Today, I schlepped dirt. Dirt is heavy. After a while, even shovel-fulls of dirt are heavy. However! I have finished now with the dirt, and with broadcasting the seeds mixed with purple sand, and with the raking. All that remains is for the seeds to grow.
Grow, little seeds, grow!
After playing in the dirt, I cleaned the cat boxes and took a shower; ate the lovely lunch Steve prepared for us, and wrote some words. In a few minutes, I’ll write some more words, and then I’ll break for supper and perhaps read (Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance) for a bit before going to bed.
I know. I know. You’re asking yourselves, How does she do it? How does she continue at this brutal pace which is the price of her fame?
Years of practice, children.
Years and years of practice.
In other news, Mozart wants me to come into the living room and play chess with him. Or something. I know this because he’s marching up and down the hall declaiming at the top of his teensy, tiny little Maine Coon cat voice. Despite this, I believe that there will be no chess this evening.
So, what did you do today?
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Progress on Carousel Seas
45,708/100,000 words OR 45.71% complete
“The elephants are definitely disquieting. In fact, I don’t think I’m going out on a limb if I say that they look downright drunk. Who wants to snuggle up with a bunch of inebriated flying elephants of a cold winter’s night? And it’s definitely not the kind of thing you want to put in the baby’s crib.”
“Never had much to do with elephants.”
“Me neither — and I’m here to tell you that blanket isn’t making me eager to seek them out.”
I abandoned almost any idea of housework or gardening in favor of taking my mother to the Oregon Potter’s Association Annual Ceramic Showcase. We both love handmade things and a lot of very talented people live around here. I realized, while paying for my purchases, that they *all* had a cat theme: a pin, a catch-all bowl for my hubby shaped like a cat and a new food bowl for Her Royal Highness (wide to accommodate those sensitive whiskers of hers). Apparently I had cats on my mind! The item that was too pricey but I coveted was a mostly round vase shaped like a tightly curled cat, very much like my cat loves to do. She checked over my purchases when I finally returned home and, after approving them, demanded laptime. There goes the rest of the afternoon!
As for us? We went to Lowe’s first thing this morning and bought too many plants and a pink dogwood tree in honor of Arbor Day and my Granddaughter’s 9th birthday. You have to do this when your birthday falls on Arbor Day. Apparently, it’s a rule. Just ask Gabbie.
Then we came home, and I dug a large, deep hole in our front yard (my daughter and granddaughter are renters, so we planted the tree at our house). The girls went home to take showers then go rollerblading. I went out to lunch with my sister and niece, where I was given a packet of letters I’d written to my Mom over the years.
Back home, with our cat Oliver’s help, we planted the tree and some flowers. Gabbie ran off to play on the swing set until dark, my husband Richard did chores outside, and I went to the grocery store. Now, it’s time to relax and read letters. All in all, a very busy, very satisfactory day.
Laundry, writing, writing, laundry, a nap (to make up for only 3 hours of sleep last night) and (just now) a mix-up supper is on the stove–leftover bean soup, to which were added leftover boiled potatoes, and a packet of cubed ham from the freezer. When it’s hot, we’ll eat. R- got work done on the perimeter fence (this is a lifetime project, replacing ancient and falling over barbed-wire fence with new, properly built, 9 wire barbed wire fence that will, we hope, keep the neighbors’ cattle and sheep on their side of it) and mowed a rattlesnake.
“Dirt is heavy. After a while, even shovel-fulls of dirt are heavy” teases at some word play like “Earth’s not heavy; she’s my Mother.”
Now, that my concept of Spring has finally sprung, Autumn’s fall of leaves composting into fertile humus along the edges and seams of all the wrong places frame the overgrowth of this, that, and the other, Hostas predicting dire consequences if they are not settled in a friendlier place yesterday; and various hardy green strangers thriving and twining tendrils of strangulation throughout what, in my mind’s eye at least, is a well-planned and artful sequence of perfectly-timed blooms.
In spite of that dissonant clamour, I valiantly forged my way through the Inbox of salutations, solicitations, and needless notifications; got through FB notifications; got Corey through the trauma of newly-placed trash items along his walk route; cleaned three cat rest boxes; got through FB Newsfeed; reminded Corey that at one-and-a-half and over thirty pounds, he is no longer tolerated as a cute little puppy and should behave accordingly; responded to FB notifications; and wondered where the day went.
Today was surprisingly productive. I took all the paint left by previous owners to the citywide cleanup, switched out my winter clothes for summer, and load six of laundry is in the washer as a result. I also read Ghoulish Song by William Alexander and Throne of the Crescent Moon by Saladin Ahmed, both very good.
Even though it was seventy today in MN, I’m still debating if it’s safe to take my boots and coat to the cleaner.
I finished fine-tuning the little fountain and resulting tinkly plashing of my little pond, rearranged the pallet facings on my vertical strawberry garden to allow room for the sweet little things to actually GROW this year, planted a buncha sweetpeas, mowed a section of the front forty, sat and visited with the chickens for a spell, went around finding and dumping any standing water under and around the deck because mosquitos… we hates them!
I managed all this because the children were out with Daddy and KPa all day! I missed them by the end of it, but being able to sit and listen to my fountain while I drank the last of my coffee was blissful!
We (my girlfriend) did science in the morning (cancer research experiment). And we did grocery shopping, cooked and did laundry and read books and (girlfriend again) studied for finals. Cooking included a pressure cooker, a pork roast with salt and pepper and home made BBQ sauce (cider vinegar, white vinegar, spicy mustard, tomato sauce, chili powder, Anjou chili powder, black pepper, white pepper, soy sauce, salt, and Habanero Tabasco). It stormed here in Texas all night.