Teaspoon Fairy

Will get to the teaspoon fairy in a minute.

Been busy with trying to get the outside all "put too bed," for the winter this week.  Have to say I am nearly there.  The one major thing that still needs to be done is all the leaves raked up.  There is only one problem though, due to the weather being unseasonably warm, the leaves are still on the tree!

We finally got a little bit of frost on the ground the other morning, so they are starting to drop.  Had the sprinkler guys round yesterday for 20 minutes to blow out the sprinklers.  $113 later, but hubby's compressor isn't really big enough to blow them out in one fell swoop.  Also paid for next years feed and weed lawn service, $350 later.  They are supposed to be coming round with a Fall fertilizer application that I got for free when I pay up front for the next year.  Also got 10% discount for paying before the end of October.  Every little helps.

Now for the teaspoon fairy.  I was talking to my mother the other day and she had just come in from grocery shopping.  I was telling her I had just popped to the store to pick a couple of things up and had spent $40 and had only one bag of shopping to show for it.  Though one of the things I had bought were some teaspoons.  It turns out I am not the only one who has the teaspoon fairy visit their house and take a few teaspoons with her when she leaves.  My mother has the same one visit her.  

Teaspoons seem to disappear in a poof of smoke around here.  My mother was agreeing as she has the same problem.  When I was looking for an image to add to this post I came across this book:

I would have bought this book, but it's in Spanish and only on Kindle over at Amazon.  I neither understand Spanish, nor have a Kindle.  

Do you have a teaspoon fairy visit your house?  Or is it a knife, fork or other utensil fairy?

Another project we did this year

We had a sprinkler system installed in the Spring.  This project was "booked" last September as the company we used was that busy.  Also by the time we got them in to give us a quote it was already September and it didn't seem worthwhile for them to try to "squeeze" us in before the bad weather hit.

We used a well known company to our area.  I will not be naming them as despite them doing a great installation job, their customer service is painful.  It's a family company and paper work, answering their phones and texts are low on their list of priorities.  Again though the product they sell, the way they work cannot be faulted; they are hard workers.

We wanted sprinklers installed as we live on a corner lot and have a lot of grass.  It is too much to water by hand and the summer's are getting hotter and hotter.  They installed a Toro Evolution system and they put in six zones.  Each zone runs from between 5 minutes up to 20 minutes per zone.  Between us and our neighbours house is one zone that only runs for 5 minutes as it never gets a lot of sun.  Whereas where the sun hits the most it runs 20 minutes per zone.

You can run it from your smart phone, but that is way too advanced for me😉

It's normally set to come on every other day, but we over ride it and water only when needed.  They also installed a rain sensor, and it does actually work...LOL  I am one of those people that doesn't trust those sort of things!

They put 250 feet of drip irrigation in my flower beds.  They said for the 20 minutes it is on, it uses only 1 1/2 gallons of water.  I have to top up my mulch on my flower beds to cover it all.

I just got my water bill again, and it's working out to around $100 a month to run this.  We will probably be running the sprinklers between mid-May until mid-September I think, so probably four to five months and will work out to about $500 extra per year.

Is it worth it?  We like nice grass.  We do not have nice grass, but with the weed and feed lawn service we pay for and the extra watering we are doing, our grass is starting to look a bit better.  It doesn't help we have a park across the road and the city does not use chemicals on their parks.  So all the dandelion seeds blow over to us.

This is not the first house where we have had a sprinkler system.  This was the first time we had one installed though.  Dh and dd installed the other two systems we had.  It was nice for dh to come home from work and the sprinkler system was all ready to go.

So that was another project crossed off our list.

I am around.........

it's just been a quiet week due to the hot and humid weather.  I have been hibernating so nothing much has been happening.  We had some nasty weather go through yesterday and last night.  No damage on our property, but a lot of damage was done close to where we used to live.  At least now with all the rain yesterday the grass has had a good water.  We are not happy with the way they are watering the grass.  We do have a sprinkler system, but it is controlled by the "sprinkler people."  We are also not allowed to water our grass............less said about this the better...LOL

Sad news from Britain, a beloved entertainer, Cilla Black passed away; she was only 72:



I love this song which I heard on an advertisement.  It is also a pretty neat video with a great message it is well worth watching:


And finally Our Little Munchkin may be a soccer player much to her Granddad's delight as he is a big football/soccer fan.

This is what we have trundling back and forward

past the house, from first thing in a morning until past 5 pm Monday through Friday for the foreseeable future.

 Now if I were a young boy I am sure I would be quite excited.  But as I am not a young boy or even a young girl I am NOT excited!!  Infact the dust is driving me crazy again.  They are cleaning some large ponds out at the other side of the subdivision.  For some strange reason they have to come our way.  There is another route, but it passes by the big boss' house.........no idea how long this is going to last for, we are in week two now though.

 In the golf carts are the irrigation folk; the people who sort out the sprinklers.  Thankfully we have had some rain as although they have tested the sprinkler's they have not been turned on as such.

I have calmed down re: condo board rules and regulations.  Not happy about them, but will live with them...........for now!!