The Worker, and Player

Today I definitely worked, despite a tired back -- knitting irritates the sciatic area -- anyway I stripped and made my bed. Then laundered and put away the bed clothes. 

Then  I carried a heavy plant downstairs and hung it outside. Carrying it on the stairs was a slow careful descent. This left a trail of dead foliage across the guest room, along the hallway, down the stairs and across the living room and deck.  This entailed laborious sweeping since I can't wrangle the vacuum cleaner from floor to floor. 

I attended the May Day rally online, great speakers, and keep-going encouragement. 

And I took the best walk, including a visit with a gardening neighbor and Dobby the dog who didn't bark at me, I'm her friend now. We chatted about medicinal herbs, and I admired her rue and sage and lavender. She lost a lot of plants over the bitter winter weather. 

On to the pond, stopping only to pick up and fling golf balls back onto the course. 

There were squadrons of turtles sunbathing by the water, squint, you'll see them. A solitary drake took off as I arrived.  Flying ducks look like windup toys, jerky flight.

So good to literally be able to get here with an easy walk.

Happy day everyone, walk if you can, it's good, also interesting, to get your exercise outside instead of in a gym. 

Home again and the mailman had been 

My shuttle has arrived and been introduced to her loom. Tomorrow I'll tighten the warp threads then start my new bandweaving. I have a cool pattern to work.

And I put the gold collection on Freecycle in the interests of winnowing the surfaces in the living room.

If anyone in the US would like these, email me with your snail mail address. 

Frogs, nuts and Misfits

This morning's pond walk yielded one tiny turtle swimming towards me, little head above water, body maybe four inches long and round, until he got close to the shore. Then he saw me and did a quick u-turn. He may be young but he's smart. No pictures, he wants his privacy.

And there's a frog sitting on the side, behind a screen of nuts. Those nuts will all fall to squirrels. Humans don't stand a chance.

Misfits was welcome today, definitely low in supplies.

Canned food for the food pantry, from their list, beautiful brown eggs, the kind with golden yolks which stand up when you break the egg. The shells are sturdy and take a bit of breaking, too 

Strawberries at peak, also blueberries, to accompany yogurt and granola for breakfasts.

Yellow potatoes, for roasting with the chicken thighs, mushrooms to be sliced and sauteed for omelettes, bread for chicken sandwiches and egg salad ditto.

All very simple and good food. Next week I'll stock up on green vegetables, some big rescued spinach coming, which would otherwise be juiced or land filled, too large for the retailers.

I already have sardines and tuna, also various beans. I think I'll do okay, with very little prep.

Another friend, in her sixties, has just bought a single story house, reluctantly leaving her beloved big place because her knees won't do stairs any more. 

She's postponing joint replacement, and I'm encouraging her to reconsider. Life is so much easier when you're not hurting. And it's hard to be fit when you're in pain. But she has to decide. I know what it's like to feel too rotten to think about surgery, though. 

Currently I'm reading a Donna Leon 

A Refiner's Fire,  

I just started it and I may postpone my viewing of Season Six of Foyle's War until I finish the Leon.

Gary is off away tomorrow, family time in Florida, for a week and a bit. Maybe  I'll get my contractor friend Mike to replace the front door lock then,  much less activity, more focused. Now Gary wants to replace my front hall flooring to match the kitchen.. Today has been punctuated with visits ranging from discussing morning glories to my holding a piece of plastic in the wind on the back window of his Beemer because it leaks and he's trying to get it replaced. He needed a second pair of hands to get it in place.  He doesn't want rain to get in while he's away. Always something.

Happy day everyone, be friendly to your neighbors. You never know if you might need a hand with a plastic sheet in the wind. Or three sheets in the wind.

Today is Handsome Partner's anniversary, as well as Handsome Son's birthday.

Eclipse, frost and unconcerned turtles

Lovely walk Sunday, to keep my legs working, turtles out, just the usual little group, middle of the picture near the water, evidently the turtle convention went away.  

The concrete rabbit is still there, a bit battered, aren't we all.

 The spice bush on the patio is getting under way

And I topped up the future flower planters with new soil

I also put out the coleus I kept going over the winter, started from seed last summer, and looking a bit shabby now.  Then I checked the weather forecast, frost. 

So the coleus came back indoors. And the seed packets went back in the drawer for now. We can get a frost as late as early May, so there's time.

The wire and handspun experiment is going on,

 

to the accompaniment of

Thanks to Liz H., for the recommendation, it's very good.

It was a bit of a tired day after an eventful week, rain, tires, earthquake, pinloom arrival, also latest tea shipment when I was down to the last spoonful. The last is high on the list of stressors. If the eclipse includes the Rapture, I may not resist!

Happy day, everyone, you do you; don't be eclipsed by a little minuet among the planets. 

Photo AC

Snappers continued and buds and home high jinks

Out walking this morning to check on the snapper colony. And found

They'd moved on. Plenty of waterways here to choose from. I'm aware that my photography, unlike that of several blogistas with professional skills and cameras, requires the willing suspension of disbelief as much as anything.

However, if you squint again at the far bank you see only shadows and grasses. No snappers.

And on the left, almost totally camouflaged, the mallard couple have returned, in courting mode. The geese are off, too. So some natural drama may have happened. At any rate, nothing to see here, folks. Now, anyway.  

So at home again,  I got to work on chicken soup, using the last of the chicken and bones, simmered for ages, then the meat picked off, the broth strained, chicken meat added back in plus whole milk, and there are half a dozen servings of cream of chicken soup. 

With fresh cut chives, first of the year, always the best, most pungent cuttings.

As you probably noticed, I was also making yogurt at the same time. 

What I hadn't counted on was Gary showing up in the middle of this, to fix the toilet, finding not only the problem I found, wouldn't stop running, but also a leaking valve. 

This required turning off the whole house water, in order to do the repair. This was unfortunate, since I needed water for various cooking purposes and dishes, also to drink, being ready for a pot of tea. None of this was to be.

I spent my time divided between not letting the milk boil over in the kitchen while holding lights in the bathroom, handing tools like an OR nurse to a surgeon, listening to the latest health problems of a tricky pregnancy in the family, and  generally not getting on with the food.

Many issues and a shopping trip later, this

went back to this

Working now. Many tools from all over the kitchen, hallway and bathroom collected, also his mug of tea, forgotten in the microwave, his phone, various cables and lights, all sorted. 

He tends to be on the mad scientist side of the equation, all possible tools around every room, just in case. But it's done and I no longer have to trudge upstairs to a working bathroom. And I'm very happy with it all. 

I did get the yogurt organized, ready tomorrow. 

And when I finally got to sit down,  noticed the Christmas cactus is now evidently planning on being an Easter cactus. Yes, I know, different varieties, just a joke, don't explain at me.

Anyway look

Buds, buds, I tell you! Suddenly. All over. Maybe she heard the ficus was getting the heave-ho and thought she'd better show her value to the organization quick. Plants know more than we think.

Happy day everyone, you have nothing to prove around here. Just be!