Oh Hail! A Wrap Up

Just a few minutes after I uncovered the corn to get some sun, I heard a roaring sound and realized that we were going to get hail. By the time I got out to the garden, it was white all over. Luckily the hail only lasted 2 minutes or so ( just long enough to get all the tarps put up and soak me to the skin) and it was small pea-sized stuff.

Spring gardening in the Rogue Valley involves lots of plastic (not the spending kind) but the draping kind...all over the plants to avoid getting burned by a late frost or cold temps or wind or hail...


My peppers live in a cloche of plastic for protection, wall 'o waters for heat and shade cloth for avoiding sun scald and remay for bug avoidance, special vinyl coated frames from Gardener's Supply...peppers are my prima donas, always needing something from me.


Butts up, looking at the progress of my cucumbers in their little A-frame hotel with wire, plastic, shade cloth and special dried oat grass bedding.

HAD TO DO IT

The time is finally right to face that fact that I need to lose 40 lbs or risk ruining my knees and not being able to dance. I weighed in this morning at 173! Here we are at the December dance at CARD in Chico. I don't want to look like this anymore! More that I have ever weighed. My dental hygenist told me about her diet that uses Mediral ( naturally secreted hormone by the hypothalmus that regulates your metabolism) I bought some online. You take 10-12 drops, 3X per day and go on a 500 calorie diet of protein and veggies...the hard part for me is not eating breakfast. You can't have any starch and very little carbohydrates, no sugar, no dairy (I'm allowed 1T of non-fat dairy creamer in my coffee, so that means only one cup of coffee a day! No iced coffees that I so love for a quick pick me up mid-day since I can't go without cream in them. I can use Stevia as my only sweetener since it is also a natural substance. So my tum is growling as I write this but my hygenist assures me that she lost 33lbs in 21 days on the diet. You have to go off the Mediral after 21 days but keep on the maintanence diet (1500 calories a day) for 3-weeks and then you can do another 21 day stint. So who knows how much I'll lose...I know I'll lose weight...who wouldn't on 500 calories a day...but the point is to reset my metabolism so that everything I eat doesn't turn into fat! I look forward to better-looking dance photos!

In order to ignore the hunger pangs, I am keeping busy inside and outside doing chores. I figure I have about 15 more hours just in cleaning up the front yaard...I've spent 5 hours so far and it's still a weed-infested mess! I could just kill that Mark...better yet, spray him with Roundup like he did my yard! What he did was kill all my native plants that crowded out the weeds, so this spring the weeds took over!

We're gaining on it inside and have most of the ugly chores done, including all the wood floors. I have lots of paint touchup to do on the walls where cardboard boxes sat and streaked the paint. No kidding, the chemicals in cardboard can discolor carpet (it did) and walls. Of course the woodwork is a greasy mess also...he never cleaned his hands I guess, so I'm tackling that one door at a time! I'll have to paint some of them also.

Mr. A has spent 3-days in the shop boxing up Mark's crap and taking it over to him...today will be no exception. We're planning the orgy of power-washing the shop floor Saturday or Sunday as the weather permits (supposed to be nice and in the 70's this weekend.) I'll be power-washing his heavy industrial rubber floor mats which are now covered in grease and crap! Should be exciting.

I'll put up photos soon.

BACK IN OREGON

Our Chico adventure is over...we've moved back into our house in Medford. It didn't seem like our house because it was soooo dirty and neglected. Nothing that 3-weeks worth of work (so far) couldn't fix, so it's been head down, butt up for both Jack and I about 10-hours a day. Fun times washing windows, walls, doors & woodwork, having carpets steamed & deodorized, peeling cardboard off the walls where Mark's boxes stuck...

But the best time of all was had scrubbing the hardwood floors with scotch brite pads, watching the grease & grime roll up in little black balls on my mop and then putting down coats of sealant. Apparently the Neanderthal dragged his feet and never checked the soles of his shoes when he came in from the shop (which is also a greasy mess). GREAT TIMES!

The other fun place to be was the yard. Seems that when I told Mark, "Whatever you do, please don't use any weed killer on my yard..." he heard, "WEED KILLER, UH use lots and kill everything!" So my 8-years of naturalized landscape are gone and all that is left aare dead plants and LOTS OF WEEDS! Yes, the naturalized poppies kept most of the weeds out but now there are no poppies and solid weeds. I have had to replace a few plants and just tore out the others that bit it. So now I've spent 5-hours in the front yard, with about 15 more hours to go just to get the weeds out.