My bank is doing another fun promotion to try to get me to use my debit card. If I make 5 purchases with it in the month of July, I'll get a $10 Amazon gift card. Easy peasy.

I had another tick spraying yesterday. Organic cedar oil. You can smell it after they leave. So far, I don't really think it's been that effective, but in fairness, I have so many critters running around here (like chipmunks and deer) that probably keep reinfecting things that maybe it would have been worse without the spraying.

I stuck around to meet the guy to at least reinforce I want them to be as thorough as possible, and to ask him to avoid spraying anything flowering, even though he said their studies have shown bees aren't hurt by direct spray.

So I'm not sure it's worth it; it's $100 a visit, but anytime I see a tick I just call Tick Ranger and they do a respray at no charge and come within a few days time. So far I've had 2 resprays and 3 paid sprays. I'll reassess whether I want to continue this next year at the end of the summer/fall season, I guess.

I got some great ideas from a FB group I belong to about how to beautify the ugly well cover that I incorporated into my back patio design. (I wanted to connect the patio to the stairs leading to my drive, so I had them do this circular walkway around the well.



Anyway, the best idea I got was to cover it in mosaic tile, an idea I love, but I'm not sure I'm up to the task. I've always wanted to try mosaic tiling.

Something like this:


I'm usually too impatient for the finished product to enjoy the journey. But, a mosaic there would really be a highlight of the whole patio area, and it would be meaningful if I did it myself. Anyone here ever dabble in mosaic? It needs to be weatherproof, obviously, but I understand they sell frostproof grout.

I'm connected to town water supply now, but when I connected, I kept my outdoor faucets tied in to the well. A decision I never regretted since it ensures I can use all the water I want for car washes and garden irrigation for free. So it's only used on a seasonal basis and I've never had a reason to remove the very heavy concrete cover to get into the well, except to note how low the water had gotten in very dry years.

If I did have to remove the cover after installing a mosaic, I would just need to be very, very careful that whoever moved it did not chip an end while doing so.

I'm working a full 5-day week this week as my counterpart is on vacation. UGH. I miss my free time. Hopefully, the rest of the week will not be completely full days.

That's about it. I've been revising the whole should I eat seafood thing by checking the latest research. I'm mostly vegan, but probably a few months back began a habit of eating wild sockeye salmon once a week. There are a lot of sources saying I should eat fish twice a week, and I was considering upping the fish meals with only "clean" low mercury fish like either more salmon or pollack or herring, but then I go to other sites that say until we have cleaner wild or farmed fish environments, it's best not to rely on fish for omega 3s and take a micro-algae supplement instead. It's really hard to make a decision given all the conflicting evidence.

We all got to see the new Lab puppy at the office yesterday. He's very cute.