Weekend is Here......

It is the same old view these days. The only changes seem to be where the jet vapor trails are the number of them. I only saw one this morning and it is a subtle white streak.  The temps are hanging close to freezing but we did not freeze now for the past two days. The windchill on Friday was painful and caused me to wear three layers for working outside. The wind is less today, Saturday, and it is said we will be 41 degrees F. by late afternoon.

Friday morning the zinnia patch looked like this photo shown left. I started out pulling and cutting them. I thought I would just do a small portion of them then finish later.

Once I got started and had taken a couple of wheel barrows full of stuff to the truck, I had gotten use to the cold. It now looks like this and it looks pretty sad. I did remove the glass jar and antique chicken waterer from the birdbath in case it would really freeze. The stumps of the sunflowers remain and they seem to be needing a bulldozer to get them out of the ground.  I may wait until spring and see if the natural weathering processes will help to break them down for easier removal.

Since it didn't freeze, I may go back and pick a few more.  I don't have much luck with some of these ripening in the house but I will give them a chance.  The pear shaped small tomatoes do change to yellow but the flavor just isn't as good.  I did pick a lot of those for eating.

The porcelain pail holds all of the last zinnias until later placing in vases.  They do have water now and that may make them look better. It took a lot of time to hand clip the blooms while pulling the plants was a faster process. The truck is full of the stems and leaves now and I will dump it on Monday.

I did pick some of the herbs and we will get them ready for freezing today.  We have decided to just hang the sage upside down by its stems. I may hang them in the furnace room which will make that place smell good.

Other things that were done yesterday was to dig up the cannas and two hardy geranium plants. I wasn't going to dig the geraniums but I don't like killing a plant when I don't have to. They are in my galvanized pails and will probably stay in them all winter.

We did get our flu shots yesterday and sore arms seem to be consistent results of that.  The place was certain that I had already had my shot, but the pharmacists was not spelling my last name correctly. He didn't want to give me a second shot.  After some discussion he entered my last name with a "us" and not "ess" and found that I wasn't registered at that place.  I could of told him that as we had shots in another city last year.  My wife was in the files as she buys her medication there, but I don't do that. The shot site was good but really was not in a muscle. I guess they don't look for muscle anymore for poking a needle.

We are off for our usual adventure this morning and will be home for rest this afternoon.  Dodging cold weather is the familiar  behavior for winter but we do have a garage now that makes part of the journey more tolerable.  I opened the garage door yesterday and started the car so it would be warm. My wife  wasn't  surprised as to how cold the wind was until we got there and had to get out of the warm car in the parking lot.

I am glad to have the weekend begin and hope to enjoy the next two days off from everything.  Thank you for checking up on me today.