I was sidetracked and buzzed

My 'to do' list today had 10 tasks on it.  I was able to only accomplish the 4 easiest tasks.  I tried my best but it was fruitless. Man, animal, and mother nature were all against me today.

We got an early start because R needed to take his truck in for AC service, so I needed to follow him to the shop to bring him back home.  While he was giving them the keys, one of the guys mentioned that he knew where R could get a new bumper for $100.00.  This truck came with a screwed up rear bumper and it was one of the reasons why the truck was so affordable.  He could get by with the bumper that is on there but for a 100 bucks it would be nice to have one that didn't look like someone had run into the rear of the truck.  But then again it is a work truck that we use to haul rocks, dirt, mulch, debris, and scrap so it doesn't have to look pretty.

But first R wanted to check the price of a replacement bumper at Bumper Mart......yes, Bumper Mart.  So we needed to drive over there and price a replacement bumper.  Nope they couldn't beat the $100 price so we drove back to the shop to tell them to order the $100 bumper.

We drove home and watered and fertilized all the flowers and veggie plants.  We use fish fertilizer and the flies came from the next county the minute I opened the bottle.  Ewwww, it's stinky but works great.

I was just about ready to open a can of paint when R asked me what I wanted to do with all the branches etc behind the barn.  Normally we would just burn them but currently we are under a 'no burn' condition because of the lack of rain.

While I was behind the barn I heard a bird making a lot of noise.  I finally located it and it was a woodpecker feeding her babies.  Did I have my phone with me?  Nope and by the time I got back to take a photo, she was gone.  Bye bye...I'm outta here.  So I kept my phone with me all day in the hopes of getting a photo.

I was just about ready to open my paint can when I heard the mail truck.  So I walked out to the mail box to get the mail.  That's when I got distracted for another hour.  Sharon from Laurelhurst Craftsman sent me a Flint Faience Tile catalog.  I had to immediately sit down and look at the tile options that were available back in the 1920's when my house was built.  I found my master bedroom fireplace tile and my master bath tile and sadly the vestibule tile that we removed and discarded.  In my defense, it was damaged and missing a lot of pieces, plus we thought it was from the 60's.  I'm ashamed.

Thank you, Sharon

So now I want to correct that mistake and install mosaic tile in the vestibule. Probably in various green shades.  The original was various tan shades which is not a color that would work well with anything that I have in my house right now. 

By now it was lunch time.  We ate and I don't know about you but after I eat a meal I am worthless for about an hour.  I spent the next hour day dreaming of tile and snoozing in my reclining lawn chair.  When I finally woke up out of my food stupor I opened a can of paint.

About two seconds after I stuck the paint stir stick in the paint, R walked up and said "you have to drive me to the shop to pick up my truck".  OMG I'll never get any painting done.

I drove him up to the shop and drove right home to paint.  I reopened the paint can and started up the ladder when I realized that the ladder was at the wrong angle.  Back down the ladder I went and waited until R came home to help me adjust the ladder.  The ladder is heavy and it takes two people to adjust  it even when it is not fully extended.  I waited and I waited and I waited.  R had decided he needed a Mexican mocha coffee and then he ran into a couple of people he knew and yadda yadda yadda it was an hour before he came back home.  In the meantime I was back looking at tile designs in the Flint Faience Tile catalog.

Once the ladder was adjusted and I was actually able to paint.  I got all of this painted...

...before a bee/wasp/hornet buzzed my head and hair.  I was afraid of being stung (I'm allergic) or falling off the ladder or spilling paint all over the new windows so I came back down the ladder and called it quits in the painting department.

By this time the sun was partially behind the trees in the front yard so I decided to transplant a catalpa tree that I found growing in my rose bushes.  I've been watering the tree heavily for the last two days to help with transplanting stress but first I needed to dig the hole.  I picked a good spot and started to cut through the sod.  I was shocked at how hard the soil was where I was digging.

I peeled back the sod and started digging.  Actually it was more like chipping away than digging.  I finally gave up and filled the hole with water to soften the dirt and will attempt to plant the tree tomorrow evening.  I always transplant trees in the evening so that they can recover in the cool of the night from any transplanting stress.

By this time I was ready to call it quits when I remembered I had one more trash can of twigs that needed to go to the curb for trash pick up tomorrow.  I no sooner got behind the barn and I hear that woodpecker again.  I look up and she is feeding her babies.  Their little heads were sticking out of the hole in the side of the tree.  I reached around to my back pocket to grab my phone to take a photo and it wasn't there.  By the time I got back....she was gone.  I'll get a photo one way or the other and I'll get some painting done, too.  When? I don't know.