North Pole News: 3/25/12

Friday, March 30, 2012

2012 March 30 Friday

Yesterday turned out to be a great day to work outside. I decided to remove the decorative lava rock from next to the patio. I planted flowers in their place. Ella brought the hanging plants from inside and hung them on shepherds hooks. She also planted some peas and beans in pots. By the way, this sounds much easier than it actually was.

I also barbequed some ribs. I rubbed them with a dry rub and then seared them over hot coals. From there they went into the crock pot with BBQ sauce to slow cook all day. The ribs went well with baked potatoes and baked carrots.

We also went to Johnston for twenty pounds of wild bird seed and Shopper’s Mart for suet cakes. (I’m not sure why we need to feed them when the weather is this nice.)

We stopped at the Johnston Senior Center and picked up the calendar and menu for April. We haven't been there for lunch yet this year. It's cheap eats and good conversation with a bunch of old f@rts like us.

Now this is kind of sad ... I forgot what else we had done yesterday ... so I checked my Facebook timeline ... and discovered that we had also stopped at Home Depot for some Damp Rid.

To skip back to the planting of flowers ... I tried something new this year, Flowers on a Roll. I don't know if that's the correct name or not because I've already thrown the boxes away. However, what it is is pre seeded little 'blankets' that you just roll out in the flower bed. The roll fit the area that I needed to plant. Simple. Now to see how well it works. I bought the butterfly and humming bird flower selection.

We've never been able to attract humming birds to our feeder even though we've seen them in the area. Ella picked up something that is supposed to attract Orioles also.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

2012 March 29 Thursday

40 percent off all Burpee Seeds
or
20 percent off all Burpee Seeds?
I had to ask at Menards.
40 percent was the Burpee discount
and Menards was discounting 20
percent from the lower price.

Wednesday was interesting.
We babysat in the morning at Nathan and Beth's. We were there until time to take Charlotte to school. Then I left for the Men's Bible Study at our church.
When that was over, I called Ella (who was still in Ankeny babysitting Lorelia) and told her that I was going to go home and clean up around our RV. She decided that she and Lorelia would go with me. So, back to Ankeny and then to Grimes.
We cleaned up the insulation board from around the base of the RV and took it to the compactor/recycle area of Cutty's Campground.
We were about ready to leave and go to Ella's Eye Doctor appointment when grandson Nathan called to say that Beth was in an auto accident. He was going to pick up Lorelia and then pick up Beth (who had driven home) and take her to the doctor. Good news, she and the baby are fine. She's a little sore but nothing serious.
We then went to Ella's eye appointment. Both eyes have healed from the cataract surgery and she will not need to see the doctor for another year. She is really enjoying not wearing glasses (except for reading).
Shortly after we returned home, the first of my nieces and family began showing up for a 'picnic' supper at our clubhouse. I managed to get pictures of everyone but Russ and I. I tried at one point to take his picture and realized that because of all the light behind him, it was just going to be a silhouette.