Oregon Living 2023 – Blog #21 – Lots of Good Weather so Lots of Yard Work!

 

  

Sunday, May 14^th., 2023……  HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY!  I sent Cathye pics of the pups

and wished her a Happy Mother’s Day. She says she’s already heard from her daughter. Chris (stepson) will be calling her later.  She sent me these pics captioned, “me, watching them work!”

Michael made them breakfast and later Cathye will be taking them to dinner to say thanks.  She leaves tomorrow.  They took some time to drive to Uranus!  Yeah, that’s funny!  It’s a tourist trap ion I44 that has fudge and other items for the passersby.

Meanwhile, I spent the day hanging inside the house. Temperature topped out today at 91°!  Tomorrow I will get the pool out and filled up for Rylee. Later in the afternoon, I got some more pics of their dinner.

Tomorrow they leave for the airport. It’s a 100 mile drive and the flight leaves early, so they’ll have to leave early as well.      

Monday, May 15^th., 2023……  I got updates as the day went on. Her flight left on time from Springfield, a 1 hour flight to Chicago. There she has a 2 ½ hour layover.  She made it to her new gate (quite a hike at O’Hare!) and waited. She would be getting in to Portland around 6:15pm or so. My plan was to leave around 4:00 and stop at Burlington Coat Factory. I need to look for a coat for the cruise when we have to ‘dress for dinner’. I fed the dogs a little early and let them out and then headed out about 3:30. I made the turn and hit the main shopping street in Salem but must have missed the store sign. Oh well, no worries, I can go another time!  I made a slight turn off the path to the airport and stopped at Jack in the Box and got a burger. Good thing I ate it on the fly because when I got to the cell phone lot, Cat called and said her flight arrived early and she was outside waiting for me. I got there and we made the drive and got back home right at 8:00pm. To say the least, the girls were happy and got their hug and kisses time. We got her unpacked and rested and caught up on Survivor and The Masked Singer before hitting the spa before bed. It was a long day and she was exhausted! But I’m glad she’s home!       

Tuesday, May 16^th., 2023…… I wanted us to sleep in a little this morning but Cathye was still on Central time and was up early!  The weather was really nice and comfortable this morning when we took the dogs out for their walk. Temps will get up in the high 80s but right now it was really nice! We got them fed and Cat went out to check on her plants. I got kudos for the job I did – except for the roses! I was under the impression that they didn’t need a lot of water, being in the pots right now.  I was wrong! They weren’t doing well but she says they will be ok.  She will plant them tomorrow or Thursday. Meanwhile, I worked on getting the tiki out. If you have not seen it, pics are below. I received this back in 2011, as a retirement gift from Lydia and we had it out in the back yard in Long Beach. Of course I brought it to Oregon!  But it’s been in storage here for 6 years, waiting for the right spot. The deck was it!  I got it muscled out and on a cart behind the tractor and we pressured washed it and set it out in the sun to dry. When Corey and Vikki get here later, I will use Corey to help get it in place. We headed off to the store to get whatever we needed for the bbq. We settled on hot dogs but at the last minute decided to make hamburgers as well.

The party went well and the food was eaten up!  After dessert, Corey and I went to work and got both the tiki

and the planter box

installed. I just need to add something under the tiki to protect the decking and then screw down the planter box. Tomorrow. The grandkids used the spa 

and we relaxed and visited. Once everyone left, we cleaned up a bit and relaxed from the day. We were both really tired and after a nice soak in the spa, I was ready for an early bedtime!     

Wednesday, May 17^th., 2023……  This morning we had a few things on our agenda. After showering and getting dressed, we took the pups out for their walk. I fed them and Cathye took off to go do labs. At her last checkup, her doctor said he wanted to get more info on how her thyroid meds were doing. So, she’s only several weeks behind in getting that done! When she got back, I had already gone out to get coffee for me, chai latte for her and breakfast for both of us! . Later, we left for our haircut appointment. We usually go at 10:00am but someone beat us to that time today – Penny!  She had already left when we got there for our 11:00am appointment.  We got finished and came home. I think we were done for the day!  I had prepped and painted a base for the tiki and while that was drying, I went out and screwed the planter box down and Cathye added the bamboo trees and a few of the other flowers. We will be adding bark mulch and greenery to finish up that project, but so far, it looks pretty good 

and will provide some screening from the neighbors (not that they would care to see us old folks in hot water!).

Thursday, May 18^th., 2023……  This morning I was up early and walked the dogs, fed them, and went off to the gym by myself. Cathye hung around the house and sat out on the deck and had coffee and enjoyed the sunny morning. We have had weather in the mid-80s all week. They say it will continue like that for a while except for Sunday and Monday. I guess there’s a front coming in which will cool us off a bit. But no rain is expected.  Once I got back, we spent most of the day working around the yard. Cathye has some plants she wants to get from her pots and into the ground so she worked on that. Later, we had a light dinner and watched tv until spa and bedtime.   

Friday, May 19^th., 2023…… Today was mowing day! The grass does have some dew in the morning but dries out by 10:00am or so. I got started – filling up the tanks in three of the mowers.  I made sure I adjusted the cutting height on Cathye’s John Deere.   As I said before, we found her 2 ½“ cut is lower than that on the other mowers. So, I set it at 3 ½” and she ran it so we could test it. Yes, that would work!  Cat and I got started and were working about 10 minutes before Penny got here.  Once she got going, we were done in an hour and a half. Of course there is another step – picking up the grass!  I need to wait a couple of days so the cut grass can die out . making it a lot easier to pick up. This time we will use the grass catcher on the Craftsman pro and the bagger on my zero turn. I think we can get it done faster that way. We’re shooting for Monday but we’ll see.

Saturday, May 20^th., 2023…… We were up early again and had Princess and Butthead out and walked. We fed them, then Cathye made us breakfast burritos and coffee. Yummy! Today, Cathye spent time transplanting her roses. She had planned on putting them under the window outside my office, but the holes she and Adam dug still had water in them! And she knows roses can’t do standing water. So, I helped her fill in the holes a bit - just enough to set the wooden containers – and that way they are above the water table a will hopefully be a little protected. Time will tell.

 

Cathye asked for some help with the watering system for her island. There are tons of weeds that she (or Adam) will need to pull, but the ground is pretty hard. We got an oscillator device positioned and let that run for a bit. I also worked on the sprinkler head for the blueberries. We need to get some water on these plants like now!  This is just an above-ground unit and there was a piece of grit in the line so the thing wouldn’t operate correctly. That took a little disassembly to find the culprit and once fixed, all was good.  We let both lines run while we came in and watched The Book Club. We’re going to see the sequel next week but Cat had never seen the original and I forgot most of the plot. It was hilarious!  Can’t wait to see the new one! I spent the rest of the afternoon watching my auctions and Nascar race. This week and next are jam packed with Indy car (Indy 500), Nascar (Wilkesboro and Charlotte), and F1 (Monaco).  We decided to go out for dinner and chose The Point. We sat outside on the patio and had a nice meal and enjoyed the view of Foster Lake. When we got home, we let the girls out for a bit. Rylee is now waiting for me to go out and open the water faucet out in the yard. She loves to chase the water stream! Of course she would decide today that after getting soaked in water, she would wallow in the dead grass! That took a few minutes to clean up!  But all was good and we came in and settled in and watched tv until bedtime.