Kitchen stuff

Song of the day: “Bruises” by Train and Ashley Monroe. Still cute, and easy to get stuck with.

Yeah, long day. I was a bit under the weather yesterday so I went to bed early and got up at seven thirty this morning so we could get an early start on the edit. As to yesterday…it was a busy day.

Started off early, with me and big brother heading out to town to drop the car off at the garage. They warned that they probably couldn’t work on it, since the receptionist was out sick and the second mechanic was out to hospital, and our mechanic couldn’t bleed the brakes on his own, so unless he could find someone to help him, it wasn’t going to work until the next morning.

Ah well, we had to go out to see Sally at hospital. Drove to Marbella, headed for internal medicine, only to discover that she wasn’t on ward where she was supposed to be. The nurses had no idea whom I was talking about and referred me back to the ground floor, the information desk. So it was back down the stairs (I was starting to turn red like a lobster) and to the desk where I spoke with this nice, very, very metro dude who spoke only a little bit of English, but who referred me back to the ER where she had apparently spent the majority of the night.
She was all confused when I got there. We talked a little, I asked her how she was doing, and she was all stoic and distracted. Had to leave her after five minutes, due to her not being in a room but in an observation hall. The nurse finally took pity on me, gave me Sally’s future room number before she sent me out again.
By the time we finally got back to the car, my foot was about ready for amputation, jeez! I’d put on wrong shoes, I tell ya, they were way too hard for my friggin’ insole, and then the two mile walk back and forth, around and up and down. Gawd.

On our way back we took a little side trip to the big DIY in Marbella, got some ecological seeds and then afterward stopped at Funny Beach, so big brother would know what it looked like.
Once at home, the fun started for real for me. Yep. We changed clothes, got out the axes, the chainsaw and started on the tree up by the storage which was getting way too big. Cut down two of the big trunks, and processed that so grandpa could saw it up later on the big saw table.

Later I was feeling pretty bad, so we only managed about five pages in the edit before I gave up for bed.

This morning, well, there was the six page edit followed by the normal chores, of course, very fascinating, as you know. Then, after feeding the dogs, we managed another two page before it was time to start working.

Cousin Ed took her turn to visit with Sally today, so big brother and I could start working on digging more of the future outside kitchen. Got some good digging done, along with figuring out the how, when and whys of the future days.
It is taking forever, but such things can’t be rushed, in particular not when you’re in the middle of a dead-lined edit.

Cousin Ed came home with the latest. Turns out Sally’s present problem is thrombosis and diabetes, meaning she will have to go on even more medication, darn it.

Had to stop at four because we had to go to town to pick up the Land Rover. Little brother and sisters dropped us off at the garage. So, I was curious and asked our mechanic if he ever taught folks to work on cars, and guess what? Turns out he does, and when they relocate to a bigger place, he will let me know when he starts new lessons. Yay. And he doesn’t even charge for it. So that’s a double yay. Hah.

But anyway, we picked up the Land Rover after I gossiped a little with the receptionist. Which is always fun. Once at home, with a new load of food donations from that little market of our friend, I quickly cooked dinner of chard with noodles, and then went down for some more edits. Added another four pages, so our quota was made today. Yay.

Which brings us to now, with me being more than ready to call it a night. My foot still isn’t happy with me, but I gave it some rest today, so I’ve been a good girl. Knight II on the other hand wasn’t I had to redo his “sock” poor darling. He has a licking obsession, I tell ya.

I should take out some time tomorrow to clean my cabin, because let’s face it, it’s a pigsty. *sigh*

Making progress

Song of the day: “Give me Love” by Ed Sheeran. Song is totally stuck n my head ever since I discovered it yesterday. Rather wonderful…but then, I do like Sheeran’s songs a lot.

Okay…I have no memory of what I did yesterday. Lemme get my diary to check...well, there was laundry of course. When is there ever no laundry, right. Moving along. There was dog feeding, of course, both yesterday and today, of course. Same goes for editing sessions, which were done (today and yesterday again) over breakfast. Better to use the time as effectively as possible. Were running way behind, but got a good session done, on the overall. Managed a total of eleven pages, which isn’t bad at all, since edits have a tendency to go incredibly slow.

Did manage to clear away some of the piles of clean laundry that has been getting higher and higher in my cabin over the past few weeks. I should be doing way more in there, but let’s face it. I walk in there at the end of the day, drop into a semi-dead state the moment I hit my pillow, and get up to stumble out again in the morning. Hah.

But anyway, yesterday afternoon was mostly spent out in the yard, which was wonderful since the temps were a lot higher down there, then up by the carport.
While big brother planted tiny cabbage seedlings, and Cousin Ed tackled the morning glory vines, and Grandpa turned earth, I was set to work to build reed fences to keep the friggin’ dogs from going through it. Fortuyn, Tadaika, Gadah. They all love going through freshly turned earth and lying in it. Grrr.

Planted about fifty seedlings, dragged out a lot of vines, but there’s still plenty to do down there. Around five the temps started to drop drastically, so we headed back up. Part of the reason was because we were going to pick up a load of rocks (grandpa needs it to build a storage for the garbage up at his place) and to go for a jog. For the first time in more than two months, I think. Didn’t go splendid, but also not horribly. My foot didn’t kill me, but it wasn’t playing nice either. Still, the rest of me felt nice and limber afterward, which is all that counts in the end, right?

As for today. I had a late start. I friggin’ forgot to set my alarm, meaning I didn’t get up until nine thirty. The dogs were a nuisance all through the night. For some reason Chaos thought it a good idea to lie down there where I was supposed to sleep, meaning I was bent like a pretzel most of the night. Painful, I tell ya.

So after today’s edit, and those pesky little chores I mentioned earlier, we got to work on…yes, hold your breath…my outside kitchen!!! Yay!
Broke ground, so to speak. Got interrupted by tenant, who I walked down to visit with mom while the younger sibs went out to the movies.
Got a lot of the digging done. Still need to do more, but the beginning is there. We had some debate going as to the size. I don’t want it to small, since sometimes we’ll have to work in it with more people, but big brother doesn’t want it too big. Little does he know, right?

I cut the dog veggies this evening, my turn and everything. Got a nice batch going, a mix that the dogs will appreciate.
Afterward I got to work on our own supper, leaving big brother to light up the dog food. Made the same as yesterday. Asian stir fry which is so wonderfully easy. Not to mention nice.

Well, I’m going to cut this short, it’s late, and I wanna be in bed on time, so I can get started on the edit earlier tomorrow. Don’t like spending too much daylight hours, which is what happened today and yesterday, where I was constantly behind on everything. Ah well, no matter. We’re 76 pages in the edit now, so we’re making proper progress. Yay.

Okay, that’s it. Signing off. Move along. Nothing more to see here. Hah.

Peace at last

Song of the day: “Grenade” by Bruno Mars. Still an awesome song.

Well, not a lot going on over here, thank Gawd. In fact, stuff has been wonderfully quiet for a change. I mean it, yesterday, while in the yard planting some odd 50 seedlings, I almost was brought to tears. I had missed the gardening soooooo much these past few months, while we were busy with so much other stuff. The hospital, the cabin building, the jobs, the markets, for a moment, while I had my hands into the rich soil up to my wrists, I felt solidly sorry for myself. *sigh* thought that it was awful that there was so little time to do the things I wanted instead of the things that needed to be done…then of course reality arrived and I was able to dismiss the silly thoughts and just enjoy the experience. No sense in wallowing in stuff that doesn’t really matter. The yard is there, and I’ll see more of it for sure the next few months, I’m sure.
Once the plants were in the earth, big brother and I set up the usual reed fences to protect the youngsters from the dogs. Looks all nice and proper again. And added to that, we’re finally getting around to putting the strawberries from the pots into the ground. It was about time.

Got another batch of seedlings out this morning, too, seeing as I had to go to the village again, for my daily visit to the vet with Knight II. His foot is looking better (keeping my fingers crossed that he will leave the friggin’ paw alone, for crying out loud) the cream working. Turns out they’re using a nifty little cream with calendula in it. I remember some odd 10 years ago when I’d suggest Calendula cream to help healing wounds faster and the vet or doctor looking at me as if I was one can short of a six pack. *sigh* And now there it is, a real “official” medicine cream which is basically a copy of the cream that they took from the shelves as hocus pocus years ago. Ah well, no matter. At least Knight II will heal better because of it.
But anyway, both trips went well, and Knight is slowly getting to the point where he actually greets the vet and goes for a petting.

Caused the vet some worry yesterday. When I asked at what time I could be at the practice, in case I had to go to work afterward, they understood I would be there at ten. Then when it turned out that I didn’t need to go to work, I figured that I might as well go at eleven, giving me the time to do laundry and to feed the dogs. Anyway, when I didn’t turn up at ten, they started worrying about the dangers on our mountain road, and decided to phone to make sure that everything was alright. *sigh* I better be sure not to have a misunderstanding like that again.

Speaking of Knight II: I wrote to the market lady, asking if maybe they could make an exception for Knight (dogs are not allowed there), just until his paw is healed. They took pity on me and told me they’d make an exception and let Knight come with me. *phew* Such a relief, after the whole mess on Monday. I was really not looking forward to leaving him alone for two days again, who knew what might have happened…on the other hand, it might turn out to be a moot point in the end. According to the weather predictions the weekend is going to be a rainy one, meaning that the market will be canceled. Hah. Be that as it may, since the wound is that massive, he might get his chance next week, but what the heck, we’ll see, eh? Doesn’t a free weekend sounds swell? It does to me. Hah.

There were a couple of cooking sessions, of course, yesterday pumpkin, pepper and onion mush to spread on my lentil patties, and today a hearty ratatouille over spaghetti. Both meals went down well, despite my recurring nausea. *sigh* Very annoying, that.

What else. The new job is official. We’ll be building a balcony in the near future. I sent the estimate to the boss lady this afternoon, and we’ve more or less agreed to the terms. It’s going to be a nice challenge, I think, working with new materials for a change, rather than cast-offs and 2nd hand stuff. This will not simply be something usable, but it also has to be pretty, which is also extremely nice to do.

Oh right, how could I forget. We have a new adoptee. Yep. Little sister missed her dead Djoti too much, so today she and mom liberated an abandoned Irish Setter from the pound. It’s a beautiful dog, and though I would have preferred to get the list of our pets down, it is of course little sister’s choice. I just hope that we can manage it in the future, with this economy, eh?

Harvested loads of peppers yesterday, along with more than fifty pumpkins. What with the temps rapidly dropping, and the rain pouring down, it’s time to get what we can from the summer veggies. They won’t last long, I tell ya.

Hauled dog food, which was delivered again, to the storage. Was properly out of breath, which was a good follow up on the wood I’d hauled up from the lower yard. We’ve got a solid amount of wood going with that tree down, I’ll admit. Several days worth of heat at least.

Big brother has been busy building a closet lately. It’s working out rather nicely, I’ll admit. He wants to put his computer in, and hung it in a spot where it will be most useful to him.

Writing wise I’m SLOWLY shlogging my way through. Got the manuscript up to 30 pages at least, so despite the fact that I sometimes want to scream that it’s going so slow, I am making headway. That’s all that really matter anyway.

Well, that’s it for me. Midnight is here, and I need some shuteye .

Yikes. A sieve.

Song of the day: “Tonight in Babylon” by Bryan Adams. Definitely not his best song, but it got stuck on replay in my head regardless.

Yesterday was an “official” working day so I was up an hour earlier than usual and rushed through morning rituals. Walked the visiting dogs, did laundry in record time, and then started on feeding the dogs since grandpa had kindly already prepared the big bowls. After breakfast we were on our way less than two hours after the alarm went off.

First thing we did when we arrived on the spot was set up, unload, and hang a tube in the almost-empty pool so we could start on fixing it. While it drained we got started on digging holes for the fence. Since there was recent rain, meaning that the digging went relatively easy.
That didn’t mean that the digging went fast, though. Not at all, seeing as our attention was divided by the draining and then the going under the liner to see where the hole was…well, lemme tell ya, I found plenty, two of them filled with grass that had somehow made its way through. We suspect a tiny hole that the grass thought suitable to pass through.
Since all the water was out, I was under there on all fours and went from one tiny hole to the other, until I could savely say that the liner would do well as a sieve. *sigh*
This got me a little worried so I dove under, once more, in search of the cause because I wondered if perhaps we had made a mistake while installing. But no, we didn’t. We went over the booklet, checked for sharp stuff, but everything was exactly the way it was supposed to We examined the holes, where they were located (along the edge at the bottom) when it struck me. The vacuum cleaner! Got the thing out, and yes, in all the difficult spots, the angles, indents and curves, the tiny little holes fit to the corners of the vacuum cleaner. Blast it! Either the quality of that liner is poor, or whoever suggested that vacuum cleaner had no clue as to what was good for the pool. I do remember that when we had our own liner-pool, we had one of those jelly fish shaped automatics completely made of rubber and plastic. Since those are also the ones in the back of the booklet, I’m guessing you’re supposed to use those.
Ended up on the phone with the boss-lady, and then SMSing some while we tried to come up with a solution. Whichever is decided upon in the near future, it’ll take several days to fix at least.

But anyway, the pool was drained and we removed the liner so we could take it out for drying…in case the boss lady wanted the holes glued…after which big brother went down again to work on the fence, while I put the pool together again. There’re tough winds there, so we didn’t want to risk the lack of sturdiness from removing the liner causing it to blow away. While it dried on the big terrace we went down to work on the poles again. The holes got dug, poles got set, and concrete was poured to set it all in place. Supports went in as well, and by the time the day drew to an end, some odd eight hours after arrival, a chill fell and we were hard at work cleaning everything up. The pool was shored to the ground, tools were stuffed back in the car, and everything was locked down and shut off. We didn’t get home until eleven hours after departure, and I can assure you I was properly whipper. Hah. Did a report to the boss lady online, discussed the options with her some, but since the pool is shored properly (keeping my fingers crossed it’s good enough) we’re not in a hurry with that particular fixing right now. We’ll see that later once the boss lady is back home.

This morning I woke right on the dot, hoping I could go right back to sleep…which I couldn’t of course. The new day had started and there was plenty to do. *sigh* There were the morning chores, feeding the dogs, and then it was time for me to walk tenant down to the main house, where she’d decided to spend the day.

Mom and the younger sibs were out for a bit. Little brother now officially has his drivers license, so yay on that. I’ll be curious to see what he’s going to do with it.

Tenant down and settled, I headed back up to the carport to help big brother shaving the ears of Carla. Poor bugger is filled with thick clusters of dirt, and we really had to see to that before it got any worse. His ears are doing better, though. Since we were busy there anyway, I also shaved big brother’s head, which was slowly being covered by hair again. He doesn’t like it, and admittedly the bald head looks good on him.

Tie dye. Yep. Since the market is closing in again, Cousin Ed and I worked on adding to the tie dye collection this afternoon. The weather was splendid for it. Sun was out, a cool breeze blew from the west and we could do the whole batch without much trouble. A few failed, but what the heck. The majority worked out well. Added to that, Sally helped out, which she seemed to enjoy.

Had lunch, which I shouldn’t have. I’m serious, I had a pancake, some cheese, a piece of apple and a peanutbutter and honey sandwhich. Big mistake. I know better than to mix that much. While I was drinking water afterward the whole lot came back out, in the middle of the path down to the yard. Jeez. It’s been a long time since it surprised me like that. But there you have it. Too much of this and that, will screw you over…well, me anyway. Hah. Luckily supper, much, much later, settled better, so I had zucchini, peppers and paneer that stayed down. *sigh*

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Went to the greenhouse after the hurling bit (I know, that is such a tasteful thing to mention, right? I’m nothing if not elegant. *snort*) and we sowed a new batch of filderkraut. We’re not exactly sure what the problem is, but twice now we’ve sowed this particular veggie, and twice it didn’t come up, despite the fact that the broccoli, cauliflower, red and white cabbage are doing just fine.

Since the waterworks were still open since the last rain storm, I took a moment to cover those up, rather than risk someone breaking their leg, or something. Jeez. Then went back up to the old horse paddock and cleaned up some of the tie dye mess. Only had a few minutes because big brother and I still needed to head for the construction company. We still needed tensors, along with three more poles.

Once we got back, it was time to cook some supper. The soup Cousin Ed made yesterday (something was wrong with the freezer, so we had to make something of the frozen zucchini and peppers in there) along with a nice batch of paneer.

Got a message from an acquaintance who asked if we knew some sort of solution for the young dog that came walking up to her place. She was a little desperate, seeing as she's moving to the city soon and can't keep him.

Here, have a look.

Isn't he cute. If you know a good home for him, do let me know. I'll "connect" you.
I do of course know that she was hoping we'd take it, but let's face it, we're trying to get less of them, not add to the pack. *sigh* He's cute as a button, though, and if I didn't have dogs coming out of my ears already I'd be tempted as heck.

Ah well....

Supper over and done with, I tried to write some, but I only managed half a page or so. Guess the day was more taxing than I’d imagined, so with a little luck I’m going to try to get to bed in time today. Hah.

Diggin'

Song of the day: “It’s only pain” by Katie Melua. Gorgeous song.

I am incredibly late today, not to mention pretty bushed, so let’s see if I can keep this one remotely short. *sigh*

First off, yesterday was a great writing day. Yay! Managed eight solid pages that just rattled out onto the screen. They (meaning the characters of course) just kept talking and talking, making me wonder if they were ever going to stop. They did, once the end of the writing session arrived, basically in the middle of the conversation, which the characters hate, I assure you.

I was a tad late yesterday morning, but that was okay, I needed the extra winks what with the shorted nights before that. Not that fifteen extra minutes is a lot, but what the hey, I’m not picky.
My dogs were absolutely psyched by the lower temps, making them behave like quiet angels when the market folk (mom, the sibs and cousin Ed) headed out at the crack of dawn, letting me sleep through it for a change. Hah.

After the normal chores, the writing and some chats online, I decided to make fondue for supper, using an old bottle of champagne, a few leftover blocks of cheese from the fridge, while also working on the salad for the next day (work day, remember). That done, while big brother was up loading up the car, cousin Ed and I headed into the yard to water the plants. And then up for a quick dip in the pool, some research for the book, and then to bed…

Of course friggin’ Sitabah and Gada decided to argue, twice, before four in the morning, keeping me from my REM sleep, which made this night a carpy one. Seriously, if I slept a solid four hours, it was a lot. But no matter, I was up on time, got coffee, did some laundry, fed the dogs and then gathered our own meal for the day.

We were ten minutes late leaving, (took Knight II along) but no matter, we arrived only five minutes late in the end, hehehe. So today was all about digging. I kid you not, the chosen spot for the pool needed to be dug free of no less than fifteen wheelbarrows of dirt. We dug, we chopped, we wheelbarrowed and dug some more until finally we leveled fifteen by five feet and were done for the day. Exactly eight hours of work, plus an hour and a half for traveling, and then when we got home, make more potato salad for food, sieving 1400 pounds of sand and loading it up. Along with six blocks of concrete that I had to haul up from the LOWER garden, for crying out loud! Had four loaded up, only to realize that I couldn’t get the lot up the incline. Had to carry two of them up separately, rather than risk falling flat on my face. Finally, by the time it turned dark, we were done loading u, and went down to eat some French fries and write today’s blog.

Which is where I’m going to leave it. Tomorrow will be another long day, I think. Despite it having been heavy (it was a good day for it, since there were clouds all over the place) eight hours of digging, ya know, we are right on schedule. Who’d have thunk that putting a pool together would take that much work, eh? I am taking pics, don’t worry…oh, and there were puppies. Hehehe.

Last bit, little brother will be doing his exams tomorrow, so he’s all nerves, of course.
Well, I gotta go. I’m going to try for an early night.

Done for now

Song of the day: “Crazy” by Patsy Kline. I know, been there, done that, but what can I say, I had all sorts of songs in my head today, including (covers head in embarrassment) Miley and Billie Ray Cyrus with their Hannah Montana song “Butterfly fly away”. *sigh* Ah, who cares anyway, it’s a sweet little song.

So let’s get you up to date as to what’s been happening the past couple of days. We were up at the crack of dawn yesterday, and were looking at a sky that was pretty overcast even as the light of day began to spread across the valley. There was a miserly rain, a sturdy wind from the west, and after the usual chores such as laundry I was in the kitchen baking pancakes for our lunch. While I was doing that, big brother was checked the car and its contents, making sure we had everything we were going to need.

We were a little late, but if we kept the pedal to the metal, we were probably going to make it in time…or at least we would have if we hadn’t driven around the mountain and came upon the magnificent view of massive rain clouds masking the distant mountains where we have been working since the weekend. Seriously, there was some good black and dark gray working there, so we pulled over, debated a moment and then phoned to let the “boss lady” know that it wasn’t going to work. We had to pour concrete for at least ten poles (I forgot the count) and since that red mud has a tendency to gather around the boots like elephant skin, hah, it really wasn’t the smartest thing. Just the trip there costs a mint, so rather than waste time and money, we all agreed that it would be better that we skipped a day.

So we did, and cousin Ed and grandpa looked up funny when we returned five minutes after departure. Strange how such a change of plans can deflate you. Seriously, first I was revving to go, and slowly I started to “sag” if ya know what I mean. So, rather than hang limply around in the carport, I headed down into the yard (despite the rain) and started harvesting. Got a load of tomatoes from the greenhouse (yay), four cauliflowers from the yard, along with a big batch of broccoli. By that time I was really “sagging” so after a short discussion with big brother we decided to look up our respective beds and have a nice little nap.

Slept a solid hour and a half, and it was WONDERFUL. I had my doggies around me, they were plastered against me like a blanket and kept me nice and toasty…not to mention sore in so many places I didn’t even bother to categorize them. Hah.

Since I had a little time on my hands, I took tenant outside (we walked and chatted a little) and before the rain started up again, I managed to trim her hair. She really disliked her longer hair, and though I dislike short hair, it is in the end her choice, isn’t it. *sigh* Ah well.

What’s next? Well, big brother fixed one of the shovels. It snapped in the middle. And I started on supper of fresh cauliflower, tomatoes, and some potatoes. It was delicious, thank you very much.

The dogs have been behaving remarkably well through the entire ordeal. Sure, there were some hairy moments for grandpa and cousin Ed, but on the overall they’re managing the lot. Poor darlings. So patiently waiting all day, only to have for a couple of hours before we go to bed (of course they love the bed part as well, so, whatever). Oh, and tick season is once again in full swing. Grrrr.

There was a trip to town for picking up market stuff, which took big brother and me about two and a half hours (also in the rain) to get done. By the time we got home and settled down for the edit, we were pretty much pooped again, so we only managed about two or three pages (with both of us ending up a bit snarky about a particularly tricky sentence).

Was a little late getting to bed, of course, but was under the blankets and in the dark at one thirty in the morning. *sigh* Before I knew it (it felt like five minutes) the alarm went off at seven, and it was once again time to get ready and going.

No pancakes to make this morning, (had the ones from yesterday still in the fridge) so just a quick breakfast, lock up the dogs, except Knight II (decided to take him along again) and then heading out. Arrived right on time, again, announced our presence, and after a nice chat, got started.

Got in all the poles, yay. Also trimmed a few more olive trees, listened in on the Spanish neighbor talking to his gardener (good to practice my Spanish) played with puppies, (so adorable, puppies, in particular if you can just enjoy them) dug some more, hauled six piles of olive branches into the woods, (went rather well with wrapping a rope around the bunches and just dragging it along) aligned, realigned and checked the poles, and then…well, then it was the end of the day, and we spent some time cleaning up the messes we’d made because, much to our regret, we can’t finish the fence until we get the gates. And since it is Semana Santa, the gates won’t be there until next week, which means that we couldn’t set one of these today, and thus we had to inform the “boss lady” that we need two more days (while she’s out of the country) once we have the gates. I hate it when this happens, in particular since I hadn’t counted on that extra trip. So I was forced to ask for another twenty bucks, which I severely dislike. Ah well, I can give up time, but not expenses. Darn it.

Ah well, no helping it, boss lady is a nice one, and she understood, so all is well. While she’s out of the country, (and as soon as the gates are there) we’ll be back out there to finish the project, of course.
For what it’s worth, I’ve rather enjoyed the past four days. It made for a nice change, I think.

Got home right on time, and went on down into the yard to check on everything, and to harvest four more cauliflower and a basket of broccoli. Since cousin Ed had already gathered chard and boiled potatoes, all we had to do was bake the chard and broccoli, and then it was time to eat supper. *sigh*

Well, that was about it. We decided not to do an edit today, but are watching Tin Tin instead. So far so good.
I am definitely ready to call it a day.

Blessed sleep

Song of the day: “The bright side of life” by the Monthy Python gang, of course. Seriously, I can’t think of that song without hearing curly dude’s accented voice in my head.

So it this is the third day at on “the job” and all things considered it isn’t going all that bad. Yesterday, despite some hiccups, involved a change of plans, which I will regale you with a little later on, I assure you, hah.

Let’s start at the beginning. We were up at the crack o’ dawn (7 AM), of course, rushing through checking everything we were going to need (not too much, since we were using the Opel…Market day, you know, aaaargh) having breakfast and stocking a bag with food before rushing out to the car and driving off.

As planned we arrived a little earlier than the first time, seeing as “boss lady” had to go somewhere and would wait for our arrival before departing. Got started without little trouble, and despite the fact that we had planned to put up the corners of the fence, we had to change that plan as well, due to faulty parts from the construction company. *sigh*

Did end up with on corner pole, and the middle pole with two supports because we had managed to take along four bags of sand, a couple of bags of cement and a handful of poles. Seriously, going up that mountain we doubted several times if the poor car was going to make it. Hah
But it did, of course, and we spent the majority of the day using shovels, jackhammer, and chops to finish the remainder of the holes. Regretfully, while digging the last two we realized that the ground did a drastic upward pitch. So we conferred and in the end decided to ditch four holes and dig five new ones…or was it three holes and exchange them for four? Hmmm. I can’t remember. Either way, I made a good dent in those while big brother used to the jackhammer in the last corner. He had to get through several layers of rock, and did another session there today, in fact, but made good progress. Yay.

Managed to trim an olive tree, which is fun, a favor for boss lady, and, well, necessary. Hah. Poor olive trees, all its sunlight blocked out. I doubt I’ll manage them all, but who knows.
Was pretty much running on fumes yesterday, and the occasional rain didn’t improve that. Seriously, I was pretty chilled by the time we got home…and once home things didn’t get much better since the stay-over dogs made a lot of racket during the night, robbing little sister of her sleep. This meant that the younger sibs spent a good part of the afternoon emptying the igloo of storage, which in turn meant that big brother and I had a load of stuff to carry away, before we got around to loading up the Land Rover for today. There was sand to upload, rolls of diamond fence, a wheelbarrow and other tools, cement, and o course the thirty or so poles that we somehow had to fit in the back without them being a menace during driving. Also, we had to leave enough room for Knight II, who I was determined to take along today. In particular since he can be a handful for Grandpa, not to mention be a menace toward the other dogs when I get home. *sigh*

Chaos has been pretty outraged with me these past three days, by the way. He just doesn’t get why I would leave him, the Gorgeous. Neither can I, but life can sometimes be a tad unfair, eh? Hah.
And FYI I’m missing the yard. All sorts of veggies are growing up without me being there to check on them. *sniff*

I was pretty out of it during the night, and quite disoriented when the alarm went off. For a moment there I couldn’t remember why I would have to wake up before dawn…then of course the usual aches and gripes of this ol’ body started to make themselves known, and I groaned as I rolled out of bed.
There were chores to do and breakfast and lunch to make since cousin Ed had to go to work herself and was unable to help out by making it for us. *sigh* So, after laundry and such, I rushed up to bake pancakes while packing leftover spaghetti and all that.

We were loaded to full capacity, Knight II was in the back, and we made it up the mountain with little difficulty. Got started, after introducing Knight II to the local dogs. He was scared out of his mind, and would have fled back into the car.

Trimmed three more olive trees, which was an excellently calming way to start the day. Dug more holes and set a total of twelve poles during the course of the day. Used the chainsaw on a dead tree, trudged through the mud since there was lots of rain…even had to stop for about half an hour because it was coming down in buckets. Had a nice cozy visit with the boss lady, though. Chatted some, drank hot coffee and then headed out again to finish for the day.

Hauled three rolls of fence up an incline (my face looked red like a lobster afterward, hah) 19 poles or so, metal wire and all that nice stuff which we’re going to need to finish this job up. Having cleaned up after ourselves we headed back home, and stopped at the construction company to get the gate, which is the bad news. Grrr.

The gate we’d set our eye on was sold, so now he has to order both, and what with it being Semana Santa (Easter) pretty much the entire country is on hold. *sigh* Darn it. There goes the plan of finishing this all this week. I hate bringing news like this, but of course this is part of the construction bizz. It is always more than planned. Double darn it.

But anyway, two more supports bought, the last roll of fence having arrived and loaded into the car (I was horrified by my pants. I had red mud up to my knees, and all sorts of other messy colors all over my clothes. Hah) we finally headed home.

There we loaded (grandpa was kind enough to insist on doing that) up the necessary sand and some extra tools, prepared what we could for tomorrow, and then settled down around 9:30 PM to unwind a little.

And now I need sleep, so I am going to sign off and see if I can do a better blog the next time ‘round. Hah.

On the job

Song of the day: “The Flood” by Katie Melua…gawd, I hope not, seeing as I’m at the job at the moment, digging holes, and we’ve just been forced to take a break due to the rain coming down. It has been doing that for a few hours now, and we already had to take a thirty minute break earlier because there was an increase in the water flow then too. Hah. I also had the song “I thought I’d lost you” by Miley Cyrus and John Travolta. It’s on the cd in the Opel, so it got stuck for a bit. Hah.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again, aren’t I? Let’s start this properly, and get back to yesterday. I was up just a bit too late for a proper workout, so I had to do without because I had to head on down for the usual morning chores. That done, followed by breakfast, and settling tenant on my terrace, we headed on down into the yard for the usual rounds. It was at this time that mom informed me that the lady who possibly had a job for us had gotten into a bit of an accident over in Malaga, and that she would be coming over to see if big brother could fix the back door enough for her to travel with it next week.

We were about halfway into hosing everything down when she arrived and we headed up to see what could be done. While the lady visited with mom and tenant (leaving tenant with a 7 week old puppy, which psyched tenant, of course) big brother managed to fix the locking mechanism at least, while I discussed the specifics of the job of putting up her fence.

In the end we decided on starting the next day (ergo, today) despite us being without the Land Rover (market day tomorrow, remember?) and thus needing to drive the Opel up the mountain into the country. It was quite a ways, but we managed just fine.

But anyway, since there was a down payment, we headed out to the construction and get most of the supplies. Was an experience, in particular since the guy at the building company was in such good mood that he didn’t even make a problem. Loaded everything up, checked out gates, and then headed home with all sorts of calculations in our heads.

Then there were edits (not a lot, but a few) catching up with messages, and chats before it was time to go to bed early. What can I say, we had to get up at seven in order to get to the job in time. There were a few chores to do beforehand (such as they ever existent laundry, ya know) and then gathering up food for the day before heading out in the friggin’ Opel. Seriously, whoever designed that car should be shot and then hung at a castle wall somewhere. You have to break your back climbing out, and to get in, you basically have to fall inside. Grrr. And then I’m not even talking about how it scrapes over anything that sticks out three inches up from the ground. Grrrrrrrrrr!

Arrived on time, phew, and after a short talk with the “boss lady” we went to work, measured everything out (three times, hah) and then got to digging. Boy, did we dig. I had figured we’d manage ten at most, seeing as there were stones, rock surfaces and just plain hard packed clay, but in the eight hours we were there (it started to rain by the way, twice we had to take a thirty minute break during the worst of it) we managed to dig a total of 23 holes. Yay. Most of it, in fact. Now we only need to dig three more pole holes, and ten supports and then we can start on pouring the first concrete. The corner poles are first for that, by the way. Most tension will be on those, so they’ll need the longest to dry.

While we were there boss lady got home with a bunch of puppies which she’s going to find homes for in the near future. Lemme see if I can get a pic on here…

Nope. Not today. I'll get to it later. For a flash of a second I regretted that we have so many dogs, because in that second I regretted having so many dogs already. Then of course I remembered all our own little darlings and could just enjoy the puppies for a bit before they were put in the back where they could recover from the trip.

But anyway, on the overall it was a productive day, and we got home at around eight in the evening with the dogs being absolute insane. Can’t say I blame them, poor sweeties. It was a long day without us (10 hours at least, since the trip to, and irrevocably the one back, takes about an hour) but according to cousin Ed and grandpa, they behaved relatively well.

What followed was cleaning up the leftover food, filling bags with sand, getting a couple of bags of cement, and counting out the poles that we’re going to need tomorrow.

Once we had pasta and sauce Cousin Ed made for us, it was down to our computers and editing the two pages that we hadn’t managed yesterday. Then there was this blog and now I still have to go over my messages and such. *sigh* Gotta go.

Birthday pie!!!

Song of the day: “Perhaps perhaps perhaps” by Doris Day. Also had several other songs tumbling around in this messy brain of mine, but let’s face it, for as far as my brain is concerned, yesterday might as well be ten years ago. *sigh*

But no matter, it’s been a busy couple of days and since I thought to take my diary out with me, I can just check everything off while I write this.

First off, there is of course, always the edit. I know this is starting to get boring, but there you have it, ‘tis an innate part of my life and I wouldn’t change that part of it for anything. Admittedly big brother and I get into quite fierce debates about this one, and for the life of me I can’t imagine why this is the case. Sure, we had the same problem with Saving Nina, but with AIL we had hardly any trouble. Perhaps it has to do with the plot, more than anything.

Anyway, let’s see what I can write about yesterday. I spent a lot of time with tenant again, seeing as caregiver was at her other job, but tenant was in good spirits, so we got to chat and sing as we made our way down the mountain to the basin terrace. There she spent the majority of the early afternoon, reading, cutting veggies, and napping, as she is prone to do a lot this time of year.

During breakfast I made dough for pie, seeing as mom’s birthday is today, hah. It meant making dough in the morning, peeling apples around two in the morning and putting the dough in the pans, and preparing everything for the morning. They went into the small oven this morning, and right now, tenant and I are waiting for cousin Ed to whip up some cream as bring us a piece. Yay. I love apple pie! In particular when there are walnuts, almonds, raisins, coconut shavings and some apricot jelly in it. Gawd, I just had supper, and already my mouth is watering again, darn it.

As appears to become the habit at the moment, we’re peeling our supper potatoes during breakfast these days, or else we just don’t have enough time to get it all done. But we had our very first Filderkraut cabbage yesterday (sweeter than normal white cabbage) together with freshly harvested broccoli and the first try at using our own cheese. I was a tad disappointed (I’m really not much of a fan of soft cheeses) but everyone else like it, so it doesn’t really matter.

As for the majority of activities both yesterday and today was work in the yard. We’re clearing a new, wild section of the garden, which we plan to cultivate into a produce section. It’s taking some effort, in particular since we used to dump garden waste in that particular spot in the past. The entire incline is filled with old bougainvillea branches, dead Broom plants, and more Morning Glory vines than anyone ever should be require to battle. Hah. It is shaping up nicely, actually, and we’re revealing quite a bit of good soil down there. Once we get some serious rocks hauled down there, to create some terraces, it should do fine for veggies.

Did have to take out at least fifty strawberry plants for it. They’re on the terrace we’re expanding, and there’s at least double that amount of plants still standing there. We’re going to have so many strawberries at some point…if they all survive that is.

In the afternoon we headed out to a plant nursery and got our order of fruit trees. It took two years of saving, but now we are about to ad seven more citrus trees to our collection of fruit trees, two cherry trees, two nectarines, one peach, and three apples. Sure, they’re not in place yet, but we’ll get them in place before summer. Hah.

This morning we had to treat both Njanna’s and Carla’s ears. Both have a rather fierce infection going there, so for the next few weeks, we’re going to try to clean the mess several times a week in the hopes of battling the problem. Poor darlings hated it, but we popped them both a pain pill and hardened our hearts. It had to be done.

Gawd, eating pie now. Yummy! And blasted dogs also like it. “Get away, this is mine!!!” Ya gotta be fast round these parts. “Get. Off. The. Table, Dax!”

Both today and yesterday involved watering the plants, of course. It takes about an hour, and since I’d already opened up and watered the greenhouse and seedbed, (popped on down between laundry and breakfast) I could start immediately after getting tenant settled. In the meantime big brother and grandpa already continued with clearing the terrace.

I still need to varnish my doorway between my cabins. Just didn’t have the time today, darn it. Ah well, some other day.

Okay, that’s it for today. I still need to head out to pick up a donation, so time’s a bit short. Gotta go.

Windy

Song of the day: “Break my Stride” by Blue Lagoon. Well that’s something different at least. I might have had it in my head once or twice before, but not often. Cool. Also, yesterday there was “Amazing Grace” by the Maverick Choir, which is a really awesome version.

Have been catching up on a little bit of sleep by managing 6 to 7 hours a night at least. Been noticing it too, since my eyes are less droopy later in the day. Hah.
In fact, yesterday I slept at least seven and a half hours, which had me, like, totally ecstatic.

There was the usual stuff like laundry, breakfast and half a gallon of coffee, hah. Gawd, I definitely got me a dependency for the brew going. There are times (when I forget) that am just incapable of waking up without it.

Thorgal is looking pretty impressive with his massive stitches, drains and shaved neck. Poor fella. He doesn’t appear to be bothered by it much, but it looks horrible for sure. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think he was mauled by a bear, or something.

My shoulder was a little better, and I actually managed to haul a couple of wheelbarrows of rocks down to the terrace under the house. Then, after opening the greenhouse and seedbed, I went up to work on the wall. Added another foot at least to the entire length, and I gotta admit that it is looking pretty darn fine.

We’ve been in an almost constant wind storm for the past couple of days. If we had a total of four hours without wind it’s a lot. A little scary, really. It messes with your equilibrium, and there have been some debris that we had to run after lest it was dragged along.

Chaos and Sitabah have been sticking close together, imitating ying and yang whenever they find a warm spot. Seriously, you’d think they consider each other their personal pillow. If one isn’t lying on the other, it’s the other way around.
Knight II gets a little freaked out from all the wind too, looking like a horse that’s about to bolt most of the time. Poor fella, he doesn’t like the wind at all.
As for the other dogs, most of them don’t give a fig. They follow us around, nap, and follow us some more. Hah.

The afternoon was spent in the yard checking the veggie plants for bugs. Found quite a few clusters of caterpillars. Always a little freaky to come across a one inch spot with more than fifty of the bugs piled together, but at least at that stage they’re easily removed. Also snatched some miners from the chard leaves. Since weeds had to be removed anyway, there was a fresh batch of chickweed and another small broccoli, which made a nice added bonus for the night’s supper of spaghetti with a veggie mix.

Supper downed, we headed for town. Didn’t feel like it, but sometimes you just can’t get out of something like that. We needed new oil for the car, a few groceries, like milk and such, and a trip to the DIY store for chainsaw oil…which they didn’t have. This means we’re going to have to search for the stuff at a later time.
Did discover that grandpa’s moped had arrived, and it still looks cute, despite the fact that he opted (quite insistently) for a black one, rather than a white one. If all goes well, it should be done just in the beginning of the new year. Paperwork and etc. I forget what else. Hah.

Anyway, we were too tired for an edit once we got home, so I handled my messages, checked everything online that had to be checked and then headed to bed for some reading and then to bed early…well, semi-early anyway.

The storm had us lose two treetops so far. This morning I stood staring at the 45 angle of most of the trees for a solid five minutes before I finally sighed and got dressed to face the day.

First thing up after breakfast was sawing the sides for my future basin cabinet in my bathroom. The long board was driving grandpa bonkers so we did that first.

Then we took down tenant’s chair. She declared yesterday that she wants to be able to get out of her comfy chair herself, so she can move around a little even when caregiver isn’t there, so we decided to take out the useless one inch nubs from underneath it, and replaced them with beautiful wooden paws that make it exactly three inches higher, after a test sit+rise (a success) she approved of the change and we brought it back up again.

That done, big brother and I finished the side wall of the little storage of the spare fuel and such, which looks great. I’ll post a pic soon.
This was followed by unloading the dog food storage. I’ve been hearing sounds there for several days, fearing termites, only to discover (after removing thirty bags, or so) that there was a tiny little mouse living in there.

I had called Sitabah and Dax to deal with the rodent, but they were too excited and the mouse too sneaky for them to be of any use. The mouse got away and the two dogs were uselessly sniffing and snorting their way through the dog food bags. Such disappointment was just sad to witness, I tell ya. You should have seen Sitabah look at me sorrowfully when she realized that she’d lost the creature and that I started reloading the bags.

The imperial got painted again. Hopefully it will be done tomorrow, which is when the sibs will start loading up for the market again. It should be, but it is always a worry. It had to be done, though. The rust was getting to be ridiculous.

Other than that, the day was spent digging and hauling dirty down the mountain. In this case we’re trying to put together a parking spot (easy to close against rodents and such) for the new moped when it arrives. Some serious digging involved there, the humus layer for the storage for the yard, and the rocky dirt for the terrace under the house. We’ll need a lot of that yet, so every wheelbarrow counts. Got about five of them down, and as a joint effort we put about twelve, or fourteen in place. I do hope we have enough.

While supper of leftovers and pumpkins was simmering, I experimented with a new patty. A lupine mix this time, and if I’m to go for scent, I don’t think that this one will be a favorite of mine. Seriously, I’m not the biggest fan of Garlic, but I put four cloves in the mix just to mask that particular smell. Also, it better be extremely special, because otherwise it won’t be worth the extra effort and expense…in particular if we do decide to go to the market with them.

Supper done and eaten I headed down for the yard to see if big brother was done watering the plants, and to close the greenhouse and seedbed for the night. The sky was completely clear, but over Africa there was a massive depression that was so black that it looked like a land mass. Quite impressive.

That done it was out with the car to get a load of sand and to let Knight II out for a walk. I had to lock the poor fella up most of the day (not that he minds when the wind is blowing like mad) because I had to head into the courtyard time and again. Knight II and little brother’s pack don’t go together well, and I rather not have the hassle.

But anyway, sand got picked up, Knight II had his run, and I got home running on fumes. Was more than ready to sit down by the stove and start on today’s computer work. Hah.

Lotsa vet stuff

Song of the day: “Tonight I’m loving you” by Enrique Iglesias. I don’t know how he manages it, but on the overall most of his songs grow on me at some point. Hah. Besides, his rhythms are perfect for workouts.

No workouts for me, though, at least not the fitness kind. I have been physically busy, so that makes up for it at least. Lemme see if I can remember some of the stuff that went on in the past couple of days.

Yesterday mostly involved shovelling and using the jackhammer on the rock wall behind my cabin. Mighty interesting, the jackhammer, in particular. After about three hours of working with the thing, my hands were shaking so bad that I kept dropping stuff. Hah.

But anyway, got quite a bit of rock out, shovelled it into a wheelbarrow and let Ox haul it down. (What with me busting my knee again…I know, why aren’t I more carefull, eh? I try, it just doesn’t work.) But anyway Ox hauled it down while I filled the wheelbarrows, got two rocks on the top of my foot, which pounded like mad for half an hour. POd me, it did. Took out an extra piece of rock and dirt out, just to get rid of my mad. Hah.

Wheelbarrowed (I know, still not a real word) four loads down and then got some tools and supplies to hang the water tube under the house, rather than risk sand slides taking it down. Looks better at least, and it will keep the tube out of our way once we restart masonry on the wall.

Looks nicely filled right now, but since time still needs to make all the new dirt settle, and since we still need to build another two to three foot on top of the wall, that will change soon.

Was seriously running on fumes by then, so I ate some cookies for a sugar boost and then headed down the mountain with my trusty chainsaw and spent the remainder of the afternoon cutting firewood for next year. So I am getting a hang of the chainsaw, I mean, really, I only almost cut off my foot twice yesterday. Yep, soon I’ll be an old pro at it, I’m sure…I hope. Hah.

Went to the greenhouse for a bit, relaxed clearing away bugs and such from the tomato plants. Got a nice batch of tomatoes for our efforts by the way.

Mom and the sibs came home tired from the market, but didn’t do too bad, considering the bad economy. Since big brother and I had to go out again later that evening for another donation, they did manage to clear out the car in time for that.

Had a nice supper of fresh pumpkin, corn, onion, chickweed, and tomatoes through a big batch of paneer. Different, but definitely worth a repeat in the near future, in particular since we added chickpea/white bean patties for filling.

Tried to have a nap, but I was too cold, so I ended up huddling in front of the stove and working on the book. Turns out I had missed a scene during the pasting of all the individual sales, meaning that I had to put it in, and then work on connecting it to the one before it, and after. It was nice to do some actual writing again, that’s a fact.
Left for our trip a little late again, but managed to get home only half an hour after bed time…meaning I got too little sleep again, darn it.

Anyway, this morning there was no time to linger in bed, instead I had to go down to the house, shower, get dressed and then head on out with Tridatu. Our appointment for his teeth at the vet was today, after all, and he didn’t like the trip at all. But anyway, he was in good hands, so we picked up grandpa who needed his moped fixed again (just another week before the new one should arrive) and left it at the shop.

Once home, it was time for breakfast, unloading the Land Rover and then heading down to the greenhouse and then the yard. It was wonderfully peaceful down there, and since I was in no mood to mess with my cupboard for the bathroom up by the carport, we opted to work by the woodshed again.

Sawed through most of the mess (or at least big brother did) and I used the ax on the bigger blocks so grandpa and Dani could load them into the woodshed. I gotta say I like working with the ax. It’s like boxing, a perfect way to get rid of frustrations. Hah. Nothing is quite as plenty as work that allows you to shut off your brain, isn’t it?

By the time it started to cool down due to twilight, it was time to head on out to the village and pick up Tridatu. Since Sophie (Dalmatian) and Mesha (cocker spaniel) needed a checkup for their ears, and Thorgal needed to be checked out because of this huge swelling that is disfiguring the left side of his face, and grandpa needed to pick up his moped the car was quite packed.

Then Sophie thought it smart to go number two in the back of the car, making the cab smell like a chemical waste plant. Jeez, that was rank. And of course he is a klutz, so he ended up lying in the stuff, making it all worse. Jeez! My eyes were watering, and once we arrived at the vet we took him straight to the back and hosed him down while big brother tackled the back of the car with nappies and all that stuff. Gawd, I’ll smell that for days to come, I’m sure. Hah.

But anyway, Sophie got cleaned, he and Mesha got checked, Tridatu could go home with us (they had to take out eleven teeth), and because the swelling was so big they wanted to keep Thorgal overnight. Since they were incredibly busy, we decided to take him home and bring him back in the morning. No one was happier about that than Thorgal, who was already screaming his head off in the back of the clinic. Poor darling.

So, we got home, unloaded the dogs, let mine out of my cabin because they weren’t appreciative of being locked up at all, hah, and had some of the supper I’d started on prior to leaving.

Which brings us to now. The stove’s on, the dogs have quieted down after their meal, and they’re all clustered around our feet and the stove, fully enjoying the heat. Smart dogs.

Well, I better see about that edit, because I don’t suppose I’ll hold out long tonight.

Haulin', haulin', haulin'

Song of the day: “Que sera sera” by Doris Day kept going through my head a lot, along with some other songs that I can’t remember at this point. Lots of oldies, though.

Busy couple of days, part of the busy-ness being due to the trip to town, which always takes waaay too much time, if you ask me. (I know, you didn’t, but what the hey. Hah) But anyway, we had to go to town, first of all to get a tab thingy for inside mom’s toilet tank. It had been leaking, and what with all the holidays going on, we had to time it right to get to town while the stores were open.

Had to get some groceries as well, such as dairy products, which, regretfully one can never buy too much of in advance. *sigh* The reason we stayed away ‘till after three in the afternoon was because we went looking for a store where they sold solar power. You see, your batteries of the solar panels are degrading, and we really need to get our hands on a set of new ones. But first we would like to know the prices, you know, so we can chose what we’re going to have to sell, an arm or a leg. Jeez. It was all for naught, though, once we found the store it turned out that the tech who knew the prices (yeah, apparently the woman working there was just eye-candy) wasn’t in, so we’d have to call at a later time.

Right. There went one customer. I know, that sounds weird, but I dislike when business is done that way. I think one of the biggest reasons why people don’t buy solar power is because it is so much work to get your hands on it. I tell ya this, if some smart entrepreneur would make them available, like off the rack, in an average electronic store, or a mall, people would start buying them. I mean seriously, who wouldn’t by a new flat screen that’s a few inches smaller so you’re able to afford a panel that will provide you with free power for it?

But okay, we got home and got to work on the wall under the house again. While grandpa made cement, Dani and I added another foot to sections of the wall. We got to talking about possible jobs and I am now pondering the idea of trying to find a market for my meat substitute patties. They are working so well these days, that it would be wasteful not to try. But we’ll see how that works. I’ll need to make some preparations if I really want to go through with this, and be willing to spend time on it. We’ll see.

Didn’t finish masonry around twilight, at which time the greenhouse and seedbed had to be closed and I headed down to the old pool apartments to help big brother make some electricity repairs.

After that followed the day’s edit and some net surfing while I went searching for a nice location for the next book. Ended up looking at real estate in Oklahoma, just to get a feel of the architecture over there, and the general atmosphere. Found some cute houses for sure. Hah.

But anyway, I got to bed a little late, which led to me having some trouble getting up in time this morning for workout. Yay. No matter, though. Had a good one anyway, priming me for what was going to be a long day.

First up was breakfast, though, (that is after the usual batch of laundry and cleaning a glass partition in the house) and boiling a batch of rice for supper. I like to have that sort of thing done in the morning so I only need to do the finishing touches later on.

There was a quick foray into the yard, consistent of hunting bugs in the plants (lost another cauliflower to core rot, darn it), yanking out weeds and getting a handful of chickweed to see if I can make something eatable of it. Recently I discovered that beside the purslane (edible plant) we also have this chickweed in our yard, which should be totally edible. I tried it raw and it to me it tastes like a mix between spinach and chard, which is awesome.

That done I fetched tenant and walked her down to the basin terrace where she was going to spend her afternoon now that caregiver was off to her other job. We walked at a rather brisk pace, which meant that big brother didn’t make it in time with her chair. This of course forced me to head on back up to fetch it for her anyway, but no matter, I got my extra workout today anyway. Hah.

Once I got her settled, I went back up and started loading up the first wheelbarrow with rocks and dirt because grandpa was still doing something else. Then, I went up to peel some pumpkin and get broccoli, which I took down (on the full wheelbarrow) with a cutting board and knife. Tenant was kept busy cutting the lot while I started hauling wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow to the wall.

The dogs love this particular part. They keep running along, up and down, up and down, until they get tired and then they find a vantage spot where they can keep an eye on me without all the exhausting walking. Hah. That meant that half my dogs were snoozing in the sun in the lower garden, and the other half lay on the terrace in front of my cabin, also in the sun. The only one who kept the "dogging" up was Labhana, which is good because she's still a little fat. Hah.

Had a short break after wheelbarrow eleven, which I spent with tenant, chatting and helping her a bit with the pumpkin that was turning out to be pretty tough for he to cut. It was so ripe that it was almost like cutting through stone. Luckily that doesn’t matter when you intend to use it for soup.

Ended up with sixteen full wheelbarrows, filling up quite a bit of the gap, allowing for easier access in the future…like tomorrow since we really have to haul rocks down again, hah. I made a rough estimation and figure I hauled about 2500 pounds of dirt on my own, and big brother, who took over from me after four because I had to see to tenant, added another 1000 to that, I’m guessing. We’re getting there, but whether we’ll have enough dirt to fill it all, remains to be seen.

Dirt hauled, tenant back up to her bungalow and it was time to start on supper with the veggies tenant cut, and the rice I cooked in the morning. I was in the mood for fried rice today, and fried salted peanuts, coconut shavings and an onion before adding a curry mix that made the rice absolutely delicious.
The chickweed worked out well. I actually liked it a lot. I’d prepared it the same way I do spinach and that was a success. Heck, even grandpa liked the taste. I love finding free foods among weeds. Hah.

After that I needed a nap, I really did. I slept for about 70 minutes, and could have continued on, but didn’t because there is this blog, of course. Which reminds me, I have more to do, in particular editing, so I better leave it at this.

Little things

Song of the day: “Perhaps perhaps perhaps” by Doris Day, again. Luckily it’s a nice song so I didn’t mind.

It’s been two days of doing this and that, not necessarily bad, just that it comes across as very little, despite it needing to be done.

Had a full workout yesterday morning, it was still a little nippy, but all in all it didn’t go bad at all. Did need a friggin’ hot shower afterward, but that is hardly a bad thing, is it? But anyway, afterwards I tackled the laundry and then headed up to tenant’s place after opening the greenhouse and seedbed.

There was the usual breakfast, followed by a short session by the storage looking for wood to make a box for firewood. I finished up with the paws and big brother would finish the rest while I headed back up to tenant’s. She and caregiver joined me outside, and for the remainder of the afternoon we worked on cleaning tenant’s favorite cupboard.

She helped cleaning, sanding and then painting, and didn’t do bad at all. In fact, I think she did it markedly better than the last time she tried helping out, besides, it is good for her to be involved in the beautification of her apartment. She used to be an avid DIYer after all, no reason she can’t learn again. Heck, grandpa’s niece lost an arm in the war, and the nuns even managed to teach her how to tie her own laces again. I guess there’s a reason why the saying goes that you can have the patience of a nun. If I’m to believe grandpa’s stories, they taught her everything she needed to know to be self-sufficient in six months.

But anyway, it went pretty well, all things considered, and by the time it got to nippy for her to be outside, we were ready to start on supper, with which she helped again. Personally my stomach didn’t much appreciate the fare we prepared, but all in all it wasn’t bad at all.

Next I unloaded a small cupboard inside tenant’s apartment, brought the repaired and repainted one back inside and cleared up the mess we’d made during the course of the day before I went to fetch a batch of wood for the night.

There was of course the edit. We did the usual amount of pages, partly because I was rested due to an hour long nap. Hadn’t planned on it either, seeing as I’d only lied down to relieve some of the tension on my back (it was nagging somewhat fierce). Had planned to lie there for about fifteen minutes and then I woke up a solid hour later. Ah well. Got the edit done, and didn’t even fall asleep on our charity run later that night.

Today. Got to bed late, so we didn’t do a workout this morning, which was a good thing because we had some serious activities later on. First off, there was of course the laundry. Hah. But next it was up to work on the doors of tenant’s cupboard for which I didn’t have time yesterday. They’re in now, but I’m not happy with the results. Will have to think of something better for that. Those antique doors are way too torqued.

That done we worked behind my cabin for a bit. We still have to dig out a tone or two of rock there, and we really shouldn’t take ages for it, but there you have it. We took down about six wheelbarrows and then changed occupations by tackling the mimosa tree down the mountain.

Lots of its branches have died (I think it’s that disease again) and there were these really big branches that were steadily starting to hang on top of the bus. So for a couple of hours we worked with chainsaw and axes (making me feel very pioneer-ish, hah) taking down enough wood to see us through at least a week of firewood next year.

Chaos loved this part, he kept going through the fallen branches, petting himself. The other dogs, in particular the labs thought it a good idea to be there where the big pieces of wood were going to land. And Fortuyn, well, he went bonkers because he first got to chase every single shovel of dirt, and THEN also falling branches. Seriously, he was in doggie heaven!

The wind was blowing like mad, clouds hung low all around, and I was happier than ever with my favorite body warmer. Jeez, the moment I stopped moving, the chill would get me. Other than that it was nice work. I like wielding an ax despite that I’ll undoubtedly end up with achy muscles tomorrow (already have it) because my muscles are not used to that particular motion.

Next there was supper to make (tenant prepared the veggies prior to my arrival) a veggie mix plus nopales (cacti) and potatoes. It was actually kind of yummy, but again my stomach did not agree with it.

By now it’s time for me to get ready to work on the edit again, though I wouldn’t have minded another nappy right about now. Hah.

Rain, rain and more rain

Song of the day: “The Flood” by Katie Melua. Strangely appropriate these past couple of days. Even infected big brother with it. Hah.

Rain.
It had been an annoying constant for the past couple of days, and for me it has been more than enough. I want the summer back. I mean it. Let’s skip winter and just go straight through to summer…please?…pretty please with a cherry on top?
My clothes are wet, and despite the fact that I changed into dry ones earlier, everything still feels wet. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with yesterday.

Thunder was roaring like mad when I woke about half an hour prior to my alarm going off yesterday morning. The ground was shaking, rain pounding down, and trees swaying like mad in the hard wind. It was not a workout day, so I headed down into the house to do some cleaning. Tackled spider webs, cleaned some glass, and on the overall tried to make the house remotely presentable. It did result in neck pain, regretfully. Darned high ceilings.

Afterwards, the rain still coming down, we went down to the yard to check everything, and found that the basin had filled up to two feet during the first rain. Excellent.
By then the rain got worse again, so I had breakfast and then went to the carport where I spent the majority of the day repairing clothes that had been lying about for just such a rainy day.

Fixed four pants, two tops, a bra and both body warmers, which were ripped in the back. It didn’t help my neck pain any, but what the heck. It was quite satisfactory to have my repair clothes box empty for a change. Hah.

While I was sewing, big brother worked on the moped. Remember how I told that grandpa went to the village and got caught by a flood? Well, it looks like the moped got the worst of it. In all likelihood we’re going to have to bring it to the repair guy again. *sigh*

Turned out that despite the bad weather, mom and the sibs had a good day at the market. Mom’s bags and dog beds are really taking off with the local foreigners, and they are getting to be much in demand. I do have to admit that the fabrics used in stores and such are deplorable, so I totally agree on that part. Mom’s fabrics are the rich and beautiful colored kind.

Rather than head inside, which I deplore these days, I cooked dinner on a one pit stove in the carport, and it was delicious. Tenant even came down to the terrace to share supper with us, and we ended up talking about the past, and India and some of our other travels. She does love those kind of chats, I must say. Her eyes start to sparkle. Wasted at least an hour chatting about such things, but it was worth it…especially since with this weather she is cooped up inside a lot.

Through the course of the day we had a sum total of three thunderstorms with rain and lighting, but luckily the sky cleared around dusk, allowing us to sit outside on the terrace during the daily edit. I do love that at the moment this seems to be par for the course. Rain all day, only for the sky to clear at the end of it, allowing for outside work in the evening. Soon it will be too cold for that, of course, but until then, I intend to fully enjoy the fresh air.

As cold wet days tend to do, I was pretty much exhausted by the end of the day and was more than happy to call it a day…which led to this morning’s workout, naturally.

Despite the wind and rain workout went rather well. Managed to go through all the motions, even though I shortened a few of the routines in favor of having to go out into the rain for them to be accurate. But I punched and kicked the ball, pumped steel and jumped around on the beat. All in all, not bad. Hah.

That done, and with grandpa and big brother on their way to the village to get fresh bread and dairy, I went up to tenant’s where we made white bean patty dough for tonight’s snack, and pumpkin soup of supper. The way I figured, tenant could use the diversion. You can hardly sit on a chair and read all day, all winter long without going absolutely bonkers. Luckily she likes helping with cooking.

By the time breakfast of fresh bread was over, grandpa came rushing up the mountain (fully geared in rain clothes and boots) telling us that the basin was already overrunning. We rushed down ourselves, getting completely soaked in the process of digging a new gutter to lead the river of water away from the main ducts. Having stopped the main flow, we headed for the garden pit and put in two hoses to drain the massive amount of water that was making its way towards the greenhouse.

By then there wasn’t a single dry spot left on my body, and I could feel water run into my waterproof boots by dripping down my legs and past my ankles. *sigh* Going through wet bushes to lead hoses down the incline is not a good way to protect yourself against the rain. Hah.

That done, and having changed into dry clothes and boots, I went to the carport to get away from the wetness and sort through a couple of pounds of mixed screws. Grandpa has this tendency to throw any screw he finds into one big box, meaning that we get to sort through about four of them during winter. Hah.

My dogs are not really all that upset by the weather, seeing as they much prefer staying in my cabin when it rains. Seriously, they’ll saunter inside, take up a lounging position, and look at me as if saying, “that’s fine, just close the door now, boss. That’s it. Nice and closed, leaving us toasty and dry.” *sigh* Sometimes I worry about my dogs not being normal at all.

Another trip to the yard to save cauliflower, broccoli, white cabbage, kale and red cabbage from drowning, didn’t result in another clothes changing session, thankfully. For the duration of that particular chore the rain stopped for a short time, allowing us to put the baby plants inside the greenhouse, and drain the outside table.

There was pumpkin soup aplenty, and since I put in a pot of lentils it filled our stomachs properly.

Well, that about sums it up. I would like to get some edits done tonight, and maybe a spot of writing, or otherwise reading in the review book, so let’s leave it at this.

Seriously...blowjob?! Eeewwww!!!

Song of the day: “Man down” Rihanna. Who’d have thunk it, but apparently I can like this particular artist anyway. Go figure.

First I’ve got a rant that just has to get out.
For a moment here, I wanna talk about inappropriate behavior, because, seriously, I am no prude but…well, let me explain what happened. Big brother and I were out the other day, driving through the city late at night, when, on the pavement, up ahead a man (in his late forties I’m guessing) was standing by a park bench, and in front of him was a woman (mid-twenties, not a day over twenty five, if she was a day) who appeared to be in distress. I was like, awww, how sweet, the guy’s daughter is crying, and he’s comforting her, and yes, as we passed, I saw it clearly, he was standing in front of her, his hand gently stroking the back of her head as she rested her forehead against his belt buckle.
I glanced at big brother, and then out the window once more to look back at the…blowjob?! Yep. From this particular angle there was no mistaking it. To me it was a definite moment of “Aaawww, how swee…what the…” I snap back forward and blink at the fully lit street ahead. “Right. Blowjob.” Thank you for that imagery, bunch of weirdoes.
Seriously, it was almost midnight, but here in Spain that means that kids are still roaming the streets, riding around on their bikes and whatnot. I should have had hung out the window and shouted, “Get a effing room you perverts.”
I mean it; I have nothing against people orally doing…well, stuff. To each his own and all that. But do they have to friggin’ do it in the middle of the street for all the world to see? Do they have to emotionally scar me for life just because they like the risk of being caught? I mean, really. I don’t like to have my naïve awww moment wrecked by the harsh reality of two people doing THAT right where I can see it. Jeezzz!

Okay, rant over. Let’s get to it.

After not hearing my alarm at all yesterday morning, I was rushing through every single morning ritual in an attempt to catch up. I hate nothing more than being behind with stuff. Puts me in a nasty mood that’s a fact. But anyway, there were the morning things, chores and laundry before I headed up to tenant and helped her get ready to walk down to the basin terrace with me. Caregiver had to be elsewhere, so we were on our own. Hah.

While doing that, my phone went. Turned out that the newspaper where I applied for a job recently wanted to see me around five, so yeah, that’s when the nervousness started. Nothing to serious, but strangely enough my mind always starts to think of worst case scenarios, which is not a good thing at all. I finally decided to just head down into the yard.

There were plants to water, and since I was down there needing distraction anyway, I spent a couple of hours trimming tomato plants, and re-hanging their branches. Very calming to do that, nothing like hot sun, green bushes and dirty hands to get you grounded, eh?

By the time I was done I headed up to the outside kitchen for supper. A veggie mix with chickpea/lentil burgers that went down excellently. Such an easy way of eating nice.

But anyway, after that I had to head on up (caregiver was home by then) to get ready to go to my surprise job interview. Ended up being half an hour late, because I got lost in the mazes of streets and the office didn’t have a big plaque out, or anything. Finally had to call (hate that) and say that I was in the street but couldn’t find them. Got there, had to fill in some forms, and then was brought to the back to talk with the woman who did the hiring.
I don’t know. I guess I’ll be surprised if this job goes through, because our talk wasn’t the most auspicious one, but I’ll just have to see. She said she would talk with her bosses, and would get back to me if I got hired, but other than that I was outta there in less than fifteen minutes. Talk about a waste of time. *sigh*

On the way home we did a few groceries, mostly hoping for the sale of thermos cans, but they were there yet, so we were back on the road again within no time.

Once home there was, of course, and edit. I mean, seriously, we’re in the middle of a full length novel edit, of course it’s isn’t done yet. And afterwards I got curious about the fight technique called Krav Maga, and ended up watching some demos of it on youtube. I’m so going to use it for a book some day, and if I can manage it, maybe even learn it myself.

I, more than anything, was pleased to be in bed on time, though. I was totally wasted. Hah. Then I almost overslept this morning because of the clock grandpa lend me, which stopped, for some peculiar reason at the 2:30 in the morning, leaving me completely reliant on my phone. Luckily, I woke to the tune of my phone alarm, making me only five minutes late for a change. Hah.
There was laundry, breakfast, yada yada yada, and then I was chatting with tenant for a bit before I got tools and headed down into the yard to start turning earth for the new potato patch.

The weather was fine, a cool south eastern wind, and the sun was shining (no more than 92 degrees) and just the right spot in the shade where the actual digging would be done. It took some time what with the root system there, and the compost pile that I had to get to the big one with three full wheelbarrows, and the rocks hiding underground, but I got it done.

By then my foot was complaining by the way. Standing at a constant slant is not the smartest thing for plantars faciitis. *sigh* I for one was happy to gather the tools and head on up and start on supper. Made pumpkin, herbal, pepper, onion and garlic mix which worked out so well that I might consider making it again some day soon.

After eating and relaxing for little over half an hour, (put up some glass pots for tomorrow’s canning) and then headed down again to water a few patches in the lower yard, along with the young eucalypti that still need that extra bit of water. That done there was some more harvesting to do (got a total of twenty tomatoes, I think) and taking the new dried herbs from the drying cupboard.

Now all that’s left is the upcoming edit, meaning that the end of the evening is rapidly coming towards me, thankfully. Heck, right now, I could do with a nap, and yet I know that there isn’t time.
Gotta go.

Goobye to a friend.

Song of the day: “Mr. Sandman” by...I’m not entirely sure. The one that goes through my mind is the one sung by that girl in “Cry Baby” with Johnny Depp.

As usual, I’m running way behind, but who’s counting...well, I am, but what the heck. Can’t change that now.

Edit-wise things are going well. The in-between project is halfway done, making it a bit of rush job since this burst of inspiration is bound to be over soon. Almost done, though, so I take comfort in that. The fun part is that I've been able to ad a whole scene...which ended up being too long for the required word count. It means that I'm going to have to scratch over five hundred words, darn it. But I might be able to hold it up until it’s completely done. The research on itself has been tremendous fun, in particular because I don’t often visit the nineteen twenties in my head.
And yes, this was a story based on a dream, so if you’re ever interested in it, you’ll have to read it some time. Hmmm. Maybe I’ll post the original version some time.

So what’s been going on these days past. On the most part yard stuff, which is great since, even though there has been a bit of rain in the mornings, the weather has been really good for it. Over the course of three days we’ve been working on the lowest section of the yard, digging through years of biological debris to find wonderfully usable humus. With the use of multiple Eucalypti tree trunks we have created a total eight small terraces that will soon be holding this year’s produce. It amazes me that with every addiction the yard appears to be getting bigger and yes, I will soon post more pictures of it.

Which reminds me, due to too much growth over the past few years, we also had to cut of several eucalypti (and alter dig out the roots. Yikes!) which we thankfully used in the project. What with the new terraces going, we’ve been gradually planting melons, pumpkins and some more peppers and tomatoes. Yesterday and the today was also used to take out our first harvest of potatoes, which had been bothered considerable by a well-known potato disease that ate their leaves. Still, despite that, the harvest was good, I think that the total (once we have it all out. Now we’re halfway through) we’ll have about three crates full.

The nicest part about it all is the teeny baby potatoes that came from the plants. Cutting them in half and baking them raw in herbs, onion and butter is absolutely delicious. We’ve already had two meals from it and another one coming. Same goes for the cabbages, which are huge. One cabbage will take us through two meals, for crying out loud.

There were some trips to town, including Grocery shopping day which was particularly harrowing because we had to visit three more stores than usual. Tenant needed some things, so there we went. *sigh* Other than that nothing really interesting happened during the most dreaded day of the month, so let’s leave it at this, eh.

Bad news of the week is that Bakti, little brother’s oldest and (I think) dearest dog died today. He was old, we got him at four months old some odd thirteen years ago, and he was the replacement of Bakti one who’d been with little brother since he was a little boy. A sad day, to say the least. Such an old and familiar companion gone. He was good dog, calm, patient and never had a single sick day in his life until just a few months ago when age caught up with him. Always hard to say goodbye to a good friend, but such is life. Right?

Okay, let’s not dwell on the bad stuff. If we did, we’d be “dwelling” every single day and not get anything done, darn it. There was (of course) laundry to do, weeds to pull and meals to be made...all in a day’s work, naturally. Along with watering the newly sowed seeds and transplanted seedlings.

This morning, seeing as we had to head out into the yard for watering anyway, we worked on the wall again. Got a good section going, in fact, and big brother has got the new stairs between them up to three steps now. Things are starting to look pretty darn good, if you must know. Tomorrow, or soon anyway, I’m going to have to start digging the foundation for what, in the near future, will be the septic tank. This means that before I can start with the digging, grandpa and I are also going to need to start hauling down concrete slabs for that particular wall, which is going to be...hmmm...interesting I hope. Hah. Whatever it is going to be, it will be good exercise, eh? Hah.
I do have to admit to feeling a bit daunted by the prospect of lifting a hundred or so of those 60 pound slabs again, but what the hey. It’ll be good for my biceps.

Am reading a particularly frustrating book at the moment. I am not liking the characters at all, and there are seriously moments that I want to rip the book apart, or throttle the lead with my bare hands. I would review it, but it would be way too mean to share that with anyone, seeing as it is just personal taste anyway.

Well, that’s about all my brain can come up with, so I’m going to leave it at this, if you don’t mind.

Not good

Song of the day: “Foundations” by Kate Nash...at least I think it is Kate Nash. Hmmm.

At the moment I am experiencing some disturbing seesaw emotions, so I don’t know what good I will do writing this blog today. I am waiting for Mosha’s test results and feeling some trepidation as to the outcome. There is a part of me wishing (quite silly) to postpone knowing, and a part of me wanting to know so this wondering will be over. And yet there is another part that just wants to get it all over with. Suffice it to say, I am not good company today. There is this constant squeezing in my chest, like a pounding ache, that makes m want to burst out in tears every other minute. It’s friggin’ pissing me off. It is not as if I am not prepared for these kinds of stuff. Sure, it is a little faster than expected, but really, it will hurt just as much now (if it is even necessary. Who knows, the test results might show that it is just an infection, or something) as it would three or four years from now.
Why would something inside me scream, not now, not yet? What’s the difference? I’m going to have to face it one of these days anyway, right? Seriously, sometimes I don’t get my emotions. They’re just little sadistic masochists that want their fix, for as far as I can see.
I mean it, if the worst thing happens, my tears won’t be for Mosha, they’d be for me, and only me. No sense in thinking otherwise.

Ooohkay, flew a little off the handle there. Sorry. Let’s get on with this.

On the most part we’ve been working in the yard these past couple of days. What with spring rapidly progressing it is really necessary. Yesterday morning, for instance, was spent in the lowest part of the yard planting more than twenty pepper plants. The cute little buggers are standing really proud in the wind (there’s been quite a bit of that, by the way). The sun was hot, but the wind made it very pleasant…even though I ended up a little sunburned.
There were little fences of reed to make, which made the whole look even cuter, of course.

Edits got done, though less than should have been done due to a shortage of time. There was dirt to get yesterday after all, and we didn’t get home until midnight. The days are definitely too short for all the things that need to be done. *sigh*

We finished laying the first foundation of the wall, for which we used the big rocks we’ve been stocking up on. So it wasn’t funny carrying them to their places, but the first layer is in along with several wheelbarrows of concrete and cement that is to hold them together. It’s looking good.

Then this morning was spent turning some more earth and laying an old-fashioned rock wall (without cement) that is really more like a little barrier to hold dirt in place, and the planting of the small chard plants from the greenhouse. So we didn’t manage to get them all it, but digging rocks from the clay was rather good for my rather turmoil state of mind, not to mention the battle with the shovel that ended up with the breaking of thick metal. Weird how that happened, in particular since it was a semi-new shovel of only a year.

There is always weeding going on, of course, along with that pesky rooty grass which just keeps turning up everywhere. Ah well, guess it’s a good thing I don’t mind weeding, eh?

Well, gotta go.

Digging it. :-D

Song of the day: “Foundations” by Kate Nash. There was another one, but I can’t remember which one it was…a good thing, because I remember going bonkers yesterday with it tumbling through my head all day.

Things have been going steadily these past few days, chores and projects alike taking up my time, and making the days past rather fast.
The weather has been downright splendid, by the way. Full sunshine (though today there were misty clouds overhead all of a sudden), not a real cloud in the sky and temperatures that shot up to eighty at the very least. I was thrilled, I assure you. What am I saying? I AM thrilled.

I mean it. It was absolutely wonderful working outside, and except for the morning, which were spent with tiling and grout work, I got my sunshine vitamins. Hah.
But let’s get to the proper sequence…or at least insofar as I can remember them correctly. The old noggin’ sure is giving up on me every now and then.

I remember having a dream where someone was giving my a big bag of money. I was just about to take it too, when the friggin’ alarm went off. Very frustrating that, but since I don’t remember anything else remotely interesting about the dream, I won’t be doing a full recount of it. More’s the pity, really. I bet it was an interesting one. I’ve been wondering all day where I was getting the money for.

Okay, what else. Beside the tiling/grout work I finished putting together the arbor, which now looks absolutely gorgeous, thank you very much. I will post pics soon. Really, it worked out better than I’d anticipated. Considering it is as of recently tenant’s favorite spot to sit, it also does also look quite inviting. I don’t know why but every time I look at it I’m seeing 16th century clothes and some damsel gliding through it. Hah.

We’re back to watering plants, and considering we now have the basin to do the bigger parts, we should be able to keep the water bill a little bit lower this year. That is the plan anyway. Finding out if it works is a whole new ball game.

There was laundry (I know, boring, but it does happen for some reason)…I gave up postponing and just the put the washing machine on the floor, rather than let the pile grow. Of course it didn’t even put a dent in the pile, but at least four batches got washed and hung. I should be able to put the machine on its pedestal tomorrow, which is when I will post a picture to show of the new tiling. It is absolutely beautiful! Still a bathhouse image, though. *sigh*

Tenant decided to go only as far as my cabin terrace today, but she enjoyed the wonderful weather just as much as we did.
Mom and the sibs spent the past couple of days on markets. Both days went well, so it was worth the effort, I would say…even though they are of course dreadfully tired.

But anyway: After mixing cement for big brother, who is working on building another seedbed in the garden pit, our friend Dani arrived, and she and I started digging under the house. What with the weather improving like this, it is time to get the foundation for the new support wall dug out, and since she insists on helping out with this particular arduous task, it went rather fast for a first day. Most of the time was spent with me babbling about the W.I. Investigations, and the ideas that have been chasing through my brain of late. It doesn’t help either that there was a good review for “The Martyr” either, because now the stories are once again chomping at the bit to get out. *sigh* But where was I? Oh yeah, digging: First we had to chop our way through the root system, then, through about a foot of dirt, followed by another half foot of rocks. Oh my gawd. It’s been way too long since I did some serious digging. My back is whining, my hands are blistered and muscles are complaining…but it feels grand. Grand, I tell ya! (Gotta convince myself yet, you understand, hah) Seriously, though. It was a good day in regard to physical activities. We were in the shade of the reed, the sun was hot, the air cool, and already my tan is coming back, so what the heck, I’m calling it a Good day no matter what.

I think we got about half of the foundation dug out, meaning that in the next few days we’re going to have to do some trips to get some serious rocks. I prefer to have big ones for the foundation, so we’re going to need at least fifteen of 150 pounds a pop, I’m guessing. It is going to be interesting to see how we’re going to get them in, though. Hah

The digging was going well, but then my stomach started to scream murder, and came crawling up to see if my throat had been cut. *sigh* So lunch was the result, after which (while digesting) I got so friggin’ tired that I ended up reading some edit pages, and then taking a catnap in the full sunshine. I was gone for fifteen minutes at the very least, but felt distinctly better by the time I got up from the chair.

The remainder of outside work was transplanting tomato seedlings into pots, and heading down to check if the spinach and beets needed water (yes!) and to see how the newly planted cauliflowers were doing (excellent). That done we went up to eat some custard that grandpa had made and then the day outside was over, much to my regret. I can’t wait for summer where we’ll be able to be outside all day again.

Edits are still going on steadily, and thought we had a few bad days where time was just too much of a hassle and getting our quota of a chapter a day impossible, but we’re back on track, I think…that is, if I don’t dawdle too much here today. Drat!

Knight II is getting impatient with his collar (he wrecked it again, and we had to repair it with metal. Idiot!) and the bandage. In fact he ripped it off twice today and lost one of his stitches in the process. Really, I could throttle him for making this harder than it should be. Aaargh. But anyway, luckily he is still letting me put on new bandages, even though I had to have a rather serious conversation with him about his behavior. Really, it shows bad manners, yanking at stitches like that. *sigh*

Well, this ought to do it, because except for the rather depressing bit of news that Touri’s condition seems to be worsening again, I don’t remember what else to say today.
I’m outta here.