How about we start the day off with a rose? This beauty was what I saw when I went out on the porch first thing yesterday morning. The rose bushes along the front of the house are really starting to look nice.
I love working together with my wife. Whether it’s a new book, a project around the house, or something outside, Miss Terry and I make a very good team. We each recognize the other’s strengths and weaknesses, and neither of us is too proud to say, “I need help with this” or hesitates to pitch in to help carry the load for the other person.
We spent quite a bit of time yesterday afternoon getting Terry’s second raised garden bed ready to plant. After carrying it out to the garden area and putting it where she wanted it, the first step was to gather a bunch of old, semi-rotten logs and tree limbs to go into the bottom. These will eventually break down and provide additional compost. Fortunately for us, there are lots of raw materials on our acreage, so we took the Kawasaki Mule and gathered two loads of it from around the perimeter road. Then we gathered two loads of dead leaves and dumped those in on top of the wood. Next was four bags of Black Kow fertilizer, followed by four bags of garden soil.
I am so glad we went with the side-by-side Mule instead of the typical three or four-wheel ATV I was thinking about when we first bought our place. This thing comes in handy for so many jobs around here.
While we were working out in the garden yesterday we noticed that some of the seeds that Travis and Geli planted a week or so ago are starting to sprout, including some cucumbers, zucchini, and radishes. Terry also spotted a couple of flowers on the pepper plants in her first raised garden bed.
Another recent garden purchase from Amazon was an Orbit 62100 Yard Enforcer motion-activated sprinkler to keep deer and other critters away from the garden. It can be set to activate during day, the night, or around the clock when you need it. Triggered by both heat and motion, it sends out a burst of water to scare away anything that gets too close to the garden. We put it together yesterday morning but ran out of time to set it up. Since it started thundering and lightning about 11 o’clock last night, and it is supposed to continue that way through the day today, I guess we’ll wait until Friday to put it to work.
If you like dogs and mystery stories, have I got a deal for you! Well, actually, my dear friend Carol Ann Newsome is the one with the deal. Now through Saturday, Carol Ann is offering Muddy Mouth, the 5th book in her popular Lia Anderson Dog Park mystery series, for just 99¢. Click this link to get your copy and find out why Carol Ann is such a popular author.
It’s Thursday, so it’s time for a new Free Drawing. This week’s prize is an autographed copy of Angry Nurse by the late Karl Bort and Thekla Madsen. When a wealthy Cleveland businessman is admitted to St. Luke’s Behavioral Health Unit, he insists that his wife, lawyer, and the hospital administrator are plotting to have him permanently committed and begs Nurse Joshua Ramsey to help him. Are these the ravings of an insane man or is something more sinister at work? When the man’s wife and lawyer are found dead, Detective Nicholas Silvano gets the case. It’s a tale with psychological twists that will have you believe that if you weren’t crazy when you checked in, you will be before long.
To enter, click on this Free Drawing link or the tab at the top of this page and enter your name (first and last) in the comments section at the bottom of that page (not this one). Only one entry per person per drawing please, and you must enter with your real name. To prevent spam or multiple entries, the names of cartoon or movie characters are not allowed. The winner will be drawn Sunday evening. Note: Due to the high shipping cost of printed books and Amazon restrictions on e-books and audiobooks to foreign countries, only entries with US addresses and e-mail addresses are allowed.
And finally, here’s a chuckle to start your day from the collection of funny signs we see in our travels and that our readers share with us. It’s amazing what a bit of common courtesy can do for you!
Thought For The Day – Friendship in marriage is the spark that lights an everlasting flame.
Nick Russell
World-Famous, New York Times Best Selling Author, and All-Around Nice Guy!
I predict you will LOVE your Orbit sprinklers. We use them along with Messina’s Deer Stopper to encourage all those tick magnets to go elsewhere. Last year was the first time in a decade that all the plants in our yard weren’t eaten down to the ground. I had forgotten what hosta flowers even looked like.
Well if we tried that around here, the deer and raccoons would shy away but the gophers would just ignore it and gnaw away at the developing roots, then season that meal with leaves and fruits from the rest of the plant. We have to plant in gopher baskets and put chicken wire above the plants. Sigh.