A new month....

Hello September! 

Our work in the front yard is winding down.  Steve and I chopped off the branches of three hazelnut bushes this week.  They were VERY vigorous and healthy looking but they needed to go because 

a) The nuts they produced had no nut in them - they were just shells 

b) we planted them in a really dumb location which was not very aesthetically pleasing for house-selling.  

So, on Wednesday morning, we cut them down to about six inches above the ground.  Each bush was actually comprised of several stalks but they were easy enough to lop with our super sharp loppers.  Thursday morning was a bit more challenging as we had to dig around the stumps and cut them lower than the ground and paint the freshly cut ends with a growth retardant.  For this cutting, we had to resort to our hand saw.  THAT was hard work and my upper arms are still a bit sore.  Hazelnuts have a very deep taproot so digging them out of the ground was not possible.  The only other thought was to cover them with dirt and plant grass seed over them.  Which is what we did on Friday - we seeded and straw-ed the front strip.  

It took two trips to the yard waste dump to get rid of all the very pungent stalks and below is a little hitchhiker from our second trip.  

For our Labor Day, we enjoyed grilled boneless ribs with our friend, Elizabeth Crippen.

We have had a house guest for the past week.  Patrick Layton.  He is distantly related to some church members from Jefferson City - Jim Layton and his sister, Joan Layton Merrell.  Both are currently not living in Jefferson City but, because he was to begin a job with the Missouri state historical society, he reached out to them to get some names of individuals he might stay with while he waited for his apartment to become available.   One person was Sherrie Downs but when circumstances arose to keep her from accommodating him, she called me.  He works in Jefferson City but planned to live here in Columbia so it made more sense for him to stay up here.  Poor guy had to "camp out" in our former "sports room" with just his twin mattress to sleep upon but the price was right!  He moved out yesterday into an apartment near Boone Hospital Center which will be a good location for a daily commute on Highway 63.

We watched several movies this week - Spiderman, Far From Home in the theater, Aquaman, Tarzan (the 2017 one), Thor Ragnarok, and finished North and South (the BBC one about industrial age England - not the civil war).  I had lunch with Terri Anderson on Wednesday.  The grand piano was tuned.  Elise came over Thursday - her day off - while her car was in the shop - and Steve took her to an eye exam in the afternoon.  We helped to clean the meetinghouse on Friday and we attended a funeral for Ruth Minner on Saturday (she was 93).  

We had a basic repair guy, a foundation guy and a window guy come by this week.   Still waiting on several bids from people who came by earlier.  I guess I need to rattle their cages this coming week...

I will close with a photo of a monarch butterfly on our zinnias.....