Rocking Your World 2020: Week 39

What a pleasant week we have had with warm days, and a drop of rain some nights. We continue to have visitors to our pool, most of which should take swimming lessons before they come. This week it was black beetles.

I am fairly certain they are what are called rain beetles. They appear after a heavy rainstorm such as we had the previous night, and they have a very short life. Here are a few details about them taken from Google.

"The rain beetles are a group of beetles found in the far west of North America and Europe They spend most of their lives underground, emerging in response to rain or snow, thus the common name. The larvae live underground, feeding on roots in the soil, and may take up to 13 years to mature. The adults surface when the ground is soaked. You'll never see adult beetles eat because they don't. They have no mouthparts or digestive tracts. They rely on the fat stored from their larval stage. It is thought that on average, males of some rain beetles have only enough energy stored as fat to give them about two hours of air time and live only a few days. The more sedentary females require less energy and may live for months after fall and winter storms."

What fascinating creatures. Well on Tuesday they seem to have run out of energy and dive-bombed our pool. When we lifted the lid of our skimmer basket there were around six of them floating around in it, and a further eight or more were doing laps of the pool before being sucked in to join the others.

My biggest smile this week is the arrival of my new chair. Although anyone is free to sit anywhere, we do tend to always gravitate to the same chair, me especially as I have all my crochet paraphernalia around it! I am a bit of a shortie so a big chair is uncomfortable because my feet don't reach the floor, and for the past few years I have had a small manual recliner. But unfortunately the recliner part was wearing out and not always holding its position, so I have been on the look out for a new one. I wanted an electric one and as I am in favour of anything that makes life a bit easier, we agreed that if we were buying one we may as well go for one that will help me stand, i.e. one that tips me out! It is not something I need now, and hopefully won't do so for a while, but useful to have all the same. It turned out to be quite hard to find one out here at a remotely sensible price, so I was very pleased when we spotted a second-hand one, that had only been used for a few months. We knew the seller so we knew the home it came from and Chris said we would buy it. Last weekend, our friend's husband brought it round for me and it is really comfortable. It is the right size for me and the motor is smooth, and not too abrupt. In honesty I would not have chosen a dark brown one, but one of my colourful crochet blankets thrown onto it, soon fixed that.

(I am very frustrated that the new blogger does not allow me to slide a 'portrait' orientation photos up along the side of my paragraph, like I used to be able to do, and today the legacy version no longer seems to be available, so it will have to sit in the middle taking up more space than it needs).

We managed to get to a garden centre this week, which was nice as we have not been out at all for a while. I got the bags of compost I needed and I chose a gorgeous orange hibiscus. I should have taken a photo straight away as the flowers only last for a day or two, and by the next day it was starting to fade, but I took my picture anyway. And there will soon be lots more of them I am sure.

I also bought a dozen assorted winter pansies and violas, to put some winter colour into the front yard pots.

The front porch flower stand has had nothing in it since last Christmas' poinsettias died so I bought three Sweet William plants which smell lovely as we go out the door. They won't last very long I don't suppose, but then it is only a couple of months before we see poinsettias everywhere again!

You may remember that back in the Spring, Chris planted out my baby silk tree down by the front gate. It is a tiny little strip of earth between our garage driveway and the main path, and up 'til now it has only housed a few cacti. When the "rabbits' ears" cactus got too big so it caught in the dogs' fur and our clothes, we cut it off and threw it over the back railings, where it continues to grow and thrive.  When I water the pots all around the yard I didn't use to bother with that strip as it seemed to do OK without watering, but since the tree was planted at the end of it, I always include it and make sure the tree has plenty to drink. So all of a sudden the cacti have started to grow too, and now another one is almost as high as the tree.

If it gets much taller it will either get top-heavy and keel over, or we will have to cut it off and let the next piece grow up in its place. The big prickly round one, (sometimes know as Grandma's naughty cushion), has also grown a lot, so apparently they do appreciate the water after all.

Yesterday was sort of a sad day but not entirely. In the morning I was able to 'attend' my sister's funeral via a live link. I am so grateful for the technology that made this possible for me, my sisters and Eve's children and grandchildren who live too far away to attend in person. Only 30 family members were allowed anyway, and her family is much bigger than that. Also they chose two of my favourite hymns, "How great Thou art" and "Thine be the Glory", and although those attending were not allowed to sing along with the recordings they used, I was able to at home, and I did.

And that is another week gone. It will be October next time I post. So without more ado I will link up with Annie's Friday Smiles and Rocking Your World.