OK, I've had my share of embarrassing, not to mention needlessly costly, service calls when something stops working.

I scheduled a service call for today when I discovered first that my central air was not working, and then the heat.

Luckily, the HVAC guy who installed the central air suggested I check the fuse, and that's what it was. Saved me over $100 for a service call.

Always check fuses, circuit breakers and furnace on/off switches before making that call!

The guy who bought some plants for me was back again yesterday to dig up a few more shrubs and some blueberry plants. Kind of sorry to see them go, but they would never thrive here with browsing deer unless I fenced them in, which is not in the plans.

Just having him take 3 shrubs roughly 3-4 feet high running alongside the outer edge of existing patio really opened up the view from kitchen window or the patio, which always felt kind of closed in to me. Once the new patio is done, I want to just plant grass where those shrubs were to keep things open and to allow space for pergola posts to go in next year. Either that, or perhaps a row of small boxwood that wouldn't exceed 1 foot in height.

He also dug up a cherry tree stump that was still alive despite my trying to hack it down last year, so he took that, making it easier for my lawnmower guy to cut the grass.

Another guy was here to clean up the crabapple tree; he disposed of 90% of the all the tree branches as I wanted him to in a large brush pile, but inexplicably left a few large ones. I decided not to say anything since his price ($200) was dirt cheap compared to the other estimates I got, so I really can't complain.

Mower guy starts this Friday...so yardwork is well underway.

Also found my newly transplanted sedums, near road front, has been muched on. Deer don't usually do that, and I suspect it is the resident woodchuck, although I have yet to see him this year. Darn, I'll have to use some plastic fencing to protect them.

I need to do something about weed suppression at this new, and fairly large, planting site. Instead of buying a few yards of mulch, I will try Preen after using a hard rake to pull up the many garlic mustard weed seedlings.

The outbreak of hives I had Sunday night, turns out, is apparently due to the Doxycycline antibiotic I was taking for the tick bite. I have stopped taking all Doxy and both of the 2 herbs I'd been supplementing with. The hives subsided when I first stopped the herbs becus it was my assumption it was the herbs causing the hives. But when I took another dose of the Doxy, it only took a half hour for the hives to act up. So I've taken none of the 3 since Monday night and I notice the hives seem to subside but then reassert themselves, albeit much less severely, at night. That last dose of Doxy Mon night was good for 12 hours, and probably take at least another day or two beyond that to fully leave my system, so am hoping the hives go away soon.

I skipped 2 meetings last night that I wanted to go to, but I just didn't feel like cleaning up quickly after all my yardwork with the plant guy, and in fact it was so nice out I just felt like continuing with it, so I did. Truth be told, I'm not much of a "joiner," although I try.

On today's agenda: getting 2 nice hanging flower baskets for the front entry. I think I have a small gift card left I can use. Also returning some chewable aspirin to Walgreen's becus I see it has RED DYE in it, a known carcinogen. Also really want to vacuum and wash my car, and rake and Preen the new front perennial bed, fence the sedums and continue pulling out pachysandra roots from around where the plant guy took the shrubs so it doesn't grow back.

Also change the hummingbird water, get gas, go to BJs, and continue moving lungwort and phlox away from patio area.

In short, a busy day. I hope with all this yardwork I start feeling "in shape" soon.