Song of the day: I don’t remember the title. It was some childhood diddle anyway, so who cares. It was a little embarrassing since at some point big brother gave me a baleful look and asked, “What the heck are you singing?”
*sigh*
Ehm…yeah…thinking…darn it…I can’t…
Oh wait, I have picked up workouts again, and had a couple of excellent sessions both yesterday and today, though this morning I cheated a little by half-ing two particular reps my foot didn’t agree with. But other than that, it went well enough.
Spent most of yesterday digging into rock and clay beside the path leading down from the gate to my cabin. It has been years that we’ve wanted to finish this particular low wall, but until now, after making the parking area for the moped, we never did get to it. But anyway, because of that I spent several hours using the jackhammer on the ground and wall, until finally I cut away enough to start masonry. Finished about half of it before the end of the day was there and it was time to head out to get sand…and let Knight II run for a bit. He did quite a bit of that too, so there was a definite plus. Hah.
Both today and yesterday there was greenhouse work. Bugs to seek out, water to give and all that. I think that, looking back…in particular on this afternoon while I was crawling my way through the dirt looking for caterpillars in the borecole and cauliflowers, it was probably the absolute best of the past couple of days.
Which reminds me of this morning. We had a rather peculiar phenomena going on right outside. It started last night really. Once I was preparing to go to bed the city in the valley had disappeared under a thick blanket of clouds that only lit up at the horizon. Then, this morning when I came out for the workout, you could see those same clouds still there, only slowly, but gradually making its way into the valley and up onto the mountain. We were just about done with the workout when the cloud reached the lower neighbors, and while I was taking a shower they crawled right over the property. Seriously, it was a tad creepy. Some odd thirty feet of visibility was all that remained and the atmosphere had suddenly turned decidedly chilly. In particular compared to the rather pleasantly warm days that we enjoyed since the day before yesterday.
But anyway, tenant was attempting to catch some sunshine just outside the old horse paddock, but by the time I got there it was a waning bit of light that barely penetrated the thick mist all around us. I could see the horror movies of old, “The Fog”, “The Mist”, nothing but white all around you, and then, topping the rise, something weird, something dark, something horrific. *sigh* I definitely saw too many horror movies. Seriously, I gave myself the creeps out there. Hah.
There was pumpkin soup making, along with a fresh chickweed/nettle/chard mix today which went down well enough, despite it being a bit wiry. As desert I also experimented a little. This time with fennel. I suddenly had a certain taste in my head and I just had to see if it would work out. It did, and I am considering putting it in my cook book.
While I was doing masonry, grandpa and big brother worked on clearing a spot where they could temporarily store the new moped, without the dogs wrecking it.
Added to that, there was the unloading of sand from the car…twice, you understand. This is an excellent way to supplement the daily workout, in case you’re wondering. Hah.
I had a wee bit of a confrontation with grandpa, by the way. I was working on the small wall, and while I was explaining my technique, grandpa realized that I wasn’t going to build a straight wall. Which got him in a bit of a tiff, because he wants stuff straight, while I like to go in curves, make it more natural. Straight is what always gets him into trouble. In particular since when you are working with natural rock, straight is a relative concept. Ya gotta go with the flow, keep to the Bob Ross attitude of “There are no mistakes, only happy accidents.” But anyway, grandpa doesn’t see it that way. He’s a farmer of old: when nature doesn’t want to work with you, you ram through it. *sigh* He does forget, of course, that it doesn’t work. Nature always finds a way, and that goes for a rock wall as much as anything. Take the last straight wall we did, for instance. I spend several hours some odd ten months ago, to add a bulwark just to keep it from toppling over. There goes the straight wall. *double sigh*
I hate confrontations like that, but it can’t be help. Considering that I was the one doing the building, I compromised only a little by creating one curve, rather than two, and left him dissatisfied regardless. No helping it. If I’m charge of building something, I bloody well will build it the way I like it…I expect no different from him when he’s working on his (despite the fact that I don’t like straight walls, hah).
Okay, we let bygones be bygones, so in the end it really didn’t matter.
What else…oh dear, I’m drawing a blank again. What is it with my brain these days? I slept enough last night, darn it.
We made some repairs in the igloo. One of the support beams of the shelving had broken down, so we had to fix that. We brought the broken washing machine into the carport, where the dogs can’t mess it up again. So I washed that, along with the mirrors in the house, some shelving and all that sort of thing. Laundry, and bla, bla, bla. I know, that’s boring.
Hmmm. There was some carpentry, mostly regarding the future parking spot of the moped. Some small fixings for whicker baskets.
Tenant walked all the way down to my cabin, all on her own. Sure, big brother and I were watching her with hawk-eyes, but she managed, and was darn proud of it too.
Sawed wood! Ah, I haven’t lost my mind completely yet. Big brother and I sawed the beams for the new section of roof (for the moped) and that is always a bit of a tense thing. Big brother once sawed off his thumb and index on that big sawing table, so we’re always extra careful. It is doubtful that the docs could fix it that well again.
Still reading Jack Vance, this time “The Killing Machine”, and I’m still enjoying it. Vance does have a rather wonderful writing voice…despite it being a tad old fashioned.
Well, this is going to have to be it for today. I can’t think of anything else anyway, and I still have to go out later tonight for a donation. Maybe we should arrange for these kinds of trips during the day. Hah.
But in case I don’t “see” y’all before then (almost forget to do the well wishing bit): Have A Marvelously Merry Christmas!
Saturday, December 24, 2011
Friday, December 23, 2011
Another wall, however small
Song of the day: “Never no more” by Patsy Cline again. Yep, this one’s a keeper apparently. Hah.
Let’s see if I can speed this one up a little, because I had a friggin’ long day and I am seriously contemplating an early night…again. Oh right, I forgot I had one last night as well. Okay, never mind then, I’ll probably be late. Hah. I might not be entirely coherent either. You see there was a sale of Fondue, so that just made up for my supper and it was absolutely delicious. *hiccup* It doesn’t help that I haven’t gotten around to sipping anything more alcoholic than a cherry bonbon, so seriously, the wine went straight to my head.
Good news on the interview/guest blog with C.S. Marks. If all goes well I’ll be on the receiving end around New Years. Yay! With a little luck we’ll either end the year with it, or call in the new one, let’s wait and see.
Okay, on to business as usual.
Yesterday:
It was a windy day, but not cold thankfully. The plus side of all the wind, though, is the laundry that dries incredibly fast. Seriously, by the time I get there in the morning, everything is dry as can be, which not usual for winter at all. But anyway, the green soap experiment is still going well. I kinda like the lemony scent to the clean stuff, and the fact that we could reuse the water for the yard is definitely weighing heavily in the equation.
Finished the first one of Jack Vance’s “Demon Princes” and was pleasantly entertained. Personally I truly enjoy the way he plays with words, and the way I hear some old English teacher in my head when I read it (like there’s a narrator) but I also fear that in this day and age, the way books are written now, he would not have been published. There is an old fashioned courtesy to it, an unpretentiousness and a patience that you rarely come across with new writer.
I think I will have to do a review once I’m done with the whole series.
Oh, oh, before I forget: Grandpa’s moped arrived. Yay! Big brother and I went to town to fetch it tonight, and it looks so cute…though grandpa obviously needs to get used to it. He doesn’t like change all that much. Hah. Good thing about the moped is that it’s small enough to fit in the back of the Land Rover…which was a total pain in the behind with the old one. Not this one, though. It weighs barely a 140 pounds and we got it in without any trouble.
Of course grandpa is not going to use it yet, first he’s going to ride the old Katana to death, and then start on the new one.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, darn it. Where was I? Right, yesterday:
The sun was out so I had to open the greenhouse and raised seedbed up to prevent funguses from going rampant. Did a half-hearted search for bugs, but then headed up because grandpa had already made me a batch of cement to start with the wall…after helping out tenant who needed to change and head on down to my terrace where she could enjoy the sunshine and a book. :-)
Which reminds me, she finished mine “Trust Me” said the Spy, her first English book ever, and she said she really, really enjoyed, despite the fact that she had to check every fifth word or so in her trusty dictionary. I for one, gotta commend her for making it through the book at all. If I had to check so many words, I’d have given up already. Hah.
But anyway, grandpa had made cement, so it was time to start on the wall for the moped parking spot. The trick about building a straight wall of natural rock, is not to think about it too much. Usually the first instinct of where and how to place a rock is the right one, and if you start thinking it won’t work. So I didn’t think, I just started putting up whichever rock I came across and ended up with a rather peculiar selection of jagged peaks. Now, if I had started thinking at that point (I will post pictures in the near futures, just not now, I’m too tipsy and too sleepy) I might have worried about which to fit on top of those, but for the first four or five layers there wasn’t a single problem. It was then that I decided to go for a cake shaped dist with tilted sides which really put me to the test in finding (without thinking) one to match the tilt. But I managed, and by the end of the day three fourths of the wall was standing.
Of course that meant that today I had to work on it again, but this time there was only half a foot or so to go, and I need only two wheelbarrows of cement, rather than yesterday’s five. We sure are going through our supply or rocks fast. It will be nice to see the old gate wall again after all this time, while it was hidden behind the piles. Hah.
Where was I? Oh, right. After the masonry, big brother and I went out for another batch of sand, taking Knight II along so we could take him on a short walk afterwards. Good thing too, because the big lug spent most of the day in the back of the car, which is his favorite spot because it gives him such a good vantage point of the carport.
Once I got home it was time to cook a quick supper, and then off to the edit. Didn’t get a lot done, but enough at least. Three pages at least, and let’s face it, the first edit is always a massive pain in the behind. The story’s still new then, more a road of discovery than anything else, it’s edit number two, plus the paper edit when stuff really starts to get together. I did discover that during the next edit we’re going to have to remove more than a thousand words, which is going to be massively interesting.
Like I said before I had an early night, so that basically brings us to today, doesn’t it?
Let’s see…laundry, of course, followed by tackling the mirrors in the house, taking the small grill oven up to the carport so we could clean and fix it (the on off switch broke down). Also middle sister’s sewing machine was acting up, so we worked on that during the day as well, and since he was busy in the carport anyway, big brother decided to work on the house computer as well to see if he could speed it up a little with some extra memory gadgets that I don’t know the name of.
The greenhouse and raised seedbed had to be opened again (yes I remembered to close them last night, yay) and then it was up to have breakfast and help tenant again because caregiver was at her other job. She was in a cheery mood today (tenant) and I let her walk most of the way while I took the car out to the old paddock and started to unload since Grandpa and big brother were down by the carport to catch her. So nice that she can do simple stuff like that on her own now.
The car unloaded and having spent the majority of the afternoon finishing the wall for the moped, (no wind today, it was actually a worm day with temps in the high sixties) the end of the day was spent cleaning the grill oven and carrying it back into the house. Next there was the greenhouse, which had to be checked for bugs and such. We’re going to have to transplant cabbage kinds again tomorrow. They’re getting to be too big for the multipots.
Then there was the trip to town to pick up the moped (got the call this morning) followed by some groceries, and picking up the biodegradable oil for the chainsaw, along with the new blade for the circle saw. And finally around nine in the evening we were back home where we could eat fondue, write this friggin’ blog and then go to bed early, because, let’s face it, the edit is NOT going to work tonight.
No mater, though. Another early night will allow for a workout tomorrow morning (weather permitting) Yay!
Heading out and signing off…gawd, this fondue is potent.
Oh darn it. I still gotta go fetch Amri from up on the mountain. Bye.
Let’s see if I can speed this one up a little, because I had a friggin’ long day and I am seriously contemplating an early night…again. Oh right, I forgot I had one last night as well. Okay, never mind then, I’ll probably be late. Hah. I might not be entirely coherent either. You see there was a sale of Fondue, so that just made up for my supper and it was absolutely delicious. *hiccup* It doesn’t help that I haven’t gotten around to sipping anything more alcoholic than a cherry bonbon, so seriously, the wine went straight to my head.
Good news on the interview/guest blog with C.S. Marks. If all goes well I’ll be on the receiving end around New Years. Yay! With a little luck we’ll either end the year with it, or call in the new one, let’s wait and see.
Okay, on to business as usual.
Yesterday:
It was a windy day, but not cold thankfully. The plus side of all the wind, though, is the laundry that dries incredibly fast. Seriously, by the time I get there in the morning, everything is dry as can be, which not usual for winter at all. But anyway, the green soap experiment is still going well. I kinda like the lemony scent to the clean stuff, and the fact that we could reuse the water for the yard is definitely weighing heavily in the equation.
Finished the first one of Jack Vance’s “Demon Princes” and was pleasantly entertained. Personally I truly enjoy the way he plays with words, and the way I hear some old English teacher in my head when I read it (like there’s a narrator) but I also fear that in this day and age, the way books are written now, he would not have been published. There is an old fashioned courtesy to it, an unpretentiousness and a patience that you rarely come across with new writer.
I think I will have to do a review once I’m done with the whole series.
Oh, oh, before I forget: Grandpa’s moped arrived. Yay! Big brother and I went to town to fetch it tonight, and it looks so cute…though grandpa obviously needs to get used to it. He doesn’t like change all that much. Hah. Good thing about the moped is that it’s small enough to fit in the back of the Land Rover…which was a total pain in the behind with the old one. Not this one, though. It weighs barely a 140 pounds and we got it in without any trouble.
Of course grandpa is not going to use it yet, first he’s going to ride the old Katana to death, and then start on the new one.
But I’m getting ahead of myself, darn it. Where was I? Right, yesterday:
The sun was out so I had to open the greenhouse and raised seedbed up to prevent funguses from going rampant. Did a half-hearted search for bugs, but then headed up because grandpa had already made me a batch of cement to start with the wall…after helping out tenant who needed to change and head on down to my terrace where she could enjoy the sunshine and a book. :-)
Which reminds me, she finished mine “Trust Me” said the Spy, her first English book ever, and she said she really, really enjoyed, despite the fact that she had to check every fifth word or so in her trusty dictionary. I for one, gotta commend her for making it through the book at all. If I had to check so many words, I’d have given up already. Hah.
But anyway, grandpa had made cement, so it was time to start on the wall for the moped parking spot. The trick about building a straight wall of natural rock, is not to think about it too much. Usually the first instinct of where and how to place a rock is the right one, and if you start thinking it won’t work. So I didn’t think, I just started putting up whichever rock I came across and ended up with a rather peculiar selection of jagged peaks. Now, if I had started thinking at that point (I will post pictures in the near futures, just not now, I’m too tipsy and too sleepy) I might have worried about which to fit on top of those, but for the first four or five layers there wasn’t a single problem. It was then that I decided to go for a cake shaped dist with tilted sides which really put me to the test in finding (without thinking) one to match the tilt. But I managed, and by the end of the day three fourths of the wall was standing.
Of course that meant that today I had to work on it again, but this time there was only half a foot or so to go, and I need only two wheelbarrows of cement, rather than yesterday’s five. We sure are going through our supply or rocks fast. It will be nice to see the old gate wall again after all this time, while it was hidden behind the piles. Hah.
Where was I? Oh, right. After the masonry, big brother and I went out for another batch of sand, taking Knight II along so we could take him on a short walk afterwards. Good thing too, because the big lug spent most of the day in the back of the car, which is his favorite spot because it gives him such a good vantage point of the carport.
Once I got home it was time to cook a quick supper, and then off to the edit. Didn’t get a lot done, but enough at least. Three pages at least, and let’s face it, the first edit is always a massive pain in the behind. The story’s still new then, more a road of discovery than anything else, it’s edit number two, plus the paper edit when stuff really starts to get together. I did discover that during the next edit we’re going to have to remove more than a thousand words, which is going to be massively interesting.
Like I said before I had an early night, so that basically brings us to today, doesn’t it?
Let’s see…laundry, of course, followed by tackling the mirrors in the house, taking the small grill oven up to the carport so we could clean and fix it (the on off switch broke down). Also middle sister’s sewing machine was acting up, so we worked on that during the day as well, and since he was busy in the carport anyway, big brother decided to work on the house computer as well to see if he could speed it up a little with some extra memory gadgets that I don’t know the name of.
The greenhouse and raised seedbed had to be opened again (yes I remembered to close them last night, yay) and then it was up to have breakfast and help tenant again because caregiver was at her other job. She was in a cheery mood today (tenant) and I let her walk most of the way while I took the car out to the old paddock and started to unload since Grandpa and big brother were down by the carport to catch her. So nice that she can do simple stuff like that on her own now.
The car unloaded and having spent the majority of the afternoon finishing the wall for the moped, (no wind today, it was actually a worm day with temps in the high sixties) the end of the day was spent cleaning the grill oven and carrying it back into the house. Next there was the greenhouse, which had to be checked for bugs and such. We’re going to have to transplant cabbage kinds again tomorrow. They’re getting to be too big for the multipots.
Then there was the trip to town to pick up the moped (got the call this morning) followed by some groceries, and picking up the biodegradable oil for the chainsaw, along with the new blade for the circle saw. And finally around nine in the evening we were back home where we could eat fondue, write this friggin’ blog and then go to bed early, because, let’s face it, the edit is NOT going to work tonight.
No mater, though. Another early night will allow for a workout tomorrow morning (weather permitting) Yay!
Heading out and signing off…gawd, this fondue is potent.
Oh darn it. I still gotta go fetch Amri from up on the mountain. Bye.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Rocks and sand
Song of the day: “Step by step” by Whitney Houston, of course. Big brother has been playing it since yesterday, so it goes without saying that it gets stuck in my head. Hah.
The day started a little earlier than usual yesterday. Thorgal III had to go to the vet to have his drains removed, and since we had to go anyway I decided to take Gada as well. Her walking is getting to be more difficult every day, and though I suspect that it was arthritis and there wasn’t a lot the vet could do, I decided to have her checked anyway.
Thorgal was doing fine, and the vet told us to keep an eye on his cuts, but other than that it is just business as usual. Gada on the other hand…you should have seen the vet’s face when she tested The Labrador’s hips. It wasn’t good. She explained that if she were to make an X-ray, we would see that probably the majority of the bone would be degraded. Poor Gada. For now, she’s on Prednison, which is not going to make her better, but which will numb the pain some, and when I notice that she isn’t enjoying herself anymore, the vet basically let it be known I should start thinking of putting her out of her misery.
I gotta admit that I’m not ready yet, though I know that it is mean towards Gada who must be going through some serious discomfort these days. But Touri and Mosha are still rather fresh and if she’s gone too, that means I’m down to Amri, Knight II, Chaos, Dax, Labhana (who’s not responding well to the massive losses of my personal pack. She gets depressed) and Sitabah. That’s six dogs, which is a measly amount from what I’m used to. Darn it, I used to have thirteen and that was just five years or so ago. Added to that Amri is not doing all that well, age catching up with him as well (at least ten years of age) so I fear that around this time come spring I’ll be down to five. Grrrr. Age and sickness are horrible things, that I have to admit.
Right. Thoughts like that depress me, so let’s move it along before I start bawling my eyes out.
Oh, yeah. I’ve been experimenting with green soap for the laundry, and so far it’s been going rather well. If stuff keeps getting clean, I think I’m going to keep using it. That way we could connect the washing machine to the basin and use the water for the yard, which would be, like, totally awesome.
After breakfast I hauled the cement mixer up for Grandpa. He did help, and tried to stay in the lead at first, but he hasn’t recovered that much yet, so he left the heavy stuff to me while adding his weight to getting the thing up the mountain. I am rather pleased with the concrete path. It made the hauling that much easier. I remember last year being a total pain when we had to get the machine either way.
While grandpa and big brother got to work on pouring concrete for the parking spot of the new moped, Ox and I began hauling rocks down the mountain. Only managed about 10 wheelbarrows myself, but since we filled most of the small ledge in front of the house, it should do well enough once we decide adding to the wall again. I think that, not counting the extra half foot that will be part of the balustrade, it will be enough to finish the wall in its entirety. Yay!
By the time I was done for the day, big brother and I went out to get a new batch of sand (standard procedure after using one for concrete or masonry, of course) and then took Knight II out for a nice long walk. He liked it too, gallivanting around as if he wasn’t scared out of his mind. Hah. Seriously, though, he did well despite the fact that the rough earth patch we came across smelled like wild boar. He didn’t like that, poor fella.
Once we got home I quickly cooked supper involving the lupine slices that baked rather wonderfully in butter. It was a nicely meaty substance for sure, not to mention rather filling.
That done, and wishing I had time for a nap we did edits for the remainder of the evening. At the end of it, I did some reading on the Falkland Islands, just because, and then we watched an episode of “Castle” in Spanish. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Fillion was on Cortisone.
I also started reading Jack Vance’s “Demon Princes”. Funny thing is, folks don’t write like that anymore, and what a shame that is. Seriously. The best way to read Vance is out loud, that way you also get the chance to practice you upper class English pronunciation. In particular the excerpts, which would otherwise be absolutely boring. Hah.
What with a temperature drop to no less than forty degrees, I was a tad restless during the night…if for no other reason than the fact that Knight II was so cold that he refused to lie anywhere except firmly against my back. My back did not agree with this, but lost the battle many times over. *sigh* Suffice it to say I was a mite stiff and sore when I did the laundry this morning.
No matter, though, it was time to get started so I tried a new experiment for patty dough. This time a chickpea pumpkin dough, which would work as a perfect substitute for meat since it has such a high protein value. Ah well, we’ll see how that works.
Next it was time to maneuver the car into the old horse paddock and unload yesterday’s load of sand. What followed that rather quick session, was loading it back up again because Dani had offered to the take our pile of old metal to town and sell it at the local “old metal scrap yard” Went well enough. Got more or less what we expected and that was nice.
Time to head into the yard. The greenhouse could be opened, and the seedbed needed water. After doing that, I focused on the tomato plants to remove miners and caterpillars alike. In this case there were a lot of the first, while after I went down into the yard to check cabbage, cauliflower and kale, the latter were all over the plants. Buggers. Those little bastards will eat a whole plant in a day if I let them. *sigh*
Afterwards we worked in the carport a bit, trying to take big brother’s computer apart. It all went well, but in the end we didn’t manage to fix the problem at hand, meaning that it was all for nothing, if it weren’t for the fact that we know a little more about computers again. Hah.
While we were working on this, grandpa worked on taking apart the Honda for spare parts. This is turning out to be not as easy a task as you would imagine. Turns out a moped is complicated too. Hehe.
Next, after crawling over the floor for about half an hour to find (and failing) to find the screws big brother lost due to a picky dog, it was time I headed up to start on supper. The burgers worked out splendidly too filling the stomachs and all that. Hah.
Well, that should do it. I’m outa here
The day started a little earlier than usual yesterday. Thorgal III had to go to the vet to have his drains removed, and since we had to go anyway I decided to take Gada as well. Her walking is getting to be more difficult every day, and though I suspect that it was arthritis and there wasn’t a lot the vet could do, I decided to have her checked anyway.
Thorgal was doing fine, and the vet told us to keep an eye on his cuts, but other than that it is just business as usual. Gada on the other hand…you should have seen the vet’s face when she tested The Labrador’s hips. It wasn’t good. She explained that if she were to make an X-ray, we would see that probably the majority of the bone would be degraded. Poor Gada. For now, she’s on Prednison, which is not going to make her better, but which will numb the pain some, and when I notice that she isn’t enjoying herself anymore, the vet basically let it be known I should start thinking of putting her out of her misery.
I gotta admit that I’m not ready yet, though I know that it is mean towards Gada who must be going through some serious discomfort these days. But Touri and Mosha are still rather fresh and if she’s gone too, that means I’m down to Amri, Knight II, Chaos, Dax, Labhana (who’s not responding well to the massive losses of my personal pack. She gets depressed) and Sitabah. That’s six dogs, which is a measly amount from what I’m used to. Darn it, I used to have thirteen and that was just five years or so ago. Added to that Amri is not doing all that well, age catching up with him as well (at least ten years of age) so I fear that around this time come spring I’ll be down to five. Grrrr. Age and sickness are horrible things, that I have to admit.
Right. Thoughts like that depress me, so let’s move it along before I start bawling my eyes out.
Oh, yeah. I’ve been experimenting with green soap for the laundry, and so far it’s been going rather well. If stuff keeps getting clean, I think I’m going to keep using it. That way we could connect the washing machine to the basin and use the water for the yard, which would be, like, totally awesome.
After breakfast I hauled the cement mixer up for Grandpa. He did help, and tried to stay in the lead at first, but he hasn’t recovered that much yet, so he left the heavy stuff to me while adding his weight to getting the thing up the mountain. I am rather pleased with the concrete path. It made the hauling that much easier. I remember last year being a total pain when we had to get the machine either way.
While grandpa and big brother got to work on pouring concrete for the parking spot of the new moped, Ox and I began hauling rocks down the mountain. Only managed about 10 wheelbarrows myself, but since we filled most of the small ledge in front of the house, it should do well enough once we decide adding to the wall again. I think that, not counting the extra half foot that will be part of the balustrade, it will be enough to finish the wall in its entirety. Yay!
By the time I was done for the day, big brother and I went out to get a new batch of sand (standard procedure after using one for concrete or masonry, of course) and then took Knight II out for a nice long walk. He liked it too, gallivanting around as if he wasn’t scared out of his mind. Hah. Seriously, though, he did well despite the fact that the rough earth patch we came across smelled like wild boar. He didn’t like that, poor fella.
Once we got home I quickly cooked supper involving the lupine slices that baked rather wonderfully in butter. It was a nicely meaty substance for sure, not to mention rather filling.
That done, and wishing I had time for a nap we did edits for the remainder of the evening. At the end of it, I did some reading on the Falkland Islands, just because, and then we watched an episode of “Castle” in Spanish. If I didn’t know better, I’d think Fillion was on Cortisone.
I also started reading Jack Vance’s “Demon Princes”. Funny thing is, folks don’t write like that anymore, and what a shame that is. Seriously. The best way to read Vance is out loud, that way you also get the chance to practice you upper class English pronunciation. In particular the excerpts, which would otherwise be absolutely boring. Hah.
What with a temperature drop to no less than forty degrees, I was a tad restless during the night…if for no other reason than the fact that Knight II was so cold that he refused to lie anywhere except firmly against my back. My back did not agree with this, but lost the battle many times over. *sigh* Suffice it to say I was a mite stiff and sore when I did the laundry this morning.
No matter, though, it was time to get started so I tried a new experiment for patty dough. This time a chickpea pumpkin dough, which would work as a perfect substitute for meat since it has such a high protein value. Ah well, we’ll see how that works.
Next it was time to maneuver the car into the old horse paddock and unload yesterday’s load of sand. What followed that rather quick session, was loading it back up again because Dani had offered to the take our pile of old metal to town and sell it at the local “old metal scrap yard” Went well enough. Got more or less what we expected and that was nice.
Time to head into the yard. The greenhouse could be opened, and the seedbed needed water. After doing that, I focused on the tomato plants to remove miners and caterpillars alike. In this case there were a lot of the first, while after I went down into the yard to check cabbage, cauliflower and kale, the latter were all over the plants. Buggers. Those little bastards will eat a whole plant in a day if I let them. *sigh*
Afterwards we worked in the carport a bit, trying to take big brother’s computer apart. It all went well, but in the end we didn’t manage to fix the problem at hand, meaning that it was all for nothing, if it weren’t for the fact that we know a little more about computers again. Hah.
While we were working on this, grandpa worked on taking apart the Honda for spare parts. This is turning out to be not as easy a task as you would imagine. Turns out a moped is complicated too. Hehe.
Next, after crawling over the floor for about half an hour to find (and failing) to find the screws big brother lost due to a picky dog, it was time I headed up to start on supper. The burgers worked out splendidly too filling the stomachs and all that. Hah.
Well, that should do it. I’m outa here
Sunday, December 18, 2011
Chilly
Song of the day...isn’t there for some peculiar reason. I know, weird huh? It’s been ages that I didn’t have a song of the day. Feels very strange, I tell ya.
Right. What’s been going on? I’m not sure, once again I am drawing a blank, which might have something to do with the fact that it is now afternoon rather than evening, when I usually write my blog. I think I better grab my diary to see what happened yesterday, because otherwise I will have to fill this blog with mindless blather…which is completely different from the usual highly intellectual narrative I usually apply, right?
*snort*
Okay. Diary in place….
Well, first off I woke prior to my alarm and lay there with the wind howling, and my head still involved in the semi-nightmare that had woken me up. I was seriously contemplating getting up early, but it was chilly, the dogs were draped all over me (in other words keeping me nice and toasty) and I really didn’t feel like heading out into the early morning for a workout. I would have (pondered it every time the wind died down, but then another would tumble through the door and I stayed in place) but ended up dozing (still with that freaky dream) until my alarm went off.
Finally I couldn’t drag it out any longer and got up to head up to the paddock to fix the left-side mirror of the Opel.The stupid thing keeps falling but I managed to get it back in place within a few minutes. That done I went down for the morning chores, and then up again for breakfast, and making tomato soup for later in the day. A time which was mostly used to discuss the day’s plans.
While big brother and grandpa tackled the solar panels and their batteries, I went to the greenhouse to open it all up and to sow some lettuce, green beans and five pots of wysteria, which want to have some plants for ‘round next year. Gotta sow them some day, don’t I? But anyway, that done I transplanted fifteen more of the seedlings into small pots and checked the tomato plants for leaf miners and caterpillars. Not a lot of them, but a few.
Next it was going into the yard itself, big brother joined me, to check on the veggie plants and to take out a field of potatoes. Got a nice batch, with about half a bag that didn’t have the disease which we can use for replanting early this spring.
That done it was time to go up, peel the potatoes that aren’t good for saving, eat some soup, and then go for a nap while the potatoes boiled. I did sleep a little, though I was so friggin’ cold afterwards that I had to sit in front of the stove (writing, of course) for a solid hour before I was finally warm enough to get settled in my usual spot. Seriously, the cold is not funny. Even Knight II is now constantly trying to get under the blankets, and Chaos was so cold he was moaning and shivering until I dragged him half under me so he would warm up at last.
The lupine patties worked out splendidly. We had them as a snack with fried potatoes last night, and they were delicious with a slice of cheese on them. Jeez. I didn’t expect that from the smell I caught from them yesterday. I rarely like something if the smell is not to my liking. But there you have it. It was darn good, and I might need to consider making them part of the batch that I want to try to sell.
But anyway after that there was the edit and some writing to connect that scene (still. I’m going very slow with that) as the night rapidly advanced. Got to bed only a little late, dogs piled on top of me again, of course.
Today was mostly about hauling butt, again. After the usual chores, dressing in a multitude of layers and drinking coffee by the gallon, rock and dirt got dug from the in front of the carport and behind my cabin, followed by hauling several wheelbarrows of rocks down to the terrace under the house. Almost got the level up to the height of the rock wall now, meaning that as soon as we’ve added one more layer of clay and rocks, we can start masonry again.
There is still some work to do now, before we gotta start on the day’s edit. That hot cup of soup an hour ago really did fill the gaps well enough for me to have my energy levels back up a little, but since I’m cold, I really should get some movement. My teeth are about to chatter, for crying out loud.
Okay, gotta go.
Right. What’s been going on? I’m not sure, once again I am drawing a blank, which might have something to do with the fact that it is now afternoon rather than evening, when I usually write my blog. I think I better grab my diary to see what happened yesterday, because otherwise I will have to fill this blog with mindless blather…which is completely different from the usual highly intellectual narrative I usually apply, right?
*snort*
Okay. Diary in place….
Well, first off I woke prior to my alarm and lay there with the wind howling, and my head still involved in the semi-nightmare that had woken me up. I was seriously contemplating getting up early, but it was chilly, the dogs were draped all over me (in other words keeping me nice and toasty) and I really didn’t feel like heading out into the early morning for a workout. I would have (pondered it every time the wind died down, but then another would tumble through the door and I stayed in place) but ended up dozing (still with that freaky dream) until my alarm went off.
Finally I couldn’t drag it out any longer and got up to head up to the paddock to fix the left-side mirror of the Opel.The stupid thing keeps falling but I managed to get it back in place within a few minutes. That done I went down for the morning chores, and then up again for breakfast, and making tomato soup for later in the day. A time which was mostly used to discuss the day’s plans.
While big brother and grandpa tackled the solar panels and their batteries, I went to the greenhouse to open it all up and to sow some lettuce, green beans and five pots of wysteria, which want to have some plants for ‘round next year. Gotta sow them some day, don’t I? But anyway, that done I transplanted fifteen more of the seedlings into small pots and checked the tomato plants for leaf miners and caterpillars. Not a lot of them, but a few.
Next it was going into the yard itself, big brother joined me, to check on the veggie plants and to take out a field of potatoes. Got a nice batch, with about half a bag that didn’t have the disease which we can use for replanting early this spring.
That done it was time to go up, peel the potatoes that aren’t good for saving, eat some soup, and then go for a nap while the potatoes boiled. I did sleep a little, though I was so friggin’ cold afterwards that I had to sit in front of the stove (writing, of course) for a solid hour before I was finally warm enough to get settled in my usual spot. Seriously, the cold is not funny. Even Knight II is now constantly trying to get under the blankets, and Chaos was so cold he was moaning and shivering until I dragged him half under me so he would warm up at last.
The lupine patties worked out splendidly. We had them as a snack with fried potatoes last night, and they were delicious with a slice of cheese on them. Jeez. I didn’t expect that from the smell I caught from them yesterday. I rarely like something if the smell is not to my liking. But there you have it. It was darn good, and I might need to consider making them part of the batch that I want to try to sell.
But anyway after that there was the edit and some writing to connect that scene (still. I’m going very slow with that) as the night rapidly advanced. Got to bed only a little late, dogs piled on top of me again, of course.
Today was mostly about hauling butt, again. After the usual chores, dressing in a multitude of layers and drinking coffee by the gallon, rock and dirt got dug from the in front of the carport and behind my cabin, followed by hauling several wheelbarrows of rocks down to the terrace under the house. Almost got the level up to the height of the rock wall now, meaning that as soon as we’ve added one more layer of clay and rocks, we can start masonry again.
There is still some work to do now, before we gotta start on the day’s edit. That hot cup of soup an hour ago really did fill the gaps well enough for me to have my energy levels back up a little, but since I’m cold, I really should get some movement. My teeth are about to chatter, for crying out loud.
Okay, gotta go.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)