Goal Accomplished

well, kind of.

One of the advantages of aging is we wake up early! Some might not think this is an advantage, but for those of us who love being outdoors it is a blessing. As soon as the day breaks, ABN is in the garden. In early June the chores consisted of watering and grooming, which can be completed in an hour or less. We were pleased with our efforts as we had been in a 5-6 month drought. And then it happened! The rains came, bringing us about 9 inches in the last two weeks of June. With that said, how about a tour?

Let's start with an overview from the security camera. Here you can see how we used ground cover.

The Micro Clover and Creeping Thyme ground covers have decreased the weeding.

Decreasing the size of the zinnia bed allows more attention to keeping it in control

Using tomato cages to support the zinnias worked well in keeping them upright.

This is basically an annual bed with an amount of experimentation.

A little reminder.

The rain did not create a total washout as ABN has been cutting blooms and doing a bit of propagating between showers. 

And the garden she-shed is much neater.

We are not finished with the garden project as ABN has a few ideas to be completed in the fall. (Is a garden ever completed? Or for that matter, an old house renovated?)

Meanwhile, Captain has been in a tactical battle against backyard squatters. With the addition of a couple Ring cameras, we have identified at least one of the intruders to be a raccoon.  We successfully caught a raccoon (and a possum) in a trap last summer and relocated them. However, these critters (or their off springs) are relentless and apparently have deemed the space under our screen porch as the perfect space in which to hangout. Now, we are inclusive and hospitable and don’t mind that they use our fountain to shower, but we are not inclined to welcome large families (aka offspring's) into our home. So, Captain has been on a mission to block the entry. When the entry is blocked the squatters create another. The trap set with fresh fruit is totally ignored.  Perhaps it is time to change the bait to peanut butter. In the meantime, the local big-box stores are enjoying a healthy spike in concrete block sales.

Early summer has not been totally about the garden. We had a little get-away in Cincinnati to enjoy a ‘Wailin Jennys' concert. If you are not familiar with this band of three women out of Canada who play folk, bluegrass and Americana music, you can check them out  on YouTube. We think they were worth driving over 300 miles to see in person. 

The concert was held in the beautiful historical Memorial Hall in the ‘Over the Rhine’ art district as was our charming Symphony Hotel. Nearby was the lovely Washington Park.

We ended our little excursion with a stop for a tasting and tour of Michter’s distillery in Louisville

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July started with another little excursion during the severe heat dome and more rain. Our drought hardy plants are showing a bit of stress, hopefully this will only give them a set-back. We will bring you up to date in a few weeks. In the meantime, ABN is working her way through James Mitchner ‘s Alaska, (there’s a reason for that.)

Before we leave this post of our month of June, we would like to share a little tip that has proven useful as we navigate the aging journey. As we have previously mentioned, we are consistently disposing of things we no longer use. This increases space which ultimately produces reorganization.  To assist our memory of where we place seldom used items, we have created a “Where did I put it” list. The list is in the notes app on both our phones. While it doesn’t help with all our age related forgetfulness , it often saves a bit of frustration.

Now where I leave my cup of coffee?