novel « Robin Writes

Okay, we seriously have a lot of goals here, but the IMMEDIATE ones are to finish cleaning up that damn pile of junk up front that used to be the old house. Most of it is gone, burned, but we’ve added packing boxes and brush to the pile, so it seems it’s never really gone.

But we’re close!

This is what my husband’s been doing the last few days:

Those of you who’ve been here know how crappy it looked to begin with. Here’s a shot of the burn pile, so you can see how much stuff he’s pulled out:

This silly project has been going on for a year now. Ugh. I hate when that happens!

We’re also determined to finish the campsite. The shower parts are on the front deck in a big box, mostly so I could get it out of the house. The hole digger has been attached to the tractor and my husband is going to practice on the corner pasture posts before we go down in the woods.

We also figured out what to do with our old upright freezer from STL, the one that quit working last year.

It’s going camping.

Hey—it shuts, it seals, it’s good for storage! Going to look a little odd, though . . . But at least it won’t serve as a catch-all in the barn!

We’ve also been cleaning out said barn. Now, I know you’re going to say, gee, didn’t they do that already? A couple times?

Well, yes, we did. See, I go in there and I put away the hand tools in one spot, the power tools in another, the electric/battery ones in their places, all the fuel cans together, and pick up the trash.

Then my husband has a project . . .

‘Nuff, said, amiright?

We did make room for the exercise equipment—I know, I know. MORE EXERCISE??

Well, yes. Some things, like knee therapy for instance, are more effective with a weight bench. My husband even power-washed all of it, now we’ll see how often it actually get used . . .

For what seems like 40 days and 40 nights, it’s been raining. Actually, I think, it was more like a week or so. Every. Single. Day. And most nights.

The charm of listening to rain on a metal roof was quickly quashed.

Woke up this morning to silence (except the constant meow from the cat who thinks that 5:30 a.m. is an acceptable breakfast time).
I jumped up—okay, staggered; had a wee bit last night, because even preppers and homesteaders have to kick loose now and again—and looked outside.

Blue sky. Not a single cloud.

I was sure I was suffering morning-after delusions, but nope—the weather persisted. Add a NW wind and a temp just below 80, it was perfect!

And supposed to stay that way for the whole week . . . we’ll see.

So after a rather late breakfast at the local café, I started to play catch-up on all the outdoor chores. Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t have a problem with rain itself, but prefer to take shelter during thunderstorms like any other sane individual.

Stop laughing!

And some things just can’t be done when it’s that wet, like the garden. However, now, weeds are much easier to pull and, thanks to the breeze, I’ll be able to till again tomorrow. Pretty much a weekly event until I mix up my weedkiller: Dawn, water, and vinegar. Can’t spray the plants you want to keep, though—they’ll be dead by the time you hit the end of the row if you miss the weeds.

Tomatoes had to be tied up and I have a few rows of complete or near-complete crop failure, so those have to be re-seeded. On the other hand, I’ve tripled my blueberry crop from last year, if all goes well, and I will have FIFTEEN whole blueberries in another week!

Laundry, too, needed to be done. Since I use the sun to dry things, it’s really helpful for it NOT to be raining. Yes, I have a dryer. No, it’s not yet hooked up. And I prefer it that way. We’ll cross that off the neverending list in November.

My husband picked today to start the bathtub removal—and I’m happy to report that it has indeed been removed and relocated to its new home across the road, with only the loss of the hot water pipe, which in turn commenced in a very clean bathroom floor—so he’s been tied up with this for about six hours. That means the chainsaw hasn’t been run, and the pasture hasn’t been mowed.

But that’s okay—what isn’t done today will be done the next, during the beautifully sunny but 90-degree day coming up.

I’m sweating just thinking about it . . .