Oh, my! This week has been so perfect for working outside. And that's what I've been doing . . . which means no progress is being made on the living room remodeling. That ol' brick wall sits giving me the evil eye as I pass through. Nary a single brick has been added since Monday.
I can't convince myself to work inside, however, because I want to get as much done outside as I can before we enter another spell of rainy days or the dreaded black flies appear.
Day before yesterday, I completely finished up all that needed to be done in the raspberries AND hand weeded the entire blueberry patch. Actually, there weren't many weeds up yet at all so me and my little hand trowel zipped right through that task. (Okay, it took a couple of hours but compared to other years starting out in the spring, it was easy.)
We had saved a small garden cart trailer full of sawdust/shavings from our wood cutting last fall and I used that to start mulching the blueberries. Unfortunately, they didn't go far at all, so I've got to finish when we come up with more shavings . . . and BEFORE the weeds start to grow again.
Yesterday I took my little tape player and an audio book out to the strawberry patch and (I can hardly believe this) completely finished cleaning up and weeding the whole patch. This job usually takes me two days each spring but I completed it, start to finish, yesterday. I was vewy proud of myself. I was also vewy tired. We had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner. That was all I could manage.
Now the strawberries need new sawdust/shavings (where does that stuff disappear to??) placed around each plant and the pathways mulched with straw. We can get bags of wood shavings from a local lumber mill, but I wasn't able to connect with the person in charge yesterday via phone. Maybe I'll give that another try today so I can finish up both the blueberries and strawberries. It would feel really good to cross both those tasks off the list.
I just put a new post up on my quilting blog. I want to try to keep up with that all summer and, who knows, once we get the living room remodeling done, maybe I can get into my quilt room once in a while to balance out all of the summer time outside work going on around here. I sure hope so!
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10 comments:
Congratulations on making your to do list shorter.
Such a nice thing to do - spend your day outside working yourself into a nice, exhausted little puddle. Bet you slept well - if your muscles didn't ache too much. We've had so much wind that all my mulching has moved to the field next to me!
Congrats on moving right along with the berry patches. I STILL haven't done a thing with the raspberries in the garden. But heck, I TALKED about doing something this morning. Hahahaha!
We're headed out for ice cream. I suppose we'll talk about it some more.
Join us?
I bet peanut butter and jelly sandwiches never tasted so good! I've never thought about taking an audiobook outside with me. That is a GREAT idea!!! I love the ideas I pick up from your blog.
Certainly sounds like you have been working hard outside. Of course you know that it will pay off later so that helps, I'm sure. Yahoo that you are going to try to keep up with your quilting blog. Just visited there. Don't let me down now. I don't want you waiting a whole year before posting again or I will have to come to MN and whip you with a wet noodle ... or something!
Don't worry about that remodeling, you know there will be days where the blackflies are so bad you won't want to be in the garden :) The payback will be when you are inside working and don't have to stress over the garden chores being done LOL!
Being new to strawberries (growing them, not eating them).....do they like sawdust / shavings? I've got a bunch of sawdust and need to put it someplace.
Tombstone Livestock - We all keep working on making our lists shorter, don't we? If we could only stop adding new things to it . . .
Susan - I was worried about mulching earlier in the week because we had stiff breezes, too. But yesterday proved to be a perfect day for getting the sawdust/shavings laid in the strawberry patch. I have been sleeping well . . . up until last night when I was awake from 2:30 to 5. Ugh. But I chalk that off to mind overload rather than anything physical.
Sue - You are evil trying to entice me away from all my hard physical labor with the thought of ice cream. I like ice cream almost more than pie. (Pie ala mode? I'm in heaven!)
Lisa - Audio books make any kind of a boring job just fly by. I can even convince myself I'm improving my mind with some of the books I listen to!
Karen L. - I could only wish someone would come here and FORCE me to quilt more! It wouldn't take much more than the threat of a wet noodle to get me to do it.
Erin - Isn't it great the way a comment from a friend who understands the situation can make all the difference? I was so ready this morning to ignore the gorgeous day outside and concentrate on that brick wall. And not really feeling good about it. Then I read your insightful comment (which I know in my heart is so right) and it gave me the push I needed to forget that %^&* wall and get my butt back outside. Thankyouthankyouthankyou!
CR - You just get that sawdust of yours to your strawberry patch and they will thank you for it! Strawberries like an acidic soil which the sawdust will provide. There has been info out there that the resins from firs, pines, cedars, any sawdust from resinous wood can cause an inhibiting factor on good microbes in the soil and might adversely affect the roots of plants. But I've mulched my berries with sawdust/shavings for 126 years (give or take) and they seem to thrive.
We find little gets done on the house during nice weather as well. Though with the kitchen, we're pressing on; I couldn't take another summer kitchenless! Good job on the strawberries, BTW. Great idea about a book on CD!
Leigh - You have gone sooooo long without a proper kitchen. Don't know how you've survived. It should be completed soon now, right? You may not be able to fully enjoy it until fall, but just knowing that beautiful kitchen is waiting for you will keep you going all summer!
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