I did it

I'm a little tired now, both from the unfamiliarity of a longer drive (an hour's round trip, which is longer than I've driven in a long time) and about an hour of digging up and breaking up my rather compacted garden soil to plant a couple of purple salvias, and a pinkish skullcap (with small flowers but hopefully the bees will still like it) and a couple butterfly milkweeds, and a couple of santolinas (I like the different color of the foliage - they have a dense pelt of whitish hairs). And some small mystery thyme (there weren't many herbs left and this one had lots its tag) and a sage and a couple of pineapple sages (I like them a lot, they grow well here, and late in the season they make red tube-shaped flowers)

I also managed to grub out the root/underground stem section of a couple of stupid mulberries - I had kept cutting them back but they just formed persistent big underground chunks (kind of like the "oak grubs" in the prairie, where they would get burned back every few years and so the underground portions grew really big while the aboveground portions were kind of small and spindly. There was even a tool called a grub hoe used to pull out the oak grubs - someone once told me the German settlers had a verb, gruben, to describe the act of digging out the roots but I am not sure I believe that without looking it up to verify - actually, yes, it is, but there's also the verb for "scooping out" which is "Ausholen" which makes my inner 12 year old giggle).

I did also get to Kroger - and bought the last two Golden Syrups on the shelf. (I don't even care at this point. It's possible they had more in the back and I am probably one of the few who buys it regularly). And another couple bags of the noodles I like, and the rye bread, and I got some chicken thighs because I learned that Imperfect Foods ran out of them this week (and anyway: I was able to get the bone-in, skin-on type, which are better tasting anyway)

And lots of other stuff - more green grapes, and plenty of milk, and more of the chocolate chips I use in my oatmeal. So I'm set for a while, which feels good.

Tonight was Board Meeting, which I nearly forgot. I wore a mask all through it as did everyone else. Masks indoors for a long time, when you have to talk, are not exceptionally comfortable but there does seem to be more research coming out showing their protective value, so I guess I keep doing it.

(Masked and not talking - like I was at the Kroger - does not seem quite so hard. I didn't wear a mask at Twin Oaks, but it was entirely outdoors and I was the only person shopping there and it was easy to stay 10' away from the people working there, so I figured it was fine. I had a mask in my pocket just in case it became necessary to be in a little knot of people)

Maybe tomorrow: photos of the new plants. They're not fully heeled in yet and they're still kind of small but if they pop back nicely I might grab some photos.