Tuesday, May 13, 2014

playing with ketchup

I am booked on June 2nd to fly to Florida to see my BFF.  The worst thing is, I have to fly out of Pittsburgh to get a non-stop flight, which frees me from having to change planes 3 times and be 12 hours getting there. The non-stop is a 2 hr 30 min flight, and I fly business class to assuage my claustrophobia.  Pittsburgh is about an hour's drive from here, and my plane departs at a decent time, so DH won't have to spend an entire day getting me started on my journey.  My return is June 6th, which also is my wedding anniversary, the 44th one.  Not too late in the day, so that is OK.

My DS has been a huge help around the place.  Yesterday he planted an arborvitae near the front steps.  That will make it 4 times we've planted right there.  First was honeysuckle, which grew like kudzu, and in season attracted about a million bees.  Not that I have anything against bees you understand, but having to duck under the honeysuckle vines as well as the bees kinda made it interesting for visitors.  Like Jehovah Witnesses.  Next we planted an arborvitae  and it too grew to majestic proportions and blocked the steps.  Last of all we planted an evergreen (the type stumps me now) and the whole thing browned up. dropped all of its needles and died.  So we have now planted a new arborvitae, max height 15 feet, max width 4 ft, and we planted further out from that corner.  It better live, it was a 6 ft tree, and too much $$ to let it croak. We moved another browning off evergreen to a better location, I hope that helps.  The 6 Canadian hemlocks that we bought from a guy selling them from the back of his truck, the whoe bunch for 20 bucks, freshly dug up out in the woods somewhere, have tripled or more in size and look to be on their way to true tree-dom.  Go figure

I sent off my burgundy knitting swap package Friday, and although the swap will continue, I have decide to withdraw.  It cost me around $30 each month ($10 of which was postage) and I can buy a lot of yarn with $30 a month.  It was fun at first, but colors like burgundy were hard to find.  I bought all mine online; they included a stuff sack, apron, mitt, potholders (these were hand knitted), a notebook with matching pen in burgundy ink, scissors, a travel mug with MOM written on it, and of course yarn.   I am sure it will all be useful.  And it cost too much, all my fault.

The farrier comes in June, so that will be the day the horses get vaccinated.  Assuming I remember to order the vaccines. They are 25 dollars each, plus 25 dollars shipping and last time I  didn't have the syringe on the needle tight enough and all of the vaccine sprayed out, so I had to order another dose.  But it beats having the vet do it, as long as they are otherwise healthy.  After they were trimmed and wormed (apple flavored!) we turned them loose in the upper pasture, and the farrier and his wife just stood and watched them as they kicked up their feet, galloped around tails up and snorting.  I swear they know when they have an audience.  They are 23 and 21 this year.

Gracious, this whole post is about money and how much I spent; I didn't mean to come across as so mercenary.

Bumper sticker for the day:  "As long as everything is exactly the way I want it, I am totally flexible."



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