A Productive Day

Sheila took a day of annual leave today, the weather was exceptional summertime weather, my health was better than average, and I had a surprisingly good night of sleep so Sheila and I had a very productive day today.  Everything came together, for a change, to make today a productive one!

I actually had a relatively pain-free night of sleep which made for a restful night.  That is highly unusual since our first bout with COVID just over two years ago.  For some reason, my inflamed joints didn't bother me enough to keep me awake last night so that made for a better night of sleep.  I awoke this morning feeling well rested and feeling pretty good which almost never happens!  

By mid-morning, we were on the road headed to Lowes to pick up some summertime landscaping and gardening items.  We picked up quite a few plants for our planters and window boxes at Lowes.  We also picked up potting soil, gravel and sand for various other landscaping projects.  

We then headed to a nursery to look at trees.  We were hoping to find a small ornamental flowering tree or a dwarf tree that would look nice in one particular location but we had no luck with that.  There are a few places around our property that we would like to plant a dwarf tree or a rather small ornamental tree but we didn't find any trees that would work for us.  Instead, we came home with some tall ornamental grass to use in one of our gardens.  

We then headed to Hannaford's to pick up a few items.  Although we definitely prefer Hannaford's, we haven't been to Hannaford's in many months so we were quite shocked to immediately notice how much better Hannaford's is than our local Shaw's.  We were at Shaw's last night...   the meat coolers were mostly empty but, what was there, was looking terrible and terribly expensive.  On the other hand, the meat at Hannaford's was looking great, was well-stocked and was reasonably priced.  Many of the shelves at Shaw's were bare.  We didn't see a single empty shelf at Hannaford's though.  The deli, bakery and produce departments were exceptional at Hannaford's too....  the same departments at Shaw's really are quite disgusting to be honest.  Needless to say, we spent far more money than we had planned to spend at Hannaford's today.  On the positive side, we had a delicious dinner tonight thanks to Hannaford's meat.

Back to our spring planting...  we chose to not crowd the window boxes this year.  Last year the window boxes were definitely over-crowded and that caused some problems.  These window boxes should look nice and full within a couple of weeks.

Our tulips are definitely behind schedule this year for some reason.  We'll see how this develops this year.  

The window box on the playhouse got some plants too...

I forgot to shoot a photo of the tall ornamental grass that we added to one garden.  I guess I'll capture a photo of that some other time.  

I'm exhausted now so I hope to be in bed and asleep within the next few minutes.  We'll see how I feel tomorrow....