Wednesday, September 16, 2020

The reverse domino effect

 Today I thought since the nights are rapidly getting cooler, I'd better bring in the ficus.

This is where the dominos start falling backwards. In order to bring in the ficus, I'd need to move the planter boxes out of the way, since they were bang between the tree and the patio door. 

Which was fine, since I had in mind to wrestle them upstairs anyway, at some point, to stage and organize the random crowd of  plants in the second bedroom/gym/music studio/art supply area. So I could bring them in first.

Before I could do that, though, I had to reorganize that room so as to get the boxes in there at all.

This entailed moving a bunch of heavy plants, and a table with the ancient TV which has a working VCR player, plus the other plugins that enable DVDs to play.

There was a slight contretemps with a plant which flooded on my feet a bit. It had had its day anyway, so it's now gracing the patio.

Then I could finally bring up the bodies. After dislodging some irritated crickets which had just moved in to their nice winter cedar home.

And it was quite a comedy of errors bringing them in, very long, don't bend, and needing to navigate several tight right turns,  then up a flight, another one-eighty, then along the hallway, a ninety, then across to the window. Twice, once for each box. I did a few K turns and some unplanned dance steps in the process.

Then to stack and organize the two boxes to avoid blocking heat registers and be fairly stable. Then to lift same plants, now much heavier somehow, untangle the cables for tv and DVD.

Then to put back the furniture, move the table the tv used to sit on, bring a couple of now superfluous stools downstairs and out to the dumpster. 

Then take pix.




You can see the length of the boxes. Too long for a single frame.

Tomorrow is the day to move the ficus indoors. And sweep the deck.

 But first I have to repot the giant dracaena or something, that needs surgery and a new location. This has to happen to give the ficus a handy wallhook, to stabilize it.

 The hook has been holding up the dracaena if that's what it is, and she's grown way too tall, needs overhauling, which will free up the hook..

Are you seeing a pattern here? Every decision reveals three more requirements which have to be fulfilled before you can start.

I've decided to stop thinking about this before I realize I have to renovate the whole place, like my neighbor. I think he started about ten years ago with a simple job, and now look at it. Every room under siege.

I'm glad on days like this that I've kept up my weight training. But I did take a walk later anyway, to unkink a bit.

There's also the point that if I hadn't kept up the weights, I'd never dream of trying these shenanigans. And if you're thinking that, I'm not really disagreeing.

7 comments:

  1. Took the place of a HASfit workout, I'd wager! Glad the weight training has paid off.

    Cheers,
    Chris from Boise

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    1. I really think it has. These boxes, aside from being almost room width, weigh about 25lbs each. Carrying them uphill, too. But nothing hurts, a big point.

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  2. You've got a classic case of the "but-firsts" going on. You can move in the ficus "but first" you have to do about twenty other things, all of which require but-firsts themselves.
    Yes. This sort of thing can lead to vast numbers of unplanned projects.

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  3. That's a lot of planning and moving things.

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  4. Moving plants inside for cooler temps is always SOOOOOOO much fun. At least you're getting it done now rather than one rainy evening with a freeze expected (like I've done too many times).

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    Replies
    1. I've learned not to wait till after rain to move the ficus. Waterlogged it's even more fun.

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  5. In our household this is called the 'galloping ick'. One job leads to another which leads to another and, funny thing, often the first job never does get done!

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