C.J. Cherryh's Blog, page 64

Jane’s Harmonies Has the Announcement…

The Announcement

It’s there!

Jane’s getting a surprise prezzy—well, she’s had the surprise…

…after yanking that hops vine I planted. Lord! They make a beautiful shade, but they are not friendly to touch and they grow like mad here in Washington. We had to yank Audrey’s butt before she ate the gazebo…

and after Jane ripped up both arms yanking that, and thought maybe we should go to a friend and borrow a truck to get two hinoki cypress she saw at Lowe’s and has been lusting after—

I went and ordered them delivered. They’ll come Thursday. That’ll give time to dig two pits, either side of the moon gate.

The long junk-piled ‘south 40′ is going to be beautiful soon, with a meandering stream, a lotus pond, and the moon gate, with rhododendron and weigela.

Slideshow. Short one. Go see.

www.janefancher.com/HarmoniesOfTheNet

Owie, owie, owie…

Yard work.

I whacked up some more of the hawthorn branches. Loppers and chainsaw. WHich had my back protesting

Jane and I sat in the dirt, extricated river rocks (largish) that the fence crew had buried under excavated dirt. We flung the big ones into the lotus pond pit, (new, as yet not done) and the pebbles into a flower pot and the mediums into a trug, which became 2 trugs. I then hosed out the filter for the pond and took a dead bamboo out of a massive pot—while Jane hauled brick and gravel to try to cover the new water line we are hose-splicing to the back of the hard. [Hard pipe connected to a garden hose leading to the spigot, so it can be drained for winter. But it has a proper spigot out in the end of the garden. And will supply the lotus pond.]

I also ordered a filter for the lotus pond, and a pump. We are making a little stream that runs from a water fall in the corner to the lotus pond, and there will be sitting areas and flowers and some decorative arches. It’s about a 25×25 area made by the garage, and the property line, and we now have it scheduled to be beautiful.

There will indeed be a lotus someday.

Got myself a chainsaw…

Poulan is offering a little electric for 50.00 that’s big enough for normal householder purposes. Suits me fine. The fence job left us some fairly large branches that need dicing up; and rather than hand-saw them, the little chainsaw does nicely. Hawthorne can produce some fairly hard wood, in its larger branches.

But that’s nasty work: it’s getting through all the brushy little branches that really need the hand loppers that’s a pain in the rear.

So are Poulan’s instructions for ‘is the chain correctly tensioned?’ I took the darned thing apart step by step figuring out yes, it was. Really dim small pix with really vague pointers to what could be a bolt — or not.

Anyway, we are slowly cleaning up. And now when a limb comes down (as happens with big trees) I now have a way to dice it up to fit the garbage cans.

Spent yesterday afternoon stupid…

We went over to Atkins shakes for breakfast because our standard was just a bit heavy on the fat; and a trip to Walmart after some necessaries (I hate shopping at Walmart, partly for ethical reasons) produced some chocolate mocha shakes that haven’t been available elsewhere.

I’m suspecting I’m allergic to something in them. Due to a mixup, Jane had opened one (she’s allergic to coffee) and set it aside. I drank it for lunch as well as breakfast, [being cheap] and shortly after, began to feel sick at my stomach.

This transited to ‘sleepy and non functional’ and after losing the entire afternoon abed, to ‘drunk as a skunk,’ dropped things multiple times, generally felt awful, couldn’t think straight, had the mind skewing off down improbable and silly tracks, things like ‘I wonder if this [object] could [do something totally irrational]…’ and generally not feeling awake. To, finally, being short-fused and with the skin on the insides of my elbows feeling as if it had been sandpapered raw, which is, with my allergies, the signal usually of having eaten something I’m allergic to.

Well, I’m suspecting two doses of mocha shake were the culprit.

This morning I was supposed to have sausage and eggs as breakfast…to stay away from the shakes. But I decided to try the vanilla version, which I have had no trouble with. And if I repeat yesterday, I’ll know the shakes are off limits for me.

So if I start posting about alien invasions or the swimming ability of coffee cups, it was something basic in the shakes, not just the mocha.

I hate that state. I really hate it. I hate being sleepy and unable to work, and I really hate being stupid. And I’m not fond of the sore skin-feeling, either.

So we’ll see. I hope it’s just the one flavor, not the shakes in general. It’s so much more convenient when Jane and I can be on the same menu…and it’s easier to lose this last little bit of weight if I can take those shakes instead of sausage and eggs for breakfast.

The panels are up. Jane has pix—or at least early ones! There’s only one glitch…

Home Depot screwed up the order and shorted us a panel and a post-cap. We know darned well what was ordered, and we back our fence guy on that one.

On the other hand, it’s gorgeous. Everything we hoped for in looks.

And a happy Easter to all…

We’re kind of stuck here waiting for fence to happen [Monday]…and we’re still on the Forever Diet, [but 40 lbs lighter than last year!] but—

Who knows? We might get something special for dinner. Or something. I’ll have to see the cook [me] feels.

It looks nice out, but the house was 64 this morning, and Jane and I both swear we can’t get warm.

In the news, another 7.5 quake in the south Pacific: thus far Chile, Acapulco, Mexico; and now Papua, New Guinea. I’m thinking we’ve got a big tectonic plate doing a little tension adjustment. California folk, please take care.

And the Dragon has flown: the SpaceX program has launched for the space station.

I need to go to the store and get some fish food.

And maybe I’ll pick up an Easter treat.

The weeping cherry is blooming. The regular one out front is breaking buds; the dogwood is trying; the star magnolia has bloomed, and the redbud and the magnolia are in the early stages. The peonies are really breaking forth, even the ones we had to pot pending the fence being settled.

We also need to measure our extant trench and go get some pipe to make our new rear of yard faucet hookup. We decided we’re tired of lugging hose past fragile plants, so we’re going to have an underground extension, connected to the back faucet by hose, then 30 feet of pipe, then a faucet where we can attach another hose. WE might use irrigation hose for the interim, but it’s pretty stubbornly coiled and might fight us trying to lay it down in such a long trench. We’ll see re relative price.

At any rate, spring is springing and things are blooming, and while the bunny leaves no eggs in our lawn [we have no lawn!] we still celebrate the annual appearance of flowers and new life!

Alas, no fence today.

Jane was up at 6, preparing, taking down tarp, raking, prepping. I helped at 7. By nine we were waiting…

But we got a call from the fence guys: they’re in high wind, and wind is coming. This means no fence can be set. Sigh.

So we get fence on Monday. We have to survive three more nights of sleeping lightly with the lights on in the back yard, against prowlers, stray dogs, and whatever, and three more days of staying close at home during the day.

At least I did a big grocery run yesterday.

Just froze my fingers getting the pond filters rinsed out. Got back in to that phone call.

We’ll wait until the wind storm is past before putting the tarp back up. It’s not too horrendous a job, once we figured how to do it. We set some little eyelet screws in the wood corners of the garage, which take tiny bungees; we twist-tie two tarps together for the 40 foot run between house and garage. I had emptied the big water barrel we use to anchor the fence segment to the tarp [32 gallons of water is pretty difficult to shift] and the rest of the tarp goes up with bungees and a couple of heavy rocks.

But wah! We are disappointed not to have it today.

Not, however, at the risk of injury to the crew, who have to be up on ladders, one supposes, getting these panels in. They go in from the top, 6 feet up, and slide to the bottom down two grooves. So a high wind with 6 x 6 of sail in your hands while you stand on a ladder is not a good idea.

One more day of post-setting.

But all the holes are dug, and it’s less our problem today. We just raise and lower the tarp fence, and let the crew do their thing, while we try to bring order out of the chaos the house has become—mud on the kitchen floor, tools and parts of tools piled everywhere, boxes of catfood bulk-ordered, and items that have to be mailed…

Not to mention…getting some writing done.