September is here

[Shawn]

September is here (plus one day)... the mornings are nice a cool and I love being able to open my windows again for a nice cool breeze.

Can you believe places already have their Christmas items out?  We have not even gone thru labor day yet.  It gets earlier and earlier each year.

With September usually brings out the "Fall Organizing".  DO you organize and clean in the Fall?  I know it is not technically Fall but September is when it usually feels like it or starts to.

This month I want to clean out the garage!   However this weekend I will be re-dong my Farm Basic with some basil, oregano and some thyme.  I am also deciding on some more lettuce. 

What do you all do or are doing this month?

[maskedsonnet]

We're going fishing in Eagle Nest, NM at the end of this month!! Super excited to get away for a while. When it actually starts to cool off outdoors I'm usually more active when it comes to yard work and whatnot. But that'll probably be October for us!

I'm always disappointed to see Christmas decor out in September, when they COULD have put out more Halloween decor!! I love Halloween decor and honestly leave a lot of it out year-round in my house. Not much of a Christmas decor person, purely because glitter is nearly IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of, and most of the decor for it is absolutely covered in glitter that sheds everywhere.

[Shawn]

September can still be hot here but the nights and early mornings are cooler.  As for all the Glitter I do not really get glittery stuff for that very reason.  I enjoy Christmas decor.  It goes up after Thanksgiving and comes down on New Years day.  Although I think I took it down early last year.  Fall is Mark's favorite holiday so I will start to put things up at the end of the month.

I think the stores had Halloween stuff out in early July here.  Can we please have one holiday at a time before we get all the others out?


I am going to try and make a cup of tea using the Lemon Balm today.  I may make pick up a few lemons to put in with it in a cup of ice water.  As I sit here and type I am having a hot flash and some nice ice cold lemon water sounds good now.  Wish I had lemons LOL...

[lynnee]

We're heading into a heat wave (forecast is for 91 degrees on Monday, but that is adjusted down from 97 degrees). I'm clearing stuff out of the living room to make space for a hospital bed downstairs, and also rearranging the garage to hold stuff removed from the living room.

I'm getting Got Junk in soon to take out a Queen bed and box springs from upstairs, along with the excess junk from the garage. (Ray's mobility problems are worse, so we have to do some household reorganizing.)

[Shawn]

I am sorry you have to do all that arranging but it will be worth it for Ray to be home and comfortable lynnee.

Yesterday I went to the gastro and I set up my colonoscopy for next month.  We also went for our 1st Shingrix shot.  My arm is killing me and it goes to my neck and upper back.  But I hear many who get it have the same.  Thankfully I did not get sick with this one.  Next week we will go for the new booster.  I know I will most likely get sick with that one.

I managed to clean out the buffet unit and get what I do not use out of there.  I am slowly getting things organized and making room ..  for what I do not know but know I do not need all this crap.

Today the windows are open again and there is a beautiful cross breeze.  I cut more peppers off the wilted plants that ripened.  Later or tomorrow, most likely later I will end and sanitize the one farm.   

They say it is going to be a washout here on Monday.  UGH..  I should not complain because my grass is dead from the heat.  But the ground is so dry that the rain is hard to penetrate it.  Again I should not complain and we have had a wonderful summer here.  Kinda looking forward to fall now.  Hmm maybe I will get some pumpkin stuff out (after Monday).

[lynnee]

It's wonderful that you're clearing out the crap before you get 30 years' accumulation of crap, like I've done, Shawn! Good luck with the shots--I'm going to sign up for the latest vaccine as soon as it's available locally.

My AGs are all doing well, though I need to read up some more on celery. The celery is spreading out instead of growing straight up. The tomatoes are between crops, and the eggplants are flowering. The Sweet Heats have blooms but haven't set any fruit yet. The Mini Munch is producing 1-3 cukes per day, and looks as ratty and unphotogenic as ever.

Today I did something else that I should have done ages ago. I cleared the chest freezer in the garage and unplugged it! All that was in it was frozen pizza, Klondike bars that no one was eating (and won't eat now that we have the Creami), and Peet's coffee beans. Almost all of it fit into the freezer compartment of the kitchen fridge.

Unplugging it should help with the current Flex Alerts, where nobody gets rolling blackouts if everybody tries to conserve electricity from 4-9 pm on extremely hot days. Unplugging should also save us a bundle on our electric bills. Electricity costs a fortune in California!

Oh, and I also made two pints of strawberry ice cream to freeze for the Creami. I love ice cream, and it's fabulous being able to eat as much as I want to eat again!

[maskedsonnet]

Last time I unplugged my chest freezer it started growing mold, you may want to give it a little wipe-down with bleach or something if it’s going to sit for a while. I learned that one the hard way!! I just keep mine plugged in now even when empty so that doesn’t happen again, but we don’t have to worry about rolling blackouts here either

[Shawn]

Also keep that chest lid open or it will start to smell.We have a self defrosting freezer in the garage and I could not live without it.  Every so often I go thru and throw out anything that will never be used.  Most of that is stuff the reaper brings here.

Today I am going to clean out the Farm Basic and get some new things planted.

[lynnee]

Thanks for the freezer tips, maskedsonnet, Shawn! I have the freezer open now, and will wipe it down later today.

Now I need to find a place for the ice cube trays--I guess they'll go back into the freezer once it's clean and completely dry. We may get rid of the freezer entirely if it saves a lot on electric bills. (Our bills currently run about $275-$300 a month.)

It continues to amaze me, how much stuff you can pack into a relatively small 2-story condo (1300 sq. ft.). I've gotten rid of tons of stuff, and I keep finding more things that were shoehorned in somewhere around the edges of our living spaces.

It's easy to let the little-used stuff go, but my staging space for discards waiting for removal is limited. Whenever my resolve starts to flag a little, I just think about the "Hoarders" tv series!

[birdsatflight]

Almost a month of school has gone by. In early September, I planted petunia seeds and they didn’t germinated as quickly as I remembered. And some gazanias have germinated. I’m hoping for a nice flower garden at the student workspace outside my classroom. And last week, my students plant orange hat tomatoes for a December harvest. They hope to get donations from teachers for student activities. 

I am glad for the rain tonight because it has been a very dry summer. I don’t want to water my lawn when it’s been dried to a crisp by the sun. 

[Shawn]

Sept 25, 2022 22:34:45 GMT -5 birdsatflight said:

Almost a month of school has gone by. In early September, I planted petunia seeds and they didn’t germinated as quickly as I remembered. And some gazanias have germinated. I’m hoping for a nice flower garden at the student workspace outside my classroom. And last week, my students plant orange hat tomatoes for a December harvest. They hope to get donations from teachers for student activities. 

I am glad for the rain tonight because it has been a very dry summer. I don’t want to water my lawn when it’s been dried to a crisp by the sun. 

Depending on the temps in the schools I wonder if that is also affecting germination.  I will take a look back at my plants to see if there are faster germinating flowers.  I can not help with the Orange Hats as I have not grown them before.

We had some rain and needed it as well.  My back yard looks like I live in Arizona.  Areas of dead dead crispiness.  I hope it comes back or I will be getting a service to plant new.  I need grass for my dog.  Not mud which will happen Ugh,