This is a section of the Fort Doberdale Peripheral Garden.  I keep a 3-foot or so fence around it to keep the dogs out.  Most of the time, that fence works.  This is my Allspice tree.  It’s the one in the middle of the picture.  I’d had it in a pot for some time, and a few months ago, I planted it in the ground.  I had hoped to take it with me when I move onto greener pastures, but being the housing market is as it is, well, that is on hold for now.  So I figured it needed the ground, and in it went.

This is the Allspice bean.  I don’t know what it will look like when it’s ripe, and if I can grind it or what.  That’s on my list of things to look up.  When the nursery salesman showed me the tree, he broke a leaf and had me smell it.  Sure enough, it smelled like Allspice.  I am sure a bird or something else wild and crazy will be my competition for this too.  As it seems anything I grow, the wildlife gets to it first.  I guess they’re hungry too.

I didn’t train today.  I was up to my eye balls in chores, but I did manage to finish tweaking the teeter base.  I am not in love with this teeter base.  I made it from looking at a similar one on a website.  It is adjustable, and therein lies the problem.  It adjusts horizontally, but I’ve seen others that adjust vertically, and I would bet they are more stable.  That’s a guess, though, but I won’t be building another one like this one in the future.  I’m on the lookout for a new model to emulate down the line, as I do hope this one lasts long enough to get me through a few months of training.

It’s astonishing to me when a day goes by and I don’t have the time or energy left to fit training into.  Summer is here, so the heat limits when I can do that training.  Everyday is a balancing act.  My day-to-day lists are much like a teeter.  Usually, my have-tos weigh down one side where my like-tos are up in the air.

Helen