Just Make My Day

The temps are hitting close to 100 degrees today, way off whack for this time of year. A few weeks ago we were below average on temps and now the last couple days we are way above average. What gives? All I know, is that I do, do love it. Yes, I can say that when I work inside all day during the worst part of this, but to me it beats the below zero temps and long, cold nights of the winters past.

Having said that, I do not like . . . I say . . . when I water my plants that every little gnat, mosquito and flying insect has to jump on their horse, drive hundreds of miles at speeds of 200-miles-an-hour plus just to feast on me or annoy me.

I started watering my plants with my two big watering cans this morning around 5:30 a.m. and now I have bite marks and bumps all over me. One hand was watering the flowers and I was waving the other hand like I was in a parade and brandishing a queen’s-wave but in fast motion. And then next I had to fill up Wolfie and the cats’ outside water dish and the hummingbirds had also drained their feeder. I was thinking of spraying myself down with Off but just couldn’t stand the thought of doing that for a few minutes after which I would be quickly jumping in the shower. So I let them feast!

Crap, really, who in their right mind would get up early and be out hunting humans already that early in the morning! Really!!?? I suppose they have learned from years of experience – when it comes to feast or famine – let’s go the O’Connor Farm Banquet. The chef there will be serving up meals at different times of the day, and if you are patient, early in the morning she comes out to serve up some appetizer – Shari on the Barby! It may be a little raw but it is tentacle-licking good. Egads! Maybe I should be slathering on a little honey mustard for a little extra tang.

Oh, and yes I did mention watering cans. Unfortunately, I’m still using the watering cans because I haven’t had time to get my hoses down from the garage ceiling – or should I put the blame on Bob as it is his job to put them up there in the Fall and again his job to take them down in the Spring. It is his job today (on his honey-do list) to get them down for sure because (1) I need them to water my bigger gardens, and (2) he informed me that he needed one of my hoses to run down to the free-stall barn sprinkler system.

Geez, now I have to pick up another one on my way home tonight, but that is okay – it is either that or my plants will whither away to nothing. And I can’t have that.

The one real problem I have . . . (well, I don’t really have a problem with doing it as much as the problem is . . . well . . .) I am going to be going into somewhere that has plants and I am a sucker! I have it written in invisible ink on my forehead and when I walk into a plant store or nursery it flashes and blinks like a neon light on a dark alley street at night – “SUCKER” “SUCKER” “SUCKER.” Honestly, it is there! I can’t see it when I look in the mirror; you can’t see it when you look at me; but you get a clerk behind a counter and it is almost blinding to him/her. They start ringing up digits on the cash register before I start to cross the threshold. I think they have special lighting in stores for people like me. And, yes, I know there are others out there. You may not admit it, but it is probably you . . . yes, you, the one reading this right now. Yes, I admit it – I am pitiful; actually, more like pathetic! If they made puppies to look like plants, there would no longer be humane societies to house these little infants – they would all be at my house. I’d be a puppy farm.

I know I should try to control my urges, but, again, they are urges, they are demons; they hit me at my most vulnerable times – like now, when I have new beds that have a need to be filled. The word has probably spread and all the plant clerks are looking for the woman with the flashing neon sign on her forehead.

Well, let me just tell them something . . . be forewarned . . . I’m coming to a store near you tonight and you just go ahead and try it . . . go ahead –

MAKE MY DAY!