September 9, 2016

Clean up of the garden is in full swing at this time of year.  The endless piles of plants past their prime are being ground up and composted.  Soon it will be time to plant the garlic for next year.  This year was the best my vegetable garden has been in 3 years.  Conditions were really great for a lot of the veggies this year.  Lots of hot weather for peppers, tomatoes and cukes.  Where I was not happy with all the hot weather, the garden sure was.  Also, got plenty of rain this year at all the right times but not the intense flooding of previous years.  I did a whole lot of canning and preserving.  This year I tried hot packing peaches for the first time when one of the Master Gardeners peach tree split right around the time of harvest.  I think the peaches turned out pretty good.

As always, there was a few Star Wars events that I made it to.  Where I don't do as many, I still try to get to a few. 

On 8-4, I marched in the Montgomery Fest Parade.  This was a hot one for sure.  Staging is in a parking lot with no shade and the parade steps off at the heat of the day.  Parking is often a hassle too so I parked a couple blocks away so that was a very hot walk back to the Jeep.  I am still glad I made it to the parade as I don't see some of my costume friends as much as I would like. 



On 9-1, I did the Make a Wish "Walk For Wishes" 5K at Busse Woods on the north side.  The MAW boy that we did the event for in June reached out to Tim J. and asked if we would join him at the walk.  How can you say no to that!!  The day started out nice and cool, but it warmed up pretty good and was a bit on the hot side by the time we finished the 5K.  A couple of us car pooled and then went for a bite to eat after the event.  Those boots I bought off of E-bay for $20.00 and added a little embellishment to make them Jedi boots are so comfortable that even with my screwed up feet and a 5K walk, I had no issues with pain. 

Well, it is official that I am old.  I got my Medicare card in the mail a week ago.  I have also been doing some more research on additional healthcare.  I meet with the retirement planner on Tuesday and am gathering together all of the statements that I will need.  I will have to be very frugal the next months I am working and put as much money into checking to cover upcoming bills like Medicare Part B, real estate taxes, home and auto insurance etc.  I also went to apply for the Sr. Citizen exemption on my real estate taxes, that will save over $400.00 on my real estate taxes next year.  I don't plan on actually collecting SS until I am 66 - which won't be till Oct 2017, so I will have to live carefully till then.

As always, I have been doing work on all the prairie projects though I have not been out as much as usual.  I have done some seed collecting and we did a huge spray on a portion of HCB's pipeline easement.  It has been very hot this summer so getting out to do additional work has been sparse.  It has been just too hot.






I also finished phase one of the deck repairs.  I had replaced some of the boards this spring and finally gave it a good sanding over the Labor Day weekend as the weather cooperated-no rain.  After sanding it I was able to put 2 coats of preserver on it and that was allowed to dry for several days before we got rain.