Friday April 8

[Shirlv]

Morning All, it’s 48°and I have my sunglasses on because of bright sunshine. Target opens at 7am so think I will check it out today. They are having a nice sale so will make an early trip. Think the two birds nesting in the eves of the balcony are repeats. Guess they know I’m not a threat because they continue to sit on the railing when I open the door. Finally remembered to put the dryer lint on the balcony for their nest. Plans for the day “enjoy the sunshine”. Be safe.

[Irmi]

Good morning Shirl and all that check in!

Shirl, it was only 58 in central FL this morning and our high will only be 71 today. At least the rain has quit. We've had over 4" this month already.

Today, Steve, Brenda & I will be meeting Sandy & Linda from this forum at a campground they are staying in this weekend. I finally got around to hand writing the recipe for the sausage stuffed jalapenos and posted it in the Recipe Forum. If you like jalapeno poppers, you'll like these.

[Redetotry]

Good Morning, We are having April showers again...and it is 38 degrees with the possibility of a bit of snow mixed in. Shirlv send a little of your warmer weather this way. I shouldn't complain because the heat will be here soon and I like that even less!
The morning could have started better. I had a security alert on my hotmail account that there was unusual sign in attempts from Moscow! I hit the reply that it was not me. Now I think it was a phishing fake alert. It was in my junk mail but after 10 days all mail goes to junk and it was over 10 days. It did look real and the reply was to microsoft.com. Then I realized my morning alarm on my iPhone didn't go off, went to check on that and it says you now have to set up alarms using the health app!! I was already not happy and decided to just leave it and brush Emma out. I got her on the table and Toby starts screaming from outside. Pippa is crying in her pen because she is scared, I'm trying to see what is wrong with Toby, and keep Emma on the table. Meanwhile DH is sitting right in the same room totally absorbed in his phone aware of nothing!! And yes at that point Toby was not the only one with a raised voice!! Thankfully dog and DH have departed for the trainers house and Emma will be on the road until Sunday! Whew hopefully that is all the drama for the day.

Good Morning Irmi just saw you posted. Enjoy your meet up with Sandy and Linda.

[Colliemom]

Morning all. Bit chilly 39°here this mid Friday morning. Might have some scattered rain/snow showers todsy and tomorrow but big warm up starting Sunday. I’m getting antsy to get work in the yard and start getting my garage organized for summer. About tine to get my lawn tractor started up before long and put snowblowers away eventually. Not rushing it as I know we can still get hit with another snowstorm before winter calls it quits. Seems like always at Easter.

Shirl, your tulips are beautiful and so is your solar lamp. Nice that the birds are back. We had a robin nest on a kitchen windowsill for a couple years and she didn’t seem to mind us walking past or doing dishes right there either. It was fun watching her feed the babies. I just read an article about what and what not to leave out for birds nests. Interesting. Found out some things that even I didn’t know. The bird to do an amazing job of building nest. If you’ve ever picked one up out that’s fallen of a tree you can see the intricate work that they do.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/news/prov ... dos-donts/

We have our bear back again this spring, raiding bird feeders. Notice was sent out by POA from DNR to not feed birds during spring, summer and fall when bears are active. Also said to keep trash cans tightly locked and cleaned and disinfected so they won’t smell them if they are stored outside. We haven’t had an issues with that though. Bears can remember a food source for many years and will keep coming back to it, sone tines traveling many miles. He did break down my neighbors fence gate the other night, but we think it was because he has an old BBQ grill sitting in the yard that’s heading for disposal and he might have smelled some grease. Didn’t look like he bothered it though. Neighbor was going to put it outside the fence so he doesn’t go back in the yard again. Said he can demolish it if he wants, since it’s going out of here anyway Bears do not like dogs annoy people so if one or the other happens to be outside he will takeoff. He’s roaming around both of the lakes here at across the other side of the highway too. Such is life in the north country. And the crows are having a field day if anybody puts a bag of trash out and it’s not in a can before the trash guys get here.

Lunchtime for me so I’m going to go and open up some tuna fish. Later this afternoon I will be heading for church fish fry. So you all have a nice day out there and stay safe.

[BarbaraRose]

Shirl, just an FYI, here is an article about why you shouldn't use dryer lint for birds...
https://txmommylady.blogspot.com/2014/0 ... art-2.html

You can use short pieces of hair or fur, etc. Other ideas can be found on line as well. Glad you are enjoying your plants and birds! I love to hear the birds chirping in the mornings or after a good rain!

[Shirlv]

Barbie, thanks for the article. I use unscented gentle detergent but guess any lint is a problem. The birds were doing fine without my help so I will butt out. My contribution was still laying in a ball on the floor so think the birds are smart shoppers.

[JudyJB]

Interesting articles. Wonder if you can use hair from brushing dogs or cats?

I learned several years ago what to feed geese when they are starving. We had about 30 get stuck in our condo pond when they molted. The pond had straight cement sides--actually two stepped levels of cement sides, but they were too tall for a goose to hop onto them, so without flight feathers for a couple of weeks, they were stuck with not enough food for the large flock. Most died and smelled horribly, so we had to hire someone to remove them. DNR said to feed them dog kibble if this happened again. If fed, they could have grown new feathers eventually and flown out, but at the time we had no idea what was happening, other than they were dying a few each day.

I am in eastern KY for one night and will head north to Ohio tomorrow. In the meantime, I am freezing. Didn't someone warn me heading north too soon would be a shock?? Well, they were right. Supposed to get warmer by the end of next week. Hope it stays warm. I have seen flowing bushes and some violets in last couple of days, and that was nice.

[Bethers]

I got up to temps in the upper 20's. They climbed all the way to 70 and sunny and was beautiful this afternoon. Mid week next week the weather will be full on winter for a couple days. One night predicted in the teens with a high in the 30's and possibility of snow. In other words typical spring for this area.

RVer's are on the road. Last night and tonight the main part of the RV park here is at capacity. The sites along the river have some people, but they don't have the water turned on to them yet even during the day, so not filling up. The motel opens officially a week from today. One of the buildings is testing maintenance so I don't know if we'll get it open by then. So far we're not any where near fully booked so no problem.

I main housekeeper knows how to test my patience. So far I've held my cool. We had our best conversation so far today so maybe we'll get past this. But I need to show her things she needs to do differently and that might ruin it. Fingers crossed.

[chalet05]

Good Afternoon!

The phone came! Went to set up new smart watch and it needed charging. They sent the cord but no wall adapter so off to Walmart. Still isn't charging so troubleshooting time. However, going to Walmart was great because the trees are greening up and the orchards are starting to bloom! Wasn't that way last week! Beautiful day but very windy.

I thought the lint idea for the birds was a great idea so learned something! Fed bread to a lot of ducks and not they say not to do that. Irmi, those poppers sound so good!

Long day and time for dinner.

[MandysMom]

BJ, I'll happily send you 15-20 degrees of warmth! It was 92° today! And the earliest a red red flag fire warning has been announced ! I'm enjoying my roses first bloom of the year, as well as my annual blue wildflowers that have popped back up each spring since we moved in in April 1989!
I'm going to get brave and drive at 7:30 to Costco, as I've heard gas station has shorter lines at that hour! Haven't bought gas for car since early Feb! Lines usually out of station and around onto main street in mid day any day of week lately! Gas Buddy says I'll be paying $5.19, which I think is down a few pennies!
Wishing all a happy weekend!
Velda

[BarbaraRose]

Velda, I need to get gas on the way to work tomorrow too. I have just been putting in about $30 worth at a time so I don't feel so much sticker shock.

Judy, yes dog and cat hair in a brush will work well as long as it isn't too long that they can tangled in it. It can be cut shorter if needed before giving to the birds. I should bring hair home from work! Altho, a lot of the birds around here are on their way north. We have some birds that stay all summer, mostly mourning doves tho.

Tiger Woods is doing well in the Masters and made the cut (he played well enough to be able to play on the weekend). I will miss watching tomorrow due to work but have Sunday off to watch the last day. I have a haircut to do at 11am but will be able to watch it the rest of the afternoon.

I didn't feel too peppy that last couple days so didn't get much done. I did remove the mylar plastic and glue off the bottom of the thunder gourd, but not before cutting my thumb pad with the exacto knife I was using to cut it off! Lots of blood but not really a deep cut so am just using band aides. I will need a few band aides tomorrow at work since I am sure it will open up occasionally while cutting hair all day. I cut off some blue rubber glove fingers to wear on it over the band aides in case it starts bleeding again. I don't want to bleed on my customers or freak them out if they see a bloody band aide. Also not very sanitary!

I think I got the new supplies I need to redo the gourd today (didn't check my mail box) and tomorrow I will get the sandpaper I ordered today to even out the edge of the gourd bottom before gluing the new piece on. I had to clean off the glue that got on the painted part of the gourd and that removed the paint so I will have to repaint those areas too. I am also starting a small gourd for my manager. She wants a pen holder for her desk. I found a small gourd in my stash with top already cut off, that will work well. I will use my new doggy stencils to paint a cute design on it. I filled the bottom of the gourd with a glue/sand mixture to weigh it down and keep the gourd from falling over with pens in it. They are very light so they tip over easily. That glue mixture should be dry by tomorrow and then I can start painting. I found out that I need to paint a gourd with white spray paint first so the colors I use will be true. The yellow/beige color of the gourd can distort the colors a little, especially the lighter colors, so I ordered some white spray paint at WM that I will pick up tomorrow after work.

I picked 3 ripe strawberries today. Hopefully, the tomatoes will start to turn red soon. It will be 100* again tomorrow and I think tomato plants like the heat. I will water them good in the morning again before I leave for work. They dry out so fast in the pots especially if it is windy. Temps will start dropping on Sunday and will be in the 70's by Tuesday. That is more normal for this time of year.

Have a good night!

[snowball]

It seems that I do things in two's went through two magazines, did two rows on Swedish Weave, and two rows on the crocheted afghan while doing my Swedish Weave talked with my friend/sister we've known each other 53 years maybe no 52 we visited for 1.5 hours just getting caught up on "news" we referred to each other as sister that our kids called the other family aunt and uncle and still do actually so it was good to get in a good visit... I did my two half rows on Swedish Weave while visiting with her...
Barbie if you like salads you might look up a recipe for strawberry/spinach salad you mentioning your strawberries made me remember it ...so yummy will need to make me one
Want to try salmon in my air fryer maybe with asparagus and not sure what else guess it depends upon what the price of food is when I go to the store... but it does sound good... but then there is hot dogs in the freezer
you all have a great day
sheila

[MandysMom]

I followed a friends husbands trick, I went to Costco about 7:15 tonight. Instead of lines out and around corner, there were only 4 cars ahead of me plus 2 at the pumps, so not a long wait. I put $58 in to fill the PT back up, as I had let it go way further than usual. I believe the last time I got fuel was before I got sick Feb10! Anyhow, it's topped off now . Inside Costco wasn't terribly busy either, though there was a steady trickle of folks going in and coming out as I went in and out. I got chicken for Stormy cat and steaks for me-NY steaks were back down to $9.99 lb. laundry detergent and few other items. Son met me on porch as I pulled in and he did most of the unloading and carrying in. Then I got chicken and steaks into freezer, before I ate. He had already had his every other Friday pizza. So, a productive day and I topped 10,000 steps for second time in a week.
Barbara, back when we had our sharpening business, many stylists gals and guys I knew kept finger cots (in paper packet, they look like a mini condom!). So I bought them and stamped with our info, and handed them a little pack I made with a couple band aids and a couple finger cots. They loved it! it was a small gift for having us sharpen scissors or clippers.
I'm off to bed. We got caught up in a new to us show called End Game.
Velda

[BarbaraRose]

I found some of those finger cots in our 1st aid kit at work today. (I call them finger condoms! ). I had never thought of using something like that over a band aide on a finger before until yesterday. It worked well today altho my cut never did start bleeding again.

[MandysMom]

Barbara, so glad you found them useful! It's something I never would have thought of, if I hadn't gotten to know so many stylists while sharpening. And, yes, the stylists I knew made all sorts of jokes about them!
Velda