Month: June 2013

Ron cleaned the filter and is putting a new drain on the dehumidifier.

I cleaned out the Weber, which seems to be working “good enough”, and some gutter debris that was clogging one of the downspouts. I also moved the clock above the lamp in the living room.

“Biddy brunch” today, then transfer station.

I uploaded Preferred Customer for testing yesterday.

We had a nice Saturday afternoon. We drove up to FarFar’s and dropped in to the bakery next door. We got there one minute before closing, so the owners treated us to two loaves. Made French toast with the comped baguette this morning. We bought a couple of loaves and two bags of cookies. Then drove to the foot of the Powder Point bridge, did some cleanup of the little beach there.

Around 2:30 last night, and more expected this morning.

We were up at 6 to get ourselves ready to talk with Jim, our new carpenter, who arrived as promised at 7. I put together a banana sour cream coffee cake, something I’ve wanted to bake for a while.

Fluffles is much better today.

Wisteria blossomed this year, beautiful, fragrant blooms, and the Autumn Clematis is doing well, too. Guess the problem was soil, not sun. Still disappointed with the peony; I may replant it.

The Endless Summers, Daylilies and Larkspur are just starting. The “random” garden is definitely holding its own. We should have color all season.

We went to a lecture at WHRC this week, first time for us. Subject was preventing deforestation in the Congo.

Ron is bringing in the van for servicing this morning.

A lot to catch up on.

This has been an expensive week, but more of that later.

We’ve done a fair amount of yard work recently. Of course, I was too upset about the loss of my websites to keep notes. We’ve mostly pruned and weeded and watered. The biggest job was clearing the strawberries out of the vegetable garden. The squirrels ate or chewed most of the fruit anyway, so it was no great loss.

Five of the baby trees are doing well: the red maple, 2 fir trees, an Eastern Redbud and another little mystery tree. I’ll have to see if I can find the diagram I put on this blog.

We have 5 or so little tomatoes, kale, chard and one other leafy green vegetable. The asparagus are 5 feet high.

The corner garden is gorgeous, exactly as I’d hoped. Adding the “rescue” plants did the job.

Fluffles has not been doing well.

This week, we hired Capizzi to fix the wall at Edgewater. I flipped our bed around to optimize air conditioning in this room – it’s been steamy the last couple of days – and that means rehanging the door. A carpenter should be coming over tomorrow to look at it. I bought a fourth air conditioner for Edgewater. The closet blocks the air flow, so we hope the additional unit will solve that problem. Our electric bill was sky high because of a stupid decision I made about our supply fee.

Last Sunday, I took off to Wellfleet to see a PIFF film about the Bauhaus homes in the Cape Cod National Seashore. Ron brought some donations to Moonakis for a yard sale to benefit the Downwinders. I ended up filling the back of the truck with books that didn’t get sold; Paul was kind enough to let me scavenge for whatever I wanted, so I brought home a nice picture frame for Emma’s Mashpee Meetinghouse print and a pretty oil painting. This inspired me to rearrange our artwork, and we both like the results.

We found an excellent home for the books: brought them to Sturgis and got to meet the people with whom I’ve been corresponding.

Ron sawed through the semi-felled tree today. It took 15 minutes, start to finish. The prep on the other hand, took several hours and many months of mulling.

We’ve been talking about cutting down that tree since the winter. We finally bought a chain saw a couple of weeks ago.

After punting because of anticipated rain, we finally got it together this morning. Well, sort of.

Ron couldn’t start the chain saw. I couldn’t start it either. I asked if it was out of gas: “No”. Long story bearable, he brought me home so I could do some work, then brought the chain saw to Botello. In the parking lot, he realized that the chain saw didn’t start because it was out of gas.

Unfortunately, by this time, he’d misplaced a tool needed to adjust the chain. He went to the other end of town to get money, only to discover that Botello gives the tool away free. Back at Edgewater, he cut down the tree in 15 minutes.

Meanwhile, I took a break from work and brought a rake and hoe to weed the grass garden. So, we both did our share of yard work today.

We are supposed to get a days worth of rain starting this afternoon, so I put down 5-10-5 on the lawn.

Ron detailed the interior of his van.

We mowed the lawn and did the transfer station, barely in time.

Burned about a bushelful of weeds and sticks. Trimmed the trees on the left side of the house.

Offloaded photos from Ron’s phone. Made some photo books of Robert’s graduation pix.

Washed several rugs that Fluffles had dirtied. Spread the small amount of remaining mulch around the roses. Trimmed the climbing rose at Edgewater while Ron loaded up the truck. Grilled sausages and cooked the rest of the corn for lunch.

Made a big salad for supper: lettuce, corn, tomatoes, avocado, cucumber, radishes. Ate it with some really good seafood (pollock) salad from Roche.

Strawberries are ripening. Saw a squirrel with one in its mouth this morning.

It stopped raining, at least for now. As far as Robert’s graduation is concerned, doesn’t matter since it’ll be indoors.

I’m glad that Ron spread compost earlier this week; it certainly got a good watering in.

Fluffles has had several accidents over the past couple of days. Right now, we have five rugs sitting on the deck that need to be cleaned.

The skin around my eyes was really bothering me yesterday, as if I were being bitten. I’m wondering if I need to fumigate for no-see-ums, some of which are tiny enough to crawl through standard window screens.

I went through years of digital photos today to create a collage to honor Robert on his graduation and found this fairly decent one of me.

It’ll be much easier when it’s time to do a collage for James!

Ron’s Father’s Day gift arrived yesterday, a miter stand for when we can afford to buy his compound miter saw.

I’d planned to hide it, but it was pretty heavy, so opted to let Ron carry it downstairs.

In other news, I quit AVID and NaviNet yesterday. Just one too many “you’ve got to be kidding” moments. It’s a shame: nice people, nice office, generous employer. Just too many ugly things hiding under rocks, everywhere.

Back in town for grandchildren’s high school graduations, Ed stopped by yesterday. I was pleased that I stayed put so both Ron and I could visit with him.