6-10-03: Downright Spunky

Tuesday, June 10 2003

9:48pm  The weather “forecasts” keep us guessing, and today I guessed I could work outside despite the thunderstorm warnings. It did shower for @ 10 minutes, while I was in the barn, other than that it was just a warm, cloudy, breezy day.

Actually, this morning I got up with the dogs @ 7am, took a shower, and read the paper in the sunroom after letting the chickens out. Then the clouds set in, so I went downstairs and took care of some email correspondence:  Dad, Ramona, [J & A], Booths.

By 11am I was outside. Planted the remaining 4 roses in the field garden for cutting flowers. Put bird netting over the front yard flower garden. Scooped horse poop. Fed carrots to Sam, Sassy (aka Cocoa Chanel) and Beanie. Continued to make organized sod piles near the west field garden.

Yesterday I weed wacked the slope to the north of the pond, and also down near the stream. My arm muscles are getting burly—in fact, I was easily able to help David get several sheets of drywall downstairs. He’s really making progress on the downstairs bathroom. The shower stall is installed, a wall mounted heater, and all wiring (I think). Sounds like the next big task will be busting up some concrete so he can dig for the sump pump.

Installing the shower stall 

More wiring

Yesterday he finished installing shelving and a work bench in the potting shed. I’m really looking forward to gathering all my potting shed in there, after it’s painted. We plan to use our sprayer to coat the inside with generic exterior white. David has made some good finds on windows for the greenhouse by checking the Home Depot/Lowe’s clearance sections. He just insists on making all my dreams come true!

Tonight David called on an ad for the fishing boat that he thought Lars might be interest in. Wanted to make sure it was still available. I’ll call Lars tomorrow at his neighbor’s house with the info.

Tomorrow morning we have an apt with the IRS. Need to depart at 8:00am.

Dad called tonight while I was in the barn, so he & David chatted. Sounds like everything is going well in Sweden.

I stopped giving Tig his meds because he’s been sick every day since we started them, sometimes twice a day. The plastic & newspaper décor in Tig’s room has totally simplified cleanup, but I feel sorry for his discomfort.

Pav has become downright spunky the last few days; we think it might be the emergency dog food. He really enjoys the great outdoors, and when it’s the least bit warm he stands in the stream or ventures part way into the pond.

Yesterday morning I baked a chocolate cake (box), and made biscuits from scratch. All turned out yummy!

10:37pm  Time to rest—another big day tomorrow!


End of Entry

6-7-03: Bit of a Spray Pattern

Saturday, June 7 2003

Just back to bed after incident with Vince. Heard yakking sounds & dog cough and I went to the dog’s room. Tessa was fine, & Pav, but when I looked for Vince under the bed I saw where he’d been suddenly sick (bit of a spray pattern on the bedskirt..). Coaxed him out, and he kept licking his muzzle and stopping himself from throwing up. Put him & Tessa outside, and Vince ate grass like mad.

David came out & watched over him while I flipped through the dog first aid book. Meanwhile Vince barfed up a load of grass & felt better, but then ate more grass & drank a lot of water. We waited, but no throw-up. So, now in bed with old blankets on & 2 tired dogs.

9:37pm  David went to the vet office this morning to pick up the meds for Tig. I didn’t have too much trouble getting him to swallow the tiny pill since I’ve had experience sticking my hand in the toothy mouth of a Doberman… 

The day started out cloudy, so I cleaned house while David went downstairs & resumed work on the bathroom. Today he installed ceiling framework, ceiling fan, wiring & outlets.

It warmed up outside by noon, so I headed out and trimmed grass around new trees before heading out to the field garden. Planted dill, sweet onions, watered everything, gathered up clumps of soil. Went in @ 6pm—didn’t really know what time it was, I was just thirsty;--and made dinner (chicken reheat, rice, veggies) and watched the Belmont Stakes. FunnyCide did not win the Triple Crown…

After dinner David went to Geyer’s in Lexington to buy some emergency dog food and I went back out to the garden to use up the last of the daylight. It felt so good to work hard & sweat in the humidity in the name of creating a food garden—I look forward to sharing the harvest with others. 

Just saw on the news that Seattle has had 3 days in a row over 90*. Yuk! The *house must be suffocatingly hot in the evening. Got a nice email from Cindy B. the other day; sounds like not much has changed there, but they did finally meet the couple that bought our house. Also Matt (aka ‘farm boy’) and his dogs finally relocated.

Vince seems to be all recovered from his ‘episode’ last night. We have the two little ones on the bed with us again tonight—just in case.

The birds have been roaring through the bird feed in record time. . . .Supposed to rain tomorrow afternoon. . . .Need to bake some goodies to have around, and some biscuits too. . . .Need to come up with a menu and a grocery list. . . .Must plant tomato plants!. . . .11:36pm, time to go to sleep so I can get up early tomorrow with the dogs, and stay up.

*house must be suffocatingly hot:  back of the house faced west, with no awnings or tree cover, and no air conditioner. Perfectly fine for 98% of Seattle weather, but bad for heat waves.

End of Entry

6-6-03: Irons in the Fire

Friday, June 6 2003

9:15pm  Beautiful day! We both got a lot accomplished. David even admitted that he has several major irons in the fire: field garden prep (tilling and furrows this morning), planning the new business, planning this summer’s trip, plumbing & building in the downstairs. I’ve probably left a few things out. I just know that he’s my Superman can-do guy, and he impresses me every day.

I must have been too busy "supervising" to take pictures
of David on the tractor creating the furrows. 

My day was mostly spent in the field garden. After “supervising” David’s furrowing (he runs that tractor like a born & bred farmer) I gathered my supplies: tools, seeds, gloves, and hit the dirt by noon. Sunny and 70’s, but I was more than ready for the heat. Planted corn, sunflowers, peas, tomatoes, indian corn, beans, pumpkins (jumbo & jack o lantern), watermelon, cukes, yellow squash, cantaloupe, and Yukon Gold potatoes.

Long view of the West field garden

Me, complicating my life with some sort of
complex plant-a-potato-in-a-cup method.
Lesson learned:  Just stick it in the dirt!

Also set aside rows to transplant in daffodils (from the front yard) and seed new flowers for cutting purposes. The process was slowed by my inexperience and the need to rake out the grass clumps, but even so it was all in by 7:30pm.

The only thing I didn’t get in was the dill, but that’s ok since I don’t want the forecast rain to wash the tiny seeds away. Possible showers tonight, and showers plus thunderstorms tomorrow—the main reason I worked so late on planting. No sense watering by hand if Mother Nature’s willing to do it!

I’m in bed watching my Wed-Thurs *soaps on video while today’s show tapes in the kitchen. David’s watching his Friday *STNG shows downstairs. The window is open, but it’s so quiet outside I forget until I hear a car or rush of wind. I wonder if it’s raining yet. The air smells so fresh.

Thought I had more to put on paper... Oh right—David had a chat w/neighbor [D] today. Sassy update: Not producing milk, so not ready to birth yet. Land offer: wants to sell pasture to our east, and offered to ‘throw’ Sam in on the deal—3+ acres and a horse for @ $15,000…David told him yes—when we have the money.

*soaps: General Hospital, One Life To Live

*STNG: Star Trek: Next Generation

End of Entry

6-5-03: That's Billion with a "B"

Thursday, June 5 2003

10:49pm  As promised, the weather was so-so. Pretty gloomy all morning, and David decided early to work downstairs on the plumbing.

I got up @ 9:30 and just puttered around—wait, no, not just puttered. Some puttering but the big task was cleaning up one last Tig mess, then covering the entire floor of his room with plastic. I then called the vet hosp. and asked them to review his recent blood/stool/urine workup.

A tech called back later & left a message that the tests seemed right but that we could pick up some medicine to decrease his vomiting & loose stool. Poor kitter, I hope this will help him feel better. It’s hard to know he’s in such discomfort and be able to do so little. The plastic on the floor is for my benefit, but Tig doesn’t seem to mind.

pixabay.com/LoggaWiggler

David helped me switch mental gears and get outside. By noon it was in the low 60’s with cloudy skies, decent weather for working with plants. While David worked downstairs and later went to the hardware store, I labored on the front flower bed. Finally wrapped up after 7pm!
Put in the last of the 50 plants, moved a shrub, transplanted 3 more shrubs from the holding area, and first and foremost dug up the 6 billion daffodils. They’ll be the first entrants in the cut flower garden area to be set aside in the field garden. The field garden is on my hit list for tomorrow.

Besides buying plumbing stuff at the store, David also bought fixtures for the downstairs bathroom: sink & toilet & lighting. Very basic stuff. Also some drywall. He’ll have that room done in no time!

Tessa & Vince played hard this afternoon with the rubber pull toy. They were outside as long as I was, and they’re both exhausted & sleeping on the bed next to us. It’s 11:24 now, and the Channel 10 News is on as has become our habit. David is reading his ‘Discover’ magazine. Weather guy says mid 70’s and sunny tomorrow.

End of Entry

6-4-03: Restless Natives

Wednesday, June 4 2003

June is here but someone forgot to turn on the sun. The Ohio natives are restless with the temperatures being 20 degrees below normal, and various pressure systems keeping it gray & damp. Not every day—on Monday it was quite warm, and the high winds of Sat/Sun were gone.

The last installment of our mail order plants (not counting the “corrections” we’re waiting for) came on Saturday, but since Sunday was crummy weather, nothing doing until Monday. Then, David went all out on creating the front flower bed. We’d already established the outline in the grass, so he used our patented (not) method for sod removal, then tilled in some manure.

After hours of his labor it was my turn. I had researched each of the 10 plant varieties received, to determine height, planting width, etc., and sketched out a site plan. First had to do hard labor digging up the area behind the septic tank cover that was too narrow for David to till. Pretty icky clay soil, so I added humus from the compost bin. I’m a little worried now because I just remembered that I didn’t add compost to the other planting areas—must’ve got too excited about getting the plants in the ground. I’ll have to ponder this and decide if to dig them up and redo with a compost injection. After yesterday’s rains, today would be a good time to gauge the soil drainage.

I’m still laying in bed here at 10:30am because it’s still gray and damp outside. I did the dog thing at 7am then back to bed. Pav & Vince are napping on the bed next to me (Vince is snoring) and David’s reading the newspaper in the living room. Tessa is making her rounds outside, and Tig is being quiet in his room.

His intermittent sickness has continued, sometimes going several days between. Now he’s added the occasional poo-poo accident to the throwup. My cleaning tricks are up to the challenge, but it’s no fun. I feel sorry for Tig—he’s so skinny no matter how much food we give him—but the tests at the vet all said nothing was medically wrong with him. I think I’ll call the vet to have a brief chat.

The veggie garden is looking good, especially since the major weeding I did recently.

Carrots

Lettuce

Potatoes

Yesterday we ran errands during the gray weather (I had my blue winter coat on) and it took 3 stops to find a place with seeds for sale. Apparently the seed companies do ‘buy-backs’ from retailers, but it’s too early for Ohio! We were just looking for pumpkin seeds for the field garden (got corn seed at Tractor Supply) but found a fantastic place—Sandy Hill something or other—that has a huge supply of seeds. Packet and bulk, which is very convenient for a wacky gardener/farmer like me. Ended up with 2 kinds of pumpkin seeds, bush beans, Vidalia sweet onion sets, fresh strawberries, and some Yukon Gold potato starters. Earlier at Tractor Supply, bought corn seed, broccoli, squash & pea seed.

10:46pm  Had another Haiku idea yesterday, I’ll try and remember it.

One Journal Entry

So Many Moments In Time

Too Much Forgotten

Today we moved the little red shed from the back yard to the front next to the greenhouse site. David used the tractor to drag it, and the lawn barely had a mark on it! It will make a nice potting shed, and we put cement blocks under it to clear headroom under the slanted roof. Also today David replaced the water spigot in the barn, as the old one sprayed you every time you turned it off.

*See description below

*See description below

*Description of water pipe project by David:  The water spigot in the barn was leaking and needed to be replaced. All water pipes around here are buried at least 3 feet to prevent freezing in the winter. First I had to get through the fine gravel and base gravel that made up the floor of the barn, and then the clay soil, which was quite wet from the leakage and was very heavy to shovel by hand. Laying on my belly on the wet ground, I had to reach in and disconnect a black plastic 1” pipe from the base of the spigot and install the new one. There was also no water shutoff valve in the barn. The main well pump had to be shut off and the water bled off in the house to get rid of the pressure in the pipe.
Lesson learned from this house: don’t build things the easy way just to save a few bucks. Think about how future repairs are going to be done if you didn’t do it right the first time. And keep a map of things underground. Turns out the water line from the barn, which was fed from the well pump and pressure tank in the basement of the house, also ran across the field next door to the barn two lots down (previously owned by the person who built the house to supply water to that barn).  Thank goodness when they built a house next door they didn’t accidentally dig up our water pipe. Bad enough when the goats in the neighbor’s barn accidentally turned on the water spigot and we lost all of our water pressure and the pump ran dry.

Despite the weather, I ran Vince & Tessa on agility; Tessa did a new course all with silent commands! Weather forecasts are so-so for tomorrow, but I really do need to resume planting.

Random 6/4/03 photos

Flowers from around the yard (in a vase I won playing darts!)

End of Entry