Third week in June

Last Sunday was Father's Day which I completely forgot to mention last week!  Elise was in town and she and Beckie helped us celebrate (remember Steve had to cook his Father's Day hamburgers in the rain?)  After dinner, we enjoyed a great game of Qwirkle.

We went to Menards Monday afternoon and bought Steve's Father's Day gift from the kids - a modular fence to protect the blackberries from possums and rabbits.  We will put a net over the top to keep the birds out, as well.

In spite of hardly any rain and having to water all the time, everything is growing beautifully.  Including weeds.  I finally finished pulling the weeds (again) and placing mulch in the front beds.  

The yellow cosmos reseeded itself in the bed by the street and it is blooming like crazy!

I used to have the bird feeder here by the turnaround and some volunteer sunflowers popped up.  So far, the squirrels have left them alone.

And my beans are looking great.  Blossoms have appeared so I hope to be picking by the end of next week!

The week was a good one to catch up on lots of little projects that have been waiting to be done....I pulled down the shower curtains and washed them - the fabric ones in the washing machine and the plastic liners on the driveway with a bucket, scrub brush and a hose.  I finished transcribing two pieces of music into Finale.  I worked on the eulogy for my sister's funeral this Friday.  I wrote many notes and cards to people.  I worked on civic orchestra business as I prepare to hand off the administrator job to Jennifer sometime in July.  I actually practiced instruments this week.  I tried to find in the Mojave area a cello to use for the funeral and have pretty much come up empty.  I have one last person that I am waiting to hear from but, in the meantime, I explored the possibility of bringing my own as a checked piece of luggage (that would be the LAST resort) and I reached out to one of my Anthem students and he is very happy to let me use his cello.  I would rather not haul a cello across the desert in the middle of summer but I have a feeling that is what I will have to do.  Thankfully, Amy's car has room for it.  Elise came back to St. Louis Wednesday evening to take a live CPR class (as opposed to virtual) Thursday morning.  She needs this class to finish up renewing her Indiana teaching certificate which will hopefully facilitate getting a job in Columbia Public Schools next year.  She and I played duets while she was here (viola / bass  and viola / violin).  Steve and I worked in the temple baptistry Thursday evening in a shift trade with a couple who will work for us the first Saturday in August.  It was a busy night.  We had a peaceful Friday night and we watched an old Disney movie called Third Man on the Mountain.  It came out in 1959 and Steve and I suspect it was in conjunction with the opening of the Matterhorn ride at Disneyland since the movie was about scaling the Matterhorn for the first time in the 1800's.  It was a good movie but watching the climbing scenes was really tense!  How can people do those kinds of things????  I finished the book All The Light We Cannot See Friday night, as well.  What an amazing book about a horrific time in the history of the world!  Saturday morning, Steve and I pumped up the bike tires, installed the bike rack on the Kia and drove to the church parking lot where we took a ride along the Des Peres River parkway path.  We need to do that kind of thing more often!  We had Ed and Mona (our "neighbors" to the east) over for dinner in the evening.  They told us all about their most recent trip to their new villa in Greece.  Eventually, they will move there permanently and use the house next door as an air BNB / a place for them to stay when they come to the States.  Work on their place east of us has been on hold for a couple of months but they hope to resume in July.