Prepping to Go

In the last couple of days, we have started to lay things out on the bed in the guest room that we want to remember to take North when we leave in a couple of weeks.  We also are starting to prep the outside of our house.

Yesterday we turned off the freezer in the garage.  While our indoor freezer in the bottom of the refrigerator is still packed with several meals (and ice cream treats!), we now have "eaten down" our inventory enough that we can fit it all into our smaller freezer.  The freezer in the garage is defrosted, wiped dry, and soon will have a cover over it for the summer.

Today we started by dressing in work clothes.  We took the remainder of our weed killer over to church, and Rick sprayed the garden wall at the front of the church (which tends to grow weeds among the stacked layers) and weedy cracks between pavers and next to the driveway.  It will not solve the weed problem totally, but every little bit will help.  We hope the weed killer has a chance to work today before the (finally!) expected rain tomorrow.

After that, we headed home and Rick sprayed the last of our bug spray around the perimeter of the house and inside the garage.  Again, we hope the rain holds off for 24 hours so the spray has a chance to work.

We packed away the hammock for the season.  We have been experiencing a terrible drought, but rain is finally predicted for tomorrow and for each day in the coming week.  We could get as much as 3 inches total, and that would be wonderful for our trees, flowers, and lawn. Pray for rain or do a little rain dance, everyone.

Speaking of trees, yesterday the city arborist came out to look at our trees.  He said that the palm trees in the front yard look good, but that the bottle brush in the back yard was planted too deeply and that the roots have wrapped around the tree ("girdled it") so that it probably never will grow.  He suggested that we could try to dig it out, free the root ball, and try to replant it less deeply, but he offered little hope that it actually would survive.  That the tree was planted incorrectly angers me because we had the nursery both deliver and plant the tree for us.  We paid good money to have them plant the tree, and ultimately that is what will kill it.  We'll have to replace that tree in the fall when we return, and I assure you we will not purchase it from the same nursery.

We picked up a few other things in the garage, starting to store items away for the summer.  We emptied the gas can into our car, bought stabilizer for the gas-powered equipment that needs it, and generally are getting things organized.

When we finally leave for the summer, we still will bring bikes and our metal lawn chairs inside for safe keeping.  We'll move our park bench into the back to protect it from strong storms, and generally do what we can to make our house and neighborhood secure until we return.

We really do not have that much outside that we need to take care of yet.  Gladys really is not a high-maintenance kind of gal, so our transition out of here will be fairly easy.