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Too much driving in Stupid Traffic
Sep. 13th, 2015 10:39 pmSo today's adventure was supposed to be a 1-hour drive to Annie's Annuals & Perennials in Richmond, at the top of the other side of SF Bay. The GPS in the Prius is supposed to avoid traffic, but instead of sending me up 101 and 80, it sent me up 880 right into Oakland Raiders game day traffic. And it did not put me on the surface roads for the 80-580 interchange which is another bottleneck. I know there are alternate routes because when the 1989 earthquake destroyed part of that section, detours were established.
Finally got there after 95 minutes of BMW idiot drivers, SUV idiots forcing themselves where there was no space to merge, motorcycle idiot 90mph lane-splitters and lots of stopped traffic.
It was almost worth it. Annie's is a HUGE nursery, and though it is retail, most of the plants are seedlings or starters, all are in 4" containers. Except for the citrus trees, which are in 5 gal. pots and some 20 gal. containers with large clusters of a single type of flower.
I went because they have many varieties of fuchsia, and this time of year none of the chain stores have any.
They don't sell hanging baskets of anything, but I have a couple of empty ones at home, so I bought 6 containers of fuchsias to either replace the one big hanging basket on the porch, or to make 2 new baskets. Also found fairly large marigold starters, bought 4 of those for the front of the house, to replace the Bee's Friends which have been plowed under. And they also had a kind of flowering, creeping ground cover which the bees were all over, and when I picked one up it had already latched onto the container next to it. Ditto the next one I picked up. So I bought all 4.
And they had a good price on a 1.5 cubic foot bag of potting soil, so I bought one.
The plan is to dig out the iceplants which are not thriving, partly because they are planted in redwood chips, replace the chips with soil, and plant the creepers there. Also need to rake the front of the house section , throw some marigold seeds in there (I got some from Lowe's recently) and plant the starters in front.
Came home by way of 80 and 101, which was another parking lot/demolition derby. The metering lights were on, so having a Fastrack did not help much at all. The view was more than worth the toll, though, because the fog had rolled in over the GG Bridge, over Alcatraz & Angel Island and was just starting to touch Oakland. The City itself was clear.
Home, watched enough of the Tivoed Raiders game to know they were going to lose big time, built a fuchsia basket and hung it on the porch, took the big basket down and inside, and was surprised to see that only a few stems were dead, and only a few more needed to be trimmed. Put that in the sink and soaked it while I built another basket and hung it where the big one had been. After the big one had drained I parked it on the porch floor near the kitchen door, but it may need to come inside if we keep having these very hot sunny afternoons.
Made another batch of caramel walnut candy, this time with another kind of caramels. Put that in the fridge to cool. Vacuumed the kitchen floor, which had accumulated catmint leaves, Spook hair, vine leaves and potting soil. Which reminds me, I need to rescue the bag of catmints from the porch and (if they are dry) crush them, toss the stems and bag the leaves for the tea cabinet.
Time to got to MV and meet Janice for coffee. Mocha for me, iced tea for her. She's headed for Yosemite, and may volunteer for the Red Cross in Calistoga after that.
Since there was a Fresh And Easy next door and I needed fruit, I went shopping there. Got as little as possible, and once again was reminded why I hate hate hate to shop there, they only have self-checkout, but the thing is programmed to lock up if anything moves in the bagging area. It needs a manager to unlock. Happened to me three times in the 2 minutes I was there.
Mentally kicked myself, because there's a Safeway on my way to the freeway. Where I spent $90 on frozen meals, mangoes, emergency ice cream (Klondike bars), and other staples. Also bought some ground beef for the Venus fly traps and some lamb chops for myself.
Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Gardening (?)
Watch the 49ers game (?)
Finally got there after 95 minutes of BMW idiot drivers, SUV idiots forcing themselves where there was no space to merge, motorcycle idiot 90mph lane-splitters and lots of stopped traffic.
It was almost worth it. Annie's is a HUGE nursery, and though it is retail, most of the plants are seedlings or starters, all are in 4" containers. Except for the citrus trees, which are in 5 gal. pots and some 20 gal. containers with large clusters of a single type of flower.
I went because they have many varieties of fuchsia, and this time of year none of the chain stores have any.
They don't sell hanging baskets of anything, but I have a couple of empty ones at home, so I bought 6 containers of fuchsias to either replace the one big hanging basket on the porch, or to make 2 new baskets. Also found fairly large marigold starters, bought 4 of those for the front of the house, to replace the Bee's Friends which have been plowed under. And they also had a kind of flowering, creeping ground cover which the bees were all over, and when I picked one up it had already latched onto the container next to it. Ditto the next one I picked up. So I bought all 4.
And they had a good price on a 1.5 cubic foot bag of potting soil, so I bought one.
The plan is to dig out the iceplants which are not thriving, partly because they are planted in redwood chips, replace the chips with soil, and plant the creepers there. Also need to rake the front of the house section , throw some marigold seeds in there (I got some from Lowe's recently) and plant the starters in front.
Came home by way of 80 and 101, which was another parking lot/demolition derby. The metering lights were on, so having a Fastrack did not help much at all. The view was more than worth the toll, though, because the fog had rolled in over the GG Bridge, over Alcatraz & Angel Island and was just starting to touch Oakland. The City itself was clear.
Home, watched enough of the Tivoed Raiders game to know they were going to lose big time, built a fuchsia basket and hung it on the porch, took the big basket down and inside, and was surprised to see that only a few stems were dead, and only a few more needed to be trimmed. Put that in the sink and soaked it while I built another basket and hung it where the big one had been. After the big one had drained I parked it on the porch floor near the kitchen door, but it may need to come inside if we keep having these very hot sunny afternoons.
Made another batch of caramel walnut candy, this time with another kind of caramels. Put that in the fridge to cool. Vacuumed the kitchen floor, which had accumulated catmint leaves, Spook hair, vine leaves and potting soil. Which reminds me, I need to rescue the bag of catmints from the porch and (if they are dry) crush them, toss the stems and bag the leaves for the tea cabinet.
Time to got to MV and meet Janice for coffee. Mocha for me, iced tea for her. She's headed for Yosemite, and may volunteer for the Red Cross in Calistoga after that.
Since there was a Fresh And Easy next door and I needed fruit, I went shopping there. Got as little as possible, and once again was reminded why I hate hate hate to shop there, they only have self-checkout, but the thing is programmed to lock up if anything moves in the bagging area. It needs a manager to unlock. Happened to me three times in the 2 minutes I was there.
Mentally kicked myself, because there's a Safeway on my way to the freeway. Where I spent $90 on frozen meals, mangoes, emergency ice cream (Klondike bars), and other staples. Also bought some ground beef for the Venus fly traps and some lamb chops for myself.
Plans for tomorrow:
Work
Gardening (?)
Watch the 49ers game (?)
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