My younger brother was home last evening no later than 8:20 p.m. from wherever he had been drinking, so I felt obliged to give him the benefit of the doubt and operate our Android TV Box to locate episodes of some of the T.V. series we follow.
Even so, he appeared to me to be unnaturally flushed and even stupefied of countenance, moving about almost as if he was astonied ─ he had gone out into the backyard to spread about the last of some grass seed, and his practically frozen scowl and nearly stumbling gait betokened a most diminished presence.
Well, we got through the first episode that I tuned in, but when we were maybe a third of the way (at most) through an episode of a second series that he used to very much like, I realized that he had been lapsing into unconsciousness, but pulling himself out of it each time I stirred.
I then kept a watch of him, and when his head finally drooped and snoring commenced, I had enough of the drunkard. I backed out of the episode, turned off the Android TV Box, and switched the T.V. over to basic cable.
This process roused him, but he said naught. He knew he had been caught out and that it was useless to convince me otherwise. He would get to sit there and drink alone while he watched whatever shows he could find on his own, for only I operate the Android TV Box.
I am so fed up with him. From now on, I don't care how early he arrives home ─ I will adjudge his condition before I commit to watching T.V. with him. I had even wasted a can of beer last evening, for I was only half finished it when I forsook T.V. and him.
I only drink while watching T.V., so having to finish it here at my computer was akin to wasting the beer ─ I had opened it to no good purpose.
No more of this! He is going to have his 68th birthday within a week ─ can he never mature from this besotted folly?
It was around 10:30 p.m. when I went to bed. I was not expecting my wife home, but eventually I realized that she had shown up after her late afternoon and evening working at her friend's Thai restaurant.
She sleeps as ill in her own fashion as do I, and seemed to be into bed and then back out a few times.
Perhaps it was around 1:30 a.m. (when she had just returned again to bed after one such rising) when I decided to get up and put work into the post I have in progress at one of my six hosted websites.
It was raining outside ─ it had begun before I went to bed in the evening. At times, it rained hard. The instant coffee that my wife had poured around two flower plants out in the front yard to try and deter snails and slugs would have long been rinsed deep into the earth.
But the pennies that I have spread around both plants would still serve that purpose of deterrence to some degree.
I took a photo of each of those plants this afternoon at 4:54 p.m. ─ my wife had left for work several minutes prior to 3:00 p.m. The following are those two photos with the description that I gave them:
...Two plants that are supposed to have gorgeous red flowers similar to a dahlia, but which have had their petals devoured ─ along with many leaves ─ by snails and slugs.We have been getting some rain on a daily or nightly basis for what seems a straight week now. It was raining when I took the photos ─ and you can see a snail approaching the pennies at the bottom border of the last photo. I didn't hang around to watch and see if it would turn away.
The plants are about a foot tall.
The pennies that I have surrounded each plant with two days ago ─ July 1, 2020 ─ definitely deter the snails and slugs, but I do find the occasional hardier villain to have braved them and climbed into one or the other plant.
I have copper foil tape on order from Amazon Canada that is predicted to be delivered in another five days, but last night I learned that a copper scouring pad is ideal.
Once stretched out like a copper mesh tube, rings of the tube can be sliced off outside (to avoid spreading copper bits inside the house). Then each ring can be cut through so that the length of copper mesh it then yields can be wrapped about the stem of the plant.
However, I won't be out shopping for another two days, so that method is also on hold. The pennies have to suffice for the nonce.
I may have to add more pennies, but I am concerned that too many will attract notice and that they will disappear ─ we have lots of foot traffic passing by the yard not more than a dozen feet from the flower plants. They are only shielded by the mass of thyme plants that are surrounding them, but which harbour the snails and slugs.
It is now approaching 7:00 p.m., and I still have to deal with today's scheduled exercising ─ I must conclude this post right now.
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