There are times when I've forgotten to lock a door or close the garage door, and when nothing happened I considered myself lucky and vowed never to do that again. I think we don't communicate well amongst ourselves as neighbors to compare notes on criminal activity, and I find the online "Nextdoor" site offputting. I can look in if I wish, but I've turned off their email function because there are too many racist and bigotted reports that come through that moderators should be blocking.

This year I took my string trimmer into the shop early enough that he wasn't loaded down with mowers and other trimmers to fix yet and only a week later it was ready. As it happened he didn't need to replace the rope (the handle broke and it rolled into the housing). He showed me the washer that he put in the new plastic handle before he tied the knot - he said that the washer is enough to keep the rope from fully contracting into the machine again if the handle breaks. I'll do that trick on a couple of other devices to save possible later repairs. It was $29 well-spent—trying to do that job myself would have taken ages.

On my way home I stopped at the gas station and noticed a couple of 25 gallon black plastic nursery pots that had blown up against a barbed wire fence with other trash. They join my collection of pots beside the house where I'm experimenting with planting crops in pots.

My next little audiobook listening station is set up in my office; I have a bluetooth setup and have my audiobooks in my phone. I can listen to it while I work. The book is on the computer because I ripped it from a CD to the mp3 files I'm listening to now, but this little phone app (Voice) knows where I stopped listening and does a much better job than my former player (a Sony Walkman - I had to manually tell it to go to the next folder in each book). The player is a thrift store find that fits nicely in the desk corner next to my monitor.

The top task this weekend is to tackle the yard since the weeds have bolted into a tangle of tall greenery.