Five Finger Discount

Well, when I went back to the cemetery yesterday early evening, I found this year to be "average" as far as the "five finger discount" goes..... meaning the loss of plants on the grave sites due to people who take other's flowers for their own home use. 

This year, was an average year with ~20% loss.  That seems to be typical over the last 15 or so years I have really been keeping track.  The worst year resulted in a loss of 50% of the flowers I had taken to the cemetery.  And there have been a small number of years with 0% loss.  Not much can be done about it, accept *hope* that the folks who absconded with them are actually needy folks who didn't really have much if any other income or method to try to beautify their surroundings.  

So, the plants are home now, and I will be working later today to transplant them into more decorative planters and move them to various spots around the yard.  I tend to have traditional end points where I put certain plants.  For instance, the plants I have that were on my parent's grave are replanted in a large planter that I keep on the deck in my backyard.  Other relatives and friends have their "spots" of tradition as well.  Normally, I try to purchase a like substitute for plants that were taken, and normally do this on my way home.  However, this year, with Covid-19, I was not prepared physically (nor emotionally, truth-be-told) to venture into the risky shopping environment yesterday evening.  I will likely summon up the energy to do so (with full safety gear) sometime later this week. 

I did a quick check of my running journal this morning.  Today, I went over the 800 mile mark of running so far in 2020.  800 miles is 1,287 kilometers, for my more metric oriented friends. 

PipeTobacco