Half Year Summing Up

 Well, I've made it halfway through 2024.  I wonder at what point I will get over the mind set of "making it through"?

I have written of the strange calm I've felt this year.  I wonder if it's partially because when I first came home and wasn't sure if I could manage out here by myself, and wondering how long I could make it, and I thought maybe 5 years?  Well, five years later - I'm maintaining things, and I've survived whatever has been thrown at me; I'm healthier and physically stronger.  So I don't have to give up my home just yet.

So how's 2024 going so far?  Not bad.
For someone who said she was going to quit pushing, and just be a hermit if she felt like it - I've gone out quite a bit, and peopled at lot. I went to the Highland Games, and to the Royal Hanneford Circus, the FSU circus (with friends), to the Broadway Shows singing at the community center, to two gatherings at the museum, and to a play at the School of Theatre.  I did the Tree to Tree course with two co-workers.  Jeff has visited three times.  Suzie and Ashlyn came over to help with the chicken coop and we went to lunch afterwards.   I went to Crawfordville for lunch with Judy. I've been going to visit Gill after my monthly chiropractor visit.  I went to Thomasville with Adrianne.

I've dealt with stuff - like my hubcaps falling off, and the fender-bender accident.  I replaced a circuit breaker in Chez Wicca.  I did extra shifts at the museum during the post-tornado time.  I finally rebuilt the ceiling panels and repaired the bedroom ceiling.

I did the massive barn clean out, and an equally massive amount of brush clearing (although the latter is hard to tell because it keeps growing back).  I tore down a rotting fence, and repaired the chicken coop.  I repaired and painted my mailbox.  I rebuilt my front swing.   I was able to give away the small loom that I don't use.  I've raised 5 new chicks.

I'm still in search of my creative mojo.  I did the swing, and I made a skirt to wear to the highland games (I don't especially like it and might recycle the cloth) and I'm still slowly making the medieval dress.  About the only other thing I've made is a hairpin - simple, but I'm pleased with it.  I have a collection of hair sticks for when I wear my hair French twist style, but for when I'm wearing a hat at the museum I wear my hair in a low bun, and for that I needed a short stick, not fancy, preferably a little wavy to hold better.  So I made it.  I had some heavy copper wire from a earlier project so all I had to do was cut, file, bend a twist at one end and put in a couple of waves.  Simple, but satisfying.  Then I had to do it again because while I was doing yardwork a stray azalea branch caught it, pulled it out, and flung it somewhere.

I've logged over 550 miles in my walking challenges.

I've read 26 books (#27 is A Brief History of Time, which Ebaida wanted to read)

That's it so far.

OK, I feel better.  I'm glad I wrote this.  For the last four days I have done virtually nothing.  I've been getting that stressed feeling of an animal seeing a trap closing with the change of weather.  For the last week it's gotten over 100 degrees in the heat index, with the high humidity making it difficult to breath (especially in the mornings, when it's not particularly hot yet but the humidity is 100%).  So maybe it's OK to take a few days off to switch gears and think about inside projects.

An Unxpected Day

 I wasn't expecting much from today.  Obviously I was depressed yesterday.  I stayed up reading until 2:00 a.m.; I simply was not falling asleep.  Then I woke up at 7.  I thought about trying to go back to sleep, but I know my sleep patterns.  If I had, I would have overslept and then been muzzy and groggy.  Best to get up.

So - depressed, 5 hours of sleep, and going to be another really hot day (heat index hit 104).

I was not expecting to feel energetic.  I got outside early, because the chickens had managed to tip over their waterer last night and I had to get that mess cleaned up (it was too dark and I was too depressed to deal with it last night).  I got the coop cleaned out, and then did some other things that have just sort of been hanging around, like washing some buckets that I had set out by the hose, finally putting away the ladder that has been leaning up against the chicken yard for a couple of months, taking down the "vote for city commissioner" sign (elections are over; my guy won).  After I came in, I got a pot of chickpeas on to simmer (side note - both a blog that I follow and a post by a friend praised the chickpeas raised in a certain area of Washington state, so I had ordered a bag and put some in to soak last night.  Who knew that chickpeas can have terroir?). After breakfast I got the week's laundry done, made a couple of smoothies to have in the fridge for breakfasts, and made a big tray of granola.

I worked on my dress.  I have friends in the SCA who have invited me to come play with them if I like, so I need a dress. I've been taking far too long with it.  I could have just gotten a costume pattern for "medieval lady" and used a bed sheet for fabric. But instead I drafted my own pattern (medieval clothing is made differently from modern clothing), I'm using linen, and doing a lot more handstitching than necessary.  I don't want the inside seams to fray.  No one will see them - I could have just done a machine zig zag stitch and been done in 20 minutes.  Instead, I'm neatly folding them in and hand stitching them down, adding several hours to the project.  But I'll know it's there.  I've been having problems getting the sleeves right and drafting several versions of that (sleeves are tricky - if you think about it, you'll realize that your shoulder is higher than your armpit, so the top of the sleeve has to be longer than the bottom).  I think I finally have it.  It's going to lace up the front, so I'll have to make about 40 hand stitched eyelets.   All of this for a very plain dress that I might not even wear much.  But I like figuring it out.

I read a chapter of Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time."  I read it when it first came out in the late 80's - I remember bogging down in the second have.  Ebaida wanted to read it (she had the same problem with her first reading) so we're co-reading.  We'll have to remember that it's now a period piece;  a lot more physics has been discovered since then.  But it's good brain exercise.  Although I'm not sure that Dr. Hawking would approve of our approach, which so far is religious and philosophical.  But at the heart of it, isn't science, religion, and philosophy all about the same basic question of "what the hell is going on, and why?"

Chickpeas having cooked in the meantime, I made hummus with some and froze the rest for a future curry.  And those specialty chickpeas?  Best I've ever tasted.  Good thing I liked them - they came in a 5-pound bag.

So I've been clipping a long, whistling while I work.  I keep expecting to fall on my face - it's almost 11 p.m. and I've been busy since 7 a.m. on those 5 hours of sleep.  And I have to get up early for work tomorrow, so I'm going to shut down the laptop, grab my book, and hopefully crash.

It's been a good day.

Hot Weather Ramblings

 I'm starting to crumble just a little bit.  That odd calm that I've been feeling since 2024 began is starting to give way to a bit of fragility.

A lot of it is the weather.  The heat wave that's hitting all the country; already getting into the high 90's with indices over 100.  Even early in the morning the humidity is near 100% so even if it's not hot it's oppressive.  I do better mentally if I'm mostly outside - even if I'm not working, I'm sitting outside reading, or taking a walk.  But the heat is oppressive, and I'm getting "summer skin" - a breakout of bug bites and rashes.  And some of them get infected (if it itches, it's just a reaction.  If it's burning, it's an infection. The former get cortisone cream, the latter antibiotic cream).  Baths lace with baking soda also help.  The other day I was burning off the yard waste - I lasted three hours of cutting and dragging waste before it hit the point that it wasn't particularly safe anymore due to the heat.

It's hard to get my steps in (I"m 223 miles into my virtual 828 mile hike around Iceland).  It just sort of happens; like if I'm talking to Mike and Margo I'll also wander around the yard and pick up sticks and fallen branches to take to the burn pit, and in the course of a long conversation get a mile or two in.  Today - there was pacing up and down the hallway - not the same.

And it's That Time Of Year.  This cute picture popped up in my FaceBook memories - baby vulture.

Awwwwww.  Cute.  But my heart caught in my throat.  It was a memory from early June, 2019.  We had gone to the rehabber's to pick up some baby opossums. Normal times, for us.  But in a couple of weeks Bob would go in for his routine annual exam; in a month after this picture was taken, he would be given his death sentence.  

Five years now.  You'd think I would heal.  But the wounds are still bleeding.  I find that, once again, I've been staying up later and later (it's almost midnight now) just to avoid going to bed alone for the (Hey, Google!  How many days since March 30, 2020?)  1,546th time.

A poem floated by, and I caught it.

I missed you quietly today. So quietly that no one noticed.

I missed you as I climbed out of bed and as I brushed my teeth; when I waited at the lights on the drive into work and as I heard the rain outside my window.

I missed you as I ordered lunch and as I kicked off my shoes when I got home; as I switched off the lights and climbed into bed for the night.

I missed you without tears or noise or fanfare.

But oh how I felt it.

I felt it in the morning, at lunchtime, in the evening and at night. I felt it as I woke, as I waited, as I worked. I felt it at home, on the road, in the light, in the dark, in the rain.

I felt it in every one of those moments, each one sitting heavier and heavier as the weight of me missing you kept growing and growing.

Yes, I missed you so quietly today.

But I felt it so loudly.

(Ugh. A bug in Blogger - if you do a cut-and-paste, it changes the background and you can't get it back.)

One soldiers on. I've been laughing at myself - I've barely been able to walk for the last two days. Day before yesterday I spotted a new weight exercise - you do a squat to touch the weight to the floor, then stand and lift it over your head. Looked like a good allover workout. To get my body used to the motion and get the form correct, I used a five pound weight. Because it was so easy, I knocked out the three sets of 15 in no time flat.

No problem - at the time. But since then my thighs have been letting me know that they have not appreciated the 45 squats in 5 minutes. Ouch.

And is my life so interesting that I forgot to post this picture?

Yes - that is my hand holding a cougar paw. One of the cats at the museum had her annual physical and had been sedated, so we were allowed in to touch her.

I'll be OK - I just need to switch gears, from being outside to inside. Figure out how to deal with the cabin fever. I'll still be doing the museum work outside, but I will admit on those days I come home, grab a shower and lunch, and then crash for a few hours. Hopefully I'll acclimate soon (I keep telling myself that will happen, despite years of evidence to the contrary 😀)

Loving The Battery Tools

 Sometimes there are inventions that just make life so much easier - like the brilliance of putting wheels on luggage.

For, the past few years for me, it's been battery powered tools.  They're smaller, lighter, and a heckuva lot easier to start than gas powered.  In the last couple of years I've bought a lawnmower, chainsaw, and my most recent brush cutter.

They're wearing me out.  As I wrote in the last post, I'm really trying to get the yard under control as much as possible before the unbearable weather sets in, and it's just about here.  I've taken to going out and doing an hour or two of work before breakfast (because I'm not inclined to set an alarm on the mornings I'm not going in to the Museum to get up early enough to eat before it gets light.)

I got the new brush cutter on Friday, June 7. So Saturday, Sunday, and Monday I did the morning yard work thing.  Tuesday and Wednesday was the Museum (and it was bloody hot - heat indices are already hitting 100).  Thursday - I just sort of sat on my arse.  I'd also been dealing all week with too much drama with Bob's friend, who just didn't want to take no for an answer (that's been dealt with; the joys of electronic communication is that you can block someone).  So a day of rest was, I think, well deserved.

For the last two days I've been dealing with a couple of fallen trees behind the house (I took this picture from the deck - really should have taken one at ground level)

You can see the one tree; the other one fell a couple of months ago (when I was still involved in The Great Barn Clean out) and is under it.  They're both tangled up in azaleas and underbrush, but I've just been attacking it methodically.  This is where the joy of the battery powered chain saw comes in - it's just so much safer.  The proper protocol - which I follow - is that at first with hand clippers and loppers you clear any obstacle from the part you want to cut.  Then you position both feet firmly, make the cut, stop the chainsaw and put it down, and lift the cut portion of the tree out of the way.

That's the proper way - which a lot of people don't do because with a gas saw it's a pain in the butt to keep restarting it, so it's tempting just to sort of try to push stuff out of the way, or take a few steps to reposition yourself for the next cut (shoving your cut piece out of your way with your feet), or even just reach over to make it.

Battery powered saw?  Just click it off.  Prep for the next cut.  Pick up the saw and click it on.  *So* much safer.

And yeah, once again I could hire someone and have it all done in a hour or two - but where's the satisfaction of that?  It feels good doing it, both mentally and physically.  It's using muscles they way they're meant to be used  - together, in unison, shifting from one to another.  I remember when we had to have some big trees taken out, and the tree guy had a young assistant.  The old term "whipcord" comes to mind - the kid was lanky, with skinny arms.  But he was picking up lengths of oak that had to weigh over a hundred pounds and tossing them out of the way.  When I commented on his strength, he said "Yes, ma'am.  I'm country strong.  Those gym bros - they may have the big muscles, but they don't know how to do any work with them."

Another day or two and I'll have that job done.  This next picture shows why I'm doing it - other than having a dead tree lying tangle up in the azaleas lacks aesthetics.  When a tree falls (or gets the top torn off, like in a hurricane or tornado), it pollards - starts sending up new shoots.  Here's a chunk of the tree that fell in the spring.

You can see all the new growth on it.  If I don't cut it up and drag it off - it will be moving the forest a couple of feet closer to the house.  And it's a bit close as it is.  I've got two more mornings to work on it.  Then it's back to the Museum for two days, and I'm thinking that once again, on Thursday, I'll rest.

New Yard Toy; Rehoming a Loom

 Only four days since the last post, but they've been busy.

One of the useful things about this blog is that I can literally talk to myself - and it can help hearing what I want to say.  When I posted on Wednesday I said that I was really dreading Friday, having one of Bob's friends come over to look at models and maybe take some.  I was fine with the models going (I've had several other friends come over for models and art supplies.  I like the idea of bits of Bob being appreciated and spread around.)

What I was dreading was the visit.  Danno is likely some flavor of neurodivergent; his social skills stopped developing around age 13.  After Covid restrictions started lifting we went out to lunch once - and then he wanted to be my bestest buddy and kept wanting to go out and asking when he could come over and I could cook dinner for him, or maybe just hang out - which I kept dodging.  We also continued for awhile to message - but like any adolescent, he really liked off-colored jokes and comments and I finally had to be a little harsh, tell him he was being annoying, and ghosted him some time in 2022.

Then he pops up a couple of weeks ago in messenger, very polite, and asks if maybe Bob had a particular model.  I decided after putting it off four years that I would let him come over and look at them.  Then it all broke loose - in the following week I got something like 20 messages and a phone call and he was all excited because I'm such a good friend, and he really didn't need any models but was looking forward to hanging, out with me, especially since he had been having a rough time at work because of problems with a female (red flag there - I instantly knew that he still tells off-color jokes).  I realized that I was going to have to start all over again at getting rid of him - so I decided to head it off at the pass, told him that he was making me very uncomfortable, and cancelled the whole thing.
Whew!

Instead of doing that on Friday, I went to Lowe's to get my new toy.  I've written before about The Beast - my big gas powered brush cutter.  Having a big brand name (Stihl) monster, it seemed like a complete indulgence to get another brush cutter.  But I did - a smaller, battery powered one.  There are still times that I might want The Beast (like if I ever try to clear a path down to the stream again - I haven't been down there since Hurricane Michael in late 2018).  But for regular maintenance, I really wanted something easier and lighter.  And because it's battery powered, I also think it's safer.  If I want to pause to lift some cuttings out of the way, switch sides, or even wipe sweat off my forehead, I just turn it off for a moment.  I'm less likely to do that with The Beast because I'll have to yank that pull cord to get it started again.  The Little Blue Beast (it's a Kobalt Brand) and I are just about evenly matched; I was doing some clearing yesterday morning and I was getting a bit worn out and about to give up when the battery finally wore down.

Saturday the woman did come over to look at the loom that I mentioned.  It's a nice one, but I simply don't use it, and I believe that things should be used.  Her timing was good - I've been thinking for a few months that I should start putting out the word that I'm willing to re-home it.  Then I saw in the minutes for the Weaver's Guild (I don't go to meetings, but I still read the minutes) that this woman was looking for looms - so win-win.

That made for a little work this morning.  Last night I was walking the path that her car would have to drive to get to the cottage - and there were a couple of small trees and overhanging branches in the way.  I've been getting in the habit the last couple of weeks of doing yard work in the morning before breakfast - before the heat rises.  This morning that involved grabbing the chain saw and loppers and clearing the way.
Of course, now that means that I have a huge brush pile and really should have another fire soon before the rains hit.  But not today.

The people came, we were able to get the loom into the vehicle, and they came into the house to look at my big loom and have a short visit.  When we were walking back to the door, I realized that it had not closed all the way when we came in, and my heart sank.  After they left I searched the house and shook the box of kitty treats.  Sure enough - Stumbles was missing. She's my fearless (meaning that she'll do dumb things because nothing scares her) little wobbly cat.  I did a quick search of the house.  Then I went outside; I looked under the deck and under the house and under the bushes and the car, and crisscrossed the property, calling and shaking treats.  I was trying not to panic.  After a half hour or more, I came in to re-search the house.  10 minutes of that, and I headed back out, only to find her sprawled out on the front porch with that cat "what took you so long" look on her face.  And wondered why I hugged her.

That does it.  I'm taking the rest of the afternoon off.

Peopling

 For someone who said that in 2024 she was going to get in touch with her inner hermit, stay at home, and not people - I've been peopling.

I'm usually quite content with my 2-mornings-a-week at the museum.  This week there has been a bit more (with more to come).  Saturday Adrianne had to take her car to the next town over to get the key programmed (now I feel like a geezer - back in my day a key was just a piece of metal that you stuck in the keyhole and didn't need programming).  Thomasville is a pretty little town with a nice yarn shop, and she asked if I'd like to go (the undercurrent there being that she has chronic fatigue syndrome so feels better if there's someone to go along).  There was an added bonus that the Prius place is far classier than my Honda place and they have bags of free fresh baked doughnut holes from a local bakery.  Best my Honda place has is granola bars.

Sunday was a bonus Jeff day.  He has meetings in town this week, but Sunday afternoon was free so we had lunch and a stroll at the museum (he misses the museum very much).  I find it ironic that I actually spend more time with Jeff now than I did before he moved to Tennessee.  When he lived in town, he was always too busy to get together, or even have a phone call. Now that he's in town only a few times a year, he makes sure to get together.  It's nice.

Monday was my monthly chiropractor appointment, and it's now becomes a thing that I go visit Gill afterwards (she made tiramisu cupcakes!)

Tuesday was another Adrianne day, but not social.  Poor girl had to have an endoscopy.  She took a Lyft there (very early morning) but being as she was going to be sore, sedated, and woozy really needed a friend to get her home.

Today was Museum day.  Here I pause for Adorable Video.  The wolf puppies are now 5 weeks old.  One night the parents were howling (because they're wolves) and the little girl decided to join in.

Tomorrow - blessings!  Home Alone!

Friday I'm rather dreading.  A friend of Bob's is coming over to see if he wants any of Bob's model kits (there are about 200 to choose from).  Bob had said that Danno could have any that he wanted.  Four years later - I haven't done it yet.  Danno . . . well, best I can say is Bless His Heart.  He tried very hard to get me to adopt him after Bob died, and I eventually managed to stop corresponding.  But recently he popped back up again because he's hunting for a model and I figured I might as well let him come look at them and get it over with.  Sigh.  Picture Danno as a half-grown dog - all waggy tail and bouncing around and happy to see you and wants his ears scratched and his tummy rubbed and jumps on you and maybe pees on the floor.  But say one word - and the tail is tucked between the legs and he crawls under the furniture and whimpers.   Hence, the putting it off for four years.  

I thought that would be it for the month.  But there's a woman who's going to be teaching weaving at FSU and put a call out for looms that she could buy or borrow.  I have a small floor loom that a friend of my mother's gave me years ago.  I don't use it (I have a portable table loom for sampling and small projects, and a bigger, better floor loom) and have been thinking about rehoming it.  She might come over this weekend to look at it.

I think I might spend the rest of the month hiding under a rock.