November 20, 2010 - Saturday at the Library

YAY! The library has begun to open on the first and third Saturdays of each month. I didn't realize that when I drove here last night at 10 o'clock, parked out front so I could access the WiFi to publish the Nov 18th. blog, opened up the laptop and found the battery was dead.


November 18

Sitting in the pickup, in the dark, after the library closes isn't so bad. It's cool in the cab, unlike the house which was 81F right after dinner. I can see the laptop monitor just fine in the dark, which is much better than trying to see anything at all in the glare of the daylight. Mr. Granny drove so that I could be comfy in the passenger seat and didn't have to fight the steering wheel. He didn't protest much, as I promised him a maximum of 10-15 minutes, just long enough to answer Debiclegg's email, Shawn Ann's comment about whether Cricket mobile is available here (in short, no, nothing is available here!), publish today's comments and download a dozen blogger's web pages for reading off line. I'll never completely catch up, but I am able to spot check most everybody's posts so as not to be completely in the dark about what all of you are up to.

I had my daughter check on getting a laptop connect card from ATT, but it's way too expensive. Unless I commit to a two year contract, at $60 per month (plus taxes), the card alone is $249. I'm sure not going to pay that much for about 3-1/2 months of service! I'll just continue to use the library. Once I get used to it, it won't be so bad.

I guess it's time for garden pictures. It doesn't seem as though things are growing much, but then I compare it with photos taken a couple of weeks ago and see that it is. I'm wondering if the radishes will ever develop bottoms. I squeezed them today, and so far there's nothing.

This bed was full of volunteer lettuce, and took a lot of thinning. I've tried to leave 3-4" between the seedlings, and will do more thinning out as they reach an edible size. I had broadcast some mixed lettuce seeds here, before I realized I was going to end up with self sown ones, so I have no idea which are from my seeds or from self sowing. I'm quite sure I didn't plant Red Romaine, and I do see some of that in there. It looks like I ended up with quite a bit of Red Sails, but my seed mix was heavy on that variety. Whatever grows, I'll be happy with it.

The grocery store purchased green onions are growing well, and can be used as I need them now. The flowers are just kind of sitting there doing nothing spectacular.

I replanted some of the bare spots where the spinach didn't germinate. It seems to be growing awfully slow, as are the radish bottoms, but looking back at last year's garden I'd say they are right on track. This garden was started about two weeks earlier than last years garden, which produced nice radishes and lettuce after the first of the year.

My friend Esther came by today to invite me on a Costco trip Saturday. I'll be happy to go to Phoenix, where I can buy certain groceries that cannot be found in Parker's small Wal-Mart.....like bread flour. We went into town the other day, with a list of a dozen or so things I needed, and found at least half of them unavailable. Either they were out of stock, or they don't carry them at all. Things like peanuts, store brand ketchup, frozen sausage patties, citrus tree fertilizer, and the bread flour. I did, however, buy myself two pairs of cotton knit pajamas, for which I expected to pay $10 each, that came up at $1 each! Wow! Two pairs of winter pajamas for two bucks! We had to go back to town yesterday, so I picked out two more pairs of PJs. I figured I could either save them for next winter or give them to my daughter. I asked the cashier to do a price check, but they both came up as $10. I mentioned the $1 price from Friday, and she said "Oh, yes. They made a BIG mistake that day!" Well, they can't have them back now, 'cause they've already been worn.

September 20

Well, there was no trip to Phoenix today. Esther went on a desert run yesterday, and was too tired for another long drive today. Bummer.....I had a good long list for Costco shopping! Oh well, with the library being open and nothing else to do, I think I'll spend the day catching up on your blogs!