Currants: Yummy

Song of the day: “Stay” by Shakespear’s sister. Gorgeous song, but difficult on the high parts…ergo some folks were upset with me on occasion. Hah.

Oh. My. Gawd! It is icy out, and it has been since yesterday…more or less, anyway. In fact, I cannot say that it was the same yesterday considering it was grocery shopping day and I was out most of the day.

Seriously, I am not going to bother you with all the boring details of what all we did or did not do yesterday, but will say that we found red current bushes for the yard. Also, white currant, real raspberries, orange raspberries, blue berries, brambles, black currant and a Reinata apple tree. Gawd, they are going to be so good…if they survive. Hah. Bought a whole load of them all, seeing as they were relatively cheap, and considering that once they start giving fruit we won’t need to buy any, well…none of that matters, since they’re just friggin’ delicious. I’m calling dibs on the white ones, by the way, and the raspberries, because those I absolutely love.

Prior to leaving we did hang the rather gorgeous glass and wood cupboard in the kitchen, and it looks great there…not to mention that it is incredibly handy for all the dry foodstuffs I’ve stored there now.

A good bit of news: We finished the edit of A.T.O.L., meaning that we can finally start on the paper edit of both A.T.O.L. and A.I.L….which isn’t going to be as easy as I had hoped. Seriously. Reading this other write style, so called strong, just made me sad. It didn’t have the beauty, the complexity to and the creativeness of what I prefer to write. Seriously. I just might end up depressed, or so bloody frustrated I’ll throw out the book entirely. *sigh* I’m just going to have to restrain myself, won’t I. Can’t have three months of experimental work go down the drain. You have to try everything once at the very least.

But anyway, we managed about ten pages in the paper edit last night, and though it isn’t as much fun as I’d like it to be, it just has to be done before we start sending it out to publishers. Okay, getting depressed again. Let’s skip the frustrating bit and move on today, which was freezing, remember? Mercury went as low 45 degrees, and I didn’t like it one bit.

There was laundry after I hauled my butt out of bed. I wasn’t in the best of moods because the dogs were lying on my blankets, consequently leaving me without cover. *sigh* My back was icy when the alarm went off, so I slapped some dogs off the bed and dug back under the blankets for another five minutes to warm up. But of course, I did have to get up in the end and faced the day bravely. Hah.

After making barley soup (finally found barley, yay) for our lunch, we brought the new plants to the greenhouse, made the final section of wood to close off the gap over the door…the wind was sucking out what little warmth there was in there…sowed some orange pepper seeds, and counted the growing pumpkin plants. Twenty came up. Yay.

The transplanted zucchinis in the big planter are doing well, and so are the tomatoes. We are going to have to fertilize the lot by hand, of course. That’s going to a tad embarrassing. I mean, seriously, I am always apologizing to the plants for having to check up on their genitalia and babies, what am I going to have to do when we do that? Buy them dinner first? *sigh* This farming business is harder than I imagined. Hah.

By the way, little brother has a job interview in the near future. He’s going to try his hand at distribution as well. Oh boy, now we’re going to be competitors, hah.

But anyway, it was time to take Touri and Sita III to the vet. The first had to have his stitches removed and even though I could have done so myself (heck, did it a gazillion times before) the vet wanted to check the stitches herself, and see if there was any swelling left. There wasn’t, so Touri got a clean bill of health.

Sita III has a flea allergy, apparently, and due to the fact that the vet shaved off some fur to check what the scratch marks were, she now also has dermatitis because of the itching the new hairs cause. Other than that everything is fine. Such a relief. No offense to the vet, but I do seriously dislike trips to the vet.

Afterwards, congratulating Touri with a big hug, (he was psyched) I got back home to continue with the day. While big brother and grandpa worked in the carport, I tacked the big Mimosa on the terrace in front of my cabin. It is looking rather miserable, and since there are a lot of dead branches, I figured it was high time for a trim.

So, I don’t like heights all that much…well, I have a severe dislike for falling, as I always say (an effect of falling off a roof when I was a kid, I guess)…which would explain that after about half an hour of sawing cutting, and climbing, my nerves decided that it was more than enough. I was shaking on my legs, I kid you not (such a whiner) so I gave up for the day and decided to tackle the rest at a later time. Let’s just hope that the Mimosa will start anew after this trimming, eh.

Well, I’ve got a letter to put together, addresses to look up and…well, stuff to do, so I’m leaving it at this. Not much of interest anyway. Hah.

P.S.
Five more views for the Shape-Shifter trailer and then it will be on 1000. OMG. A thousand people saw a gorgeous trailer for my book. Rather stunning, that. Hah.