Good morning! Welcome to #weekendcoffeeshare, hosted by Natalie of Natalie the Explorer, please still feel free to come on in and have a drink and a chat.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you it’s been a long month – August – and I believe it can contribute to the fact that this is the first month in over 6 years where I’m not doing my usual tasks at work. It felt extremely disoriented in the first couple of weeks but between last week and this week, I think I’m finally getting used to it and come to think of it, I’m even starting to feel reinvigorated about work again instead of feeling burned out doing the same thing every single day.

I started training the new person at answering emails. Many may think answering email is simple because they can just use a simple generic email but that can never work at my work. The email I get at work can vary greatly between customers and though I won’t necessarily have an answer to all the emails, I would do my best to forward the email to the person or department who can answer.

Intuition and common sense, it’s been the thing I’ve been trying to teach the new person from day one. Not to talk bad behind anyone’s back but I feel he’s lacking in the ability of situation analysis. He’s rather robot-like, can only follow step-by-step instructions without any self-judgment when something runs astray. Yesterday, I tried to teach him how to transfer money between companies, he thought there’s physical money involved when it took was a simple accounting journal entry. Part of me wondered whether he really has an accounting education.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you the weather has been pleasant this week. The garden is looking…okay, I guess. Most of the leaves on the tomatoes and cucumber plants look bruised and battered by the nearly 48-hours of 35 mile-per-hour sustaining wind last weekend and also by the hail in the previous week. I’m not very concerned though since my growing season is nearly over.

September is typically the month when I would start cleaning up and preparing the garden for winter. This year, I began planting my fall and winter garden in early August. I direct sowed everything since the temperature in my garage is constantly at above 90-degrees (nothing will germinate in this temperature) and I can skip the hardening process.

In early August, I sowed daikon radishes, carrots, and some Asian greens like bok choy, mustard greens, and brassicas as well as peas and lettuce. I am growing these only in the raised beds I know I will cover over the winter. I might need to get some new greenhouse plastic for the raised beds in the front garden since I will definitely grow there with southern sun exposure. I did a succession planting of bok choy a few days ago, hopefully those will be ready before the day length dips below 10 hours.

If we were having coffee, I would tell you I visited the local botanical garden last weekend. It has been about 3 months since my last visit and it has changed a lot, particularly in the edible garden. I was surprised how much it was squeezed into such a small space. Nearly every inch was packed with edibles. I wish my own garden was so packed. I guess looking at this garden and gardens around the world online can always serve as inspiration for the 2025 garden.

With that said, after the chaotic garden season with earwig infestation and mice invasion, I am still suffering for a bit of post-traumatic stress every time I visit my garden. Every little noise makes my heart pound out of my chest and jumpy. Instead of focusing on my plants, my ears are focused on surrounding noises. And my fear of the dark is worse now more than before ever since the mouse showed up. Trust me, I’m not trying to play the “blame” game but all these little problems have ruined the summer.

I appreciate you stopping by. Until next we chat. 🙂