Still Waiting on My License and This Week’s Garden Saga…

Well, I’d love to be able to say that I have my driver’s license back and have been back on the road, driving for Uber, but, alas, this is not the case. I, apparently, misunderstood what they had told me when I called the DOL (Department of Licensing). What I thought they had said is that bringing the signed and notarized payment agreement into one of the DOL offices would expedite things, as in not having to wait the 7-10 days for the paperwork to be processed by the DOL. This is not the case, so I am still waiting for the paperwork to clear the DOL. Ugh.

So, after sitting in the DOL office for just over an hour, they called me up to the counter, faxed the documents into the head DOL, and told me that it would be 7-10 days. Crap. I wanted to throw myself to the floor and have myself a good old fashion toddler temper tantrum. I didn’t, of course, but the feeling was more than there. I’ve been checking the website every day since. This is utterly frustrating.

One thing that has come out of not being able to drive, with spending so much time alone at home, in my garden and hanging out with the dogs, is that I have discovered I don’t really want to drive for Uber. I think I have come to realize that it causes me to be in a high stress state most of the time, despite feeling like the social anxieties have been tempered a bit. Now, to figure out how to bring in money in a different way so that I can continue to make the weekly car payments on the Prius.

Once I have my license back, I will continue to drive for Uber until I can figure out how I am going to make this happen and while I’m starting to make it happen – don’t quit the job you have until you have found a new one to replace it. I’m not sure what this looks like, the new job, but I’m figuring it out. I’d like to find something that is still super flexible, though I’m doubting it will be quite as flexible as driving for Uber.

My gardens are coming along quite nicely. I have transplanted some of the sunflowers into the stump garden area. Though I’m not certain how well they will do there due to the more acidic Ph of the soil, but I’m remaining confident that I can make this work. That is, if I can successfully deter the recent squirrel we have acquired.

Dastardly Squirrel

A few days ago, I saw a squirrel eating out of the bird feeder I have hung up on the tree in the stump area. I get that this is normally a source of contention with most people, but, since I haven’t seen a single squirrel in our yard since we moved here over two years ago, I was excited to finally have one in our yard. “Eat away” was my thought. I was excited and happy to finally have a squirrel in my yard.

In the past, when we have had regular squirrels visiting our yard, we have welcomed them. Sure, they like to eat all of the bird seed put out, but we were ok with that, somewhat, and would buy squirrel feeders and food for them. We have even gone as far as to name the different squirrels. I’ve never had any problems with them, but, then again, I didn’t have gardens they could destroy.

After discovering our new ‘neighbor,’ getting excited about its arrival, I discovered later that day that the little creep was chewing my sunflowers off at the bottom of their little stalks in an attempt to drag them away, either to eat in private or as nesting material. The first day, he/she managed to kill 6 sunflowers! Yesterday, I woke up, made my coffee, and wandered out to the stump garden to take a look around and busted the little bandit attempting to escape with one more sunflower. I was so mad!!!

I pointed out the creature to Mr. Brucie Bruce and told him to get to work. Brucie laid a little bit away from the tree, watching the squirrel, the squirrel yelling at him from the safety of a high branch the whole time. I went straight to my computer to look up how I deal with this latest challenge. I was not going to lose all of my sunflowers to this heathen.

What I found online, mostly, was stuff that I just didn’t want to do – traps, granules you shake on the ground that have to be reapplied after it rains, sprays you make or buy that also must be reapplied after it rains – just not what I was looking for or instilled much faith in their abilities. Then I came across an article that told me little rodents, such as squirrels, HATE the smell of marigolds. I Googled marigolds and squirrels and found other sites that backed the first article. (sorry, I did not keep track of the articles and/or sites I visited. I was in war planning mode, and that was more important at the time). I went up to Wal-Mart and bought 42 marigolds. (this may sound a bit much, but, like I said, I was in war planning mode).

I came home, transplanted more sunflowers into the now vacant spots, then planted marigolds next to every sunflower in the stump garden. So far, so good. I did not find any sunflowers chewed off this morning, though I do keep going out and checking about once an hour. Yeah, I’m a bit over vigilant about this, but I have been working really hard to get the stump garden going and I’m not about to let some rat with great PR and a bushy tail get the better of me and my hard work.

I’ve transplanted all of the lupine to their new homes in both gardens. Its been about 5 or so days and they all seem to be doing very well so I believe the transplanting did not damage their tap-roots. YAY! I put some in the stump garden where the tulips were and some in front of the Hollyhocks. I can’t wait until mid-Summer when everything is in bloom. Both gardens should be very beautiful. I’m so excited!!!!

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