Messin With Mother Nature

So, my plan was to rest today and to fold the laundry.  I didn't do the laundry.  I did take a fifteen minute nap, which was nice.  

So, instead of taking it easy, I went with Rudy to the park at 8 am.  It was hot and muggy.  And a lot of families had already claimed their shelters and had their grills rolling at full blast.  I was bathed in sweat by the time I left.  Bathed.

So, of course, I was so sweaty that I had to go home and clean the pool  The automatic cleaner wasn't functioning properly, and the skimmer wasn't on yet.  So, I nudged the skimmer, and it turned on.  It's solar, so, sometimes if if hasn't turned on and the sun is out, you can just nudge it and it starts paddling away.

As for the automatic cleaner, I had gorilla glued the leaf canister last night, so I reattached it to the hose line.  And then I cranked the pump.  And the cleaner started working again the way it was supposed to.  

I also had to adjust the ph of the pool.  I probably should have waited several hours before going in, but I went in after an hour or so.  I didn't get burned or anything, so that was good.

While I was waiting for the pool chemicals to take effect, I took the one dead potted plant out of the pot.  I replaced it with a weed from the lawn.  There are these weeds that look fernlike.  I thought that maybe they are the baby plants of those exotic looking trees that I see in other people's yards.  So I dug one up and put it in the pot.  I figured by looking at weeds, that some of them come from plants that we buy at the Home Depot or the nursery.  So, the plants spread seeds and stuff, and they end up in other people's yards as weeds that they pull.  Then they go to Home Depot and spend loads of money on the same plants that they just spent hours pulling and throwing away. 

Then I took a larger potted plant, a Hawaiian Ti plant that Rudy chewed down to the stump, and I planted it in the ground.  I don't know if it will grow, but it has a better chance in the ground than in the lanai with Rudy sharpening his teeth on it.  

In that pot, I planted the catnip that I had gotten yesterday.  I left it on the lanai, so between the cats and Rudy, I don't know if it will last.  But really, I buy the catnip for that cats, so if they want to destroy it, that's really their prerogative, isn't it.

Then, I took some wheatberries and soaked them and put the in the garden and covered them with soil.  

After that, I did some weeding.  I took one big weed that looked like a flowering succulent, and I put it in the hanging planter that I had already put a flowering succulent weed in two days ago.  

So, yeah, I pretty much toyed with Mother Nature today.  Then I picked up the FP and went to the boss's party.  He happened to be directing parking when we pulled up, so he saw the new Mini.  I didn't necessarily want him to see it.  Because, on my salary, how am I affording a brand new Mini?  But he saw it.  He complimented it.  Who wouldn't.  It's the awesomest car I've ever had and probably will ever have.  So, we stayed a couple hours, ate some good food, then came home to tend to the puppy.  We were hopeful that he wouldn't be scared of fireworks.  No such luck.  Luckily, we still have an old rawhide to soothe and occupy him.  I don't really like rawhides, because that was the first thing he got a hold of that made him posessive and growl and snap at us.  But in an emergency like this, I'm glad we have it.  I'm sure Rudy is glad we have it too!

Then there was the pigeon problem to deal with.  These pigeons have been building a nest in the outside beam of the lanai, and I had been chasing them out, but they keep building.  So today, I was way more aggressive.  I put a glove on, I got the step ladder, and I cleaned out all the sticks that I could reach.  But, I knew they would just keep getting sticks.  There was a whole pile of sticks on the ground below that either had fallen or I had pushed out.  So, I needed to put something there to deter them.  The first thing I saw were beer cans.  So, I flattened them slightly so they would stay in place, and I put them in the nook.