Kindled...thrice.

The latest addition:
















And since we're at it anyway, here's the Martyr too:














And Shape Shifter:






Oh my Gawd, what a wonderful way to cheat at blogging, hah.

Hope you'll be tempted to go read it...if not, well, I won't hold it against you...too much. Hah.

And apparently Blogger's linking isn't working, so if you want to check them out, you should click the title of today's blog to go to Amazon. (I know, it's such a pain in the butt.) *sigh*

Something fresh every day.

Song of the day: “The Banana Boat” song by Harry Bellafonte, again. Hah. So very catchy.

What did I do yesterday, gawd I really need to do something about my friggin’ brain, ‘cause it ain’t working properly at the moment, again.
Ah yes, the day started really early because we had to take our tenant to the hospital for her biyearly check-up, and needed to go to the big mall in Marbella as well. There was a store there, where they might be able to fix middle sister’s Apple computer. It is showing this file with a question mark in it, which means that the company is going to need to replace the hard disk…if they don’t weasel themselves out of it. We’ll see.

Of course, when we got there, the Apple section guy wouldn’t be there until five in the afternoon, which meant that we either had to wait, or go back sometime next week…the latter won, considering we were slowly running out of time, and still had to get to the home improvement store before we brought our tenant to her appointment.

The doctor was properly impressed, seeing as our tenant came walking into the office for the very first time. She looked a little stunned, which made tenant a tad emotional. In fact she was in tears and was unable to say the small selection of Spanish sentences that she’d been practising for months now. But anyway, all was well, notes were made and we were back on our way home.

The rest of the day was spent in the yard, cutting through a ton of weeds, clearing them away from veggies and such, and giving them some light. Hah. We are eating something from our own yard every day now, which is a kind of novel feeling especially that due to this we won’t need to do groceries until Tuesday…which, admittedly, will be stretching it a bit, but we don’t have a choice, really. There’s a holiday over here in Spain, which means that Saturday everything is closed and added to that, on Monday, everything will be shut too. No matter, though. There’s nothing wrong with pulling the waistband a notch tighter.

There were edits, of course, and we got further at least, almost past half, which is very good…even though it seems to take ages to get to the end. The scenes appear to be working out, and that is all that matters.

Other than that, there was lots of work on the greenhouse. All the brick foundations are almost done, the water basin wall needs just one more line to bring it to full height, by the way, and the first ribs of the greenhouse are up for real.
I know, I know, I should be posing pictures, and I will, but it will take a while yet, and I want to do it proper.

We got our first carrots today, yay. They were delicious in little sister’s pasta and veggie mix this evening. I just might take another serving later on. Hah.
The dogs are still enjoying their outside time, of course. Lots of running around every time I need to get sand or wood for the constructions going on. Good for them too, considering even Labhana and Gada are getting a little less voluptuous from all the running…my pretty Labrador girls.

The weather is acting a little weird these days; there is a misty sort of veil going on in the sky, which means that it is nicely warm and humid most of the day. For the plants it is absolutely brilliant, of course, the cauliflower is literally swelling as we speak. Hah.

But this is going to be it for today’s blog, ‘cause I’ve got another jog to look forward to (and no, I don’t mean that sarcastically, hah) and a rock load to haul tonight…after that I might actually get a few more pages of the edit done and if not well, tomorrow is another day.

Three in one?

Song of the day: “Did it again” by Shakira. Talk about loud in my head. Jeez.

Lots happening, especially since I cheated yesterday and used my book trailer as a genuine post. Hah. No matter though, I wrote down keywords to remind me of the event, YAY…sorry, didn’t mean to be sarcastic, I guess it’s just one of those days.

So yeah, rocks: We had four bloody trips, loading up full and well after a long workday. It is still an excellent exercise, especially since we took the opportunity twice to also go for a run. The first day went rather miserably, seeing as I couldn’t get my feet under me properly, but yesterday it went well. Made both courses in one breath, hah.

Over the past few days, we’ve been stretched thin a little, for some peculiar reason, which means that we only added one rib to the greenhouse. It is starting to look like a greenhouse, though, so it is going well enough. Also plastered the brick edge at the end of the day, while big brother was still working with wood, his head gleaming like a bowling ball since he’d asked me to shave his head the other day, hah.

The younger sibs and I are busy with two projects at the moment (there is of course the yard too, but that’s an ongoing thing, not a project, I think). During the course of the past few days we have put in two layers of the concrete wall for our future water reservoir. Boy, talk about heavy. Those friggin’ bricks weigh a solid hundred pounds, and considering the sisters can’t easily carry them, I did most of the hauling. Let’s just say that I carried a whopping 2000 pounds in the past couple of days. Now that’s what I call exercise. Hah.

Seeing that the sisters and little brother did the masonry on the wall, I thought it a fair trade off: they had to be in the bottom of the pit an extra half hour, in full sunshine, mind you.
So, yeah, because we can only do one layer a day we also put up a reed roof on the terrace down there. That meant hauling down thin tree trunks, reed mats, and some long bamboo canes for extra support. It took some doing, but after two days we are once again able to find shade during work hours. Yay.

While big brother and grandpa put in six eucalypti babies in the ground, we (younger sibs and I) turned a nice patch of earth up in the old paddock, the mountain. Nothing major, just a small patch where we’ll be able to put the steadily growing cantaloupes. We should be able to get at least ten of them up in there.
Before we started, we were looking around at the location and actually found wild growing broccoli in the bushes, also sunflowers, which we all dug out, of course, and took down to the vegetable garden where they can continue on.

The cauliflower is the size of a football (soccer) now, by the way. So’s the first red cabbage, and we’ve had our first strawberries just the other day. One for everyone, hah. There are still caterpillars, we’re taking out approximately 10 a day.
Leek is looking good too, and we took two out for dinner yesterday…mom made homegrown chard, spinach mashed potato with cheese for dinner and it was friggin’ delicious. We’re also having a lot of salads too, and that’s tasting good too.

Our Eucalypti in pots are growing well. We’ve got 56 of them going steadily, and yesterday we moved them to one of the terraces where they’re out of the way. There they are, looking like our very own daycare center, right underneath this massive eucalyptus, looking out over them like a proud parent. Hah.

The cough with the pack is almost completely gone now. Medication worked, or better yet, the pack’s immune system did. For a while it was a touch and go with little Adma (pocket beagle) who was smasming, but she is fine again.

We had our ups and downs with daily edits of four to five hours. I think since the last blog thirty more edits were dealt with. There were some really good pieces, and some serious struggles but we’re getting there.

It is really getting time for us to start working on the pool tiling, ‘cause we need to bathe the dogs in the anti parasite stuff. Though it is not that bad a chore, the washing that is, it needs to be done.

In-between the ongoing projects, I’ve been working on a new back cover for the “W.I. Investigations: The White Doves”, but it is slow in coming. Can’t help it, really, can’t magically make the day longer after all.

Time to head on out, I might have managed to get to bed early, earning myself an extra hour, but it won’t do me any good if I linger on this blog thing too long. Besides, our tenant is going down to the greenhouse. Though she had pain in her back the other day, she is steadily getting better again, and yesterday even managed to walk down to the terrace again.

W.I. Investigations 1-4 book trailer

Yeah, the official book trailer is finally out. I hope you like it, 'cause I certainly do. Hah.



That's all for the day.

Shorty.

Song of the day: “Northern Star” by Mel C. Hmmm. It’s been a while since I had this one.

Well, looks like this is going to be another short one ‘cause I overslept and I’m already running behind an hour, darn it.

So let’s get to it: yesterday, was spent mostly working on the green house. One rib is up, (yes, I’ve got pictures, and I’ll put them up as soon as we’re a little further along) and the foundation for the water reservoir wall has been put in. It was a scorcher, I tell ya. First time this year that we had to take a break in the afternoon, just to get out of the full sunshine. Not that it mattered, considering we used the time to work on a new query letter for Saving Nina, and editing several pages.

The fun part was that we had supper from our own yard. Yep, we had our first real spinach harvest, which means we had spinach salad, and baked spinach with cheese and potatoes. Both were delicious, thank you very much, but considering we’ll have another meal of the batch today, I think I’m rather happy that the next batch won’t be done until a week or so. Hah.

The newly planted tomatoes are doing excellent. All of them are growing brilliantly, along with the melons we transplanted to pots the other day. Soon we’ll be able to put them in the ground up in the old paddock…after we turned the earth up there and put in a healthy amount of fertilizer. Hah.

There was one more rock trip…boy is the pile growing rapidly, hah.
Considering I had some cement left, little sister and I used it to put a foundation around one of the water taps. Along with the pole of one of the small gates in the lower garden that had come loose. They should hold a lot better now.

For some reason the Banana boat song from Harry Bellafonte keeps popping up in my head every now and then. Such a catchy song really, it just keeps going round and round.

Plants got watered, of course, the herbs I’ve been sowing the past few days are coming up…oregano was first…and the cluster of pots and trays are looking downright plush in what used to be the pool. Hah.
Little sister and I had a bite of our very first strawberry. Seriously, we were huddled in the lower garden, peering around if anyone could see and then the devoured the berry like a bunch of giggling teenagers. Hah. It was delicious though, almost herby, which isn’t surprising considering I planted them around peppermint plants.

Most of the dogs are getting over their cough by now, still some of it going on but nothing too bad. The only problem at the moment would be Nanook, who is once again suffering from a bladder infection. Back to the antibiotics for her, darn it.
Bommel skated through the entire illness hose without trouble (knock on wood) and the others, well, apparently they’re fitter than the bug, which is always a plus.

Time for me to get started on the day, I guess I’ll get back to rattling on about stuff the next time.