Pots full of hope

 I know it's early, but I had to.

To celebrate vernal equinox, I planted seeds in pots. Nasturtium, passion flower (in big boxes with trellises to climb... where I put the cucumber vines last year), Heart's Ease... and the stackable pots have marigolds, lettuces, and cilantro.

It was fun to play in the dirt, and if it's really too early, the pots can be moved into the shed in case of frost.

I also scattered a bag of seed into my wildflower patch.  We'll see if any of it takes.  In nature those seeds would have spread themselves last fall and this spring, so there's a chance.

I'm waiting on the barrel containers, and the new cloth buckets I have.  I will put purchased plants in those, probably about a month from now.  Depends on the weather.

Today, we are attending to a going-away picnic (socially distanced) for our friends who usually take care of the house and the cats when we travel.

They also made us food when I was first in chemo, and while I was recovering from surgery.

They're young, and they hate it here (understandable), and they have the freedom to just up and move away.  She got a job transfer, and he works from home, so it worked out well for them.

Unfortunately, we have very few friends here, and losing them is sad for us.  

Not that we've been together for over a year now...but still...

The extended isolation is one of the reasons they are leaving now.  They feel it will be easier to go when they haven't been actively hanging out with anyone for all this COVID time.

I suppose they have a point, but we will miss them even more than we do already, knowing that they are gone.

Thankfully, we have another friend who is willing to help us out when we travel. She wasn't able to do so for a few years, but she's seen a change in her circumstances, and is willing again.

In other news, we got our tax refunds (federal and state) this past week, and Dave went out and got our generator.

You may recall that we had hoped to do a whole house, hard wired one that's attached to the natural gas supply to the house, but that kind of project runs between $10K and $12K on average.

Given the fact that Dave wants to replace the heat/ac for the house with this year's tax refund, AND $10K is WAAAAY out of range to begin with, we had to scratch that item off as permanently unobtainable.

The gasoline powered, portable generator that he got is plenty.  We will have our service guy add putting a specialized outlet on the back of the house to what he has to do to change out the heat/ac.

It will keep us with enough power to run the fridge, and to be able to work from home.

Anyway, Dave thinks this old heat/ac unit is on its last legs (it had a really expensive repair this past fall), and he wants to go with a more efficient, and up to date, heat pump.  The crew will also fix the shoddy duct work that has always been a problem in this house since we bought it.

If I sell my condo, this will be the last big tax refund we will ever see, so we have to make the most of it.

Off to get my day going. I have lab work and see my doc next week. 

Enjoy your first week of "official" spring!