For the second consecutive day, it appears that my wife is not having to work and will thus remain home all the day. I had no opportunity to blog here yesterday, so I feel it incumbent that I force opportunity now this latter afternoon ─ it is 4:25 p.m. as I type these words.
I accrued considerable time in the backyard Sun yesterday ─ just over 40 minutes sunning my back, and then just over a half hour sunning my front. I wore but a pair of gym-style shorts.
My wife also spent a lot of time out in the backyard that afternoon whiling away time on a sturdy sheet of some sort ─ it was not anything that would be used for bedding. As often as not, she lolled in the shade; and overall, she eclipsed my time outside.
I also performed some garden work on her behalf in relation to the two sorry plants I have written about in several previous posts. The plants are approximately a foot tall, and originally had gorgeous dahlia-like red blooms.
However, snails and slugs soon had the petals devoured, and were even starting to eat away the plants' leaves.
So I ordered some copper foil tape through Amazon Canada to give that a shot, creating a roughly two-inch-high wall around the plants, giving them each their own compound.
Alas, we would still occasionally find one (and sometimes two) of the slimy villains clinging amongst what remained of a plant's foliage. I nursed the notion of making the wall twice as high ─ in other words, four inches instead of two, for the tape is two inches wide.
Then maybe three or four days ago, a brainstorm struck me.
We happen to have an office-style stapler that works perfectly fine, except for one small flaw ─ the staples it projects through anything we use it on, never have the two arms or legs closed tight together to lock up the two objects that are supposed to have been stapled.
Basically, all the stapler does is push a staple off the row in its arsenal, and the staple ends up going through the items being stapled together; but the two ends do not close to embrace one another ─ not even slightly. They remain projecting forth as unaffected by the act of stapling as if nothing of the sort had ever occurred.
My brainstorm was to use this defective device to create a menacing ridge of unclosed staple ends near the top of the copper foil wall that would extend all the way around it ─ how could any snail or slug scale such a pointy barrier?
This was the result of my work yesterday in the afternoon ─ here is a shot of each of the two plants:
Can you see the pointy staple ends protruding all the way around the top of the copper foil walls?
Here is how the two plants appear in one single photo ─ the mass of plants all about them are a type of thyme. When they are in bloom as they now are, the bees absolutely love them! However, blooming or not, they are a perfect jungle-like cover to harbour numerous snails and slugs:
Whether the staples will prove to be the missing dimension in the safeguard of the two unfortunate plants remains to be discovered. We shall need dank weather for that.
The morning began as overcast, but the night sky had been mostly clear. We even had a very light shower of rain late this morning, but then the day began to give way to a predominance of sunshine. I in fact got in another session of frontal sunning this afterrnoon that just exceeded 40 minutes.
Ergo, thus far we haven't had the sort of weather conducive to adventuring for any of the snails and slugs. Or if any did attempt to scale the copper foil tape walls, they were thwarted by the projecting staples at the top.
The full truth will out when we get some extended rain. Nevertheless, I am quite pleased with myself thus far.
Returning to talk of yesterday, when my younger brother left for the afternoon, he did so afoot. This always portends that he will be doing some serious drinking after hooking up at a pub with one or both of two specific drinking buddies.
In all likelihood, it meant that I would be able to get to bed early ─ which I did, just a few minutes after 9:00 p.m. Prior to that, I had even enjoyed a can of beer.
I said nothing to my wife when I retired, but undoubtedly she soon enough realized what was up with me.
I think she was to also get to bed quite early.
As is the way with me, sleep would come and go. Then somewhere after 1:00 a.m. and before 2:00 a.m., I rose to put some work into the post I am building at one of my six hosted websites.
It was possibly as late as 4:50 a.m. when I returned to bed, trying not to disturb my wife. I evidently failed, though; she stirred considerably, and mumbled almost incoherently ─ something about having to get up very soon.
I figured that it was semi-conscious talk of no significance ─ maybe she was barely out of some dream.
But then at approximately 5:00 a.m. when I was starting to relax enough to think that sleep might not be too far off for me, she stirred anew and started to get up.
I had on a bandana blindfold.
She fussed about in the bedroom, and turned on the lamp at her bedside; and I soon enough heard her talking with one of her stepsons.
She was to exit and return into the bedroom a few times.
And then eventually, I either slipped into some sleep, or she left and the house was quiet again. Whatever the case, when I found myself awake enough later on to be curious about the time, I was nearing 9:00 a.m., so I rose for the morning. I was still alone in bed when I did.
My brother was downstairs watching T.V., but I did not join him until around 10:00 a.m.
In time, I began to wonder if maybe it were possible that he and I were alone in the house, but I didn't care to look in on both of my two stepsons.
It was around midday that a commotion outside proved to be announcing the homecoming of my wife ─ and both of her sons.
I still have no idea where they went do danged early. I can only suppose that it must have had some basis in Thai Buddhism ─ some special occasion.
My brother and I were to watch T.V. until at least 1:10 p.m., and then he sought some bed rest. At that point, I was the only person in the household still up ─ my wife and both of her sons had gone back to their respective beds.
It was the perfect opportunity to tackle the day's scheduled bodyweight exercising out in the backyard tool shed ─ at most, it consumes ten to 15 minutes.
It had become sufficiently sunny by then that I decided to shoot for that 40 minutes of sunning ─ I had believed earlier that none would be possible today.
Once that was done, I returned into the house to find that both my wife and my brother had each gone.
Of course, she did anon return. She had probably just nipped out for some grocery shopping.
Anyway, with the scant amount of sleep that she has accrued overnight and today, I am pleased that she did not have to work at her friend's Thai restaurant.
It is now just past 5:30 p.m., so I do not wish to continue blogging. It seems rude with my wife home.
I haven't had an afternoon nap. Consequently, it would be nice to be able to get to bed early this evening. However, that will depend upon whether my brother gets back home no later than 8:30 p.m. Should he fail to do so, then I will be off to bed.
I rather suspect that my wife will probably seek some sleep even before then.
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