Mary tried calling this morning. It came up as “inmate phone” on the Caller ID box, but he didn’t get to the phone on time. Tom said he thinks it was cuz she was about to be moved, but knowing her, she probably wanted something. Let me guess…she wanted me to contact a friend of hers with long-distance blocks? Either way, I’m getting tired of being used here. She’s worse than Andy! I swear I’ll be gone in a heartbeat if she pesters me on the outs. I don’t know. Maybe she was just calling to make sure I’m still alive, though I doubt it. Anyway, if she’s there, she’ll hear from me tomorrow or the next day. Also, there’s no way I’m going to get in the habit of letting her call. Those calls are outrageously expensive. That jail seizes every opportunity possible to make extra money.

I should have a better idea by tomorrow if she was calling about moving or not. If it wasn’t about moving, she’ll probably try again. If it was, then I probably won’t hear from her till she contacts me by mail from Florida.

It got up to 82° in the house. Getting closer to that AC! We put the grill in the skylight and pulled the den shades down behind their blinds.

I woke up at 124. I’m not too surprised about that, but I probably would be if I hit 120. I sent Mary and Dave a progress picture I took. Every few pounds I’m taking pictures. That ought to shock the shit out of them; me sending them a picture of myself.

Before I get to the landscaping news, it really hit me today that no, it’s no coincidence that people I’ve practiced my sick curse on have gotten sick. I did it with Scot, someone I don’t dislike, but don’t like either, and I did it when Mary pissed me off the first time at the casino. There’s also the time I healed Little Buddy’s illness. So, I figured if this modern-day witch could make people sick and heal animals, she might be able to heal plants too, and I took myself out to the very shocked, but not yet dead bougainvillea and did my thing. It’s a concentration thing, I guess you could say. Similar to Mary’s visualization thing. I know that although most of us have a basic psychicness to us, most people can’t do the things I do. Not in such detail and quantity, anyway. I don’t know if it’ll work as this is something new to me. I mean, I never tried to rescue a dying plant before. It won’t be the end of the world if it doesn’t make it, though. Tom put an oleander behind it today. A bigger one, too. Yes, we’ve been on quite a landscaping frenzy. Now’s the time to do it as well as in the fall. He also got about 30 petunias in pink, magenta, purple and white, and a few tomato bushes to plant in the midst of them which surround the palms. Lastly, he got a little strawberry bush which is off toward the side of Palma. I only hope the prairie dogs and rabbits save some strawberries for the rats and I!

The petunias, strawberry, and tomato bushes aren’t perennials. They’ll die in the winter, but they’re dirt cheap to replant. It was only like $1.80 for 6 petunias.

The big barrel cactus at the southeast corner fell over after all that rain we had, but that’s okay, I’d prefer prickly pears.

Tom checked that site out more and found we can get some pretty awesome stuff for dirt cheap. We’d never have believed that for just $240 we could put 5’–10’ Rose of Sharon hedges along the perimeters of the property, but we can! Maybe something isn’t so against us after all, as long as we can get the stuff shipped to Arizona reasonably soon and have it survive, too. We’re going to do a test and get Sharon hedges of about 80’ wide which will go between us and next door. We can’t see next door from in the house because there are no windows we can see out of on that side. There’s only the back door window and the bathroom window and they’re frosted. However, we can see part of their property from outside. We’ll need to run those skinny black rubber hoses around the perimeters for watering too, and water them every few days since they’re not native to Arizona (unless it rains). I don’t know if the Rose of Sharon hedges are really roses or if they just look like them. They come in purple, red and white and they pick the colors. I’m sure we’ll get a good variety and that they’ll all be lovely.

Later…

We ordered the trees and hedges online. We got so much for so little! For just $38.22, we got 16 Rose of Sharon hedges that will be 80’ wide, 5 poplar trees for shade in back between the house and wash which will be over 50’ tall in just 4 years, 12 elm trees for privacy that will grow to a height of 45’ and about 36’ wide, 1 very pretty and sweet-smelling English lavender bush that will get to 3’ and 2 tulip trees. I don’t know where we’ll put the lavender bush and tulip trees. I wanted a walnut tree too, but we’re in the wrong zone for that. I don’t know where these will go either. We’re also getting some free stuff with our order. Some flower bulbs, and a planting instruction book.

Assuming these things make it, we’ll order more at some point till we have all the shade and privacy we want.

We’re going to go back to planning to get barbed wire fences. That way we can use the extra money for the Rose of Sharon hedges. They should be thorny which will also make a good dog barrier, though the way we plan to string the barbed wire will be a good enough block in itself. I guess we’re going to put the hedges on the outside of the fence. It’ll be a very appealing selling point whenever we do move.

The only bummer is that they ship parcel post. We were hoping UPS would bring them right to us, but oh well. At least the PO has been more reliable.

Another thing we’ll want to ultimately hedge is that ugly well and water tank. That won’t take much at all, but the perimeters, shade and privacy stuff are way more important. Whether or not we’ll get any bird of paradise bushes, pansies, or any more oleanders and bougainvilleas, I don’t know. I do know I still want prickly pears.