I started getting the itch to do some local travel again since my last trip to Vermont in May. This is, after all, the time to be doing it, not in January! I did a fair amount of research into a trip to the Berkshires in Massachusetts and was pretty close to booking, but I decided it made sense, based on what I wanted to do, to stay in 2 different places rather than one. Then it turns out that 1 of the B&Bs I liked had a 2 night minimum, which was fine, so 4 nights total. But then I realized both B&Bs did not have availability for the same time in July as I wanted, and in fact I'd have to push back my trip to September if I wanted to stay at both places.

Another thing I hadn't initially thought of was how my raised bed veggie garden would fare with me not being able to water them daily for 4 days in the height of summer. I don't think they'd make it . I suppose I could get a friend to do it, but even then, not an ideal situation. So September does look more realistic except that that's a long time to wait when I really feel like doing someting now.

I guess I'll have to settle for fun day trips for now and get serious about booking those 2 B&Bs to lock them in, which I haven't done yet due to some indecision.

I think next year, it would be hard to do this, but I could limit my veggie plants to cool weather crops like lettuce, kale and snow peas, so that by July/August, they'd be winding down or done. That would enable me to do more travel during the middle of summer. I do like traveling in the shoulder months of May and Sept/Oct, though, because it's cooler and less crowded. I just don't want my vegetable garden to constrain my travels the way owning cats did for many, many years. I really love fresh homegrown cucumbers and tomatoes, but I think I should try just 1 year (2027) without them and see how it goes.

I was also thinking a soaker hose but I don't think that would work that well as I have 3 separate, standalone raised beds and someone would still need to come here, access the garage to turn it on and then hang around for a good half-hour at least before turning it off again. I have used them before and they are prone to bursting so they couldn't be left unattended. Plus the parts of the soaker hose stretched between beds would water the weeds and wet the veggie plant foliage, which is better not to because it promotes fungal disease, especially in muggy weather.

A friend of mine who lives in the subdivision across the street from me (not directly across the street) discovered they had a crack in their in-ground pool and they've decided to spend $50,000 to pour a new pool. It's been going on for about 2 months now. The noise of construction vehicles is a real headache to me if my windows are open, so I can only imagine what she's feeling. I've walked by the house a few times and their yard, front and back, is a TOTAL mess. Personally, I don't think I'd spend that kind of money on a pool that's only used at most 4 months of the year. Plus they travel a fair amount and we have a community pool here. That is really hard-earned money spent with little payback.

I went to dinner with some friends last night and settled on boneless short ribs. I haven't eaten beef in probably a few years. Have to say it was delicious in its cherry sauce, especially with the mashed potatoes and escarole.

I've had a lot of big expenses lately and am eager to pay them and put them behind me. I have paid about $3,000 for my kitchen induction stove and new refrigerator. I also paid another $3600 for my new back kitchen doors (including storm door) which has yet to be installed....that will happen in mid to late July.

Any day now I'm expecting my property tax bill, which represents half what I'll pay this year. That will be about $4,000. Ouch. And also in August is my homeowners bill, and I'm very unhappy that it increased from $900-something last year to $1323 this year, representing a 44.4% increase. I have to contact my agent and see if it's time to leave Progressive. That's really a scary increase. It almost tempts me to go without homeowners insurance, since I've been paying every year for 31 years and never had a claim. It would have to be truly catastropic for me to file a claim since I think my deductible is $5,000, like a tree falling on the house. Of course the rates were lower in the early years, but I've probalby paid about $25K just on homeowners insurance alone.

OK, this is definitely the nature edition of my posts here today only remotely related to personal finance.

It's a beautiful weather day here on the East Coast. I did a bit of yard work, but it was more like puttering outdoors. I'm waiting til 4 to go out and continue laying poultry wire on top of my raised beds to deter diggign chipmunks, which constantly tunnel in from the top. I started doing this a few days ago and while I could have used a staple gun to attach the fencing, I went low tech and just placed a few small rocks on the ends to keep it down.

The other garden project I just finished, more or less, was ripping out a full bed (about 4' x 20' feet long, or the depth of my house) of variegated salomon's seal. Yesterday morning I took a drive to a native plant nursery owned and operated by a woman from her home. I spent about $150 (!) on a bunch of plants. Namely, white wood aster, foamflower, wild geranium (not the annual kind) and a northern bush honeysuckle. Came home, changed into my workclothes, planted everything, then watered. It was exhausting and I don't think it should be? All the stuff I pulled I used my pitchfork and carried it about 50 feet or so to a brush pile.

The foamflower is exceptionally pretty when it blooms in spring.

Then I went to do my usual workout, and after taking 2 or 3 hours recovering from that, I actually went back to the garden and started mulching it.

Today I was sitting on my back patio for a while in the shade and watched an American painted lady butterfly ovipositing her eggs on the pearly everlasting I planted just last fall. This is a host plant for this butterfly. It's so cool to see things come full circle in nature.

I've also been watching the bluebird and cardinals introduce their fledglings to my window feeder. It's kind of a comical to see the babies begging for food while it's right there in front of them. They "beg" by tweeting and shaking their bodies. 

This is a baby bluebird. The next generation.

Cardinals above.

Unfortunately, a very late hard freeze on May 19 (in the upper 20s) means that my giant mulberry tree won't have any berries this year. The berries normally ripen in July but I should be seeing the green berries now, and I'm not. The tree is fine, but it's a mega banquet for the birds so I will miss that.

I'm glad to see we've regained full access to the blogs. If you ever experirence a problem, Jon has been pretty responsive to me. It helps to take a screenshot of whatever problem you're experiencing if possible. That being said, I wish the admin here would pay more attention to this site. The reason why it never grows members is because most people trying to post for the first time would have no idea that you have to post TWICE to get something published. So when they initially fail at successfully publishing, I'm sure that most give up.

I'm enjoying my new kitchen appliances. The stove is very high tech, works flawlessly and is a breeze to use. It will bring a pot of water to a boil in just a few minutes.

The fridge and freezer are great, too. I'd probably stand in front with the door open to admire all the spaciousness inside compared to my old side by side freezer/fridge, as well as the organization, but that would let all the cold air out, so I don't. But it seems a lot easier to find stuff in a bottom freezer than those narrow little shelves in my side-by-side.

I've been super busy this month and anticipate that to continue throughout the month. I've had a few PT sessions so far and some of the exercises seem similar to what I was doing in PT following my knee surgery about 5 years ago. I'm not sure it will really work to permanently ease my knee pain (he told me that I would need to do "maintenance" exercises for the rest of my life), but I also started taking collagen (rather expensive) and want to try SoftWave therapy, which helps reduce pain, address inflammation, and promote tissue regeneration. Supposedly I have one of the few insurers who covers it. I need to confirm that. The machine uses high-energy sound waves (acoustic waves)  to penetrate deep into muscles and tendons. As you may know, there is very little blood flow in the knee, so it helps with that too, along with inflammation. It's FDA-cleared.

Anyway, what with gas prices being what they are, I'm tacking on little side trips to grocery stores and such while I am out for my PT twice a week.

Home Depot has made a return visit to address the issues I had with the front door replacement done a year ago. The door now closes properly and the trim was redone to match the paneling in the 2 front rooms. Now I'm ready to proceed with the back door replacement and am waiting to hear back from the person I was dealing with.

A friend of mine spent $2,000 for a cottage for a week on the lower Cape. She brought her son, and she has done many years before. When her son went to pull back the covers in the back bedroom, they discovered the remains of a dead animal there!!! And there was poop in various places. Turns out a weasel had scratched its way in through a rotted foundation and brought its dinner with it to enjoy. I guess this had been happening for some time but that most people who rented the cottage earlier in the season only needed 2 bedrooms, and not the 3rd, smaller bedroom.

Initially, the owner of the cottage, who lives off-site and out-of-state, did not believe my friend, even with the photos provided, but her housekeeping crew confirmed it and so the owner gave her a full refund, since it would have been difficult, if not impossible, to find alternative accommodations, plus she had her 2 dogs with her.

Today I hope to address the chipmunks who every year delight in digging holes in my raised beds. Since I have hardware cloth stapled into the bottoms of 2 of the 4 raised beds (I forgot to do that for the other 2, which were installed at a later date), I'm pretty sure the chipmunks are tunneling in from the top, not the bottom. The soil is nice and loose.  Since cayenne pepper did nothing, I have a roll of chicken wire I want to cut up to lay on top of the soil and weigh down the ends with bricks or stones. I could also staple it into the sides of the rasied beds, which are made of cedar. That "should" do the trick. 

I have also been doing tons of yard work, cutting back an overgrow wiegela so I could finally deal with the invasive vines and poison ivy that got a foothold underneath it. There are also so many little chores too numerous to mention. I enjoy yard work in moderation, but it often feels like there's just too much to manage here. I also cut back a honeysuckle cultivar that I noticed had some very healthy poison ivy growing under it. There was a lot of dieback on thehoneysucke, so clearing away the dead branches allowed me access to the poison ivy.

I also had a growing mini forest right alongside the lower end of my driveway consisting of shagbark hickory, ash and elm. They just kind of appeared overnight and the saplings were already 4 feet high. While they are native, I had to treat them with herbicide to kill them as their roots would break up the driveway. So that side is better, but there is still a black cherry in there along with more poison ivy and wineberry, an invasive. I did start cutting back saplings on the OTHER side, too, but I won't do too much work there as the poison ivy is positively thriving and it's better to wait til fall, when the foliage starts dying back. There is a slope on both sides of the driveway so that adds to the risk of maybe slipping and doing a face plant right in the poison ivy. Nope, nope, nope.

I was looking over my end of May numbers and see that I've spent a gross/reportable $29,420 year-to-date. So in terms of keeping my traditional IRA distributions and annuity distributions state tax-free, I'm doing fine; you need to be under $75,000 gross for state tax-free retirement income.

My other goal is to keep taxable income under $50,400 so as to stay in the 12% tax bracket. Last year I had the $17,750 standard deduction and another $6,800 from the enhanced senior deduction and car loan interest, so I expect to repeat that this year, although since I paid the car off, the car loan interest deduction will be a little less. I withdrew a lot of $$ this month to pay for my new kitchen appliances ($3400 including incidental cabinet modification, delivery, tips and trim for the rear of stove) and upcoming property taxes ($3,900, which is half the annual payment).

I have one or two more projects that would be great to do this year: one is fairly certain to happen, back door replacement, and the other is really optional but would love to do. It involves removing an old door at the top of my stairs and redoing the trim for that door and my adjacent office so it's more uniform. I can't think of any reason to have the door and honestly it takes up a good 6 inches of space if you're ever moving stuff up or downstairs. Right now the trim for the door at top of stairs is built out a good 6" just to accommodate the door, and with the entry to my office immediately adjacent that lacks that buildup of trim, it just takes up space and is unattractive. 

The bluebirds definitely have fledglings to feed; they are visiting the feeder and stuffing as many freeze-dried worms in their mouths as they can, then taking off. They used to just eat for themselves.