Fourth Of July Breakfast

Sausage, onion, peppers and three Trader Joe's eggplant slices from the freezer.  I added eggs and cheese and let it cook until crispy and brown on the bottom and then flipped carefully and turned off the heat.  While it cooled I cut and seasoned an avocado with salt and fresh lime juice.  Breakfast.

In the summer, I lose my appetite for anything but cold/creamy or salty foods.  Iced coffee and a few salted nuts is perfect for a meal.

The morning was overcast and humid.  Still cool from the overnight, so I closed the windows, made the bed and got dressed.  I plan to go outside and plant a few things in the garden.   I would like to make a few chicken wire barriers to keep those damned deer out of the perennial beds.  And I need to fertilize the peppers.  They look like they need feeding.

Riley is curled up under the computer desk making sure I don't get away with anything fun while he drifts off to an bit of a snooze.  He has an appointment with the vet tomorrow for his belated annual checkup.  And he needs a new tick prevention.  G must find a way to collect "business" samples for the vet.  Glad it's not me.

I used up all the landscape fabric making "pillowcase" bags to cover the rose bushes.  The Japanese beetles have arrived--right on time-- July 1 and are busy trying to eat my roses.  Only the ten foot high Heritage rose is available to them.  I am going to try the baby power on that rose and see if it works to kill them.  I have a 6 pack of lavender blue petunias to plant where the deer ate the pretty pink zinnias.  Or I could plant the white ones there.  I also purchased some Blue Glitter thistle.  I like the way they look even though they always seem to die over the winter. They have only one thin spindly stem.  I wish they looked more sturdy. I also purchased another Stokesia to replace the one the deer ate (just before the buds bloomed).  More chicken wire.

I have six Blue Fescue Grass to plant along the front of the front garden border which means moving the established Astilbe.  But.  Now it is in flower and I know which ones are pink and which ones are white.  I already found all the red ones in the peony bed (full of weeds) and dug them out and moved them to the front of the perennial bed by the deck.  The deer didn't like them.  So now I'll see if I can find more amongst the weeds to dig and transplant.  I also need to cut spent blossoms from the peonies and then the seed pods from the Baptista.  And cutback the Nepeta (catmint).  OMG what a lot of work!!!  On my day off.

Remember when I told you we cut the ten foot high (and wide) Wiegelia?  With the chainsaw?  To the ground?  Well, it's now about three/four feet tall.  Ready to bloom.  The Spirea is nearly that tall and looking fresh and ready to bloom also.  I think we should do that every other fall for fresh looking shrubbery. The Rhodies also got chopped and they are sending up nice new shoots and leaves.  Instead of long bare branches with a poof of leaves at the tips, they will be short stemmed and full of leaves. I have loads of places for G to use the Heavy Duty Round Up to get rid of weeds.  Easier than pulling them out while still alive.

Time to pull on the shoes and sox and start working.  Happy Fourth of July!!!