A GOOD Friday, According To My Definition

Today was an excellent Friday. For me, at least. Mr. Moon had some bumps in his road though, specifically the fact that the floor he just had done completely disappointed him.
As in- he will not be able to live with it. He'll end up laying vinyl fake wood flooring over it if the floor guys can't get it far more to his satisfaction. And I understand that. There's a feeling we get in our guts when certain things happen that are not what we thought would happen and it causes not only deep frustration but also anger. Now as you probably know by now, Glen Moon does not vent his anger. I don't think I've ever heard him raise so much as his voice in anger. This does not mean he doesn't get angry. We all do. 
But he chooses to deal with it in a calm and non-threatening way. 
So he left the cabin and drove up to Cairo, Georgia where he wanted to look at a chair he thought might be the one to replace his recliner and he called me from the parking lot and asked me to just let him vent and of course I did. 
He was absolutely not wrong to be unhappy with the way the floor turned out. It was nothing like what had been promised. And I could tell he was really upset. And he needed to be able to talk about it. 
He ended up making notes about the problems he was seeing in order of importance and then texted the owner of the business and had him call so that they could discuss it. 
From a distance. 
And they did. 
So that was Glen's morning. He did, however, buy the chair and they will deliver it tomorrow. I think he is very happy about that. 

I spent way too much time this morning just reading blogs and commenting and doing stuff like that but when I got going, I got going. I did the laundry, including the sheets and hung everything on the line. Of course Maurice came to lay in the shade and keep me company. 

I watered the porch plants and some outside plants and I set the little funky sprinkler on the kitchen garden. It is so very dry and crunchy here right now. The forecast doesn't call for so much as a drop of rain in the coming week and the plants get so thirsty. So do the birds who seem to love to dance in the sprinkler, stretching their wings to catch the water which is a pretty thing to see. 

And then I finally got some work done in the garden. I did a little weeding and I did some mulching. At last! Things are coming along.
 

Here we have a very young bell pepper. The problem with my peppers and eggplants is that as always, the plants themselves do not seem to want to grow very large. I always call them my bonsai peppers and bonsai eggplants. What am I doing wrong? And yes, we do fertilize.
But the tomatoes are coming along and several are making tomatoes. The cucumbers and squash which are also in grow bags this year look pretty good although of course the bugs and mildews and so forth have not had time to take hold. The potatoes look great. See above. And the rattlesnake beans are climbing the fence. Can you see them?

It made me so happy to be back in the garden. Almost each and every plant becomes familiar to me and I silently cheer them on as they grow, flower and fruit. It's like it almost has nothing to do with the hopefully eventual harvests. Now if we depended on our food garden to actually feed us, it would be a different matter and I would not have the luxury of simply being invested in the growing of what we plant and would be far more concerned with what those plants produced. 
I know this. It can be a hobby rather than a live-or-die situation. 

We've got plenty of space to put in our field peas and need to go to the Waukeenah Fertilizer and Farm store to get the peas to plant. 
And yes, Waukeenah is a real place here in Jefferson County although like Lloyd, is not really a town but rather a community. And it is located not far from the Wacissa. 
After I did my weeding and mulching, I turned the garden sprinklers on and just a little while ago, Glen and I went out to turn them off and do a slow tour. We put tomato cages on a few of the tomatoes which have grown enough to need them and we noted the way the Thai basil from last year reseeded and is coming up nicely. We saw a bee, hovering about the little sprouts and I am sure she was on a reconnaissance mission to see how last year's favorite bee attractor was coming along. 

A day in which I spend a lot of time outside is the best sort of day for me and I feel all the better for having one of those. I brought the laundry in and made up the bed with the clean sheets, dried in the sun and the breeze and tonight's sleep will benefit from that. 

I did kick bamboo and there was not so much. I probably missed some but that's the way it goes. 
The smell of the star jasmine, aka Confederate Jasmine, is strong in the air. I discovered that somehow the climbing vine has made its way all the way up into the old oak in the front yard. Another invasive situation.

That is actually way, way up in the tree, taken with the pretty darn good telephoto capability of my new phone camera. Although the blossoms smell sweet, they can, like so many of the invasives, choke a plant to death. I'm not sure how this one made its way to the oak tree from the fence where I stupidly planted it, but it has. And honestly, the scent can be completely overpowering. 
I tried to take a picture of one of the very small blossoms. I'm not completely satisfied, but here it is.

The flower is barely the size of a dime. 

I am truly trying to learn how to use this new camera and I am learning but I realize I'm not nearly there. Still, I think I'm on the road to getting it. 

That is a chive blossom. Did you know that chives have blossoms? 

Here we have some roses.

I should probably do some reading on how all of this works. What I have found is that instead of bring the camera lenses close to an object and then tapping it to bring it all into focus, I have to bring the lens (just one) as close to the object as I can and have it focus there, then widen the image with the telephoto function. The image appears to stay in focus, even as I widen it, and that's what seems to work. 
It is so interesting. 

Good Lord. I better go make us some supper. 

Happy Friday, ya'll. 

Love...Ms. Moon