In the rain...

Firewood mowed in the rain today!  Silly man.

Since he brought me some herbs I have not been able to find, I also planted in the rain today.  Silly Myrtle.

He brought me dill, thyme, and sweet basil.  I am still hoping the dill seeds grow, but at least I have one plant.  I have one sweet basil and one purple basil.  And two thyme and two sage.

Sadly, to me, you can see the dead parts of the rosemary bush that is closest to where I am standing, but you can also see the new growth on it.

Although Firewood Man is still skeptical of the whole banana peel theory, he did point out that my first rose is starting to bloom.  This is the new bush I bought.

Yesterday, I snapped this of the honeysuckle bush.  Soon, the incurable disease will wash over it and almost all the blooms and leaves will die and fall off.  What's left will be milky/dusky and most beleaguered.  I forget the name of it, but there's nothing to be done.  So, even though it looks wretched most of the summer, I have absolutely no plans to remove the bush.

So utterly beautiful........

Firewood Man looked at the sample of deck board that I stained and thought that I should do it.  However, he asked me why I had not put sealer on it yet to have an end product to compare.  I told him I am exhausted.  SIGH.

Down to the basement I went and fetched the sealer.  From the basket already upstairs, I fetched the paint can opener, hammer, and mini-plastic drop cloth.  I put on two coats over the stain and on the curved edges where there is no stain for comparison.

I'll know better when it is dry in a couple of days, but whilst its not the color I want (not brownish red enough), I do think using the stain before sealing will help make the steps less raw-looking in comparison to the 95-year-old back porch.

I did not use a stir-stick, but rather vigorously shook can of sealer to mix it.  That left a coat on the can lid.  Since all I needed was a tiny bit for my deck board sample, I used the rest of the sealer on the can lid to do another coat on the table I made for the back porch. I figured that since it was only made last year, the wooden top is really old, and it was covered with snow during the winter, another coat of sealer wouldn't be amiss.

With the monsoon now pounding down outside, I am leaving the table inside to dry.  More visual unrest in the living room.  SIGH.

I used the one chip brush left over from last year, washing it again when I did the dishes.  Yes, I'm the kind of person who will re-use a chip brush as long as the clean-up is fairly easy.  Since it was a 1-inch brush and just a brief period of use, I cleaned it off, even though I did buy a new 1-inch chip brush the other day.  1-inch, 2-inch, and 3-inch, all the sizes I will need for sealing the front porch, the back porch, and the steps.  I am wealthy in brushes and salivating over the thought of being able to toss them all after all the sealing is done so that the only clean-up will be my shower.

Firewood Man can be a bit ... abrupt.  I asked him if he liked mowing next to the rose bush (tree) since I pruned it ... magnanimously lopped off three blooming branches that were in his way.  Tim's answer:  "Yes, but you really need to do the weeping cherry next because it's hard for me to edge beneath it."  No effusive adulation for me.

Something I need to do is pull the pump from the water fountain and clean it out.  The flow is slow and so I cannot hear it when I am sitting on the couch inside.  And with the rain the weather is cool enough to work out on the front porch for a while.  But I think most would call that a want not a need.  "Myrtle, what you need to do is rest."  Well, yes, I do.