There's a Blister on my Thumb

There's a Blister on my thumb, on my thumb, on my thumb
There's a blister on my thumb thumb thumb
I felt it growing by the minute
Knew but couldn't stop it, end it
Too much work, had to finish
No time to be a little skittish
There's a damned blister on my thumb!
Dammit. I brought this huge rug with us when we moved. I bought this rug 12 years ago. It is a beautiful thing - or, was. Deep blood-red and cream, with intricate roses and flowers, shaded and simply gorgeous. However, kids and dogs and cats tramping and shedding and bleeding and in general making a steady mess - I tried several times to clean it, but it is so big and heavy it just wouldn't dry. It sat rolled up for several years in the utility room til we moved here. Today we set up sawhorses, stretched an extra long pallet between them, and unrolled then draped the rug over it. Using carpet cleaner, the hose, and a heavy brush (hence the blister!) I scrubbed and rinsed, scrubbed and rinsed. Then I turned it over, scrubbed and rinsed. It started to rinse clean water at last - but there was still that ruggy smell, of old cat and dog and dirt. So I got my bottle of Simple Green. Turns out you can use it to 'spot-clean' carpets - and it has a nice wintergreen smell. So I mixed it up triple strength in a bucket and scrubbed the back, then the front, again, rinsing as I went. This time the water ran clear again - but now there is a much better, minty smell.

In SC, you can't hang much out and expect it to dry - between the frequent storms that come up in the afternoon, and the constant high humidity, it would take a week and the rug would still be damp. Here, however, where the humidity started out this morning at 50% and dropped all day, and where the entire week is forecast to be clear, warm, and dry, I'm thinking that this rug may actually dry by tomorrow night!

But I am NOT pleased about the blister - mostly because I plan to wake up early, and get out at sunup (6:30) to sand and paint that loooong fence around the front garden, that spans about 1/2 acre. Just one more thing to irritate me - like the sunburn I got yesterday at the tractor pull, that is still making my eyes water and my lips chap. Grrr... So much to do before the cold weather comes... Arrrrggghhhh.

There's a damned blister on my thumb! Grumble grumble grumble.

I did have an inspiration today. Out behind the garage is an old metal frame, heavy-duty but rusted. It is the frame for what looks like an old gas-station type sign, shield-shaped. Pretty cool. So Mike is going to trace out the pattern on plywood, jigsaw it out, wire-brush it down (ok, that will probably be me) and we are going to make a plywood sign to slide into the frame for the Farm. Maybe we'll hang it on the fence, or maybe we'll hang it from the arbor. It is made to be hung, deserves to be hung. There are a lot of cool things around the property, just begging to be put to use. It is as much fun as a scavenger hunt, living here!

Add that to all of his other projects - right now he is making a quilting frame for my birthday. What a way to get some use out of all of those silk and other outfits that I no longer need. He loves having his shop, loves finally doing things again instead of sleeping in his chair, watching TV, playing Nintendo endlessly. We were at the fair this week, admiring our neighbor's kids' cattle for the 4H group. Our neighbor, who manages an Angus cattle ranch and hog farm, came up to Mike. "We have a lot of equipment on the ranch that doesn't run, needs to be repaired, and we don't have the time. You do that kind of thing, don't you? Would you come out and repair our stuff for us?" Not a 40 hour a week job - but then he can't do that anyway, not with his handicap. Just on an as-needed basis. Mike was proud to say yes. (Screw all those worthless punks who looked down their noses at him after he got hurt, telling him he was useless without saying a word.)

Things are sure getting better and better. This was definitely the right move for us.
Now if I could just get rid of this blister.....

A Tractor Pull, A County Fair, and a Rodeo

This is Miss Lila; in her sixties, she always competes in the local tractor pull. I have a new hero - hard-drinking, hard-smoking, loud and ornery, blunt and friendly - and yes she wins.


The above are the "enhanced" tractors; they are souped up and inject water into the engines to give them more RPMS for the gradually increasing weight - that's where the black smoke comes from.





Quilts, produce, art, and more quilts - a lot of people participate in the fair.



Friday and Saturday nights were the pro rodeo circuit nights - Sunday was the local ranch hands showing off their stuff. The local guys did much better at the team roping and bronc riding! It is one thing to do it for show - another to do it for a living, because you have to. The rodeo games are based on what these guys still have to do, every day, out on the ranches.

A Pet Cock Solution?

Well, yes, actually. You see, the plumbing down in the basement that controls the yard and barn hydrants was leaking. I had tried to use it to keep Lake's watering trough full, and that was when the trouble started. A regular drip, drip, drip from the faucet down below, that would fill a 1 quart bucket to overflowing overnight.

Then we went to the garden, where another hydrant is, and tried to hook up the sprinkler. This is a sprinkler attached to a 4 foot section of pipe, that runs down to (what else?) an old tire rim for weight and stability, and is hooked to a short section of hose that hooks to the hydrant. Well, the sprinkler was shot, the pipe was full of dirt (when the water pressure built up in the pipe, it shot six inches of dirt three feet up in the air). We replaced the sprinkler head, cleaned out the pipe, and - still, almost no reach, no pressure.

And the pipe in the basement leaked more. The only solution - fix that pipe. The faucet was old and rusted and didn't turn off completely, so Mike bought a pet cock. And since the pipes were not in such great condition either, he bought some extra connections and fittings - because, he said, with his luck, the pipe would ring off when he replaced the faucet. He was right.

But the most interesting thing was the buildup of 100 years or so of stuff in that pipe. It was half clogged with rust and dirt and disuse. So once everything was replaced... uh-oh. You could hear the water RACING thru the pipe. So we went out to the hydrant - which we had left open for bleed-off. The water was rushing: no, slamming out of the pipe! We hooked up the sprinkler - and with a sudden gurgling gasp, the water flew out of the end and started spinning that sprinkler head, reaching from driveway to road to road to back field. POW!

Funny what a simple little pet cock can do...

You people are perverts, you know that?

So Much to Do

Arrrggghhh.
Yesterday I spent 5 hours getting evaluated. Normal procedure - no doctor worth seeing ever hands a patient 10 days worth of 500 mg Cipro on their word, even if they have their medical records in hand, or a road map of surgical scars on their belly. Still, it was frustrating. Hey, I didn't want pain pills - don't need them, Tylenol PM knocks me out if I need it! - I'm not a drug addict, I swear!

But I have so much to do! Mike put a board up to cover a gap from the settling of the cement steps to the verandah, and I had to paint it. It will be a temporary fix til we can pour an additional concrete step. But as it gets cooler, I don't want critters under the verandah... a raccoon would be aggravating - a skunk would be NO fun at all. And we saw where someone had run over a rattlesnake down the block yesterday. I don't like rattlesnakes, but at least they TELL you where they are. With fall on the way, gotta keep an eye out. Don't want ANY critters thinking that my dryer exhaust is a nice warm place to nest!

But now I want to paint the stairs on the verandah to match the ones on the front porch, and I can't. Because I have to wirebrush them first to make the paint stick. And because the meds make me dizzy and sick to my stomach. Dammit dammit dammit. I'll do it soon. At least I'm feeling better now, not so puny. I HATE being sick! And this week is the county fair, and I don't want to miss ANYthing there. So here I sit, maddeningly still, sucking on boullion and chewing on toast, while a Tower (4 layer!!) carrot cake sits in the fridge. Dammit dammit dammit.

The Gang has cheerfully informed me this week that, should they have to evacuate in the event of a hurricane, they will be heading this way. LOL Some are threatening to stay! What a nutzoid group. IF they come at all - which I very ruefully doubt - I can pretty much bet on who would stay - and who wouldn't. But if they did, what fun it would be! Good thing I've stocked up on essentials. Lets see - Blondie and spouse, Shane and spouse and kids, Rodney and who knows??? - and Kelli and her son. (LOL Note to self - Got to hook Kelli up with a REAL cowboy if she comes out, let her see what a real man looks, smells, and talks like! AND got to put her son and Shane's kids on a horse, or at least let them see what the kids out here do!) Better get ready to get out the inflatable beds and sleeping bags and fold out the couch! LOL

Oldest son's birthday was yesterday, and in the spirit of 08-08-08, he gathered lottery lucky numbers from everyone to play. Ah, I hope the birthday boy had better luck than we normally do!

Mike is mowing the gardens today, before we are supposed to get thunderstorms. He will do the yard tomorrow - again, before we get the storms. Tammy is on and offline, debating how long and when to come out here in November - Thanksgiving or before? - and painting the floors of the old house she is fixing up for us to sell.

Arrrggghhh. I want to get up and DO! Gotta remember to ask Nancy for Lake's tack, especially if she gets a blanket in the winter. Gotta remember to do soooo many things....

I need a list! Oh, well, that's ONE thing I can do while I'm just SITTING here griping.

The Locusts are Singing...

Six more weeks of summer. Six weeks until the first frost or freeze.

Gotta say that it is really great to finally be with people again who know what the weather signs are, and who know what's coming. Nice to sniff the air and say, "Rain Comin" and have people agree instead of look st you funny. Nice to know what a "mackerel sky" is - and to have others around you know, too. Nice to walk with the neighbor lady who doesn't look at you funny when you talk about hardening off of plants before winter, but who offers her own experiences and advice.

The locusts are singing. So much to do. Summers are blessedly short here. Real autumn is coming, when the leaves actually turn color and fall off the trees, when the seed pods that have formed dry up and tumble to the ground, when flowers shut down and start preparing their roots for the bedding time. Tme to finish off summer projects and prepare for fall ones. Gather fresh vegies and dehydrate or can them. Get out and restack all the firewood. Prepare the basement entrance for the cold north wind, get everything picked up and put away so that the cold doesn't crack plastic and freeze water to explode containers. Finish off the room upstairs so it is cozy for holiday visitors. Clean and oil the weapons for the hunting season. Put the cracked corn in a bin so no rats end up living in the garage. Figure out a way to replace those two shingles missing way up high on the back of the house. Caulk and seal everything that can be.

Of course it won't happen suddenly, and it won't hit and stay - yet. There will be tolerably warm days, maybe even Indian summer days. But the fall is coming.
The locusts are singing.

I Love Laundry Day

Well, I do. Well, NOW I do.

I used to do laundry in a 5X8 foot cubicle. Just enough room for the washer, dryer, freezer, and a rolling clothes rack. Now I do laundry in a room in the basement - a room that expands over 1/3 of the bottom of the house! I have a washer, dryer, a big ol' laundry tub, a corner laundry table with cabinets and drawers, and a clothes pole that hangs from the ceiling. If I have to iron, the ironing board is hanging under the basement stairs - and even folded out, there is still room to walk around it and everything else. Over under the head of the basement stairs is a laundry chute, where dirty discarded clothes slide down into a nice tall box. The big kiln - the one I could bake a body in, the one that according to a coroner gets hotter than a crematorium - has to sit in there next to the dryer, since both are 220. It is between the dryer and the laundry table, with plenty of room on all sides to walk around.

When you come down the basement stairs, if you turn right, you go into the laundry room. Beyond that is a doorway that leads into what used to be a bedroom, nicely carpeted - but which is now an excercise room where the Bowflex lives, with a cabinet that holds my extra storage of can lids, BIG empty glass pickle jars, large empty plastic sealed containers, and boxes and boxes of bar soap, that we got when we installed our water softener in the old house and never used.

If you turn left, you go into the small room. It used to be the "cooling room" for the dairy. I'm using its shelves to store my seasonal stuff - vases, fall decorations, Christmas decorations; everything boxed and neatly labeled. There is an old refrigerator down there that still works. The door to the backyard is off that room too - nice to have it open to let the breezes in. The steps are a little steep and uneven, but it is a convenient egress if I want to hang clothes on the line or check out the weather while I'm down there.

And I'm down there a LOT during Laundry Day. Because the room behind the cooling room is my ceramics shop. One whole wall of shelves has my molds, the other wall of shelves has my finished ( and not-quite-finished) works. There are three tables set up in the middle. Down there, I'm pouring, painting, carving, sanding, attaching, patching, and getting ready to fire or refire ceramics. Why go up and down stairs to check on the laundry, when I can sit right there and hear the dryer shut off while I'm creating?

In between the ceramics room and the exercise room is a connecting walkway with shelves on one whole wall, and two clothes poles on the other wall. The plastic trash cans with my 50 lb bags of sugar and flour fit nicely on the clothes-pole side, while the "extra" food items like spices, mustard, mayo, lemon juice, and canned dehydrated foods line the shelves. Buying a little extra each week is filling those shelves rather nicely, too.

I know that people wonder why I bought a BIGGER house instead of a smaller one, since Mike and I are on our own. Easy. One, we can afford a bigger house with the children gone - and two, we were horribly cramped in that smaller house, between his shop and mine, our own hobbies and interests, our storage of things that we needed often, occasionally, or "might need". Now I have walking room - and going up and down stairs is good for me. It's good for Mike, too, even though it is a lot harder for him than it is for me.

Looking around the basement bedroom, nee exercise room, we have discussed the possibility of either a two-man hot tub ($899 delivered) or a small self enclosed sauna ($2500 delivered). There would be enough room for either, and either one would be good for us in our physical conditions. And -it would make the winters rather cozy and private, too. Maybe later. We are still working on things around the house. But having this much room is simply wonderful - and comforting. Yes, these days, I do love Laundry Day!

High Humidity??

Well, it was 91 with 51% humidity today. Perfect day for sealing the cement pond out front with Kool Seal. We will let it cure overnight and tomorrow - hopefully - seal it further with waterproofing cement. It looks pretty bad right now - you can see where the pond cracked in several places - but honestly, the KoolSeal was to seal it after we wirebrushed all those cracks down, got the dirt and plants and small crumbling rocks out - the cement should be the smoothing, finishing, filling touch. It looks like it was done backwards the last time - first the cement was spread thickly everywhere, then the KoolSeal used to try to fill in the still-leaking cracks. We had to buff down a lot of that cement; it was crmbling away from the cement like cornstarch.

I say "hopefully" because today and tomorrow were supposed to be rain-free; hot and dry. The first clue was the high humidity, the second was when the wind kicked up from the east. Point blank, low pressures suck - they draw wind. Our vicious storms have come from the West and North so far, so when the sky is clear and the humidity starts building, then the east wind kicks in - POW. We'll probably get rain. Dammit. that means I'll have to wetvac tomorrow AM and wait for the sun to dry the KoolSeal so we can put down the cement. Oh, well, at least we'll see how the KoolSeal holds... it is supposed to cure for at least six hours, we were done by 3 PM, so it may - or may not - have completely cured by the time the rain hits - if the storm doesn't go around us completely and kick Valentine's bootie.

I imagine that there are some pretty pissed-off ants right now; they have been happily building homes underneath that pond, putting their little mounds in the cracks, feeling all safe and sheltered. Now with the KoolSeal, they have - hopefully - no access to that nice smooth cement protection, and the diggable dirt underneath.

Got to get this done; need to get in my daffs and narcissus bulbs for next spring, and finish planting the daylilies around the pond.

Hoping to see if I can lay my handpainted tiles that I made several years ago into the cement. I was making backsplashes for the sink and stove at the old house and just never got around to setting them in. They are, when laid out, a painting of a basket of roses and other flowers. If it works, there will be pretty flowers in the bottom of the pond all year round, no matter what else grows (or doesn't) around it. We'll see.

If the rain doesn't ruin the curing, and if tomorrow morning we have water standing, at least we'll see if the KoolSeal worked... sigh. Just wish I could leap in and do things without so much preparation! But life doesn't work that way... we even missed the Sunday Chicken buffet at the Hub today, we were so intent on our work. Sigh. Oh well - blueberry pancakes, ground sausage, and eggs for breakfast made a good meal for us to survive off of. Think I'll go take a shower and get this sweat and grit off!!!