The aftermath

Song of the day: “Bruises” by Train and Ashley Monroe. Cute little song, but I’ve been listening to it a bit too much because I even woke up with it this morning.

So what’s been going on? Not a whole bloody lot, really. Most of all, yesterday was rather tedious for everyone involved. Part of it was because I wasn’t worth a damn after that thirteen hour workday. I was tired, sore and out of sorts, in particular since, in order to sleep I had to take a painkiller because my every muscle was screaming, and refused to relax. Very annoying. But anyway, I did in the end fall asleep, which was what I really needed. Wasn’t at my best after waking up, but did slowly go through the morning rituals such as laundry and feeding the dogs, and getting into the day.

There was the car to unload (had an appointment later on to pick up a donation), which was a friggin’ mess after three days of hard labor. There were tools to gather from the mess, metal debris, paper cement bags, and all those little things that filled up the whole of the back. While I did the remainder of the Land Rover, big brother took care of the trailer so little brother could come up and reload for their market on Sunday, and protect everything against the predicted rain.

My doggies were very “sticky”, which is something that often happens when I need to be out a lot. They’ll follow me around everywhere, sticking their heads under my hands, and basically trying to trip me so I’ll be on the ground where they can hold me down. *snort*

Okay, my memory is failing me, so I’m just going to mention whatever pops up in my mind, and you’ll just have to figure it all out yourself. Hah. Right…okay, yesterday we did some wood chopping and bringing it up. Regretfully I only managed one three foot trunk, seriously, my feet refused to climb the mountain all the way, and I had to drop the darn thing at the top of the garden steps.
Luckily today went a lot better. Managed to chop about half a load of the pieces of trunks that big brother sawed off. Was a nice exercise, oiled the muscles, allowed me to get rid of the lingering stiffness, which was good, because stiff I was.

What else? Well, there was the donation thing. Got about a thousand pounds of canned beets. Big cans, mind you, that were about a year overdue, which isn’t a big problem considering they were on a sour base. It took some time to load them, especially considering we were both sore as heck. Hah.

Put the last touches (blue slats) on Sally’s roof. We’d been postponing it and since the weather is rapidly turning bad again. There is a prediction of rain for the weekend thank you very much, meaning that it is unlikely that we’re going to be heading for the Sunday market. Not that I mind all that much. A quiet weekend, which we can use to prepare for Tuesday with the balcony, at home.

Knight II’s foot is looking good. Regretfully he still has a small wound on the top of his heel that needs to heal before his sock can come off. The bastard has been making a nuisance of himself, if you must know. He’s gone through four socks already, chewing through the fabric, darn it.

Gada…well, she’s not doing well. I took her to the vet the other day to discuss her options, and promptly ended up crying. So stupid. Must have been the tiredness, because I know better than most that sometimes the end is just there. Still, it startled the vet, I think, who immediately said that there were other options to try. One of them being a change in her pain medication to see how she would respond to that. She asked if I thought Gada was unhappy, or in a lot of pain, and I answered yes to the latter, while to the first I had to be honest and say that I had no idea. She’s a Labrador, after all, and to a lab life is grand as long as the boss is there to play with. Regretfully Gada is the type of dog who would gladly walk on a broken leg if that meant that she could do her cheery job as a Labrador. Poor darling. I have noticed she’s in pain, though. More often than not she’s sagging through her hind legs, and at night I will sometimes find her awake, breathing heavy despite the fact that the nights are cool. Ah well, right now I’m in the possession of new pain medication that will last her for about ten days. We’ll see how it goes, but so far I’m not particularly pleased with her progress.
Now let’s hope that the next time I need to take her to the vet I can keep from blubbering all over the place. Because that won’t help anyone, and even worry Gada, which is not something she deserves.
I should look at it the way the vet does. Sometimes the body is just at its end, and Gada’s hips are there.

There was more unloading of the car, of course. All those cans that had to be stored
Supper had to be cooked. Thought big brother took care of one of those by making spinach which potatoes, I made a veggie mix on spaghetti which went down well…or would have, if I had been remotely hungry.

Some concerns are going on at the moment what with the strikes in the big cities. Though the small villages aren’t really bothered, the unrest is affecting everyone, scaring folks quite a bit. Me too, admittedly. I mean, seriously, what use do the strikes have when there IS NO MONEY? I mean, you can stamp your foot all you like, but that won’t make the wallet full (and no, getting that money from the rich won’t help at all. Either everyone gets a buck this month, or one more pay, and then what? Idiots!). Heck, even the Twinkie company went down because of silliness like this. What do folks think: someone waves a magic wand? Mommy and daddy will take care of it? What? Scary how so many folks can be so shortsighted. I do hope that stuff won’t get as bad as a few years ago where we were without dog food due to such strikes. I mean, seriously, I can do without a meal or two, but the doggies can’t.

Did some more leather branding this morning. Not much, just trying out some shapes, seeing what works.
Dog food had to be done, of course. Which meant cutting the lot while big brother took care of our supper tonight. Yay.
Decided to take this writing session of the blog as an excuse to re-watch Resident Evil (the first one) which is still a splendid movie. *sigh*

Well, that’s about it for me. Did manage to sweep the floor in my cabin this morning, but the place is still a mess, darn it. I really have to eke out some time for that. Same goes for the writing. Though I have added some pages, it is going extremely slow at the moment, darn it.

Wood experiments

Song of the day: “Crazy” by Patsy Cline. This was really a conscious choice on my part because I had nursery rhymes such as Old McDonald had a farm in my head, for crying out loud. Talk about torture…was I talking about torture? I think not. Alright then, never mind. That’s weird thing to say, isn’t it? Forget I said anything.

First off, due to the rain, Sunday Market was cancelled. Yay and darn it, right? On the one hand it was nice to have a day off, on the other it is a pain in the behind because of the guy who paid the deposit could have shown up. Ah well, let’s just hope he’ll turn up the next time, eh. Third important point is that mom and the younger sibs sold more than nine dog beds, meaning there will be lots of work to do to replace them. Had them all understandably stressed out.

There was the trip to the vet. Not our usual one, since she was sick, but her replacement. Though he is nice enough, he’s not as experienced in applying bandages and such. I was there with two dogs, Knight II and Chaos, who has somehow managed to get his ear damaged the other day, leaving a small peace to dangle. Knight II behaved like a charm, and nicely waited his turn while Chaos braved the treatment (cutting the piece off without sedation,yikes) without a snarl of whimper. Good Chaos. He was a true gentleman, and more than happy to get the heck outta there as soon as we were done. Hah.

Might have an option of a little job through the assistant of the vet. She and her hubby are leaving for Madrid, so they are going to try to rent out their home. If they need someone to fix anything, they are going to give us a ring. We’ll see.
While I was there, waiting for my turn, I was chatting with a nice English lady who spends her time looking for homes for dogs she rescues, and ended up telling her about our pack. While she was repeating the number, the lady behind her (who’d just adopted one of her rescues) gasped. I assured them that the number was quite correct, and when she asked how we afforded to do such things, I pointed out the dog beds and that my mom and sisters make them to make some extra money. The lady with the new adoptee promptly walked to the basket, eyeballed the four samples, grabbed the most expensive one and said, “I’ll take this one.” Hah. Good way of doing business. That was about a twentieth of our present vet bill. *phew* Luckily the vet doesn’t make much of a problem of us sometimes paying it in parts.
*sigh*

Apparently this morning, a woman, who was going to leave for Morocco tomorrow, came out of the exam room with her dog, only to have the dog walk directly to the pile of beds and settle in one of them. She took one look at him in there and said she would just have to buy it. (Nice doggie) It had made the vet assistant laugh. If Knight’s progress stays the way it is, we’re going to try to go without bandage by the end of the week, and only have him wear the sock. Yay.

The beams for Liane. Cut the decorative shapes out. We sanded the lot of them yesterday. By hand, thank you very much. Started out with the machine, but I didn’t like the effect so opted to do it the old-fashioned way, which worked a lot better. Smooth as a baby’s bum (eeewwww) as they say, and ready for treatment with the varnish and anti-parasite stuff. Went with the color of mahogany, which is good, because they look friggin’ beautiful. Got the first layer done today, and should be able to to start with the second tomorrow, if weather permits it. Liane herself came to visit for a bit this afternoon and approved of the color (a relief, that) so I continued right on and managed to get the whole lot of them done right before the rain started. Yay.
Did some leather branding again, yellow leather this time, and am starting on my latest experiment of working on wood sculpturing. The way I figure I’ll be spending a lot of time working in the carport during this weather, so I might as well have some fun. I’m going for art, mind you, and I will show you the before and after shots the moment I feel like it.

Also worked on my hardwood Chinese boxes and glued together the small slats that will make up the lid in the near future. They’re starting to look gorgeous and I think that you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the end result. Yes, I’ll take before and after shots of that too.

Got lost a little in Wikipedia again. *sigh* A dangerous place, that. Went to check out chestnuts, only to end up reading about the history of the tree, which cost me some valuable time. Fascinating, eh, history, nature. I had no idea that they could be that old, by the way.
Now, I hear you wonder: Why the heck is she looking at chestnuts?
We had a donation again on Saturday and it held a batch of chestnuts. Personally I only know them roasted and fresh, but apparently you can also fry them (they were a staple food in Europe before the arrival of the potato) which tells you what today’s meal was, eh? Hah.

Writing. Well, considering I am so very sleepy in the evenings, I have decided to give up the battle and have been going to bed early for the last two or three days, so I can get up a little earlier and try to do my writing then. Am not sure how it is going to work in the future, but what have been single pages for the past week, or so, were three per morning instead. Not bad. Now, if only I could catch up a little. Am past fifty pages now, and it feels not at all like a romance novel so at least that is going well.

Had to go to town for a few groceries, which I didn’t like at all. Why do groceries disappear, huh? Why can’t the shelves just stay full? It is vastly annoying, I tell ya.

There was laundry, there was feeding the dogs, cutting the veggies, picking up veggies, cooking supper, carrot in mashed potato the day before yesterday, and spaghetti through veggies yesterday. Today we settled for fried pumpkin, fried chestnuts, some nuggets and some fries. Went down well enough.

As to the rest…I don’t have a clue what I’ve forgotten, of course. I bet there is plenty, but it’s the end of the day and I’m more than ready to call the end of it.

Knight's improving

Song of the day: “New York” by Alicia Keys. I never thought I would like a song by Alicia Keys, but there you have it. The one and only that sticks in my head without me hating it. Good song.

What to say, what to tell. Nothing major going on, except for the fact that Knight II had some of the tiny plastic tubes with several stitches removed today because he was looking so much better. He didn’t give a peep and when through the ordeal with stoic bravery. The darling. He’s starting to get really popular at the vet’s place, I think. Both the vet and her assistant are starting to use baby talk on him. Which reminds me. The vet assistant is going to leave for Madrid to join her family there, which is a pity, seeing as she is very pleasant to have working with our dogs. Ah well, times change, and so does everyone, I guess.
Be that as it may, I won’t have to go to the vet tomorrow for a bandage change. Yay! In particular since (unless it pours) we’re going to work at Liane’s tomorrow, starting on that balcony. I made some drawings, allowing us to visualize it a little.
We have the sand loaded, bricks, cement and tools, so we should be all set tomorrow. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one.

Had a rather weird dream yesterday. Got my knickers in a twist when I woke up out of breath. Seriously. In the dream I was at the market. It was a beautiful day; the sun was shining the temps were wonderful and the tent-like flaps overhead provided comfortable shade. I was walking toward our stand I saw a guys stand with Knight II. It looked like he wanted to pet him, but then he started going after the dog with a knife. I jumped into the fray before he could hurt Knight, got the knife from his hands, only to have him pull a big bread knife the tried to slash into Knight’s flank. Jeez. He just kept going and going, and I ended up grabbing his wrist and twisting it behind his back to keep him in place. I was just shouting for the cops when I woke up, like said, out of breath. *sigh* I hate dreams that vivid.

Yesterday’s trip to the vet was a near disasters. Julia, Cousin Ed’s dog, had a dislocated tooth, and she had to go along. She and Knight II don’t see eye to eye, so in order to drive together I had to put a barrier in the back of the Land Rover and put Knight there, so Ed could sit with Julia in the front seat. Luckily grandpa was along as well, since he kept the fence thing in Knight’s face whenever he tried to climb to the front.

It rained all day (yesterday), meaning that there wasn’t a whole lot we could do outside. Instead we stayed in the carport, Cousin Ed, Sally and I, working with beads. Made a whole load of necklaces for the market, just to see if there’s any interest for it.

There was supper to cook, of course. I had planned to do leftovers, but since there weren’t enough of those, I ended up making noodles and stir fry veggies the Asian way. Today we had fresh Pumpkin soup, which worked out really, really well. I love it how the butternut pumpkin tastes so very creamy.

Writing-wise things are still going slow, but steadily on. Passed the 40 page mark, and the characters are still going strong. The biggest problem at the moment is that my body seems to think that writing times means napping, because the moment I sit down, my eyes start to droop, darn it. This afternoon, while I was trying to add a couple of pages, I ended up giving up and heading for my cabin for a quick nap instead. I’m going to need my strength tomorrow after all.

Compared to the incredibly nippy day, (northern winds) crawling under the blankets for an hour was absolutely divine. The fact that we spent the majority of the afternoon up at the old horse paddock , chopping and sawing wood, didn’t help much in regard to me feeling cold. Seriously, the moment I stopped chopping wood the cold hit me in the face like a left hook. Jeez. The temps were in the low fifties, for crying out loud.
Did get a nice load of wood done, (almond wood is a biatch, by the way. Hard and twisted.) which means that for the moment we’re still set or winter weather…which if the depressing hints at a cold winter are definitely implying we’ll need a good stock.

Tenant is still spending loads of time with mom, which has her ecstatic. She does love sitting with mom. Makes her feel less self-conscious, I think.
Well that’s all for the update of the day. I’m beat, and need to get up early tomorrow morning. Gotta go.

Pic update

Song of the day: ....well the difficult word from Mary Poppins, thanks to Archer. Grrr.

Okay, I could describe how we took Sally to the hospital for radiotherapy, but since it was blessedly uneventful and I managed to find the perfect parking spot (ya gotta celebrate the small stuff, ya know?) we're going to do the long promised Pic update.

Hold onto your seat. There we go, first stage of building "the cabin". The foundation so it won't be in the mud. More work than it looks because it all has to be leveled.


Going nicely, I guess. Got up this high first day we got cabin delivered. Those windows are not part of the original. They are officially from my cabin from when I replaced the windows and doors for terrace doors in the back.


Awww, the Chaos. He found the foldout bed, the lazy gorgeous.


See, they look like they belong there. The slats will come out, though. Sally likes a lot of unhindered views.


Full height prior to the pointy part. Spanish wood is definitely not as good as that from Finland. We just didn't have time for that this time 'round.


Beams on. We didn't like leaving the walls without them during the night. Just in case the wind picked up.


First floor. Just cheap wood, mind you, since parquet would cover it anyway.


Doors are in. I will replace those with real terrace doors when I've got the time.


Putting the roof on. You remember, right, me wrecking my feet on the ladder. *sigh*


First time "Inside".


The opening to the small bathroom, and the floor already in. Isn't it gorgeous?


A small thing inbetween: working on the bed. I loved the design, but it took some figuring to get it up to the specifications necessary for Sally.


Adding the bathroom.


Bathroom finished. It's somewhat bigger than my own, since she'll need help at some point.


Furniture in, bed made up. She loves it.


Again, but from a different angle.


All set, and cute with colors and everything. Yay!


The back, where the big fridge will be, along with tenant's and grandpa's washing machine. The three of them will share.


And last one, from the side, with Sitabah at the bottom. She refused to move out of the shot. *sigh*


Well, that's it. I'll see if I can bring y'all up to date properly on Friday, but you just might need to resign in the fact that you might never know all the titillating things that happened the past two days. *snort*
I'm out

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.

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.