I broke 2—count ’em, TWO sprayers for Round-up, but got the essential job done. Moved about 500 lbs of red lava rock, between Jane and myself. Jane got the weeds out of the intended path, set some rocks, set some more rocks.
I went back to make a pot filter to get some of the algae out before we turn on the koi pond filter. The [bad language WAS used here, enough to make Bet Yeager blush] pillow stuffing I got, which has been infallible for years, has changed. It’s in tiny fibers that immediately got sucked into the very expensive pump and stopped it. I unplugged it, disassembled the pump, reassembled the whole potfilter, fished all the loose floss out of the ice cold pond and put it all back together, and sank it in the center of the pond…with no retrieval rope. Knew I was missing something. And the pump wouldn’t work. Repeat all the above. Including language. Jane found me taking the pump apart the second time, and wisely decided it was a good time to set more rock.
I got it working again, reassembled the filter yet again and sank it, this time with a retrieval rope—the last extraction involved a weathered and crumbling 8 foot bamboo pole….and because it had a retrieval rope, of course it worked.
Then I went to Lowes to get 5 fifty pound bags of play sand (dry) [they tell me the diff is whether it’s stored inside or outside. Doh!]—and 30 terracing stones. This weighted the faithful Forester to the max. I played old and had them help me load same—lifting 2 of those bags onto the cart convinced me the help was a Good Thing. And I got it home, where Jane presented me with a dolly (I can never work those things) and asked me to put the stones in the area where we’ll use them: 4 at a time, they went with not too much trouble. She, meanwhile decided to assemble the new handcart before moving the sand—and it proved to be the Kit from Hell, in which things didn’t go together in any intuitive way. But I take it she moved it.
I came in, swept the kitchen floor, which is covered in small mud bits from our tennies—(remember how I’d begun to clean the kitchen yesterday)—and the main telly had a glitch and wouldn’t come on. I hear it running, so I assume Jane, who came in, both moved the last of the sand and got the telly working. I meanwhile need to go into the kitchen, haul out the breadmaker and make a new loaf of bread. We ate the last one.
So that’s today. And it’s 1 pm.
What a day! Hope the bread is good, though.
You and Jane remind me of the 1800’s farm wife diaries I’ve read: “Milked the cows, hoed the garden, planted tomatoes, beans, peppers, carrots; gathered eggs, cleaned the barn, churned 10 pounds of butter, carded wool, spun thread, finished three shirts, mended trousers, knit a pair of socks…”
If you haven’t already, I recommend a hot shower after all that hauling and slopping, followed by fresh bread and admiring the outdoors from a comfy chair indoors. I just finished doing some light, early spring pruning of my rose bushes, black raspberry and elderberries and exhorted the daffodils to take the plunge and join their crocus brethren in blooming (enough with the fat but unopening buds!). Then I too came in and made some bread — Irish soda bread with wholewheat flour and buttermilk that went straight into the oven, as well as kneading up a batch of coconut (flour) sourdough bread which is now rising atop the warm oven. This is the third time I’ve made the coconut bread and so I’ve just added it with accurate measurements to my cookbook, “Bread Unbound.” Now I’m off for that shower and prepping my astronomy lesson for tomorrow evening’s class.
I had a similar day (the temperatures are temporarily in the high 80s; stormy cold front will be here soon, so maybe high of 50 tomorrow). The vegetable garden is a mess of last year’s plants and new weeds, including a robust crop of bloomin’ dandelions. Two yard waste bags filled, and I pooped out – shower and sit in a dark room not sweating for a while. The perennial beds need cleaning too, but I planted some violas and alyssum instead. Ah, flowers!
Well, I wasn’t as active. Reviewed tax returns, load of laundry while making sure that the drain doesn’t back up, and more tax returns.
Don’t you just HATE it when a product you’ve used for years decides to be New and Improved w/o any input from the user? My shampoo/conditioner combo did that and I have to use up the 3 super-size bottles I bought before looking for a new brand.
Aaarrrgggh! On the pillow stuffing ‘improvement’. Hopefully I have enough left from last year to suffice. I wonder If some sort of fine mesh fabric? screening? would keep the stuffing from getting sucked into the pump. Up in the fifties today and the daffodils are *finally* blooming.
Hey, would “quilt batting” work? Generally it is fused together lightly — at least on the top and bottom side. …I’l check on my recalcitrant daffodils when I head off for work in a few minutes.
Stuff it into a dead pair of hose, or get a couple of yards of cheap tulle at the fabric store!
You and Jane make me tired, and I’m only reading about all you do! Here on the North Coast, I slept in, poked at the sorry excuse for a Sunday paper, took out a bag of trash, gave a friend a ride, sorted through a bag of clothing, drove to the outer ring suburb where my dad and one of my sisters live for a birthday dinner for two sisters, stopped and got cat litter, wet and dry kibble, and a tiny clutch of groceries. I haven’t a single clean dish in the house unless the fe-lions hid some, and didn’t get my taxes finished. A storm is coming in, with high winds, tonight and tomorrow. Monday is another day. 🙂
Tomorrow, I get to see if any of the seeds I planted last weekend have sprouted above ground. This is brand new territory for me. Tomatoes, bell peppers, green onions, an attempt to stretch both my budget and gardening skills, find a way toward meditative relaxation time, and get in the outdoors, as opposed to being out of the indoors. I, ahem, bought seed packets in reserve, in case of mishaps. Those mishaps are probably called “Hoodie Gangsta Squirrels.” That, or forgetting to water the dang plants.
:snicker: “Bread Unbound.” Followed by the bulky, “Bread Unkneaded” and the meager, “Bread Unleavened.” ;D
(But ooh, that sounds good. — My pizza dough first attempt went very well. I’ll try some more, likely bread dough, in a week or so.)
I can’t work in the yard for many reasons. After reading all the stuff that you two do . . . well, I’ve decided I would rather write anyway. (grin)
We will be in Mariposa–south of you–this summer, seeing whether it’s a good place to settle when we leave the UK. Similar issues.
Mariposa, CA? I like it. Hot and dry, but a good place with an interesting museum. Best of all: Mariposa is close to Yosemite — a place I love with an unholy passion.
If you want cold snowy winters AND hot summers, we’ve got it up here.
The coast is more moderate in both. Watch out for culture shock, however: certain districts are a bit more odd than others, when you get into the boondocks.
BCS – sometimes it takes up to two weeks for seeds to sprout. Don’t be too impatient. I usually start seeds in small containers at three day intervals so that even when I move them into outdoor pots or vegetable beds my veggies are set up to reproduce more evenly through the season than everything all at once. Hope they do well for you….
I has the aforementioned plague, so I’m resting today. Yesterday was the onset of the germs, so naturally I disassembled my car to try installing a new radiator. A friend was supposed to come by and help, but ran into family issues and only checked in 3 hours after we had scheduled to start and I had reached an impasse in part removal. The bad language seems to have drifted across the Pacific and found a home here! After due deliberation, decided the car needed more professional help than we could render, so reassembled it this morning and nursed it over to our shadetree mechanic. Laundry and washing dishes rounds out the day; after this, I’m collapsing in a nifty heap. Meanwhile, the fountain grass shooting up in clumps in the back yard tasks me, it does… Fresh bread sounds delightful. Maybe I’ll try some soda bread too.
For pond filters, one of the BEST things I’ve found to hold floaty stuff that misbehaves is a paint strainer bag designed for straining a 5 gallon bucket of paint. Ace has them in packages of two, they’re pretty tough and have a nice fine mesh that holds all sorts of evils. I’ve even used one on the end of the pond vac hose to catch that nasty hair algae without any filter media at all. Worked great!
Thanks weeble. I *think* they are what I need to replace various torn meshes.
neat ideas: I used a laundry mesh bag that can be bleached and re-used. I’m going to take a circle of pond-filter medium, the stiff stuff that’s like an air filter, and use that between the pump and the bag, and having had my brain start to work again, I am putting the stupid rock weight INTO the bag, not on top of it! Doh!