What did you do today? - 2020 version

[pacergal]

I became a Grandpa today! It wasn't much effort on my part. All I had to do was wait for the news. Mom and son are doing fine.

Congratulations, Grandpa!
No better feeling than that.

Today I planted 2 tomatoe plants, zinnias, and geraniums.
We have lillies, iris, and dahlias starting to grow also.
And the lilac tree is blooming.
The sun is out today and it is a beautiful afternoon.

 

[Ronstar]

Congrats Gramps Hermit!

Today a typical day here - woodworking, a bike ride, changed into my pajamas and watching tv before 4 pm.

 

[Souschef]

DW was getting cabin fever, so we took a drive up the coast from Ventura CA. There is a stretch along the ocean called the Rincon, and it usually is full of RV's. The area, which runs for a couple of miles had signs prohibiting parking. It was very depressing.
I had a small success today, however. We have an Amazon Echo and sub woofer, and DW loves it for playing music. She was trying to get it to play her songs, but had limited success. I logged on to the app on her Kindle, and enabled her Pandora stations. Still no luck. I looked below the enabling, and it said I had to change the profile WTF?? So I told Alexa to change the profile to DW, and bingo! Success! Happy wife, happy life

I thought technology was supposed to make our lives easier

 

[Freedom56]

Trapped two squirrels that were ravaging our vegetable garden and made two trips to the Angeles National Forest to relocate them. They were happy to leave the cage. We also saw two baby hummingbirds leave their nest in our backyard.

 

[Winemaker]

Yesterday, I bottled 12 gallons of wine/cleanup, varnished a table I made, walked my 3 miles, took the Benz out of garage and switched from snow tires to summer cruisers, repaired some wooden garden fence, ate dinner/cleanup, watched double episode of Antiques Roadshow.

 

[iloveyoga]

Yesterday....did a bit of office work...walked in the neighborhood with DH. I went to my Mom's and we had our social distance walk outside. Then we had sod delivered and I helped DH put down 400 square feet in our back yard. I had prepped dinner earlier, so just had to put it in the oven. We were both very tired by bedtime.

 

[Gumby]

Yesterday, I bottled 12 gallons of wine/cleanup, varnished a table I made, walked my 3 miles, took the Benz out of garage and switched from snow tires to summer cruisers, repaired some wooden garden fence, ate dinner/cleanup, watched double episode of Antiques Roadshow.

Busy day. What style of wine do you make?

 

[ugeauxgirl]

I made a CAD model of a house I want to buy. This floor plan was quite common. I did some research, and found that in the past 12 years, that houses with that floor plan have been sold at least 414 times. There are 8 floor plans that are very similar. That family of plans has been sold at least 1260 times. In the area we are look at, it consists of 48% of the units that have been sold.

The floor plan allows me to remodel the kitchen and try different configurations. We can move the dining area around, and create a room that can be used as either a den, a computer room, or a third bedroom. There are several popular remodels that I have also modeled up.

I have also determined that I can park my utility trailer in the kitchen, if I find a different place for the refrigerator.

Lol- the utility trailer would probably mess up the ideal kitchen triangle workflow too...

 

[Winemaker]

Busy day. What style of wine do you make?

This was a New York Sauvignon Blanc. I was supposed to get the equivalent of 30 gallons+ of California Sauv Blanc, but due to power outages, they could not ship. Normally, I can get top quality grapes from California 48 hours after they have been picked, transported here to the Steel City. Once I found out about my shortage, I scrambled and found some juice in New York.

I did not get 30 gallons initially, as I was uncertain about quality. So I bought ~12 gallons and had a wonderful fermentation. DW and I went back to NY and purchased some more a few weeks ago. Sauv Blanc is a fresh, easy going white that DW and I enjoy nightly with a plate of mini carrots, fresh green/colored peppers, cuke slices, celery spears cherry tomatoes and various dips. It can be drunk young or aged.

I have 12 gallons of South African Sauv Blanc and 12 gallons of Chilean Sauv Blanc ordered for May 3rd, and I offered to take more if local wineries cannot accept their shipments. Under the circumstances, charitable tastings and tasting rooms are shuttered, so sales are down. The winery where I help out, is doing deliveries and curb sales, but not like our usual sales rates.

I make all kinds of wine, whites, reds and roses'. As a total wine snob, identified by some forum members, I'm spoiled for California grapes. I dabble in Chilean, which is a cool climate area, hence, not as alcoholic, as they don't get to California ripeness. On May 1st, I'm getting the equivalent of 70 gallons of Chilean Chardonnay, which I will do a barrel ferment. On the 13th, I'm getting the ~15 gallons of Chilean Syrah. Part will be made into a rose', and the remainder into a full bodied red. Idle hands do the work of the devil!

 

[Gumby]

Wow! That's lot of wine. The young wife and I usually have a bottle of wine with dinner every night. We enjoy sauvignon blanc, particularly with seafood. We split fairly evenly between California and New Zealand. To my taste (which is admittedly not sophisticated) the California ones typically taste more "grassy" and the New Zealand ones more fruity. I don't think we've ever tried any from South Africa, New York or Chile. However, I have enjoyed some Chilean reds over the years, having been first introduced to them when I went to Chile in 1983 and tasted some cabernet from Cousiño Macul.

 

[MBAustin]

The hospice where I volunteer asked if I would send some pics of my pet therapy dog to include in clients Happy Birthday cards so Sam and I did this. We miss visiting a lot

View attachment 34705

That is an adorable card, bluskyk! How sweet of you two to do that for them.

We're now getting up into the 80s most days so I'm going to try to get all my outdoor stuff done in the mornings. Today was a nice long dog walk and an hour of weeding/pruning. After lunch I think I'll do a little maintenance on our fish pond which is looking very sad since it didn't get its normal professional spring cleaning yet due to COVID. Then I'll tackle the paperwork for the two ZOOM meetings I was secretary for yesterday - spent way too much time sitting in front of the computer.

 

[COcheesehead]

Early morning 3 mile walk.
Bought some wine online.
Whittling down cabinet and floor selections for the new house. They need our final answer tomorrow.
Sitting on the spin bike now. Shooting for an hour. My butt is tired from a long ride the other day. May bail soon.
Meeting with our builder later today to finalize doors and fireplace.
I think it will be a take out night tonight.

 

[Walt34]

Got a few R/C flights with the Turbo Timber in the back yard before the wind picked up too much, and by then my fingers were starting to get cold anyway. This airplane is fun; near-vertical climb, and with full flaps it can make a very steep approach without gaining too much speed to land so it's a good fit for my back yard flying. I'm eyeballing the new Citation but I'm not sure that one will fare so well with the short field that I have. But at least it's a private jet that is within my budget.

Also, at DW's insistence, checked on the robin's nest under the back deck. Of the two eggs, apparently only one hatched as I saw only one chick in there. The nest is on a board that is less than a foot below the deck itself so I have to use an inspection mirror to look inside the nest. Momma robin is very unhappy when anyone walks around that side of the house. It doesn't seem to bother her much if I walk on the deck itself though. DW wants photos. I did manage to get some photos several years ago but it is definitely a "hit and miss" proposition, involving setting up the camera and flash on the stairs to automatically fire at intervals and then hoping you get a good shot. If people are around Momma robin won't go near the nest.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

We took a trunk full of groceries to our neighbor who works at a food bank. All the local food banks are getting overwhelmed with requests with so many families needing help right now.

Worked on my home made face masks. We have to start wearing them inside stores soon here. Walked the dog. Happy hour on the patio.

 

[Shredder]

I transplanted 40 tomato plants from tiny containers that were ok for starting seeds into beer cups.

Cut down two dead medium sized trees in our woods, cut the trees into chunks, loaded them in my tractor's front bucket and then stacked the chunks for campfire wood.

Now 3:30pm, contemplating if I should mix a drink or take a edible. hmmmm.....

 

[Gumby]

Grocery shopping this morning. Spread about a yard of mulch after lunch. I went in with the neighbor on a 5 yard delivery and it's in his driveway, so I have to go over there, load it in my garden cart and bring it back one load at a time.

 

[harley]

I transplanted 40 tomato plants from tiny containers that were ok for starting seeds into beer cups.

That's a lot of tomatoes. We have one cherry tomato plant and we're getting them faster than we can eat them.

Now 3:30pm, contemplating if I should mix a drink or take a edible. hmmmm.....

Yes.

 

[LRDave]

This AM (just after midnight, actually), DW and I went out and laid down on our road the observe the Lyrid meteor shower. It was a clear night, the moon was waxing crescent (and didn't matter much anyway, as it set around 7PM) and the temp was in the mid 50s F. Perfect night for star gazing.

In about 1.5 hours, we saw 9 - with two good fireballs. Not great compared to the Persieds or Leonids, but still well worth it. Plus after your eyes get accustomed, the heavens really open up. Our rural location is relatively free of light pollution.

 

[Freedom56]

Trapped two more squirrels and drove them do the Angeles National Forest for their family reunion. We spotted one of the squirrels that we released the other day and made eye contact. Our garden is looking much better.

 

[ckelly78z]

This morning, I skidded about 15 dead/down trees (all about 45' tall, and 6'-18' thick) nearly a 1/4 mile, out of our creek bank into an open area near the road, where I can cut to stove length (18"-20") when convenient. I can get to these downed trees even if it gets muddy, or the farmer starts planting.

This computes out to about 2 months worth of firewood for my farmhouse that I can use this upcoming Winter.

This afternoon, I re-dug our French drain that runs the length of our 104x60 indoor riding arena so future rains will drain away, and not flood one end of our barn.

 

[GalaxyBoy]

Two days ago the power blinked. Yesterday I discovered the digital temperature controller on my converted chest freezer stuck in the “cooling” mode and froze my kegs of homebrew solid. Beersicles. It had happened before but upon resetting it, it had gone back to normal. No such luck. Fortunately I had bought a replacement controller the first time so I spent the morning replacing it. All is well now, except I’m not sure how the beer was affected. This first one tastes good though. Also baked banana bread and recycled. Wonderful weather now but rain tomorrow.

Frankly, not much different than before COVID-19.

 

[gayl]

I transplanted 40 tomato plants from tiny containers that were ok for starting seeds into beer cups.

Cut down two dead medium sized trees in our woods, cut the trees into chunks, loaded them in my tractor's front bucket and then stacked the chunks for campfire wood.

Now 3:30pm, contemplating if I should mix a drink or take a edible. hmmmm.....

With the bad day I'm having I vote for the edible. Primarily because I am out of wine

 

[MBAustin]

Doggie and I had an abbreviated walk because the mist started getting heavier and he hates walking in the rain. Yoga class via ZOOM (during which we had a brief but strong thunderstorm including hail) followed by grocery shopping. Caught up here and with e-mail and then we played online games with DD and DS (both in grad school)- we're making this a weekly event now. Much fun.

 

[REWahoo]

Doggie and I had an abbreviated walk because the mist started getting heavier and he hates walking in the rain.

The same thing with me and our pooch this morning. He was less than enthusiastic when we started out and became even less so as we got out of sight of the house. Since I'm not a fan of taking the dog for a drag, we came home.

 

[MRG]

That's a lot of tomatoes. We have one cherry tomato plant and we're getting them faster than we can eat them.



Yes.

Yes*2

Today I groomed our Shih Tzu mix. I have never groomed anything; okay I ran clippers all over my head big deal! I had no idea how to start other than watching a utube which I did. Holy crap there is a lot to cut on a little dog I prefer taking her to the groomer. Our groomer passed away recently not covid related so I may have a new job.

Tomorrow I'm planning on cutting our old mean Maltese. I still have a bite he gave me 10 days ago cause I woke him up. [emoji35] Hoping he's not used to biting the groomer cause that is me.

Made red beans and rice for dinner. I just pulled a pan of cornbread out of the oven. It's a good recipe for higher altitude.