Catch up

The summer doldrums have hit me. I am lacking any sort of motivation to accomplish all the things I need to get finished here so I can head north. A big part of the problem is the weather. There's a good reason I don't want to live in TN year round, it's just too hot and humid! Anything that requires you to go outside needs to be done before 9 or 10 in the morning, and I am NOT a morning person. Are they even making oxygen outside before 9 AM? I'm not sure it would even be safe to get up early and go outside to find out. And forget working outside in the evening. On the odd chance that it does start to cool down towards supper time it gets dark here by 8:30. And I don't mean it's starting to get a bit dusky by 8:30, oh  no... it's pitch dark by then. I'm not sure how anyone ever gets anything done outside down here. Up north, you have dinner then you can go outside and work or play until 10:30 or so when the twilight is finally fading away and the yard light comes on. The only plus side to this dark-early problem is if you have young kids it must be easier to get them to go to bed at a reasonable time in the summer.

This is a really long way of saying that I haven't accomplished anything significant around here for a while.  Yeah, I've mowed the lawn a couple times, hauled the lawn tractor into town for repairs twice, and picked raspberries several times. Speaking of which, the first harvest is winding down, but the second go-round is ramping up and it looks like there will be a ton of them.

 I never really posted a photo of Todd, the full-timer on a bike who helped me with a bunch of electrical work and also did the majority of the re-roofing. Here he is the morning he headed off towards Michigan to visit family. As I've mentioned before, he's lived on the road for years with only his bike and what he pulls in the trailer. 

 

I'm pretty sure I couldn't become that much of a minimalist at this point in my life. I'm a big fan of  refrigeration and hot and cold running water, and I want a solid roof over my head at night.  I've never actually mind sleeping in a tent, but these days my body complains loudly about it if I do.

I should perhaps mention my chickens. I had a rooster and 4 hens, a wonderful little flock that gave me all the fresh free-range organic eggs I could eat. The Araucana hen had even made a nest under the hood of the bagger for the lawn tractor and was setting on 20 blue-green eggs that were only a few days from hatching. Unfortunately something got them all early one morning a couple weeks ago. I went outside fully expecting to see the rooster shepherding his small harem around, only to find feathers all over the yard, and all the eggs broken and eaten. I strongly suspect it was the neighbor's pack of 7 or 8 dogs that they let run loose, but I can't prove it. I miss my chickens scratching around and cleaning up the spilled seed under the bird feeders, and the insect population has exploded since they've been gone.  I miss eating those marvelous fresh eggs as well.

The baby bluebirds fledged yesterday. They were looking out of the nest box and making a racket in the morning waiting to be fed, and by mid afternoon all of them had flown away. I'll clean out the next box in a day or two, and perhaps the parents will nest again.

And oh yes, the dirty rotten shingles are GONE! Richie, a very nice young guy that I met at Home Depot came with his dump truck and loaded them all up and hauled them to the dump for me. YAY! 

Since I've updated all this stuff I suppose that means I have to actually do something tomorrow so I have something to say on here. Hmmmm.... I hear the weather is supposed to be very hot and muggy again...  LOL