Outside

Have been trying to take advantage of the beautiful weather.

I was in a funk yesterday so I cancelled my plans to go to Seattle and to my friend's BBQ.  My car is also worrying me (is there such thing as a starter and can it go bad?), so I didn't want to be stranded 90 minutes away from home. 

Yesterday Atticus and I hung out together outside.  The day before I did all my yard work, which is where most of these pictures are from.

Today my landlord and his son are here scraping trim on the house, so its kind of weird having them hovering near every window.  My friend Jayme is coming over soon so we can sunbathe, make popsicles, and just forget about life for a couple of hours.

So you can see how long I put off mowing...the side closest to you has been mowed - Atticus is sitting on the unmowed side.  Yikes.

There's a several foot wide patch of grass behind my back fence that extends the entire length of the yard and meets the road.  I had elected not to mow it...partially because out of sight, out of mind, the other part was why mow when I don't even go back there?  My back gate is locked, so I can't even get there without some effort.  Well, I got guilted into mowing it....waist-high grass which took me about 2 hours to weed wack, mow with the blades on high, re-mow with the blades on low, then weed wack around the fence and next to the road.  What a pain.  In the process I cleaned out a lot of trash, rocks, and found this guy.  Random!

Cleaned out the sunroom and put soil in the rest of the planter boxes.  I planted garlic in this one...

And chocolate mint in this one (from my CSA!).  I now have a mint trifecta.

Since the weather was so nice I decided to give Atticus a bath.  Unfortunately, because his collar isn't on, he knows I can't pull him to where I want him so he runs away from me frequently.  What he hasn't realized yet is the hose will reach every corner of the yard, so I wait for him to get comfortable and then come after him again.

Baths take forever in this way, but hey...I'm not cleaning up a bathroom.  Its worth it to me.  This is Atticus covered in soap and hiding from me.  :)

Today I tried my hand at making home-made insecticide (garlic, oil, hot water, and dish soap.  Let me know if you want the recipe).  I sprayed it on my garden to discourage pests.  I have a bunch of new zucchini and other squash forming, and so I'm hoping that this will help.  We shall see.

In all things it is better to hope than to despair.
~ Von Goethe