Today was our Costco shopping day. This was my splurge for the month. 🙂

We’d seen some last year and came very close to buying one, but decided against it. I’m glad; I think this year’s model is much better!

Mason bees are a local variety, so it’s one that we want to encourage. Especially with my plans to add more, and different kinds, of food trees and bushes. While you mostly hear about honey bees, here in North America, they are an introduced species and can be viewed as an invasive species, at times. They can push out the local species. Their spring emergence may not always match with the times local plant life needs pollination. So it’s important to encourage the local species of pollinators. As time goes by, I intend to plant bee and butterfly gardens. If things go well, I hope to get milkweed from my older brother; they found some on their property, and are keeping is safe for monarch caterpillars.

The mason bee barn came with “instructions.”

I’m not sure the bees need instructions on how to use these.

Maybe I misread it, and the instructions are elsewhere on the packaging. 😀

Eventually, we also want to put up bat boxes, to help keep the mosquito population down.

So that was my fun thing for the day. 🙂

Our big Costco shop is done. My younger daughter came with me, and we were able to pick up a new desk chair for her. From the thump I just heard over my head, I’d say they are done assembling it now. 😀

Tomorrow, my husband has a follow up appointment with his doctor. Since his prescription ran out, his bilateral pulmonary edema has been getting worse; if he weren’t seeing the doctor tomorrow, he would have been asking me to take him to a hospital today. 😦 It’s been getting pretty scary, to hear him trying to recover his breath, just from walking across the house. There are some interesting noises coming out of that man!

We’re at a point where we are talking about my getting Power of Attorney for him. We not only have to do our taxes this year, but get last year’s looked over again. We still don’t know what happened to his Disability Tax Credit. Which means he has to sign a form giving the tax preparer permission to go into his account with the government. In his current condition, he physically cannot come in to sign it. So I will have to swing by the office, get the form while dropping off our paperwork, take it for him to sign, then bring it back. There’s a real possibility he might end up in the hospital for treatment (gotta look at all scenarios and plan for each of them). We even started talking about getting our wills done. I’ve never had one – bad me! – while my husband’s goes back to when he was in the military and has not been updated since. He would have been 19 when it was made up! It’s not like we have anything of value, but I’ve got Legal Shield, which covers will preparation, so there is no excuse.

I suppose it’s a good thing my husband and I have no qualms about discussing stuff like this, and that we’re also on the same page about it all. After being married for 31 years (our anniversary is just over 2 weeks from now), I guess that’s to be expected!

The Re-Farmer