In which our heroine belatedly discovers a serious flaw in the design of her automobile...

[thanate]

...and has no particular desire to talk about it. For anyone who might need to know this, be aware that at least the early Toyota Matrix has wheels designed so that not having toyota brand wheel covers on your car leaves the valve stems open to being unseated by stray curbs or broken off at the base by insufficiently indented off-brand wheel cover retaining rings. Such failures are liable to make themselves known an hour or so into long trips, such as late evening expeditions to take one's husband to the farthest regional airport. Oh, and then my battery died after about five minutes of leaving the lights on. I am now going to go and lie on the floor & stare at the ceiling sew sequins until my eyes bleed, as it seems safer than leaving the house. (Fortunately, grauwulf's absence does at least mean that I can steal his car; I'm trying not to be mad at him for not noticing that the valve stem angle was still a problem when he replaced the wheel covers last weekend, particularly since (for no good reason) I was rather irritated that he didn't let me do that myself. I don't know if I would have noticed the problem or not.)

In other news... I've been hacking out hedge bushes more than twice my age from along the front of the house and feeling a bit bad about it. The two large ones are out, however, and I've planted a rhodedendron on the corner and am working on making the rest of the non-grassy space into a butterfly garden. Thus far I've had some difficulty finding milkweeds for sale, but there are a couple I've been promised that came up in the wrong bit of one of the beds outside the aquarium, pending my ability to dig them up without killing them. The sundrops from last year spread beautifully, so I've moved four of them over, and may get a couple more once the tulips die back from the middle of where they're all coming up, and I've got a couple Solidago (goldenrod) varieties and black eyed susans, so my list of things I'm actually going to want to buy is shrinking nicely. Also from aquarium weeding I've salvaged a bunch of rushes & cattails to sink into the mucky bit at the bottom of our parking area, and gleefully strewn cattail seeds about the mud puddle in the unoccupied lot next door. More cattails=fewer mosquitos, or at least this is my theory.

I'm pretty confident that at least five of the ten bare root shrubs I planted will make it (which is still a pretty good value for money spent) and there are two more I haven't given up on yet. Once I have a final count on those, I'll fill in with a couple of nice sumacs that were hanging out unloved (& already replaced in the planters they came from) on the aquarium greenroof when it came time to make space for the things to plant in the bed that's being renovated... yay for networking!

I've also been poking at or ignoring several doll projects & several swap projects, and wishing I had time to sit down and read for a month or three, but so it goes; the next few days are supposed to get back up into "far too hot" just in time for sheep and wool-- is anyone else I know going?

Comments

[melaniesuzanne.livejournal.com]

Oof. I'm sorry to hear about your car troubles. :(

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Fortunately, I had enough cash on me to pay to get it towed home, so I can glare at it out the front windows until I actually break down and deal with the situation. :/ Could have been a lot worse.

[belfebe.livejournal.com]

Bummer about the Matrix. So why did you decide to replace the covers? Were they damaged, or did you find some cool ones? Good to know about this though.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I'd been missing two for a few years now, and had just had the second instance of running into a curb and knocking a valve stem loose (which deflated on the highway on the way back from NJ earlier this month), so it was *supposed* to be a preventative measure. :(

[leimon-malakoi.livejournal.com]

I will be at sheep and wool with my mom on Sunday. theLJless may also come out.

If it makes you feel better I took a chainsaw that was planted in it's bed the year I was born.... (I found out how old his roses were after all)

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I'm going on Saturday (sunday being for rescuing of the grauwulf and subsequently my car)-- have fun!

If it were just thirty-year-old plants I wouldn't feel so bad-- it's the foundation plantings from the 1930s that I feel like the original owner is going to come back and haunt me over. Of course, all the other big overgrown bushes went when they tore out the sycamores & widened the road last year, so they did look a bit out of place.

[amubleu.livejournal.com]

I will be at the sheep and wool festival. It's my first time going and I'll be working it for a bit. Look for a wood turner's booth mixed in between some lamas and alpaca. We'll be outside close to the food area.