lily pads creating the wake.

• There was a momma duck with three little ones swimming in the stream leaving the pond.  Sometimes it is just wonderful to see these things through the eyes of a child.

The momma is much easier to see than the little ones.  
I'm not sure what causes the orange foam.

• After the park I went and visited with my aunt.  When we saw each other on Monday she had mentioned that there were a lot of paperwhite flowers (Narcissus) in her yard and I asked if I could have some.  She asked me to come down and get them so now I have a clump of bulbs to plant, but maybe not until the end of summer.  

☮

Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

Thank you for visiting, stay safe.

All About the Gideon

 Keziah and Zed are off celebrating their eleventh year anniversary this weekend.  Gideon is having an adventure weekend with different family members.  Today, with me, was adventure prep.  We went to the store and got the last few things he needs, like bug spray, for the weekend.  It was our own little shopping adventure.  Other happy things for today:

• Gideon was a super helper this morning when we worked on sewing up more of the garden fence to the deer netting.  
• Gideon was a super good sport when we tried to set up a Minecraft game by getting the two computers to talk to each other and we failed.  
• Gideon was also awesome and quiet while I slept this afternoon.  I hope I am ready to work nights starting Tuesday!
• In the late afternoon I went out and deadheaded the rose bushes and pulled some weeds.  I also found fresh blossoms.  

Butterfly Bush.

Butterfly Bush, close up.

Yellow daylily.

Orange daylily.

Roses.

A rose.

More roses.  Yes, everything smells like roses.

• Nanni watched me prune the roses through the porch window.

Nanni.

🌹 ☮ 🌹

Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

Thanks for reading!  Stay safe.

Wednesday

 According to Blogger, the FollowByEmail widget by Feedburner will be discontinued in July.  Anyone who currently receives the blog by email will need to go to the feed to read this blog.  I keep trying to learn more but so far my attempts are coming up empty.  That is not a happy thing, but here are a couple from today: 

• Summer is almost here and there are so many green things!  Some of them were pulled today.  That is what happens when plants grow in places that other plants are wanted.  The following plants were identified using Google Lens.

Houndstongue-gone!

Pokeweed-gone!

• Fairly certain that the east side of the fence is now done.  By done I mean that the netting we put to heighten the low garden fence is now sewn onto the garden fence or pinned to the ground.  The north part is done except for a gate and some of both the other two sides are done, just not all.  It is getting there.
• Breakfast for dinner today, made by Keziah, was scrambled eggs and cream of wheat.  Love breakfast for dinner!

☮

Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

Thank you for reading, stay safe.

It's Pickin' Time!

 Changing my sleep schedule isn't going as well as I had hoped.  There is still time.  Instead of me waking up Zed this morning, he woke me up.  It was a good morning though.  Everyone but Zed, who had to work, went and picked strawberries at a local farm.  Gideon has been eagerly anticipating strawberry picking for a few weeks.  We still had guests and the five of us picked around 28 pounds of strawberries.  The picking was great!  

Our friends headed back to Pennsylvania after lunch with their strawberries.  When we got home I picked five more from our little strawberry patch.  Fresh strawberries and the following are my happy things for today:

• As I prepare for this new overnight job, the time after lunch is when I hope to have my best sleep time.  I went to bed later than I had hoped and woke earlier than I had hoped.  What woke me?  A thunderstorm rolled in this afternoon.  It was loud and very close.  I opened the blinds and watched the sky darken.  Soon there were little pit pats on the leaves of the tree outside my window.  It only took a few minutes before the pit pats were a dull roar as the rain streamed down.  The sky started to lighten and soon the storm was gone.  
• The afternoon was sunny after that and I was able to find a rainbow.

It is so hard to capture rainbows.

• For dessert, we had strawberry shortcake with some of those fresh picked strawberries.  Yum!

🍓 ☮ 🍓

Currently reading: The Backyard Homestead, by Carleen Madigan.

Thank you for reading, stay safe.