. Whelp, my dog-sitting stint is over, and Violet's dad stopped by yesterday to pick her up. He told me his wife said to pay me more, so I got what I consider a very generous "tip" for my trouble.
The house felt kind of empty when she left, but truth be told, I'm glad to be able to get back to my usual routine as I'd put a lot of chores/errands to the side so as not to leave the dog alone any more than necessary. Even when I stayed home, I modified my behavior because she followed me from room to room and I am usually up and down my stairs a hundred times a day. She's an elder dog and has trouble going down the stairs, so to spare her joints and since she didn't always listen to my "Stay" command, I tried to minimize the number of times I went up or down the stairs.
But she was a good girl and behaved very well except for waking me up a little too early, around 5 am. I'd get up to bring her out to pee only to discover what she really wanted was to eat, which isn't supposed to happen til 7 am.
I was named Volunteer of the Month (for June) with one of my volunteer groups. I was interviewed by an intern and look forward to seeing the writeup soon.
Recently the warmer weather had me doing stuff in the brushy "danger zone" of my property. You know, where the ticks hang out. Once everything has fully leafed out, I don't often venture in there til fall.
Not only did I find 2 ticks on a pant leg (one teeny, which I would never have seen if I weren't wearing white pants) but more recently, I found a tick ATTACHED to me. I had to start 10 days of antibiotics. It was on a part of my body that I can't see well. (Use your imagination.) Luckily, I was able to see the doc the very next day. So far, so good. No symptoms.
During dog-sitting, I did decide to move forward with a litter cleanup event here in town that I planned and promoted on our town FB page. I had 6 volunteers including a local woman running for State Representative and a family of 3 plus 2 others from a volunteeer group I serve with. The town DPW dropped off a bin for us to heave the trash bags into. I think we got a lot.
I'm meeting a friend today for lunch in a while at a newer Italian place but I think I'll drop off trash at the transfer station first. I'm starving.
I have a ton of garden chores to do but am waiting until this too-warm weather in the 80s disappears tomorrow. Planting liatrus bulbs (beloved by butterflies), planting lettuce seed (we'll have at least one night in the 20s next week so that comes a little later). Digging up an invasive cluster of non-native asters before they get truly entrenched. I did manage to dump 8 heavy bags of top soil and potting soil into my raised beds. Everything just happens at once outside and usually feels lilke it's too much. Oh yeah, digging up the invasive celandine growing along the roadside; it was most likely spread by the town mowers that periodically mow roadsides to maintain visibility. I've dug it up (very laborious) the last 2 years, but instead of roots, it has these tiny "bulbettes" which will regrow if you don't get them all.
I'm planning to tone down this year's veggie garden so it's more easily managed and doesn't get so out of control because I overplanted. This year, I'm planning on lettuce, snow peas, 1 zucchini, 2 cucumber plants, just 2 cherry tomato plants and MAYBE 1 or 2 dellicata squash plants along the fence.
April 16th, 2026 at 07:19 pm 1776367155
Celadines are so pretty. So are asters, so I'm surprised it's an invasive species.
Glad you had fun dog-sitting haha. Sounds like a sweet old pupper.