Instead, I spent the afternoon in my front garden pruning roses and pulling out creeping jenny and wild violet that had overtaken part of the walkway.  (Between checking the US soccer team loss in overtime.  Arggh!  So close!)

Turned out this invasive carpet was also a happy little habitat for leopard slugs.  For some reason, I didn’t have the heart to stomp them.  Instead I took them across the street to the back of a vacant lot and pitched them into a weed covered hillside.

So, of course, that meant war.

Dragging my net through the lily pads, I was able to scoop the turtle up and drop it into a tote container.  Immediately, it tried clawing up the sides.  This was one angry reptile, as mean as it was ugly.

So I took some folded metal fencing I’d found in a recycling bin months ago and placed it over the top, put the tote in the back seat of my car and headed over to Wegerzyn Gardens, which I remembered had a bog area.

The entire time I’m driving, it’s clawing at the sides of the tote.  And I’m thinking all I needed was to hit my brakes too hard and this reptile would be airborne and probably bite my ear off.

But I got to the park, and immediately started walking towards the bog with a turtle in a tote (which is a funny sounding phrase, now that I think of it), when one of the park workers came up beside me in an electric cart.  She told me that turtles lay their eggs in still water then head back to the river, which is their natural habitat.  Even though park visitors weren’t allowed to ride on carts, she drove me over to the river bank anyway, where I let the ugly dinosaur-like creature loose.  Then she gave me a lift back to my car.

But do I need to worry about baby snapping turtles in my pond now?

Literally, minutes ago I was like millions of others facing uncertainty.

Waiting for  assistance.

Worrying about bills.

Hoping for a Tier 5.

Wanting to know if it will ever get better.

Or just remain okay.  At least for a little while longer.

On second thought, I guess I still am one of those millions.

Sure, I have money now.  But that and the checks coming in the following weeks will go toward paying bills.  Heck, I have a property tax bill due next month that equals three unemployment checks.

Despite what the Republicans in the Senate believe, unemployment isn’t one long summer vacation.  I’m not spending my money (which is the equivalent of $8 an hour) on ice cream and rollercoasters.

Jerks.

Yesterday I made some hummingbird nectar on the stove, poured it into the hummingbird feeder and placed it in the freezer to cool.

Then I forgot about it until this morning.

And then I learned that when frozen sugar water thaws the glass bottle it’s in will crack and break apart.

One thing I knew for certain though:  I don’t have the money to buy a new hummingbird feeder.

The perch/feeder part was fine, but finding a replacement bottle with the right size neck to screw it onto was difficult.   Living near a convenience store in a shabby neighborhood, I have the literal pick of the litter when it comes to bottles.  On the sidewalks and in parking lots and alleys are plastic soda bottles, tall 40-ouncers, and other bottles of assorted sizes and shapes.

But they were all either too big or too small.

However, the strout 1980’s Sprite bottle I salvaged from the cistern last month?  That did the trick.

I added a hose clamp, some wire.   And soon my hummingbirds were thirsty no more.

We discussed her life in Depression Era Kentucky.  The self-sufficiency many Americans have been rediscovering like canning and sewing was just a way of life for her back then.  People starved if they didn’t find ways to preserve food, and by the end of the winter her family practically was.

So now I need to get about $480 in 14 days.   That’s what will keep my head above water.  I’m gambling that Congress will pass a Tier 5, but I know the odds are lousy.

Could be worse.   But it could be better.

About $480 better.

I listened to her talk about her late husband, who she misses very much and suffered such pain the last few months of his life.  He tried his best to hide it from her when she’d visit him in the hospital, but she knew.  She’d sometimes arrive earlier than usual and hear his cries from the hallway.

She got up from the table with tears brimming in her eyes and said she wanted to show me something.  From a nearby shelf, in a tidy little stack, were a few items she had gathered after his death: a handwritten shopping list found in the car as well as little notes discovered tucked in pants and shirt pockets.  She explained he was always jotting something down.  These and a couple other items—everyday but tangible—seemed to be as cherished as love letters or handwritten  poetry.

Just what can you say to an old woman who has lost her true love?

Came home and planted zinnias, sunflower, and basil.  A woman on the sidewalk started talking to me.  She was surprised I lived alone in such a big house and questioned me about why I didn’t have a girlfriend.  Then she wrote down her phone number, saying maybe we should go out and have a beer and shoot some pool.  I’m not exactly a beer and shoot some pool type of guy, though I didn’t say that.  Her eagerness was odd.  I’m used to women being hesitant.

She told me, “I’m not some prostitute.  I’m just a sista that likes white guys, that’s all.”

 And more power to you, I thought.  But you offered me your phone number before you even asked what my first name is.

Later there was a really obese woman sitting on my retaining wall and wearing clothes that were much too short.  She was bawling her eyes out, thick blobby tears dripping down her red cheeks.  She said she had absolutely no money and needed some cash to get by.  Boy, did she ever choose the wrong person to ask.  I decided to just leave her be and let her cry it out.

Tonight, I added all the bills due in the next few weeks.  I’ve got to earn $550 between now and July 4^th just to meet the bills.

Wrote checks for gas, HCTC and electricity and there was only a penny left in my checking account.

I responded to Friday’s answering machine message about a $190 research study.  But that one had been filled up.  However, I applied for another one, involving $150 for mouthwash testing.  But during the question and answer portion my name was given a red light.  Guess they already had enough fortysomething test subjects.

This evening, on my way to the meeting with DeVry’s financial services department, I took a detour to avoid a traffic jam.  As I waited for the exit ramp line to move forward, I spotted two fifties and a twenty dollar bill lying in the grass.

$120 just lying there?  The paper felt like real money paper.  No ink was coming off on my fingers.  But could this be a little too good to be true?

After the meeting, I took the bills to the bank to be verified, and it turned out all three were counterfeit.  I should have known.  The teller took my name and phone number down.  Just what I need: to be suspected of counterfeiting.  I should have waited for the bills to be verified before filling out a deposit slip.  But when you’re hanging by a penny and three bill due dates are hanging over you like storm clouds, you get a little anxious.

The unsprayed ones are easier to pull out whole than the dead ones that she’d sprayed earlier.  Of course, she sprayed most of the bed.  Grabbing and ripping them out in clumps won’t work.  Mostly just the leaves come off, leaving dozens of needle-thin stems standing.  The wiring and tree roots crisscrossing just underneath the ground make it a sort of no-hoe zone.

The baby bunny returned.  He was there in the thicket of seedlings.  Stayed there beside me while I weeded.  He even allowed me to hold him and carry him over to the dianthuses.

Dr.L suggested I should let her dog Toby out of the garage if her friends who usually stopped by couldn’t make it.  No need to worry….Toby is a good dog…he’ll stay close by….if not then call him back.

Yeah, well, once Toby learned his owner was nowhere around he started roaming farther away from the house and was reluctant to come back the first time I called.  The next time I looked up from my weed pulling he had  disappeared.  I went down the length of the driveway.  No Toby.  He came running back nearly a half hour later after doing who knows what on someone else’s property.  Will not letting Toby out tomorrow, that’s for sure.

When I wasn’t imagining how I could tactfully explain to someone that their dog had run away from home, I tried figuring out what sort of garden care income I could earn over the next couple of months.  There must be more people out there who love flowers but don’t want to get their hands dirty.  $450—about 57 hours—and I could pay the rest of the bills for the month.

But you can’t count your chickens before they hatch.  Especially if I’m not even sure I have the hen to lay the eggs.

It’s a lovely yard at the top of a high hill, overlooking several miles of woodland countryside.  My first day, I saw a deer at the base of the hill.  We watched one another for awhile before he started scratching himself behind the ear with his rear leg and then jumped back into the forest, probably off to find a hosta snack elsewhere.  Dragonflies the size of toy planes hover about and the air is loud with bird songs while I work. A baby brown bunny leapt out of a hyacinth I was trimming.

Compared to my urban lot, this was like gardening in a Disney movie.

She has extra work for me to do, replanting her hostas and pruning her dogwood and hollies.  But my main task is to weed out tens of thousands of little tree seedlings.  She had sprayed them, but seemed surprised they died and remained there gray and petrified instead of slowly evaporating away.

It’s odd how many people spray weed killer and think it works like a phaser.

I’ve pulled maple saplings and, of course, walnut seedlings thanks to many a mischievous squirrel.  Yet I haven’t faced anything like these things, which covered the ground like carpeting.  I’ll finish up tomorrow.