No Rest For The Weary

We had a nice but busy Saturday, May 1st, Green Up day, of all things. In addition to doing our part to save the earth, or at least our community, I managed to work my tail off and chip away at the proverbial stone. I find that blocking the big picture out of your mind allows you to keep a grip on your sanity, for all that's worth.

After setting us up for Green Up, whereby I signed us up to clean our street (it's fierce competition, last year we got scooped, somebody else actually signed up to clean our road. The nerve), got the bags, and headed home. It was early, so we had other things to attend to.

First thing I did was proceed to cut the wood pile. I figure the log length stuff is about 50% cut, meaning the logs have been cut into blocks. They still need to be hauled over to the woods and split and stacked, but let's not go there. A good example of keeping the big picture out of your mind.

R busied herself with cleaning the consequences of our actions all week in the house, then set about working on the garden. The heat was excruciating, but she toiled away, preparing the soil for our little seedlings. Speaking of the garden, I need to repair that darn deer fence. I feel like Ben Cartwright-from Bonanza, for those who didn't grow up watching TV.

After cutting wood for a couple of hours, I went to work on the barn fascia, and actually got a fair amount done on the gable ends. With the exception of the dormers, almost all of it is off. Keep in mind, I still have to stain and re-install the stuff.

We ate lunch, then I went to finish the last of the gable fascia, and it was time to split some wood. However, earlier N had asked me to play some baseball with him, and of course, I told him I couldn't, I had too much to do. He didn't make a stink, but it came up again, and I thought to myself, how can I not spend some quality time playing ball with the kids. So I told him to get the gear, and we played about an hour of ball in the front. The beauty is, with just the two of us, he gets a ton of practice, and it's pretty low stress for me. I just have to throw the ball and field a grounder or two, so there's is limited movement involved. He, on the other hand, gets to practice his throwing, catching, and hitting, and though I'm not objective here, I personally think he's a natural.

After ball practice, it was time to split some wood and get that darn woodpile to 50%. By afternoon, the sun has moved to the point where the woods where I split the blocks is fairly shaded, so the heat (which was sizzling) wasn't so bad. I split for about two hours, then the obligations of parenthood settled in. What were we going to do for supper?

We'd had pizza the night before, so that wasn't an option. I figured with the warm weather and all, we should BBQ, so I set up our grill and we made burgers with our all natural local beef from Cloudland Farms, which I must confess, is outstanding. The kids love BBQ because they can burn all sorts of materials from the yard in the BBQ. Endless entertainment, as long as they don't set things on fire.

We had our customary s'mores, which again, we can make over the coals, then it was time to hit the sack, but not before spending some time with our good friend, Netflix. Sleep was a welcome conclusion to the day.

Until the next time, thanks for reading, and thanks to Katrina DeLourve for the pic.