Happy Battle of Williamsburg!

May 5, 1862. 152 years ago today the Civil war was raging, and today over 70,000 soldiers took the field in the earliest of the Peninsula Campaign battles.
Damn fine reason to skip that nasty ass Mexican beer today and drink up some tasty American brew with your Mexican food today :)

So today was a day of just dinking around. Getting some plans together for setting up over the next few days. Made a batch of spinach and beans using fresh spinach, yum! Decanted the peppercorn/chive/celery seed vodka today. About 10 oz. Enough to make a couple bloody mary's and see if the stuff really is tasty or not.

The seal on the right side of the kitchen sink gave way. Dunno how bad it was, but I noticed the wetness shortly after the last time my sister was out. And it's really bad, drizzling water bad. The cabinet inside didn't smell damp, it smelled wet. So I put a cardboard box in that sink side so we can't use it, and let it dry out real good. 
A few days back I picked up plumbers putty while I was out. Today I figured I would just get that seal replaced.
First I took a good look at just how bad the underside is. It's nice and dry now, but you can tell wht happened while it was wet. Gooey gunk oozed out all around a section of a gasket. Shit, I think I might need a gasket.
Then I went about looking for my tools. Channel locks and a big adjustable wrench. Can't find the channel locks to save my life. Well double shit.
Time for a trip into town. As usual the guy at the hardware store was able to help me out perfectly. Held up a box with the assembly and said I needed the gasket and wrench. Less then 10 minutes later I was on my way. Love when that happens.

Then I dinked around a bit. Hit Hardings, they had shank ham for 1.39 a pound. Good for several meals of tastiness. Picked up a couple other things too. Quickly checked out the shelves at the little local junk store that is going out of business. I need to go back and really check the bookshelves well when I don't have meat in the trunk and it's in the 60's, heh. And popped in at Bobs to get a little fruity sweetness to fix my tooth. Turnovers and pie slices, frigging yummy.
I don't often have much of a sweet tooth. But sometimes fruity goodness is, well, good.

And check this shit out. Ever since seeing the first oriole I've been whining to my hubby that I want a jelly jar feeder. Now he has printed me out 2 of them, small mouth and large mouth. How effing cool is this?

This is a stock photo of the commercial version. He printed out the cap part with the petals and perch. I can hang it off a wire super easy.
The actual printed feeders are made with translucent red. We didn't have orange on hand, and I was too impatient to wait till we could order some. I picked up a little bottle of orange paint that will withstand the weather and work with the plastic hopefully so I can spruce in the red.

Here's what my love printed up for me. In the back is a 20 oz widemouth, and the foreground is a 12 oz standard mouth.
The widemouth is good for loading up chunks of melon or apples, or when it's a rainy time, a gobbet of jelly in the rainwater might make good nectar. The smaller mouth is excellent for 8-12 ounce jars. If I want, I can pull a jar of jelly from the canning shelf, break the seal, and screw on the flower head. Hang up. Let them eat themselves silly.

I have noticed that non-birds are a problem. Hung the nectar feeders in the pine, and those got flipped up and raided. So did my DIY glass jar of cantaloupe pulp I put out- that got hauled up on it's rope to the lattice roof of the front porch. The orange metal stand feeder (It's a cheap ass sunflower bird bath) is super ganked- you can tell a critter reared up on back paws and ginked the flower on its screw rod before finally pulling it over.
Fruit screws and nails are working wonderfully. I got a few oranges on clearance the other day and been putting them out. 
Mini jelly jars are working nicely too, though they need to be refilled more often.

The horses are in their second grazing spot. It looks like their first spot is freshly mowed! And Chris is nice about picking up poop in the lawn. I need to grab her before she moves the fence again to make sure she sets up in the sanctuary next. Those milk jugs of flowers need some planting in fairly soon.

Other random pics I've been taking over the last few days..

Lovely orange oriole on the tree. You can see some of the various feeder types I have hanging off this tree.

The nectarine? Peach? tree in bloom the other day when I was re-arranging boards and breaking down the arch drive barrier.

The clump of somethings coming up early on in the bee patio corner. Turns out it's these lovely blossoms.
Turns out all the bulb bloosoms like this were from the POW German/Japanese camp in the area during WW2. The same guys that laid in all the farmers drainage ditches and such around here. These bulbs have some special history!

The current stand of pots in the solarium. Keep in mind that I have already moved off this much shelf space to the mini-greenhouses outside and planted in about three flats of seedlings already with nasturtiums and peas. The wandering jew on the top shelf is my canary- if it's too chilly for it, too chilly for seedlings and some heating measures are needed.

My cluster of nightshades, doing darn well so far with the light and temp shock as well as transplanting. A couple of the tomato pots still need transplanting. That line of milk jugs on the right is the plants solar sink heater for overnight cooler temps. I've been draping in a transparent shower curtain as a tent over this. That's what the stakes on the pond side are for. Between the stakes and the milk jugs, makes a perfect mini-coldframe inside the solarium.

Now it's time to kill the heat on the baking part of spinach and beans, and toast up a few sausages.