Moving along steadily

Song of the day: “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Can’t help it. I had to look it up the other day and since then it has been in my head every now and then…along with The Band Perry’s “If I die young”.

Busy couple of days.
There was loads of stuff going on, but considering I’m running on fumes at the moment, I think I’m going to stick with the highlights and let it go at that.

After getting down a load of sand in the morning, we quickly got to the business of the day and started to lay the new bottom in the basin. The sky didn’t look promising, what with heavy clouds closing in on us from all sides, it seemed. But it stayed dry, and tenant joined us down below, spending the majority of the day reading on her chair in the corner by the papyrus bush. She seemed content there, looking up (she reminds me a little of Angela Lansbury these day, for some reason) occasionally, and nodding approval at whatever she thought I was saying at the time. Hah. Often I get the feeling she says “yes, yes, fine. I’m really comfortable” just to get me to stop asking. Poor thing. There I am asking her if she need anything while she’s submerged in a book.

But anyway, big brother and I worked on putting in the bottom, while grandpa mixed the cement for us and filled the buckets to lower to us. Our friend Dani joined in for the day again, and painted the new fencing for the garden pit. What with the new stairwell, we had to shift the balustrade around and use new slats for them. The dogs just snoozed in whatever spot they could find where the sun was shining, and when we took a break from the stucco work, we headed into the yard to plant some potatoes.

I’ve gotta admit that you can see that grandpa was a farmer his entire life, because the field he turned for the potatoes was perfectly smooth and void of any dead weeds. Seriously, that impressive. Hah. But anyway, we planted about a hundred potatoes, and soon we’re going to do another field, but after that first one, grandpa and big brother headed back up to resume with the basin while Dani and I stuck in the yard for a bit to build some reed fencing around the patch. Good thing too, considering Chaos barged through the gate just an hour later and decided to explore the lower garden again, like the tank he is. *sigh*

We finished the basin yesterday afternoon…or more accurately just before dawn, meaning that we really had to hurry to get our habitual batch of rocks after cleaning up the mess and bringing down a bottle of gas for Sally.

With our batch of rocks safely home, it was time to head inside and start to work on the book. We decided to go for a slight change in the routine and opted to work on the letter and synopsis, rather than the actual edit. Managed it too, much to my surprise. Seriously, we managed to fit the storyline of A.I.L. into exactly (meaning down to the last line) two pages, which is nothing short of a miracle…or the story is just that superficial. Hah.

But, it was a successful day in that regard, so when I finally hit the sheets at around two in the morning, I was more than a little happy.

Of course the dog woke me early, but since I could snooze for another half hour, I didn’t mind too bad. I only throttled two of them in the end. Hah. But anyway, clouds were still there this morning, but since the basin was ready, I spent the majority of the day, working on my terrace while tenant and Dani kept me company. I’ve been promising for weeks to make tenant a new bed, this time with drawers underneath it, so considering the hard work was done Dani and I worked on that. Got the thing done within four hours, so there was still enough time left to make another for Sally, who’s been sleeping on one of those metal cod frames for the past few months. The second one was harder, what with my supplies not being as affluent as with the one for tenant, but we managed in the end. Did manage to twist my wrist in the process. I was fooling around with the electric drill, and when I had to do it at an odd angle, the stupid thing yanked my wrist in a direction it didn’t want to go. Darn it.

Grandpa helped me carry the new bed down, at which point I was forced to get a mattress from storage because Sally’s mattress was one of those ancient spring ones, and too big for the bed to boot. Hope it sleeps well, because if she wants the old one back I’m going to have take that bed out again. *sigh*

That done we hauled gravel down the mountain. Still preparing for that wall under the house, remember? It is going slowly but steadily, meaning that within a few weeks we should be about ready to start with it. After grandpa’s porridge, big brother and I headed out for another batch of rocks…which was around the time I started running on fumes.

I feel much better now, by the way. I’m eating mac & cheese, and the tea is downright wonderful with it. Well, I’ve got an edit to do, messages to go over and…well, you know, the usual.