Random 5 for August 19 – Renovations, weeds, Starbucks, critters, books

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The pond is beautiful this time of year!

Last summer project finished! – We sanded and recoated the kitchen hardwood floor. It’s not as bad a job as you think. Overall it took 10 hours over 3 days. We did the pre-start conversation (or the tailgate as I call it). We agreed how we would proceed so we wouldn’t be painted into a corner. Alas, I totally forgot and painted our escape route. We had to recalculate our exit (I can hear the judgy voice from my GPS – “recalculating” with a heavy sigh). #hatestupidonme

Jack and the beanstalk! – We’ve had a lot of rain this summer. The weeds have been ecstatic. I can leave for a 20 minute errand and when I come back there is a five foot weed that wasn’t there at all when I left. Very scary! #zombieapocalyse

Turnover time – Kids are going back to school. My local Starbucks is having a turnover of baristas. It means longer wait times and occasionally “deer in the headlight” looks from new people. Today I got the wrong drink. Fortunately I check before I leave. #timetotrain

And then it was gone – My brother gave me a mystery tomato plant. I don’t know the variety but it was a large slicing one. It didn’t do very well. I had two tomatoes on the plant. One was getting pink. I decided to give it another day on the vine before picking. Bad decision. Some critter decided the pink was perfect and ate it. #gettheshotgun

The power of suggestion – I have been reading a series of light murder mysteries (if you can call a murder light) by Joanne Fluke. The main character owns a cookie store and it’s sprinkled with recipes. Lots of recipes. She’s always feeding people. If I lived near her I’d weigh 800 pounds! It has inspired me to cook in a way that I haven’t in a long time. I haven’t made any of her recipes but I’ve been tweaking my own. Somehow it’s fun cooking again! #whereismyapron? #tossthescale

So how was your week?

74 thoughts on “Random 5 for August 19 – Renovations, weeds, Starbucks, critters, books”

  1. Sanding and redoing the hardwood floor is a pretty ambitious task. Kudos to both of you for tacking that. And you do it every few years?
    I feel your pain with the weeds. It’s amazing….I can weed and two days later there is this mini tree in one of my bushes. How it grew that fast is beyond me.

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  3. SO not fair – you have rain! We watch the clouds go inland multiple afternoons, yet nothing. Clouds do help, though – poor Molly get nudged awake every time a cloud group goes over “It’s shady – go out now!” The last few days have been excessively, dangerously hot – and several more predicted. We are all terribly bored and tired of sweltering. Did take an outing today to check out a possibility for a new tv/media stand after checking the store’s website which said is was a store special sale and available and in stock…of course once there we were told, “We don’t have that one. It’s online but we can order it on the computer in the store..it’s available to order in store! See here’s the page on line” Even her perkiness didn’t make it OK. Or trying to show us other tables saying it’s like this only not as tall, different wood/doors/shelves/feet/color…..Arrrrrgh. (But at least it was an outing)
    Your pond is gorgeous as usual – how much longer before you winterize?

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  7. The pond is beautiful Kate! Last year I went to a butterfly walk in a woman’s backyard and she had a koi pond with lots of lilies. I had never seen a koi pond before and I was as fascinated with it as the kids that were clustered around it were – she offered the kids some fishfood to feed the koi and not me, but I got over it. Those weeds – I saw some tody when I came back from my walk, but it was hot and humid and I told them “maybe tomorrow” – I too am afraid one will reach out and grab me on the leg and say “please!” We had tomatoes in the backyard the first year we lived here and my parents despaired as you’d go into the garden and one would have a big chunk taken out of the side – birds, squirrel … they all liked them, but not the whole thing, just a bite of each one, like Goldilocks sampling the Three Bears’ porridge. I have a friend who lives in Cary, NC and she loved cherry tomatoes. She put them in pots on her deck so she could monitor the squirrels from her kitchen. They loved the cherry tomatoes and plucked them off, then took a bite or played with them. So she asked a nursery what to do and they suggested painting tabasco sauce on the tomatoes. That wouldn’t be a painstaking task with big tomatoes or the heirloom variety, but each cherry tomato? She did it and guess what? The squirrels ate them anyway. She buys them at the grocery store now.

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    • If they didn’t taste so wonderful straight from the garden or if places that sell them would stop refrigerating them and killing the flavor, I wouldn’t bother. I have 8 plants for 2 people so I get enough but they do take a bite out of several instead of eating all of one. Little boogers! I don’t have koi in my pond but I do have beautiful goldfish varieties. Much cheaper and it’s not the end of the world when a blue heron comes along for dinner.

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      • For years, we’d take a Sunday drive into the country come August and through late September to check out the produce stands … there’s nothing like those beefsteak tomatoes sliced up and plopped onto some crunchy toast (and real butter). I don’t like the plum tomatoes as they are really tasteless (to me anyway). This woman has the koi pond because she has only perennials and yard art in her backyard and it is a monarch waystation. I think the only annuals she had were around the koi pond. I wouldn’t appreciate seeing a blue heron pick off my pond koi either. I didn’t realize they were that costly.

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        • When my mom was alive we would do that on Saturdays. I rarely do it although we do go to a corn shed for fresh corn. They carry a lot of vegetables and sometimes I pick some up. My husband isn’t big on fruit or many vegetables so I often buy someplace where I can buy 2 peaches. I love those big slicing tomatoes but I don’t grow them. They would get eaten for sure.

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  8. It sounds like summer is coming to a close in the nicest of ways, and heading into fall you’ll be so glad for the completed projects. There was a Starbucks right next door to the university where I worked and every fall, and sometimes throughout the year, there’d be tremendous student turnover in the baristas and I know that panicked look that can come into their eyes. And the series you’re reading sounds delightful. I love the idea of the added recipes! Enjoy the rain…even with the weeds. LOL!

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  12. The pond looks beautiful. Fortunately there are two exits to our kitchen so I always have an escape route when I’m washing the floor, otherwise I’d get stuck too. I enjoy the “light mystery’s” by Laura Child. She does two series, one with a tea shop owner and one with a scrapbook store owner. They are pretty good.

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  13. I have a “cage” around our three blueberry bushes, but birds kept finding a way in… then couldn’t get out. Finally I had to open the door to the cage so the birds wouldn’t be harmed… and of course they are thanking me by eating all the berries before I can get to them.

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  14. Pingback: Random 5 for August 19 – Renovations, weeds, Starbucks, critters, books — Views and Mews by Coffee Kat – Jastine,Kalist

  15. I’ve read most of Joanne Fluke’s books and Diane Mott Davidson’s too. Do try hers if you haven’t already. So many books, so little time. And so many with recipes.

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  18. Your tomato thieving critter reminds me why I stopped planting veggies in the garden. It just never made sense to harvest that single tomato after spending $500 to plant, fertilize, and pamper for the darn squirrels. Not familiar with Joanna Fluke but will definitely check her out. I read Diane Mott Davidson who lives in the foothills just west of town (Evergreen CO). Her main character, Goldy Schultz is a caterer and part-time murder solver. I love her recipes and her stories.

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  20. So that’s where all of our rain is going…we can’t get a drop. All of the large storms headed our way seem to fizzle out once they get to the mountains. My week was good. A story I submitted to Woman’s World Magazine is on the shelf it’s dated August 27. It’s a special story because it’s about hummingbirds and I used my mother’s maiden name for the main character. 🙂

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  22. I’m checking out the cookie author. Of course, something tells me they’ll be Oreos and Lorna Dunes on hand. Takes so little to ignite my sweet tooth.

    Yes, the rain has been steady here too. The park is Ireland green, but that’s where the charm stops. My shoes are all wet, since it’s truly too hot to don your Wellies.

    I love tomatoes. Never met one I didn’t like, since they’re in my DNA.

    Here’s to your new floor and fresh baristas.

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