You'd think that 25 miles wouldn't seem that long, but here in the Ozarks, unlike the industrialized areas of the North where I'm from, roads are not all nice, straight and marking off squares of land. Major roadways don't mark off the miles in nice, neat lines. They meander. They wind up hill and down dale, around and over and between hills, ranches and small towns (or unincorporated towns, which I jokingly call "not towns," because they have signs designating they are a town, but they have no goverment, and thus are not really a town, just a spot on a map). So getting from point A to point B generally means going out of one's way somewhat to arrive at your destination.
In our case, to get to work in Green Forest requires going east about 15 miles to Alpena, then northwest another 10 miles. If it were a straight shot, it would be around 15 miles, period. Similar situation getting to Harrison to do our shopping and such requires going east to Alpena, then heading southeast-ish about 5 miles to the junction with the major north-south freeway between here and Springfield, MO (via Branson). Then we have to head south for another 6 or 7 miles. So yeah, it gets kind of weird to get anywhere around here, but you get used to it.
So today, we are finally home and taking a rest break before finishing up a couple of last-minute chores. Those being the litter box (him) and putting away laundry (me). I have to wait on the laundry because even after being out of the dryer for nearly an hour at this point, the clothes are still pretty hot so I'm waiting till they cool off before I put them away. As usual, we have been busy little beavers today.
Other than lunch and groceries and laundry, we also stopped at Miller's Hardware for another couple of burn barrels. There's so much up here to get torched safely, that two barrels just isn't enough to get it done in short order. Off to a discount merchandise mall where Quentin hoped to find a cheap trash can, but no go there, although he did find a dreamcatcher with a Bald Eagle on it that he bought. Also to Fred's Discount to see if they had extra batteries for his cordless drill, and Big Lots for another seed-starter mini greenhouse for me. Home Depot found me getting most of what I needed for the bailer bucket, but they were out of the check valves I need one of, so that project will have to be finished in a few days when I have time to run back to get one.
Trellising or some kind of fencing was out of the budget at their prices, but Wal-Mart had a decent plastic thing I will get several of. It's got some weird name, but it snaps together into a trellis to support all kinds of climbing things. That might work. I also found some heavy-duty wire flat trellis things that are $1 more that I might get instead. The plastic ones you can add to the height just by adding more of the stake things, but I don't want to go that big. The metal ones look prettier, too. Ace Hardware found me getting my little grabber thing for picking up all the small stuff around here without killing myself bending over all the time, as well as the last of the seeds I want for myself. Anything else, I will be holding onto for trade goods. Got some other seeds at the Family Dollar while laundry was going, and Quentin found a big trash can like he wanted to hold a whole bale of loose sawdust for our sawdust toity. And at Big Lots, he also got me an early Mother's Day present - a big ole 16 oz jar candle in Apple Berry that smells yummy.
So what seeds did I get? I got a couple box at the dollar store - $1 each for a Butterfly Garden Mix and for a Hummingbird mix. I know we have Hummingbirds up here, I've seen them, so I hope to attract them. Each box will cover 100 square feet, so some of the tires are going to line the walking path to the house on one side and be planted with the seeds. I also got some flowers just for pretty. Sweet peas to climb a trellis or two under the one bedroom window to smell nice, Snapdragons in Tall Deluxe Mixed Colors just because I like them, and three packets of French Dwarf Double Mixed colors Marigolds for pest control. Plus I like marigolds. Others were a large and small mix of Ornamental Gourds, Grand Bell Mix bell peppers (because I can't remember if I have colored bells or not offhand, and this has red, yellow, orange, white, purple and chocolate), Mammoth Table Queen Royal Acorn squash, Watermelon radish (just for fun mostly, they look cool), Peaches and Cream sweet corn, and while I still can't find rutabaga, I did find Purple Top White Globe turnips which are the swede family as well and quite similar.
Now it's time to find y'all some books (of which there are apparently next to none) and get in a short nap, because I am pooped!!!! Then I have to work on more design of the eventual website. I'm using a WYSIWIG editor, so that I can get it all designed and working before I get the site and work on creating it live, thus saving a ton of time and effort right off the bat.
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