71.2F and lots of sun @ 10:00, forecast high is supposed to be 84F. Mid 80's through Thursday, then a big cool down into the 70's through the following Wednesday. Chances of a thunderstorm go over 50% on Wednesday, and then over 80% on Thursday/Friday.
Started out the day yesterday working on that area under the big oak. Got the old compost pile completely weeded, found a yellow jacket nest under the tarp that had blown off to one side. Moved onto picking up cut weeds and debris in other areas at that point. Got most of it picked up.
Then The Woman decides (out of the blue) she wanted the blueberries worked on ... RIGHT NOW ! Of course, that was in the middle of the afternoon ... in the hot sun ...
I try to arrange my work so that needless suffering is minimized ... but when she wants it, she WANTS it ... NOW ... and arguing is pretty much futile ... at least if I want her remain in a decent mood.
So I cut down a bunch weeds around the plants, did some trimming on the one early bush whose berries are now long gone, she cleaned out around the bases, and she put the hose on the first plant to give it a good soaking (at a trickle) ... I ended opening it up all the way and eventually filled the catch basin around it after the soil became saturated. Added a length of hose to reach the other two bushes and did the next one, and then started on the one on the end and it wasn't long until the flow dropped to nothing ... well recharge rate couldn't keep up ... so I shut it down to let the well fill back up ...
The berries on the two later plants were about ripe ... but had started to shrivel up a little. Hope it was just lack of water. We've had a lot of rain so far this year, just not a lot in the last week or so ... and we hadn't been watering the plants.
About that time we moved back over to to cleaning up around the compost pile, and in her infinite wisdom, she decides to rake up the debris in the spot where most of the yellow jackets were hovering around. A. VERY. BAD. IDEA.
She (only) ended up getting stung on her ear and her elbow ... there was one that got down into her sock or shoe ... not sure what the outcome was on that one. Sure could have been a lot worse.
And at that point, she was done with any outside work for the day. (She doesn't handle pain particularly well but she dealt with this like a real trooper ... I followed her into the house after she went in and she was actually laughing about it)
I went back out and gathered up all the tools and brought them up to the garage and put them away, and then hosed off three lawn chairs and took them up to the burn pile.
Nephew and his wife came over around 20:30. His birthday is in a couple of days so this was our little get together. We lit off the burn pile around 21:00, and tossed back a few of those Old Leg Humpers (a very dark porter) from Thirsty Dog Brewing. They hung out until around 23:30.
Didn't get bird feeders refilled yesterday, so that's first on the list. After that I'll be spraying as the winds are pretty light today.
