Chore Day

This was really a vacation day, but I used it for chores.  The grass needed cutting, the windows needed washing and some bushes needed trimming.  There is still a tree that needs a drastic trim job, but I wasn’t ready to tackle that today.

My walk with Chester along the Red River was very uneventful this morning.  It was 14C under a sunny sky with no wind, so it felt nice out.  But – we didn’t see a single critter 

I’m getting the hang of the new lawnmower, but still run into little glitches.  The first time I started it, I had trouble getting it to start and I’m reading the directions, which say to put the key in, push the start button and pull the bar towards the handle.  So I did that and it didn’t start.  After awhile I figured out that you hold the start button down until you have pulled the bar – after that it started fine.  This morning, I got the lawnmower out and pushed and held the start button, but it wouldn’t start when I pulled the bar back.  I was sure I had charged it before putting it away, but was ready to put it back to charge when I realized, I hadn’t put the key in – LOL.  Once I did that, it started just fine    It is so much easier than pulling the cord on the old mower – even though the old mower had normally started on the first or second pull until this year.

With all the trees and bushes in my yard, there are always new ones wanting to move in.  They just appear and start growing.  Unless they get in my way, I usually ignore them.  Well a couple of trees got in my way, so I took them out today.  It would probably be easier to take them out when they were just seedlings, but with my method they were about 6 feet high when I looked after them.   Its a little more work this way, so its possible I should re-consider my method.

Next was the window cleaning – so I dragged the hose out to the front and took my long handled window cleaner with me.  I sprayed the windows, wiped them down and sprayed them again.  When I was almost finished in the front of the house, I saw a baby bunny come out of my back yard into the front.  Chester wasn’t hot on his heels, so I figured he was ok, but I was worried that he had found a nest of them in our yard.  With the way he hunts bunnies, I didn’t think he would have missed them until now and when I looked back there, he was so busy chasing bugs that he probably hadn’t noticed the little guy.  Whew.  I didn’t have my camera with me, so I didn’t get a picture, but I suspect that he is hiding in the day lilies in my front yard.

When I finished the outside windows, I came inside and instead of jumping onto the computer right away, I cleaned the windows on the inside.  There were a lot of Chester nose prints and foot prints on some of them that took a bit of scrubbing – but now my windows are all sparkly clean. 

So – for pictures today, we’ve just got some plants and flowers and Chester and my yard today 

Flowering Bush June 9th

This is another of the “I don’t know what it is” plants in my yard.  It has been here since I moved in and it flowers every year.  I think it has berries too, but the birds always get them.  Here is a closeup of the leaves.

Leaves of flowering bush

SueW suggested that my bush is probably a Viburnum.  So, I looked online and found a Viburnum Lentago that really looks like it might be it.  I’ve never heard of a Viburnum before, but here  is the link to the one I found that might be it.

Honeysuckle Bush in Pot

This is an example of “if its not in the way, don’t worry about it” method of mine.  This honeysuckle bush has been growing in a small planter, that I used to use for flowers every year.  It started to fall apart years ago and I stopped planting flowers in it, but this honeysuckle bush started growing in it a few years ago.  It is about 6 feet tall ow and I should think of getting rid of both it and the planter – but I just haven’t got around to it.  Years ago, I think someone gave me a round “2 it” badge, but it hasn’t helped. 

strawberry flowers

My strawberry plant is looking great with more flowers on it now.

Chester June 9

Chester June 9

Chester June 9

Chester was being very cooperative today – other than the tail, he held fairly still for the pictures.

Click here for today’s pictures from Africam.

Are Rants Pointless?

A topic suggestion today from Word Press is:

“Write a rant about the pointlessness of rants“

Since I do an occasional rant in here, I feel that I should answer this one – but my answer isn’t about rants being pointless.  My rants always have points!   Maybe they are just points to me – but they are still points unless they are pointless points!

•  It makes me feel better to get the rant out – even though I may be the only one who feels better about it.
•  I am quite sure that sometimes my rants help other people – I may be giving them a warning about a company or person that they were thinking of doing business with.
•  Obviously ranting about the weather helps no one, including myself – ok, so this is a pointless point.
• I suppose another pointless point would be that a rant here does not get to the company that I am ranting about – which means they can not rectify it for me.  Not that MTS would have ever rectified anything with me and the rants about them are after having tried to talk to them about the problems.  I guess that was actually another rant     I usually do contact the company directly and if they resolve the problem I don’t rant about them.
• We are at 2×2 then.  I need either another point or another pointless point to finish.

Another Word Press topic suggestion is

“Have you ever considered writing a book? If so what would it be about? Make a list of the ideas you want to cover, or the themes it might have.  If you’ve never considered writing a book, what other major work have you thought about (a movie? a symphony?). Write a paragraph or two about what you imagine it would be like.“

I have not thought of writing a book or anything else, other than here in my blog.  However since I have occasionally mentioned something from my distant past to people at work, someone from the Y has been suggesting that I write a book.  Now, this is Sarah (I believe I mentioned her once before) who has been known to be a tiny bit stubborn once she gets an idea.  Oh – I should say hi to Lisa while I’m at it because until now, she hasn’t been mentioned in my blogs     Hi Lisa!

I compromised a little by writing about some of my past vacations in my blog here and told Sarah she can take the items she likes from here to write my book herself – but she didn’t seem interested in that idea.   It would have to be more than vacations and travel though – so I probably should write something about my childhood, teenage years and work before the Y.  I could even talk about the 2 Bob’s, I suppose .   I guess I’ve just given myself more topics to write about – LOL.

I dug today’s picture out from April, 2009 when I spent some time out at Lockport watching the Pelicans.  I’m sure glad I put the pictures up here because my computer crashed after that and I hadn’t backed anything up and lost the full size pictures.  At least I have the small copies saved here – but I’ll have to take a drive out there again soon and hopefully be able to take more pictures.