This Grandma Had a Productive Day AND Enjoyed Some Alone Time With Grandson

Good morning to my readers.  The sun is trying to peek out this morning.  Since I live in the South, I'm expecting it to be a full shine in an hour or so.  Very few people have low vitamin D counts here - as opposed to where I lived in the North.  It was a good chance that everyone you met in the area I lived in the North was on some sort of vitamin D routine. 

I went off to vote early in the morning.  The pup voted as well.  Ha ha.  Once back home I did my morning routine and wrote a blog post.  This is when the restlessness crept in.  So I took the pup to my daughter's and asked if my 4 year old grandson could have a few minutes with grandma while I picked up some apples at the grocery store. 

The apples were on sale for .99 a pound which couldn't be passed up.  We counted apples and picked some green ones and red ones while he learned what a good apple looks like.  He was such a good helper, we had to go to the bakery section and pick up a box of cookies.   Mission accomplished.

Since the Goodwill is across the street from the grocery I asked him if wanted to go to another store.  His answer was Yes, especially if they have toys there.  And they did.  Lots of them.  My intention was to look around, but he was glued to the toy section.  The idea of looking around fell to the wayside when he exhibited such joy in checking out the toys.  I looked on for 20 minutes while he played.  At one point he didn't want to put things back on the shelf, he would 'do it later'.  Nope.  That doesn't set well with grandma.  So he learned something about putting things away when he was done with them.  I give him kudos because he did this while excitement was at a peak.

We had such fun.  It was time to go home and enjoy the cookies with a glass of milk.

In the late afternoon a friend called and we talked for quite a while.  At the end of the conversation I mentioned it had been so cold I never finished putting seeds in the garden.  Her reply got me moving, even if it was cold. (My hands felt like blocks of ice.)  She said beets like the cold.  Dang it!  She was right.  So I raked the leaves off of the soil dug 6 treches and planted seed.  Two rows of lettuce, 2 of radishes, and 2 of beets.

I also found out how to check seeds for viability yesterday.  When I came in from the garden I washed up and got out the seeds I saved from the summer crop.  Here's what I learned:

Lightly dampen paper towel and place 10 seeds on it.  Fold the seeds up into the toweling and place them in a plastic bag.  The bag goes into an area that is warm and should sprout within their appointed time. (As if they were in the ground.)  If 6 seeds sprout - out of the ten -  then there should be a 60% success rate of the seeds growing in the ground. 

I 'planted' cucumbers, peppers, and tomatoes.  I'll begin looking at the results in seven days for viability.

I had a good day yesterday.  I hope yours was good, as well.