Sun, Wind, and MORE Sun

I bought rain gauges Sept. 1 and put them out. It's a shame that I am a gardener and watch things like temperatures, sun movement, phases of the moon, and rainfall patterns and had no rain gauges til now. Since I bought the rain gauges in FL where it rains every day during the summer, we haven't had a drop. In fact, since FAY, the FL coast's first burgeoning hurricane of the season, we have had very little rain. I heard some guy in the store say the other day how it was nice that it was not raining. He must live in a condo, cause my grass is crying right now.

Anyway, Chance and I went out into the backyard this morning to do some weeding. I ended up cutting down massive amounts of the invasive Mexican petunias. Chance helped by running back and forth along the brick wall where they are planted and stomping them down. At first I was mad, but then I realized he actually helped me see where they needed to be thinned.

Then, I ended up removing two plants from the lanai and planting them in the flower bed, pulling up more of those dratted variegated ficus, and throwing away several cacti--I know, right, me throw away plants? Well, I had contemplated selling them, but the effort seemed too much for me. I just wanted them gone. I repotted the others, condensing them down to 2 pots. I will keep one pot forever, as me and those two particular cacti go back a long way. But the other one, I have no sentimental attachment to, just hated to throw them out....part of me hopes they tucker out so Chance will stop gnawing on them and I will stop bumping into them in the garden.

All this, and I only went out there to pull the weeds. Oh, yes, I did pull weeds. Worked up quite an appetite. An appetite for clearing out. I came inside and gathered up $321 worth of donations to Salvation Army, who is kindly coming to haul it away on Wednesday. Again, I could sell it on Craigslist and make cash dollars, I know. However, since we are going to have a LOT of deductions this year, and DH has been home so we have actually paid taxes, and I do not have a job, so our tax bracket just dropped....I hope this was the wiser choice for the amount of work. And, my house no longer has a bunch of stuff that's like, what do we do with this? Well, some but much less than it did. Now, if I could only get DH to rid of his workout mats that haven't moved since they arrived here, we could probably park both vehicles in the garage. Sweet bliss. I smell it. It's only around the corner!