Read for a special Public Service Announcement (time sensitive)

 Good afternoon. I hope that you all are doing well and staying cool. I know that it is that time of year, here in Texas, where it is hard to stay cool. This morning while I was outside with my grandson I remembered someone once saying how miserable it was in Florida because they have a wet heat. And supposedly here in Texas it is a dry heat so it is more comfortable here. Well...That might used to be the case but we have had high humidity and high dew point - and both high together make it quite uncomfortable. 

My poor garden is struggling. After all the work put into it - it is disappointing when the heat and bugs destroy the garden. It makes me look forward to heaven even more. Just think there we can plant and there will be perfect conditions to grow and no bugs to kill the plants - because there will not be death there. It is just so amazing to think of it all. 

I have been trying to take notes of what I need to do differently next year. One main thing I want to do and I will share it just in case this can help you as well. Every year I print out the sheets of paper that tell me when to plant for spring and for fall. And I sit down with the papers and organize my plans. Last year I did not sit down soon enough to do this job and got my onions and potatoes into the ground later than was optimal. So my bright idea is to have a garden calendar and to work on it prior to the end of January. That way I don't miss any start dates. I plan on starting my onions and my potatoes around Valentine's Day - this is what I have heard from some old timer gardeners. I will also have frost cloth ready to cover and protect plants if we get any freezes after they are plant. And my sugar snap peas need to be planted earlier. One of my friends had great success with sugar snap peas one year and I think it is because she got them planted early. So this will be on my calendar. I really think that having a calendar with things written on dates that they need to be planted will be very helpful and I will refer to it often. 

I am going to work on having a fall garden. It is so fun and enjoyable to work out in the garden when it's cool so I think I will really enjoy a fall garden. 

My husband has been getting a lot of overtime. And sad thing is that no very many people want the overtime this time of year. Well my husband is working as much as he can handle. And the biggest blessing is that we will be able to pay off our RV saving ourselves over $5,000. in interest. That is the worst part of taking out a loan to buy something - paying a whole lot MORE because of interest. I told my husband I don't want to get another loan. I would rather us save up money and pay cash. Yes- it isn't as easy in this instant gratification world but the money saved would be SO worth it. We are also able to pay a $775. hospital bill. I am very glad about this since it looks like my husband is looking at having a surgery this year. We will find out more on August 5th when he sees the specialist. 

Have I shared about our baby chicks?! So we had 5 until something got one of our 5 week old babies. :o( Made me so sad. We have 5 more chickens sitting. We are looking at getting rid of our rooster. I just don't know if I want to keep having baby chicks and the possibility of a lot of little roosters- knowing my luck. I did figure out a way to help us get more eggs. You see during the day the other chickens would push their way into the boxes that the hens are sitting on and so almost all of our eggs were under the chickens. So I was getting 1 or 2 eggs a day. I don't sell a lot of eggs but I would like to at least keep the customers we have happy with eggs. My secret? Well I bought a package of fake eggs and I marked the eggs with a smiley face and I put them in boxes where I already had a fake egg. That way there are at least 2 fake eggs in sevearl of the boxes. The chickens like to lay where other hens are laying so we have begun to get more eggs for us. Yay!  

Well I have other things I want to get done today so I better get off of here. Before I close I have a public service announcement - On July the 14th postage stamps will be going up again. Right now a first class stamp is 68 cents but on the 14th prices will go up to 73 cents a stamp. It is time NOW to go buy a roll of forever stamps and save yourself some money. Because the way it looks is that every year prices will keep going up. 

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