Another one lost

Song of the day: “I put a spell on you” by Nina Simone. I rediscovered it on youtube last night and now it’s stuck. Hah.

It was a busy couple of days, and even though the weather is still acting out of sorts, the overall temperature is steadily increasing. Strangely enough clouds keep returning. In fact, right this instant the sun has disappeared behind a stack of them. Looks impressive, sure, but I wouldn’t mind just a bit more stable summer weather, thank you very much.

Let’s get to the bad news first, shall we, that way we’ve got it over and done with. Last night little sister phoned me out of bed because we had to rush to the vet with Bhumi, one of our twelve-year-old cocker spaniels. Apparently the poor darling was screaming with pain and her stomach was swollen, meaning that an emergency trip was inevitable. We arrived to find the vet already waiting for us (mom had phoned ahead) and after an examination that basically left the poor dog prone on the table, we decided against further examination and had her put down. It was over in less than a minute, which was a relief for both of us humans and the dog. Most likely it was a case of colic, which is terrible painful, not to mention dangerous. I should know, considering we lost a horse to that once. *sigh*
It is a relief to know that she has a led a relatively long life in extremely good health, and had fun right until the end. Still, that age can hit them like that...

Well, I prefer to look at sad events like this as cause and effect. Cause: we took in more than a hundred dogs over the past fifteen years or so. Effect: We will lose them one way or other, one at a time.
I can be depressed about it, or enjoy the remaining pack. I’ve decided to do the latter, and will jump right to a fun bit. I went for a run with Knight II. He’s a lazy SOB, and the only way to get him to exercise is to be there right along with him. It’s good for both of us, and it is fun to do since he is such a klutz that there are times he trips over his own feet. Hah.

Another good bit is that the time to get the pool ready has finally arrived. Yesterday morning grandpa, big brother and I finally got around to draining the pool (in the basin, of course, earning us another couple of of days of watering for the plants), cleaning out stuff that’s been piling in there for the past half year (it was smelly, I tell ya) with buckets and then hosing the tiles clean. It went remarkably well too, making me wonder why it was such a horrible task in the past? I mean really, it took us a couple of hours at most. Last year we took half a day, I think. Ah well, all we needed to do this morning was sweep out some dry sand and have been filling her up for the remainder of the day. Yay.

After cleaning the pool it was time to head on out into the yard where the remainder of the day was spent watering the plants...all of them. Which was interesting to say the least because even though there were clouds, it was pretty hot, and I got sunburned again. Did managed to write a solid five pages while standing there waiting for the garden gutters around the plants to fill. A very peaceful job to do, by the way.

Afterwards I was considerably overheated, though, not minding in the least to cook a nice macaroni and fresh veggie meal on the outdoor cooking plate. Was good too, revitalizing me for the rest of the evening...well, sort of anyway. I had pain in my back, and I had to lie down for just a minute...next thing I knew a horse was coming right at me, I dodged and drove the Land Rover off a cliff right before I woke up. Phew. Apparently I’d dropped off there for a minute. Hah.

Right. Anyways, the book is coming along nicely again. Finally got to that dialogue I’d wanted to write in the first instance, even if it turns out they have it later in the day. Hah. Sixteen pages in total, so Yay!
While grandpa and Big brother were working on the roof of the courtyard (there’s often leakage where we hung the new shelving, I headed into the courtyard garden to pull a big load of weeds and saw off some excess tree branches. Boy does it look pretty in there now. Even a lot of flowers survived winter.

This morning, about a month too late, but what the heck, we finally got around to shaving Njanna (Golden Retriever) the poor darling was lugging around a huge load of excess hair and clumps of dirt, and now he looks like a badly trimmed poodle, hah. Ah well, he doesn’t need to win a beauty contest; he just needs to be comfortable.

After that big brother and I were forced to head for town. My bathroom sprung a leak and we had to get some new tubing rather than risk getting an even bigger leak during the weekend. Since we were there anyway we bought some dairy products and then went back home to get at least something more done. While big brother went into the yard to check on plants and veggies, I sorted through half our storage boxes to see if we could get some room for other stuff. Managed to sort through quite a bit in the end, so that was no wasted effort at least.

Next there was cooking, fresh beets with our own potatoes, cheese, onion and lotsa green herbs from the yard. I ate way too much, and since I really need to get to writing right now if I want some time left to do a kick boxing workout session tonight, I’m going to wrap it up now.
Not much else to tell anyway, seeing as the only thing there is left to mention is another sand hauling trip (sure it takes time and effort, but it is well worth the savings in cost) that’s okay.

The snake incident

Song of the day: “Just can’t get enough” by the Black Eyed Peas. Who’d have thunk that I’d ever have one of theirs in my head, but there you have it. Not a bad song either, and that is surely something that I had never expected either.

So first off, there was the snake incident yesterday afternoon, which I just have to blab about first. Seriously, I was walking down the stairs of the garden pit and was distracted by a moving leaf on my left, when suddenly I see something slither against the glass of the green house. I freeze, eyes snapping towards the movement as this big-ass snake slides in a lazy slow-mo between the door and post crossing the doorway one foot ahead of me, only to slide further inside and under one of the tables. I backed off, calling Sitabah to “friggin’-not-go-in-there” and stay right with me as I bound back up the stairs.
“Big Brother!!!” I called, immediately adding, “Sitabah, Knight, get your butts up here right now. Big Brother!!!”
“What? Did you see a snake or something?” I heard him call from the higher path as I field one dog after the next wanting to go down into the greenhouse. “Yeah!” I call back. “A friggin’ big one too. I’m going to call grandpa, the dogs are going crazy.”
So while big brother headed down into the pit wielding a broom no less, I called for grandpa to come down, while I tried (several times without success, until I wedged a couple of chairs in front of the opening) to keep the dogs away.
“Shit!”
“What is it?” I peer at big brother, keeping a wary eye on the stairs from fear there’s another lurking in there somewhere. “What?”
“Nothing.”
“What. I mean it, if you get bit, you catch it, THEN I’ll drive you to the nearest emergency room.”
“Nah. It just bit at the stick. Grandpa here yet?” he asked, carefully dragging stuff from under the table where the snake is hiding.
He was, of course, and together they tried to get the effing snake in a bucket. They couldn’t, seeing as the big fat one slithered up on the planter and then through a crack in the glass, bringing it into the pit.
Grandpa and big brother went right along with it, digging through empty pots with shovels and broom until finally finding the bugger curled under one of the multi-pots, hissing and lashing out.
Luckily they did finally manage to get it in the bucket and we set it out into its natural habitat (some 5 effing miles away from us) this very morning. *sigh* I hate snakes. Seriously, I was jumpy the rest of the day, and this morning still. Lizards made me jump, locusts made me swear and Sitabah’s tail hitting my shin freaked me out. Heck, I even dreamed about the serpents. Aaaargh.

But okay, I got ahead of myself. Yesterday was a little out of the ordinary. The majority of the morning, right after unloading the first load concrete beams that we finally got our hands on, (they were so heavy it took two people to carry them btw) we worked in the carport to create this rather nice standard for mom. Since her bags/purses are doing rather well on the market, she asked if we could make something where she can display them properly. It worked out splendidly, if I do say so myself, and it took us only four hours to make it. Big and red, with oak wood. It could stand in a shop easy, so that is nice.

After that and the snake incident, there was of course yard stuff to do, followed by working on the in-between project again, which is about ready to go for a test run. Yay. It took ages though, not to mention that this new kind of thing was incredibly annoying to do. Sometimes it almost seems as if publishers have these rules just to freak us out. Hah.
But of course that is just annoyance talking seeing as I am well aware that if you have to read eight hours a day the text better be legible and formal. You’ll go bonkers otherwise.

But anyway, after that exhausting venture we went out to get the second batch of beams which were a bitch to get into the car. We managed, though and got home with me falling asleep in the passenger seat. I was so tired, I was actually nauseous when I got home and went to bed. Such a pity that we could only get those beams late at night, but what the hey, they were incredibly cheap, and for that reason I don’t mind sacrificing sleep for a bit.

So this morning we had to unload again, for the last time luckily. The brace of beams we’d made worked well, meaning that we didn’t wreck the folded back couch this time. Hah. And afterwards I headed down into the yard to water the seedlings.

As soon as Dani arrived the four of us started working on the wall, meaning that we added another layer, two stones that now officially reach seven feet. Yay. It’s gorgeous, if you must know, and I can’t wait for it to be done so I can start posting photos of the entire process. It’ll be beautiful, and I am even looking forward to getting started on the new septic tank, which will take some serious effort, but which will work a lot better than the old one.

Amri's swelling is finally going down, meaning that the bursting skin helped some. He doesn't appear to be feeling bad, so all is well in that corner.
The reason I've been mentioning the new pup Bakti so little, is because little brother is carefully keeping him secluded from the rest of the dogs. The poor thing had some stress related issues, and since Parvo can really hit hard in such instances they decided to keep him away from the other dogs (ergo us too, hah) until he's a bit stronger.

Well, that’s about it for today. I have a book to write and maybe another half hour to go before I need to go back to work. Guess I’ll get to it now.

Garden rush

Song of the day: “Never no More” by Patsy Cline. Seriously, it just popped into my head yesterday, and I didn’t even remember that it was hers until I started humming it.

I really have to do other stuff today so I have to do this fast. I know, I know, whining, but I can’t help it. Gotta write...’cause I did way too little of that these past couple of days, but seriously, who’s got time these days?

There was the usual gardening of course. The watering of plants, and generally enjoying being out in the fresh air. The weather wasn’t all that awesome to write home about, so to speak. Heck, this very morning the sky was almost black. But it was good for today’s activities, which involved turning earth on the big terrace. The cabbage field is as good as done, so we spent the majority of the morning turning soil, adding fertilizer and then planting Iceberg slaw with tomatoes and pumpkins. It’s looking very fine, in particular since we didn’t risk dogs rushing through it and set up reed fences immediately. Sure it takes some time and effort, but at least the monsters know that they can’t go through it when there’s something there.

Of course Knight II is a complete ninny in that regard, he just stepped over the two reed high fence until I added a higher third one, because he thought that the old path was still there. When I told him to get the heck out of the veggie field, he was really looking hurt, gazing at me as if I were bonkers. *sigh*

So there was watering, planting, and even some sowing this morning when I put some extra bean seeds wherever they didn’t come up the last time. Though it makes for boring writing, it made for wonderful days. Heck, I liked it so much that I didn’t even want to bother with breakfast this morning. Luckily grandpa turned up with a bag filled with bread, peanut butter, honey and butter, so we ate sitting in the dirt with a crate to hold our meal from the ground.

There was a sand fetching trip somewhere along the line, we were almost too late too, seeing as it was close to getting dark, but we could get it anyway, so, yay.

Also I sorted through the mess in the igloo. Sally needed a suitcase to store her winter clothes, and I needed some extra pillows so I could replace the ragged ones tenant has been using since last fall. The new ones are sturdier and look nice at least. Since that needed to be done anyway, I got a chance to sort through it a little and create some space for future storage.

We’ve been working on the format of the book, which takes way too much time, but what the heck. It needs to be done, doesn’t it? Ah well, the bad thing about it is that every advice you can find about it is different. Seriously, right now I’m finding stuff that I never found a couple of years ago, and the stuff I found a couple of years ago I can’t, for the life of me locate.

There was laundry of course. Which is incredibly boring to tell about, but such life can be at times. Hah. But there were two more closets to hang in the courtyard (how’s that for subtle, eh? Just shifted from laundry to the closets in the same area. *sigh*) which should do just fine where they are now. The first six are almost full already. Hah.

Cooked lunch twice, which was rather nice. Most of it was from our own yard, and left overs made it even more yummy. Decided to put up a small cooking set down by the basin so we can cook on the spot while working the yard, and it is working rather well. The food for one is absolutely divine.

Last night Amri’s swelling finally broke, making it drain of tension, which is such a relief. He must have been so uncomfortable, but that should get better by now. So yeah, he’s leaking blood all over the place, but that’s secondary, really. Poor thing just has to get better.

Last thing, I’m thinking up a wooden design for mom, who needs a standard to hold her hand-made purses. Since these are starting to do extremely well, a proper place to display them is going to be necessary.

Which concludes today’s blog. I’ve got more stuff to do, and already too little time to do it all in, so...bye.