breezeporch

Catch up

Steve HardinLeave a comment

I lost another chicken this weekend, unfortunately this one was due to chicken IQ limitations. Do not go into the yard where the old dog is located because he has a tendency to off things, one chicken down. I am still unsure how many chickens there actually are out in the coop. I know there are at least five that sleep out in the back bushes and I am sure there are others camped out elsewhere. I have still not managed to get a lid on the chicken coop yet so I cannot lock them all up to count them yet.

I turned off the water to the front hillside, the yard and the lavender patch. We still have water going to the garden as I have beets sprouting and we are still picking green beans. Annmarie put up another 12 pints this weekend. Our trumpet vine is finally starting to fill in around our second living room window. If we get a mild winter it will give it time to get larger and start to create some wood so it can survive a freezing temperature. Mr GolfPro and myself have been cutting it away from the house several times this year in an attempt to get it to grow so we can train it to the location we need. I am hopeful that next year we can just kill everything that grows towards the house instead of trying to redirect it. It is way easier when you can just cut a clearing around the house.

The furniture juggle that occurred caused us to get a chair and old Murphy bed added to the master bedroom. We added another table to the breeze porch. I was given a Mayer lemon tree that is about three feet tall a month ago. It got down to 41F last night so I figured it was time to find a place inside for the tree. I had to rearrange the entire breeze porch. I cleaned it up, trimmed some plants back and found a spot for the lemon tree. I ended up planting another five starts from trimmings. I could have done 20 but I need more planting soil. I am pretty sure I am going to have more than 30 plants for Christmas gifts at work. I may have to expand my offerings. I still need to get a plastic sheet to cover the wooden table before I can use it. Even though I use the plastic trays a little water gets spilt in between them.

I did polish a lot of wood today, I managed to get about half of our wooden doors polished. They all need it. We got all of the baby stuff that our grandson has outgrown bagged and up into the attic. When there is another baby we will pull it all down again and reuse it.

I need to put more drawer magnetic locks in the kitchen but I need to remember where I put all of the extras. I am still not sure what “safe” location I stashed them in. My goal is to find them this week so I can get them installed. This will not make the munchkin happy.

We are feeding our bees again. One hive is looking fantastic and the new one this year only has one box full. They left the second box empty. We will be moving them soon to the sheltered area. I need to get the gutter up on it so that water does not get blown inside the hives.

I still need to cut hay one more time over at the Naked Gardener’s house. I should get around two tons. I am taking some vacation in October to get the hay done and the barn completed.

I have still not managed to find out what killed our kitten. I have gotten up twice in the middle of the night because I thought I heard a chicken death knell and both times it was a false alarm. We did see something moving around on the camera but couldn’t tell what it was and it was gone by the time I got out there. I had considered putting the camera feed up live but I am always running out at night with minimal to no clothes on so I figured I better not do that!

I got all of my marbles into one location. The next step is to sort them and get all of the modern ones into one large container so the grandkids can play with them. About half of those are not really worth anything other than entertainment value which cannot be overlooked.

Must finish bathroom

Steve HardinLeave a comment

Now that I am on a path to fitness and drinking more than brown life giving and sustaining water (coffee) all day I need that upstairs bathroom. Who thinks that drinking a gallon of water on top of a gallon of coffee is good for your bladder? I will admit that I tend not to twitch or flop around as much at night when I drink lots of water but its a hard habit to get into after living on coffee for 30 years. I need the bathroom to be a short walk from the bedroom to maximize my sleep time.

I was able to rub on the wall finish Friday but ran out. I need to do the lower section on one wall. The crown molding needs to go up but I needed to rub the finish onto the wall first. So I started working at the top of the wall and working down so we could install the molding, knowing I was going to run out. I used an old cotton T-shirt and it worked great, no little cloth pills left on the wall.

One of the complications of doing the bathroom in the winter is that I need a place to glue my shelves together. Obviously with the cold it cannot be done outside, unfortunately over the last couple of years the breeze porch has become a catch all location for everything. I do mean everything! So it has taken almost three full days to just remove all of the stuff that was out there, clean up and throw away a ton of stuff. We even got some new plastic bins so we could move all of the reloading supplies into the attic. Next winter I am shooting for building a custom reloading bench on the breeze porch. The bathroom has to come first so I can head outside in the spring.

Yesterday we concentrated on the breeze porch trying to get it cleared so we could use the space to glue shelves together. Once we have those parts glued together we can start installing the shelves. We need to construct the barn door to cover the closet opening also. I even managed to transplant three different plants that were horribly root bound and had not been touched for several years. I expect those plants to take off and be happy. I have about eight more plants that need some more attention. I may even have to start giving away some jade plants as I started about six plants from cuttings and they are taking off. I do toss cuttings in the trash as I cannot start every small piece that comes off a plant! I let my African Violets take a beating and have managed to start two new plants. I need to do cuttings and start 4-8 more plants. I had let them fend for themselves and ended up killing off three. The rest are so healthy they need to be trimmed back as they are starting to try and tip my planters over. The African Violets are from Annmarie’s grandmother so I keep them going. I have three cactus that have fallen over and need to be replanted. I always hate dealing with them once they get a certain size! I do use folded newspaper to wrap them up as I replant them but I always manage to get poked regardless. There is now a nice wide open spot to work and once we get some more tools put away there will be plenty of space to glue boards together.

The Covid symptoms persist, I have learned to just keep pushing. I hate that I cannot do what I used to before catching it. I want to be the person pushing the grocery cart so I can lean on the cart as I walk through the grocery store. I can now get across the hospital at work three times in a single day. I used to walk constantly for hours in a day and now I do it about 15 minutes a day. I still get very short of breath with exertion and if the shortness of breath persists then I start getting chest pain. I have things I want to do this spring. I am unsure of how much I will be able to physically do when the weather improves. It is very frustrating.