Sounds like a wonderful trip, Charmion. I wasn't able to make another trip to see my mother's sister before she died, just a couple of years ago (she was in Calgary).

Care package going in the mail this morning, four pounds of okra from my garden being mailed to a Texan who now lives on the shore of Lake Michigan.

There were two reasons for emptying the kitchen waste compost bins - three, actually - they were full. And they were heavy and blocking the path to get into the area where I have potted plants I want to move to other areas, put in new pots, and in the case of a couple of vines, put them in new beds in the front yard. I couldn't get to my basil and chard past them. And third, while working on the compost pile yesterday at the very back of the yard I noticed a stack of commercial buckets in the next door yard behind her garden shed, and asked her if I could have the smaller (about 4 gallons) one. The lid of my 5 gallon bucket fits on it, so this will become one of the kitchen waste bins (and when it's full it won't be so heavy). I always intend to stop filling them before they're full, but never do.

The now-empty black 5 gallon bucket will become another mosquito trap. Fill it about 3/4 with water, toss in a few handfuls of weeds or grass to help it become a stagnant bucket of glop, then drop in a mosquito dunk. It attracts mosquitos to lay eggs but they don't survive the Bti in the bucket. This will mean a second trap on that side of the house. I do need to add a paint stir stick to the bucket so it reaches from the water to the rim - this will let the occasional lizard escape if any fall in. It happens.