Pink poppy

 I got a surprise this morning.  The chickens were making some odder than usual noises that had been going on for a while - went to the garden and saw this blooming.  It is a perennial Icelandic poppy from the clearance rack last year - and it is really making its showing, now!

For scale.

And then I had to go to work, with small dog crew following me to the truck...

That is the nylon twine garden bag crocheted a few months ago, it has been getting some actual use and hopefully more when the garden starts to produce (a while off, yet)

In other news:  Esme and I have been having quite the discussion about her responsibilities - which are not much, but to her, they are.  Besides doing her homework, washing her hair every night and packing her lunch we also ask her to take a scoop of food out to the chickens, collect eggs, wash them and put them in the refrigerator.  She also gets ten cents an egg, accumulated at the end of the week - for the ones she actually collects.  Three times this week she made Daddy do it for some reason or other... and we had two talks about it, including the losing of privileges that might occur on Mom's days off - like going to the park or a playplace.. which can't be rewarded if she hasn't done her work for the week.  Quite a lot of tears, lots of needing explanation, arguiging, asking questions like 'how will I learn to put happy or sad faces on the calendar if I'm not allowed to put happy or sad faces on the calendar as a kid?' **Facepalm**  Anyway... we may be on track to go out tomorrow, maybe not.. we'll see.. 

She told me she needed more play shirts - she couldn't find any.  Daddy found one for her right there in her drawer.  I do need to go through and look... haven't sewn in a while.  Crocheted a basket out of jute rope the past few days and it looks pretty good -- will maybe get a picture of it tomorrow.  We have a bean fence to get up, chicken coop to clean, and maybe some seedlings to get out if it doesn't want to rain too hard..

bits in a long week

It is my full week on again at the store.. hence, the quietness... I might be coming down with a sinus thing again... taking precautions.  I checked the garden this morning and we have the very tiny starts of corn coming up, and some of the cowpeas are also coming up.  All but one of the tomato transplants are taking chances at thriving.  I put the one yellow tomato seedling from inside the house outside for an hour of sun before work, to harden it off some - the others were badly sunburnt because I did not do that with them.  We lost one of our chickens the other day.. not sure to what, it was dead inside the pen.  We have to think about if we want them to sit and have chicks...

Esme took the chicken death as well as can be expected.  She has had some trouble at school, trying to sort that out - kids teasing her but she isn't/wasn't precise about exactly which things happened and which didn't, or didn't happen recently, at the very least.  I take it as a learning experience all around, like the jacket incident earlier in the year.  Her TCAP Tennessee state testing is this week, so I wish it hadn't come up during this - but it was affecting her and Mark saw it, too... hopefully it is handled well, now.  We'll see.  I'm back on a bit of a reading kick - science, math etc... different things bouncing in my head.  I haven't sewn much lately, though... and my knitting project has been on the table untouched for a day and a half... so much to do, and work is such a big block of it doesn't always leave much time for much else.

Trying to get to Sunday, next day off... Symmetry magazine came in the mail, and was reading that - it goes in well with some of the chirality/symmetry chemical molecule, particle physics and abstract algebra topics that have piqued my interest the past few days.. not that I get anywhere on purpose studying these - but things come in my brain here and there, and I go to look them up, and they send me in another direction, and then more 'clicks'... I like that process, at the very least.  And I know why when I was reading about coordination compounds the words 'well, what is phenol oxalate, then?' came up in my 'brain queue' later - it is glowsticks :) ha.  I guess I have to keep that undercurrent brain process busy with something when it isn't engaged with plumbing repair parts. 

--I got a hug from an elderly customer yesterday (I've helped him for five years or so now, and it was a side hug because he was so relieved)  when I asked him to bring me the 'entire' stem for their shower instead of just a small piece - the piece was intriguing, I _wanted_ to know what it came from, but there just wasn't enough of it. to know for certain.  I knew I had never seen it before on an item I had sold - but it looked close to several things I had not had hands on before that I found in parts diagrams.  I explained exactly what I needed to know- he brought it back and from several hallmarks combined I positively identified it, called the company and got them to send him a new one under warranty which will arrive in three days. That is what that brain process is usually involved in, finding, researching, storing and retrieving part information.