Writing From My Phone

I didn't know I could. I've been quiet lately. Alot going on. The floods in Texas saddened me. We have financial troubles. Not ready to elaborate. Random thoughts.....we are impressed by the abundant roadside native flowers blooming all over the Fox Cities. De Pere....blooming butterfly gardens on the riverfront. Appleton.....roadside ditches overflowing with native flowers. Neenah....even more flowers. I will end with some pictures, since I'm on my phone it will be easy to add them. These are from a nature retention pond in Neenah.

 

Odds and Ends

 It's been awhile, so I'll try to catch up.

I'm feeling fine, no more problems. I finished the antibiotics today, no bad effects.

We are having lovely weather, since the oppressive heat moved out. We had three days of tortuous heat and humidity. Streets were buckling and cars blowing tires. Insane! We stayed home. My annuals did not like the heat. My Johnny-Jump-Ups have gone to seed.

We have 5 months to decide where to move. Our lease ends the last day of December, so we will need to have a new apartment rented before then.

We have a new favorite place, Waupaca Chain O' Lakes, about an hour west of us. It was a sunny, breezy day when we arrived at Hartman Creek State Park. The pines were fragrant in the warm sunshine. The water sparkled, and I wanted to deep breathe all of it in and never leave. We took a walk around the lake and thankfully did not catch any ticks.

I am not going to write about the complete idiotic orange moron in the White House whose stupidity is putting our nation in harm's way.

Hubby bought me an African Violet. The flowers are deep red. I had to remove them because I found signs of thrips on the flowers. No damage to the leaves. I treated with a systemic. It's a no-name. It will grow more flowers.

We took a drive to Wild Rose and filled up 7 gallon jugs of spring water. Since it's not tested we have decided not to drink it, but it's wonderful for my plants!

I need to repot my orchids. One has bloomed continuously for nearly a year. The others have not bloomed at all. They need to do something other than occupy my limited space.

I think this is about all the news for now.

 

Some Better News

 My SIL got a better cast for his wrist/arm. The one he had went up over his elbow and caused pain and stress in his shoulder and neck. They took that cast off. My daughter said he had a nasty looking sore on his wrist where the break is, maybe because it was swollen under the cast. Now he has a shorter removable cast, which I suppose is better and more comfortable.

I searched for some other way to find cabins for rent. I found an app that shows locations and prices plus pictures and info. Campgrounds that also have cabins seem to have better prices.

I did some potting today.

Lithops

Philodendron Brasil all in one pot

 

New PCP and Other Stuff

 I saw my new primary care provider today. Her name is Sally and she sat down and talked quite a bit to get to know me. It was a pleasant visit.  The drive to downtown Greenville was easy. She put in an order for me to have my annual mammogram, but I will need to go to a hospital that is all the way across town. Two issues....I don't drive expressways and I don't have transportation except for a short time in the morning. It's for the end of July. Maybe I can figure it out before then.

My test results are in, A1C 6.6 (better than I expected after all the stress), thyroid looks ok. Blood pressure 124/80 (no meds), weight 134, height 5'7" (still, after all these years!! No shrinking!) It's interesting that they consider me underweight. I'm not starving myself!

Next in news...my son-in-law broke his wrist. First X-ray seemed to show a hairline crack, but the next X-ray revealed a complete break at the wrist of the larger arm bone on the pinky side. He now has a cast to above his elbow and a hard time sleeping with it.

The air conditioners got cleaned and the sliding screen door fairly fixed.

My hubby's work sucks. Stress and back biting.

My daughter suggested a UV blocking semi-sheer curtain for that hot west window. She uses them on her west windows and they help a lot to block the heat. Here is what I ordered from Amazon:

I hung the curtain sideways because I don't want it to cover my plants or block the sunshine from them.

Here it is with the blinds drawn

In other news, I have been looking for a pedestal pot for my philodendron. I just think it would look cool since it trails nicely. Hubby and I were out shopping and I spotted one. I questioned the only color choice, but decided to try anyway.

I am not liking the color

The color clash is barf worthy. That's a fake distressed area on the stand.

I don't know if I should try to sand it down and repaint it or just return it and get my $12 back. I'll never get all the glaze out of those details.

And lastly, I'll leave you with a bunch of pictures of my Gasteria blooms.

The plant

That's all for tonight.

We Got The Truck Back!

 And I found my shoes. I have one of those wire holders for hanging on a kitchen cabinet door for holding foil and plastic wrap. It doesn't fit these cabinets so I hung it on the side of a wire shelf in the closet, and stuffed a pair of shoes in it. Today I pulled out those shoes and low and behold, my little black tennis shoes were behind them.

We were happy to get the truck back. The little Ford Escape was fun to drive. The seats were uncomfortable and hard to adjust because they were manual. They didn't charge for all the extra days but we did need to pay for a new battery, because our insurance didn't cover that. Our service advisor took a picture when the truck was all apart.

Dash removed and sitting where the seats were, center console out, steering column out, seats on floor somewhere outside the truck.....=:o

We are having some nice warm weather. I even put some plants out! Tuesday night is supposed to be 37 so I brought some back in, well, it's still mild out but they were saying strong storms and wind. Here are some pictures from today. I can't tell you how happy I felt seeing my plants out there and enjoying the fresh air.

Just a few for now

I love this Silver Squill. It will grow more compact soon.

My sedum saucers are recovering from the squirrel attack

I planted some semps in there

This weekend hubby and I had fun. We bought some ginormous strawberries at Woodman's and ate them with sugar free whipped cream. Well, hubby mashed his berries into those strawberry shortbread cakes lol. Woodman's almost always has a great deal on strawberries.

My dessert

Hubby's creation

Monster berry

Normal berry

That's all the news for tonight.

Where Are My Shoes? And Other Random Stuff

 I can't find my pair of canvas tennis shoes. I know I had them before we moved. Darnit. They were so comfortable, but I rarely wore them because the soles are/were thin (not worn, just thin) and no good on trails. Hubby says he will buy me a pair, but I know how that goes.....with my feet.

Good news on the truck. Assembly day was today. Programming day will be Monday, so we can pick it up Tuesday morning. They said they have pictures of it all taken apart.

I just found out the hosting company for my website has an HTML editor. It's WYSIWYG, which is even better (what you see is what you get)...so easy. I can edit the pages right on the server, no need to downloading, changing then publishing. It's about time I update things. I think I started it in 2002.

Another former resident of Midland passed away, and there is a reunion this October. I wish I could go again. Thankfully there is a Facebook group that keeps everyone updated. My website more or less just just has some stories, pictures and a link to the Facebook group.

Hubby wants me to renew my passport. It expired but is still eligible for renewal. Not that I plan to fly internationally, but just in case my real ID driver's license isn't enough for domestic flights.

I decided to log into VisaJourney. It's been awhile, because we haven't needed any advice since hubby became a citizen. I wanted to see if there was any chatter and travel. Some people were asking if it was safe to fly and would they be denied entry on return. Surprisingly there didn't seem to be a lot of concern, unless one had deportation orders or did a crime.

I rearranged my plants AGAIN. My Haworthia and Haworthiopsis were getting too much light, so I set up a less strong light and put them there. I put some of the succulents that need strong light were the others were. I lined up as many as I could on the window sills. The rest are on the shelf in front of the window. There are nine plants sitting in the dark that don't fit anywhere. In a couple weeks they can go outside if the temperatures are ok for them.

I had some issues showing up with some of my plants, other than lighting. I am concerned about the softened water. There are so many opinions about it being safe for plants, but I don't want to risk it. Hubby said we will buy bottled water for them. I think the cheapest possible would be fine. I was filtering it but found out it won't remove the salt.

That's about it for tonight.

 

Updates & Random Stuff

Our truck is in the shop for repairs. Here is our rental. It's a Ford Escape. Three cylinder but turbo. It's a cute little car. Our insurance is covering everything. Our truck should be done Friday.

With all the stuff going on in the country, thankfully hubby's job is stable. Some rumors were going around and a meeting was called to reassure the employees there is enough work, including overtime, for several years. The company is actively hiring, and increasing wages for everyone.

Our favorite brand of brown eggs is back. The prices are stable, higher than before the bird flu, but stable. I found a double-yolk egg this morning.

We found an interesting place to walk just north of Kaukauna. We want to go back when the trees are green and there is some sunshine. I never realized the Fox River turns into a huge, raging river through Kaukauna. It was very cloudy, so my pictures don't do it justice. We also found another trail. We ended up walking 4 miles that day. Here is the Fox River. I see some flooding.

This area is "downwind" from the paper mill. The smell was undetectable that day.

The USDA growing zone is warmer here than it is in Hartford, which is still a zone 5a. Here we are zone 5b. Even Green Bay is 5b. Sheboygan is zone 6. I remember when Wisconsin was cold, I mean Really Cold. I think the summers here may not be as hot as Hartford.

Some of my plants are happy, some are not. The ones on the west window sill appreciate the warm sunshine and cool nights, which is how succulents and cacti grow in nature. I can peek at them through half-open vertical blinds. Vertical blinds only work for sliding glass doors. I do NOT like vertical blinds.

The shelf setup under the south window has mixed results. Some succulents are ok, some want sun, and my Jades have been wrinkling their leaves meaning they need more water, and those low shelves are no fun to water. It's not that I can't bend over, the problem is the metal rods in my neck don't allow me to look up while bending over, I have to go in sideways, and reach in to water, and then go back to make sure nothing is sitting in water.

When we moved in we noticed there was a wild area along the road. The first thing I thought of was "wildlife habitat". We could hear lots of birds but can't see it from our apartment. We asked to move to the front apartment if it ever becomes available. The red arrow points to the apartment complex.

Google street view

Then it was scraped down to bare mud and drainage pipes were put in.

My picture

Now they are filling it with dirt. No idea what they are doing, but maybe there was a mosquito problem.

That's all for now.

Plant Challenge and Other Random Stuff

 I bought a tiny sedum Sedum spathulifolium 'Cape Blanco' (Creeping Stonecrop) and now the challenge will be to grow it. I think it's harder than Lithops, unless you live in California, where it grows on rocks and sandy cliffs.

Cape Blanco. It is very tiny.

Cape Blanco growing on a rock overhanging the beach in California

Cape Blanco and Dudleya (the rosettes) on a seaside cliff in California., where it rains all winter and not in summer.

No one in my succulent group knows how to grow it, well, one person bought one 2 months ago and bottom waters it. 

Wish me luck!

Other random stuff. We asked the apartment manager if we could move to a different apartment if one becomes available. We asked for the first building, facing the fields. There would be no garage blocking the view and no parking on the west side under the window, so no privacy issue, and a normal bathtub. It's a lot to hope for, since who knows when someone might move. I just don't see this apartment as my "forever" home. The place at Oriole Ponds was going to be my forever home but you see how fast that fell apart. Are there other apartments with a view? Not within a reasonable price range, at least in the foreseeable future.

The one on the far left.

I still miss Hartford, Delafield, West Bend, Oconomowoc. 

I'm making myself go through boxes. Too many saved papers that I don't need anymore.

We are still waiting for parts for our truck so we can get the work done. Hubby has to disconnect and reconnect the negative battery terminal every time he drives, otherwise the lights don't turn off.

We bought the most delicious strawberries at Woodman's, and they were from Canada. Imported before the tariffs? 

Sunday Update

 Moved the lights to the white shelves on the south wall, moved the plants. The big gray shelf is now empty and I can use it for storage. This is a short post, it's late.

West window. Several cars parked out there, plants on window sill, doing ok.

Moved the lights and plants.

Next project, finish putting stuff away.

That's all for tonight. Stuff to do tomorrow. Hope there isn't too much ice on the roads.