Saturday

As a certain tenant promised last week, he (did not) delivered on his promise of $100 to be paid weekly until it's all caught up.
No, he didn't pay a dime actually but he did, at least, communicate with me that he had a sit down with the director of whatever at where he works who reinstated his hours.  They had done a department-wide cut of hours after a new director came in to take the old director's place.

This is what I was told anyway.

Apparently feeling my angst about this situation, he came out of his room a while later and informed me he was going to go out front and continue where I left off in pulling weeds and grass.  I have most of the weeds pulled, some small ones left.  The grass is an on-going problem of which I have devised a solution to.  It will mean a trip to Whitfill's to get even more of the ground covering plants that I already have out there.  Those plants grow thick and will drown out any grass systems/roots that are in place.  The plant puts out a lovely yellow or white flower and looks pretty good.  Much better than a bunch of unwanted grass, that's for sure.

Thanks to my neighbors and their refusal to deal with their grass problem which eventually spread to my property.  I pulled it and pulled it and pulled it but it finally won out.  The only thing to do is plant something else that will drown all of it out.

I will give the tenant his due: he did quite a lot of work out there.  However, that does not take the place of money: I made no concessions for partial rent for work, I already have that with Mark and Lynnette and cannot afford that kind of situation with anyone else.

Whatever.

My dead-looking ficus trees - I have several small ones and 2 that are about 9 feet tall - are showing signs of life.  Well, there are 6 of them that look completely dead. But I have been watering them and finally, today, saw some very tiny, green buds coming out of what would otherwise be described as a small, dead tree with dead leaves still on it.  Come Christmas?  I am going to buy enough C-9 Christmas lights - well C-7's work and they are a bit cheaper - anyway - to cover all the plants that I now know will suffer dramatically in a freeze/frost situation.  Wrap lights around the plants that won't survive and cover them with sheets and they  will do nicely.  The lights give off heat is the point and covered up they apparently do enough to keep the frost from setting in as I have tried that in the past and it has worked.

So, the property is coming back to life, Spring is basically here for all intents and purposes (was 89 for a high here today) - though it is possible that another cold front could come back through before Spring officially here.  The eloquent weather forecasters declared a few days ago that we are 20 degrees higher than what our normal temps should be for this time of year.

Well, my version of a short entry.  I am going to bed.  Yup, even on a Saturday night?  I go to bed early.  Just a good habit to stay in if one wants to be able to get up on Monday without feeling - very out of it.  OH, and speaking of work, I am getting my 2 days off this coming week. My plan is to go up north for a couple of days - well 2 nights so 3 days - but I never put that in "concrete/stone".  Plans can always change : )

ben