Pumpkins galore!

Song of the day: “Irish Son” by Brian McFadden. Such a beautiful song, yet strangely enough it doesn’t get stuck in my head all that much.

The past couple of days were deceptively busy, and didn’t go at all according to plan.
First off: yesterday. Big brother and I first headed down into the yard to water what needed to be watered. There were of course the usual chores before it. Laundry, cleaning glass surfaces inside the main house, etc. It’s an incredibly intense *snort* job, but someone’s gotta do it, right? Hah.

But anyway, we went to the yard, spent about an hour checking stuff, watering, yanking out weeds and talking bracingly to the new seedlings, which were looking decidedly limp in their pots. Something had been eating them.

That done, we headed back to my terrace to start on the rush job that we decided on the night before. You see, we’ve been hearing a peculiar gnawing in the beams of my porch, and as it turns out, the beam in question was infested with longhorn beetles. In fact, there were places where the wood had turned into pulp on the inside. So we broke the boards out, (took the chance to clean them) cut out the beam that was compromised, started preparing a new one. Next we painted all the un-compromised wood, only to discover that the one in the back, against my cabin, was also infected. So we had to take that one out as well. This meant another beam, and that while we had just painted that one. *sigh*

But anyway, we found another beam in storage, painted the thing, added another one, just for safety to make my porch sturdier, and then started relaying the beams. Oddly enough, no matter that nothing changed size-wise, we still were two boards shut. How’s that for weird, huh?

Be that as it may, we got the whole lot done during the course of the day, only thing left to do is hammer in a few more nails (we ran out while big brother was putting the boards back in) sometime tomorrow…if for no other reason than that we forgot today.

That was followed by 30 minute map, because let’s face it, we had to go out later in the evening, and edit for a few hours. Shuteye was essential for that.
Basically, I passed out. Which is nice if it happens, but a pain in the behind when you wake up at the sound of the phone, all disoriented. *sigh*

The edit went fine, thank you for wondering, even though we did have too little time for it. Had to go out, get another donation for market stuff, clothes mostly. Got lost in town in the process, which got us acquainted to a couple of really nice coppers, who were looking worried until they heard out accent and figured out that we were just stupid foreigners. Hah. Seriously, you should have seen the most forthcoming one of the lot come to big brother’s side of the car, where he looked over the edge of the window all worried, as if big brother possibly had a gun or something. Right. A gun. *snort*
We’re old fashioned that way; we use bow and arrow. Hah.
No harm done, though, we shot the breeze a bit, explained where we were heading, where we lived (you see this look of boredom come in their faces when we mention our neighborhood. Sooooo unimpressive) and then followed them for a bit before our turn came up.
Afterwards I did have to congratulate myself for stopped at the stop sign while a cop with flashing blue lights was driving right behind me.

Well, we got our donation, and headed home…I even made it there keeping my eyes open. This is usually a problem for me on our way back, which is why big brother always drives the last bit.

Okay, that was yesterday, let’s move it along to today.
The usual happened, chores and such, more glass to clean, shelves to dust, yadayadayada, followed by a trip up to grandpa’s kitchen where tenant, Dani and I spent the morning experimenting with pumpkins. Yup. Made my first pumpkin/lemon/cheesecake this morning, and though I am not completely satisfied with it yet, it was a success.

We were in the midst of concocting the fruit, when we heard this massive smash from the carport. A shout towards brother, asking what the heck was going on, let us know that the wire holding the pumpkins snapped out of the hook, letting up to 25 smash to the ground. 13 were broken, meaning that we had a long afternoon ahead of us. Yep, we had to peel all those broken pumpkins, cut them up and then bag them for freezing. There was just no helping for it.

Of course this was something us ladies ended up doing, while big brother and grandpa worked on hanging steel wire on heavier hooks in the carport roof for the remaining pumpkins. It took a while, about three hours, to get it all done, but we ended up with a creamy soup for supper to pay us for our efforts. Yay.

Before supper, though, there was stuff to do in the yard. Watering had to be done, two more pumpkins to harvest, along with a basketful of peppers, some tomatoes, and transplanting more cauliflower into bigger pots. While I was doing that, big brother planted two of the new tomatoes in the new pots that we built inside the greenhouse. They look so cute. I gotta say, that being in the yard, messing with plants and dirt is still the bestest way to end the day.

The soup was good, and so was the cake that came afterwards. Though I was pretty full, I did manage almost a whole piece with a dollop of cream on it. A plus was that tenant loved it, and grandpa and mom too, so I would say that’s another one for the books, just as soon as I figure out how I can change the texture a little.

We’ll, I’ve got an edit to do still. I better go.