Gardening Report on The House That Cleans Itself

It has been two months--TWO MONTHS--since I reported to you on this project and signed off as an "amateur watta-be gardener". I have bravely battled  AREA # 8 and AREA #9 (the backyard) with my never-ending struggle with weeds that I am sure will continue over the summer and into the fall. Weeds are like paper clutter, don't ya think? The broken weed killer spray bottle was returned to Home Depot and exchanged for a new one that works.

I have noticed that one plant flourishes and the same plant does not, thinking I have one green thumb and on the opposite hand a non-green thumb. 

Why is the right pot flower better?

One bush thrives and a nearby one is turning brown maybe due to the watta-be gardener's over-zealous use of the weed killer.

Evergreen

Turning brown

I have encountered the possibility of snakes, poison oak and poison ivy in the backyard. A snake-looking parasite is growing along a branch and I clipped it several places but it isn't seeming to die.

Parasite on branch

Hubby doesn't want his wife to mow lawns and wonderfully a volunteer Wayne has come forward to mow our lawns for free when he is in the neighborhood mowing someone else's yard for pay. I am so appreciative and have found myself cutting branches so his mowing will be easier.


What I did backing up the gas guzzler



Repaired

Wayne also repaired the fence gate that I had backed into and put in a gate to our neighbor's back yard so that Kenny can easily come to our house from where he lives.  Thanks ever so much Wayne! It takes a village to be an Alzheimer's caregiver!

I just asked and a thoughtful friend of a backyard neighbor, Angel, burned the trash pile and it is slowly being converted into regular grass in the back yard. Burn piles will be a thing of the past as I am putting yard banches and clippings out by the curb on Saturdays and one really needs a permit to burn in the country I am told.


Burn pile



Grass growing on old burn pile

I made a list for our outdoors of

what I can do and have started:

1. Put clippings by the street to be picked up on several Saturdays.

2. Weed by the backyard deck.

Old shower stool helps me sit to weed.

3. Put an outdoor rug on that deck. (This rug was used with our popup camper that we no longer own.)

4. Go to Fabric Warehouse to get ideas for uphostery of 4 outdoor chairs used on the deck. They will need to be sprayed black again.

5. Straighten up the potting area and get realistic about my gardening capabilities. Get rid of those extra pots--almost like keeping magazines or fabric I never will quilt with!
  

6. Offered extra chainlink fence material to Sally and Jake for their new dog. Their son came and picked it up.

7. Enjoy my herb garden and find recipes where I can use those fresh herbs.

8.  Make road to the back of the property look neater and keep it maintained.

9. Add items to future yard sale or donate them.  

Problems to live with or wait to solve:

Two-bin compost piles
with cow pasture of neighbors in back

How do I maintain the two-bin compost pile above  that my husband labored at before his Alzheimer's dampened his motivation?  

Small oak trees (that can become large oak trees) seem to want to come forth on fence lines. One oak tree took over an orange tree and both seem to want the same space with the oak tree winning.

I need to hire or enlist someone to do something about the walls stained by my husband's forgetting to turn off the sprinkler all night. (We have iron in our well water used on the garden.)

The metal shed is continuing the go down hill and our dog barks at something maybe living in there.



Houses riding lawn mover and
some other creature--maybe a stray cat



There are two small fountains to get up and running--one in the front yard by the chimney and one in the backyard outside the deck. I bought a fountain pump for one of them that I think needs replacing.

Will continue to work on Areas #8 and #9.  

Any suggestions or volunteers?

Struggling gardener here, 

Carol

Habits



From Facebook

 

 The more you do something, the more it becomes a good or bad habit. I teach about habits when I teach a class for DUI offenders. I often use this anonymous quote.

I am your constant companion. I am your greatest helper or heaviest burden. I will push you onward or drag you down to failure. I am completely at your command. Half the things you do, you might just as well turn over to me and I will be able to do them quickly and correctly.

I am easily managed—you must merely be firm with me. Show me exactly how you want something done, and after a few lessons, I will do it automatically. I am the servant of all great men, and alas, or all failures as well. Those who are great, I have made great. Those who are failures, I have made failures.

I am not a machine, though I work with all the precision of a machine plus the intelligence of a man. You may run me for a profit or run me for ruin—it makes no difference to me.

Take me, train me, be firm with me, and I will place the world at your feet. Be easy with me, and I will destroy you. Who am I?

I am Habit.

So I worked on a new habit today--getting to my substitute job ahead of time. It felt good. But it is not a habit yet. Often times there is a situation at home such as my husband taking his morning pills and I barely make it to school in time or have to call to say I am on my way. They are happy that I call and that I come to cover a class. But how much better to get somewhere on time! I am also realizing when hubby and I go somewhere and have to be there by a certain time, plan to leave in plenty of time. Time means so little to him--I have to be the time keeper.

Today I substituted in a Math in high school. After taking roll in first period I noticed a young lady in the corner of the room and noise was coming from an obvious cell phone. I went over to her, observed that her cell phone was plugged into the wall to charge it and asked her to put it up. She said she couldn't turn it off or she would lose her game. It turns out that she entered my classroom and acted like she was enrolled in that class.  After she was removed the other students said that she must be a new student and one reflected that she only comes there when there is a substitute! Her cell phone is her habit--a bad one. She may skip her first period to go find a substitute, park herself in that class, and charge her cell there. Hopefully her bad habit was busted today.

21 days to change to a new habit I have heard. When someone has Alzheimer's it may be more than 21 days. I put a little love note in my husband's morning pills now to get him motivated to take those pills before I leave the house. I also take my pills at the same time. He does remember that I ended up in the hospital when I took his pills, so I say take you pills so I don't accidentally take yours again. This habit is a constant struggle.

I have also heard to establish routines early in Alzheimer's. I got my husband an electric shaver for Christmas. Now getting him to use it is a real struggle. It would be safer for him to use this instead of shaving with a razor. He doesn't always want to shave every day and it seems to me that he can use his charged shaver while he sits and watches TV. This is not his habit, but my struggle. He may win this one, like he keeps winning not wanting to mow the lawn. My patience is tried again and again.

But then, again, I struggle with some of my own habits, like recording the food that I eat ("tracking") for Weight Watchers and my housekeeping habits.

People in the classes for DUI offenders that I teach get the following quotes about habits on my Power Point presentation:

• “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are alone supreme.”               --Calvin Coolidge

"We must all suffer from one of two pains: the pain of discipline or the pain of regret. The difference is discipline weighs ounces while regret weighs tons."-- Jim Rohn

• "The majority of men meet with failure because of their lack of persistence in creating new plans to take the place of those which fail."--Napoleon Hill

• "This one step—choosing a goal and sticking to it—changes everything."--Scott Reed

• "Things start out as hopes and end up as habits."--Lillian Hellman

Lord, give me patience with my husband
and persistence with my own habits.
I can change more than he can.