4 days, right?

Song of the day: “The Flood” by Katie Melua. Jeez, this one is sticking a lot, isn’t it. I do hope that it isn’t prophetic. I hate rain, darn it. Hah

But okay, I’ve got four days to bring you up to date about, and I completely forgot to do something special for my 700th post the last time. And here I’d been thinking about something fun. Like a competition, or something. Ah well, too late now, isn’t it?

Four days…no way am I going to be able to do that without help, so I’m going to get my diary and check it out. Seriously, my brain is already blanking out. *sigh*…

Right. The third…well, I had a solid 7 and a half hours of sleep is like…well totally awesome! (Could do with more of that goodness, but seriously, I can sleep more when I’m dead, can’t I? Hah) It didn’t help that I had some whacky dream about working at some company. I was a newbie around there, and my boss, or one of my bosses, called me into his office and had me close the door behind me. Then he proceeded to tell me about this new client that was coming in from Germany, and that he had read my application form where it stated that I speak German. Next he touted some cockamamie story about needing the money of this client really bad and that he had told this elderly lady that he had a friend who would join them, just so the dinner appointment wouldn’t be a “business” dinner…which it was, of course. Now the thing was, since my form also said I worked with handicapped elderly, he wanted me to come along and pretend I was his “close” friend. And then, while having dinner, smooch this potential new client.
It basically came down to my job being on the line if I said no, so I said yes. Now as dreams tend to be, this one started to get odd around the time the boss and I went to a supermarket and met his invalid client. Rather than driving a wheelchair, she was sitting in a shopping cart, and thought it grand fun being carted through the store. Like I said: Weird.

No workout on Thursday. Too much rain, and since we don’t much fancy getting soaked during the workout, we decided to skip it all together. Instead we worked on small stuff in the carport. Stuff like preparing the braces for the woodstove in the house and a couple for tenant’s stove as well. By then that one was almost completely done, and all that was left was putting it in place.

Once the weather dried out, we headed into the yard and spent some time checking plants in the greenhouse, and draining the garden pit. Though the plan is to get a big drain tube in there, we haven’t gotten around to it. Instead we’re using the garden hose and siphoning the lot out.

No cooking for me that day, considering big brother made mac&cheese with mushrooms, which is one of his specialties, and then headed for town to get some supplies from the hardware store…and ended up drooling at the power tool section for about half an hour. Seriously. In one word: Beautiful!

Right. The next day was no fun. Kenneth, who’d started to feel poorly on the 3rd was doing worse on the fourth. She had been living on borrowed time for more than a year now, really. She’d turned blind in less than six months, was starting to lose her hearing, and had a big bulb of cancer in her lower belly. We considered having her operated, but what with the deafness, blindness and a fragile mental state, decided against it and went for letting her live her life out without the trauma of waking up in a place she didn’t know by feel and scent. If she’d been younger (we got Kenneth in 2001/2002) we might have considered it by insisting to stay with her, but we feared that the mental trauma would rob her of what little confidence she still had.

Kenneth always was a weird dog. Even as a puppy she had the most ferocious growl, and whenever you petted her, (and she enjoyed that more than anything) she would growl somewhat fierce. As a young dog she would actually snap at you, but as the years passed it turned into a mellow growling that would have done a lazy lion justice. Hah. We’ll miss her. In fact, I already do. We are rapidly losing out Cocker Spaniels, darn breeders who go for looks rather than health!

So anyway, Kenneth she lived vicariously for the past year, and now when her eye began to look bad from cataracts, we took her to the vet and had her put down, which was really the best thing to do. With both big brother and me there for her to smell and feel, she went quietly, without a peep, or even a complaint and just fell asleep…permanently.

Phew. That’s depressing. Better move it along.
No workout again, this time due to the Kenneth incident, so we headed into the house to do some more measurements for the wood stove, and laundry, of course. I know. Annoying eh, all those mentions of laundry. So unglamorous. *snort*

But anyway, I trimmed a full centimeter off my hair, yes, three whole hairs gone off the length, hah. Seriously though, my hair isn’t all that bad anymore. It’s actually growing back…finally! Since it was starting to look a bit like straw, I decided to trim some of the tips off.

We went into the yard, and then up the mountain to the top of the property to replace some of the trees that died during the fire and others. Decided to also plant three fig trees at the absolute top of the land, because I don’t like it that the wild palm that was all lush and beautiful up there got burned up. It might still come back, but a nice hedge of fig trees will look nice and…well, green. I like green. Hah.
The weather really cooperated while I was up there, Dani helping me by hauling the pots up and putting them in the holes. The sun was out, and while digging I could actually strip down to a T-shirt, rather than the three layers of sweaters that the wind and rain had demanded earlier in the day.

We were just about done when the weather changed for the worse again, and clouds packed angrily together once more. We’ve been having a lot of 45 degrees at the moment, which is not normal this time of year, I assure you.

Which brings us to yesterday which started at eight in the morning so we could work on the pedestal of the woodstove in the house. Rather than do it when everyone is up and about (not to mention an extra thirty dogs, or so, big brother and I worked on it early. We had planned to finish this first step before eleven, but ended up working through to noon before we had everything cleaned and covered against the dogs.

Tenant, who had been chilled considerably because she insisted on staying inside due to the morning wind, finally agreed on a walk down to my terrace and ended up staying there for the rest of the afternoon because she discovered (once again, because she always forgets this) that the sun warmed her up in five minutes flat. Seriously, no stove can compete! At the moment she is making her way through my novel, “Trust Me” Said the Spy. Sure, she has a dictionary with it, but other than that she appears to like it.

In the afternoon we finished tenant’s stove as well, and lid it up for the first time since putting it away this spring. It took a while for the smoke to stop. Something to do with the new paint, of course, and we used a fan to get it out of her bungalow, but then it worked fine. She’s been toasty in the mornings ever since.

That done we worked on sawing slats of wood for the second floor chimney pipe cover. Rather than hiding it completely, we decided to go for tasteful wooden grill work that will allow heat to disperse as long as possible.

And finally we get to today. I know, I should wrap this up, but I’m already skimming the really boring parts, darn it.

Had an early night, so we were up bright and early this morning to work on the pedestal for the stove again. I tiled most of the thing, while big brother and grandpa worked on the protective wall of glass bricks that will be around it. Can’t have the dogs hurting themselves against the hot steel after all.

That done, we worked on inventory, most of the afternoon. Checking supplies, restacking piles, sorting through stuff, and so on and on, while tenant once again sat on my porch (out of the wind) and in-between reading cut veggies for today’s lunch.

Hauled dog food to storage, which is interesting, really. I might not have had a workout this morning, but walking UP the mountain with two forty pound bags on your shoulders is nothing to sneeze at. I tried to keep up a slight jog, but all I managed was a fast walk that had me wheezing at the top of the incline. Jeez! I definitely need more workouts. Hah. Today I finally understood why I used to be wheezing whenever I had to make my way up the mountain. I used to carry that weight around all the time, for crying out loud.

That done, and with mom and the sibs back from a successful day at the market, it was time to start on some dinner. Had potatoes with cauliflower, onion and cream today, and it was abso-friggin’-lutely delicious after all that walking.

We checked the upper veggie patch for caterpillars, got wood stacked for tonight’s use and then started preparing to start on the day’s computer work. Though yesterday’s session didn’t went bad, we would like to get this friggin’ edit done so we can start on a new one…”V.L.” has been lying around for months now, and we really should get to it. Can’t waste too much time on “S.N.” after all.

The dogs are loving the “stove we have on the terrace in front of my cabin now. It’s one of those outside things, and they look so cute, all of them huddling around it and our feet. It’s still doable, being outside like that, despite the 44 degrees. I actually like it so far…though admittedly you won’t be able to keep me out her with a stick if I decide that it’s starting to get too cold. Hah.
But anyway, that about sums the past four days up right well. ‘Bout time too, considering I’ve been yapping our way into page four right about now. Hah.
Gotta get to work.