Bricks

Terry would rather throw bricks down from a high place and bitld would rather not lower a 5 gallon bucket down from a height.  I think tossing them onto the tarp and then loading them into a wheelbarrow and taking them into the woods will be enough fun for me in any two hour stretch.  The house side of the bricks is pretty much closed in, so we could take down the outside without opening the house until the very end.

G is having some difficulty breathing with exertion (heavy lifting) so we may not be able to do this ourselves.  His lung problems will define what we can and can't do ourselves.  I also don't want him breathing in brick dust.  It's just that doing myself is essentially FREE and having people come in is about $8000.  Yes, you read that right.  Free versus $8000.  And best of all, no one actually wants to do the work, even for $8000.  I think the last guy mentioned four guys at 8 hours and $80 an hour.

Now It's Thursday

My days are whooshing past at the speed of a bullet these days.  I was actually awake at 5 am this morning and driving to work at 7:05.  Who am I?  Where is the Joanne that sleeps until 9 and never gets dressed?  Gone until January.

I am browning up nicely.  Using sunscreen.  And now having to stop using any products with a floral scent as the mosquitos are already busy biting me.  I was outside on the front porch for 2 or 3 minutes, looking at my garden bed, and was bitten by an especially rabid mosquito. I don't even want to talk about the ticks.

The Tomato Seedling count is now up to 36.  Early Girl, Sun Gold Cherries and, finally, a 12 pack of Arkansas Traveler.  I just HAD to have the Travelers as I really loved them last year.  Rose colored and very tasty.  I can always bring the extras to work for a "freebie".  G is not amused.  He thinks the assemblage of stray plants on the sunroom floor and the shelf is getting to be "too much".  I agree.  But if the Arkansas Traveler had been available earlier, I would not have bought the Early Girls.

I tell customers, who are on the fence, that one single tomato seedling is $2 and 12 seedlings are $5.  Buy the 12 pack flat and just compost the ones you don't use.  I tell them but find it hard to follow my own advice.  The poor little tomatoes.

Ironing.  I have been doing a lot of ironing since I was 13 or 14.  My mother used it as punishment.  Sending me to the cool, damp basement on summer afternoons (and weekend mornings) to iron everything the family wore.  Tee shirts, jeans etc.  And all the pillowcases and sheets.  I loved it down there.  All alone with a radio to listen to "rock and roll".  No pesky brothers.  No bitchy mother.  Peace and quiet and a growing pile of ironed clothes and a long row of shirts.  Accomplishments.  I still find it meditative and very peaceful.  And I still love looking at the long row of ironed shirts, the pile of pillowcases.  I did stop ironing teeshirts when my high school aged teens begged me to STOP.  I was embarrassing them.  No one else had sleeve creases in their tees.  I still ironed the jeans.  My German friends ironed their "tea towels" which they used to dry dishes.  I loved that. I love the Zen of ironing.

I did some investigating and I was correct in thinking that taking down a rotten chimney is pretty easy.  A scaffold to work from, an air chisel to break the mortar and a 5 gallon bucket to fill with bricks and then lower to the ground (I had thought to throw the bricks into a tarp on the ground).  Most of the comments said it took from 7 hours to 2 weeks to take the whole thing down and cleanup (working 2 hours a day for the 2 weeks).  Then I would need to have "people" ready to close up the hole in the side of my house until we were ready to insert the new French doors.  My window and door guys are also the roof guys (and the siding and paint guys).  So they could tidy up the roof, lay a new cement foundation for the French doors and add trim on the inside and outside.  I will also be having the house painted.  I'm not sure it will be this year.

I could do the whole chimney myself if I wasn't afraid of heights.  The YouTube videos look pretty simple. I wish I was more of a Handi Andy type girl.

Well, The Week Is Finally Over

It's been hot the last few days.  Nice.  But my skin feels dry and sort of crispy.  Yes, I used sunscreen. Lunch has been delayed till one or two o'clock and by then I feel drained and exhausted.  While I enjoy the breakfast ease of a microwaved bowl of oatmeal with a heaping spoon of ground flax; the bowl isn't doing the "stay full till two" job as well as the eggs.

Yesterday I worked in the garden all day.  So, four straight days at work, then a full day in my own garden (weeding, digging, planting), and then a full day at work.  I am exhausted. tomorrow, I have shirts to iron, the dog to walk and more garden work.  I really do want my peas to be planted.  I even bought plants for a hanging basket for my own porch.  Purple ivy geraniums.  Yummy.

Because we have gone out to dinner two nights in a row, I am cooking dinner tonight.  Well, I am cooking meat.  I have no idea what the starch or vegetable will be.  I seem to only have meat in the freezer.  Oh, honestly, I have pork, rhubarb, some ground beef, coffee beans and a bunch of bagels. Not the basis of a good household.  I am sure there is a delightful recipe on the internet for pork with rhubarb sauce but I live with a guy who wouldn't eat it.

The pork I am making will be Carnitas some time tonight.  Simmered in water and then crisped in it's own fat after all the water has evaporated.  I have a few tortillas, some red onion and thin sliced cabbage.  It sounds okay to me.

Already Wednesday

Time is speeding up as the season rushes toward the first day of summer.  And the longest day.  After that we slide ever so slowly to the dark days of winter.   But we are weeks away from that.

 I am applying sunscreen to my ears everyday at work. We haven't gotten the white paint sprayed on the greenhouse glass roof yet and the sun is magnified and burns the tops of my ears.  The herbs have finally gone outside.  To a new and more interesting place.  I should take pictures of this new area.  And my quart size perennials are out there as well.   Customers are clambering for squashes, cucumbers nasturtiums and single cell tomato plants.  This is the subject of the majority of phone calls.  I suggest seeds to most as it will go as quickly as a potted plant at this time of year.  I, personally, hauled 40# bags of cow manure home from work with me yesterday.  I actually pushed four of them up the muddy hill to the parking lot (two at a time on a cart) getting a good aerobic workout before the guys saw me and jumped to help carry the bags the last few yards to the car.  I got stuck in the mud a few times with the tractor behind me, waiting for me to get out of the way.  Talk about stressful!!!

We got rain.  And the grub treatment has been successfully "watered" into the grass out back.  We are also weeks away from the struggle with the Japanese beetles.  Oh, how I hate those insects. I hope this treatment kills all the slumbering beetles before they can emerge and eat my roses.

I still have not tried my VitaMixer.  Not made even one smoothie or even one batch of ice cream.  I do have a tub of rhubarb sauce in the fridge which I am enjoying with whipped cream.  I may freeze some of it into cubes and use that to make a strawberry rhubarb ice cream.  Or just eat it as is.  I find I am more successful avoiding things when I don't try to make a low carb substitute.

This morning's eggs were a play on the Japanese style pancake recipe I copied off the internet.  Okinomiyaki.   I fried sausage and bacon with some red onion and then added a big handful of shredded cabbage and some soy sauce.  Then the eggs.   It was okay.  Not something I will make again.  I liked yesterday's eggs with leftover asparagus much better.  The taste of the asparagus overpowered the egg.  I just do not like eggs.  But, I finished all the cereal and will not buy anymore. So, it's eggs or nothing for breakfast.

Dinner last night (at 8 pm) was julienned zucchini "pasta" with leftover (from freezer) meatballs and marinara sauce.  Very, very welcome.  A lovely dinner.  We watched the finale of NCIS for this season and it made me very sad.  Then I tried reading my book but my eyes were too sleepy.  These long days at work are wearing me out, but I enjoy all the gardening questions I get during the day.  We have another new employee with a horticulture degree.  And I finally signed the contract for a lecture I was asked to give to a local gardening club next February.  I begged off sending a bio and description of the lecture.  I just don't have time to do it right now.

I am up to date on the laundry, dog walking etc.  But need to stop for a few groceries after work tonight which means getting home even later than 8 pm.  Right now, I need to pack my bag (lunch , dog supplies, drinks, extra clothing) and hop on out the door to work, dropping Riley off at day care on the way.  But, first I need to find my shoes.