It's not that I ever have a big Earth Day celebration, figuring we should celebrate our world every day, but today was a bit of a disappointment when I considered my original plans.
We were supposed to be camping this weekend. The United Methodist chancel choir didn't sing today so I had the day off. Gary had the camper ready, and even if it weren't, I have a tent. It was Boulder Lake for me!
Instead, we've had a week of rain and cold. The camper stayed at the Manzke farm and my tent is still in my car, waiting. No celebrating Earth Day watching the sun rise over a national forest lake.
This morning, Rascal woke me at 4:00 a.m., not to greet the dawn but to complain about the cat food and the cold. The furnace had gone out again. I fought him until 5:30 then got up and faced the day. It was 53 degrees F. in the office. I lit some candles. I don't know that that gives me much heat, but it gives me the illusion of heat.
Next I turned on the oven and went about making a double batch of banana bread. By the time Gary got up, the temperature had risen to 58 degrees and suddenly at 8:00 a.m. the furnace kicked in and soon it was warm. We're thinking there's nothing wrong with the furnace just with the thermostat controls.
Because our plans were upset, Gary said we could have an outing. We took off in his van and that's when I remembered that Gary's idea of an outing is to go to Menards to look for hardware and gossip with the guys he used to work with there. I consider shopping as one of the circles of hell, but I had a Menards rebate I'd been holding on for a couple of months, so I used it to buy some annuals. Most of the flowers wouldn't be safe in my garden but dianthus and pansies will be fine down to 24 degrees. One of the signs of our mellow winter is that the dianthus in a planter on my deck survived.
There were plenty of dianthus at Menards but only four pansy sets (six plants to the set) left. Six plants time four was twenty four, enough for the planters I had in mind. As I left the store with my purchases, a woman came running up to me. "Where did you get the pansies?" I felt lucky to have them.
When we got home, I thought I would do some Earth Day gardening, but it was cold and windy, so after a few minutes I gave up on that idea as well as taking a hike down the trail. I thought to drive out on a birding expedition, but I didn't like the idea of using more fossil fuel by taking my car out. Besides, I hadn't had all that much sleep.
So I took a nap that went on for over three hours.
I woke up feeling better, knowing that in another week or so we will be camping and celebrating every day as Earth Day.
We were supposed to be camping this weekend. The United Methodist chancel choir didn't sing today so I had the day off. Gary had the camper ready, and even if it weren't, I have a tent. It was Boulder Lake for me!
Instead, we've had a week of rain and cold. The camper stayed at the Manzke farm and my tent is still in my car, waiting. No celebrating Earth Day watching the sun rise over a national forest lake.
This morning, Rascal woke me at 4:00 a.m., not to greet the dawn but to complain about the cat food and the cold. The furnace had gone out again. I fought him until 5:30 then got up and faced the day. It was 53 degrees F. in the office. I lit some candles. I don't know that that gives me much heat, but it gives me the illusion of heat.
Next I turned on the oven and went about making a double batch of banana bread. By the time Gary got up, the temperature had risen to 58 degrees and suddenly at 8:00 a.m. the furnace kicked in and soon it was warm. We're thinking there's nothing wrong with the furnace just with the thermostat controls.
Because our plans were upset, Gary said we could have an outing. We took off in his van and that's when I remembered that Gary's idea of an outing is to go to Menards to look for hardware and gossip with the guys he used to work with there. I consider shopping as one of the circles of hell, but I had a Menards rebate I'd been holding on for a couple of months, so I used it to buy some annuals. Most of the flowers wouldn't be safe in my garden but dianthus and pansies will be fine down to 24 degrees. One of the signs of our mellow winter is that the dianthus in a planter on my deck survived.
There were plenty of dianthus at Menards but only four pansy sets (six plants to the set) left. Six plants time four was twenty four, enough for the planters I had in mind. As I left the store with my purchases, a woman came running up to me. "Where did you get the pansies?" I felt lucky to have them.
When we got home, I thought I would do some Earth Day gardening, but it was cold and windy, so after a few minutes I gave up on that idea as well as taking a hike down the trail. I thought to drive out on a birding expedition, but I didn't like the idea of using more fossil fuel by taking my car out. Besides, I hadn't had all that much sleep.
So I took a nap that went on for over three hours.
I woke up feeling better, knowing that in another week or so we will be camping and celebrating every day as Earth Day.
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