Late summer sliding by

Today is beautiful! It's in the 90's here, I sat on the back porch this morning in a comfy recliner and watched the hummingbirds and finches buzzing around. The garden is in decline, but I'm still getting peppers, green beans and cucumbers. There are a couple cantaloupe on the vine, I hope they ripen before it gets cold. The sunflowers have faded, leaving tons of seeds for the birds to forage. They flock to the garden, and then drop into the chicken pen for scraps of corn and other leftovers. The tomatoes are pretty done- although there are a few stragglers in there. I gave up picking fennel seeds- I'm hoping to have a bumper crop of free fennel next year from it as the seeds scatter about. I've let the chickens back into the garden- grasshoppers had taken up residence in the tomatoes, and the best bug killers are those fluffy little hens! I figure if they want to eat old vegies that have fallen under the plants, it's a small price to pay for their efficient hunting skills.

Yesterday we watched Dakota play soccer- it's so fun to watch little kids play! They know they're supposed to follow the ball, but don't always know what to do with it when they get it. She's doing well and having fun, and I love watching her activities.
The past 2 weeks have been spent painting and working at the rental. The kitchen was in need of a new paint job, and the bathrooms have never been painted. They still sported the original paneling. The kitchen had a very 70's wall paper- orange baskets full of flowers and greenery, and took a primer and regular coat to cover them. While it was lovely in the 70's, it is pretty weathered now. We are painting everything with a semi-gloss 'decorator white'. I know it's bland, but it works well in a rental; the new people benefit from the brighter look, and it fits any color scheme they may have. Unless it's all beige- hopefully they're not beige people....

I painted all the cupboard doors from the kitchen and bathrooms, and worked myself right into a cold. It didn't help that my helper Norm came down with it first, and I was picking him up for work. But I know it's mostly from doing too much. My immune system leaves much to be desired. It doesn't seem to matter that I take supplements, vitamins, etc to strengthen it, when I overdo things it kicks my butt.
Now that the painting is done, I turn everything over to the men- there's still toilets to replace, David is building a wall in the master bathroom in order to install a shower. It's a nice room with a garden bathtub, but the lack of a shower in there is a problem, so we're fixing that. Norm will lay the tile, and the carpet layers can come hopefully in 10 days. Man! What a lot of work, and I know we can't rent it for any more than we did before. But, the house is in need of repair, and we're not slumlords, so the work will be done. I'll sure be happy when it's done and the place is rented.

Lords and Ladies (I'm the lady)

There are great truths found in Lord of the Rings. I'm watching the Fellowship of the Ring tonight, actually I've gotten lazy and haven't read the books in a number of years, but I like the movies well enough. I don't like the way Frodo was portrayed in the movie though- he looks like a wimp, which he absolutely wasn't. J.R. Tolkien was a brilliant writer, I'd love to have that kind of vision and talent. The way he created a whole world, the languages, so many different kinds of people and villains- just fabulous! What would it be like to write such a story I wonder?

We've been working hard on the rental; the guys have cleaned up all the mess, stripped out the carpet and old linoleum, leveled floors, cleaned up the yard and mowed it. Tomorrow we start painting the kitchen and bathroom. We're putting linoleum tile in the kitchen and carpet in the front room and bedrooms.

This week I took a class with a friend- it sounds rather 'new age', called 'Resurfacing'. I'm really ready to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, and this class really helped me to sort out the stuff that's keeping me stuck. Fear is a mighty foe- it has kept me frozen in place for some time, and I'm very tired of that. With some careful introspection and excercise, I'm ready to move forward. Writing will be a big part of that- I've realized I probably won't go back into probation, however much I miss it. But I can still think, and write. With examples like Tolkien maybe I can even put something useful and interesting together!

Wicked Labor Day

Well, I was going to blog about what a great weekend we had, and it was. We finally took our recently purchased, used travel trailer out for a test run. We drove up to Mingus Mountain for Labor day weekend, and it was great! There was a fly-out for the local hangliding/paragliding group, and we watched about 20 people launch. It was so cool, the paragliders set out their parachutes very carefully, then with a deft flick of the hand, up pops the chute, a few hops and they are airborn. I got some good pictures of them in the air, and got some good take-off pictures of some of the handgliders. Their take-off is different; several men help them set up on the launch pad, and help hold the fixed-wing craft until the wind is right for take off. Then they literally run off the edge of a cliff, the glider swoops down until it catches enough air to lift it up into the wind current. I like the idea of a few jumps and the parachute lifting up into the air, not the down-drop of the handglider/hanglider. I'm not sure which is the right spelling. Anyhow, it was really cool to watch.

We had a really nice and relaxing weekend, which was good, because today started the crazy. A crew came in today to tear down the ceiling of our front room. The decorative panels on the ceiling had started falling down, the beams were literally dropping off the wall, and it has to be fixed. The contractor tore down the ceiling to the plywood, now we have to wait until the drywall hangers can come in to do their thing. I hope it's sometime this week!

Our renter next door moved out over the weekend, and when we went over today we found a huge mess! Since she couldn't pay August's rent she asked us to use her deposit, which only covered part of it. I guess she decided that since she wouldn't get her deposit back she didn't have to clean it, and left all the furniture she didn't want there for us to dispose of. She also left the family room full of dog hair- really, 3-5 inches high of black dog hair was drifting all over the room. The kitchen is filthy, her son's room hadn't been packed at all, he still had dirty clothes on the floor, his bed unmade and dirty towels on the bathroom floor. The hardest part for me is that we had been paying her gas bill for the past year, as well as the water, sewer and trash. We've tried to help her as much as we could over the past several years and she's mad that we didn't do more. I admit it, my feelings are hurt. It's tempting to say that the more you do for people the more they expect. Now we have to spend this week cleaning up the mess before we can get it ready to rent again. It's not a fancy place, but it's a nice home and I'm ticked off! Anyhow, I'm glad we had a nice quiet weekend, because the next few weeks are going to be a lot of work, and crazy, noisy and dusty at our house. sigh...

Stitching up and figs

Well, the past week has been interesting. I had an email from one of my blog readers, asking if there was any chance I could mail her some figs. She grew up in Texas, but lives in Montana now, and told me she hasn't had fresh figs in many many years! Well, how could I say no? Mailing them is expensive- it was $11 for shipping plus an ice pack to keep them good. But, why not? I only have a few more figs left, so she contacted me at just the right time. It made me feel really good that someone is reading this blog!

The weather has been crazy, cloudy in the morning, which is so unusual for AZ, then we either get some rain or watch it wander off to the east. Either way, the barometer is bouncing up and down, literally crippling me. I've spent so much time in bed the last 2 weeks, it's embarrassing. I have several sewing projects going- I'm putting french seams on the couch cover I made so that it's reversible; there is an adorable dress for my granddaughter that is nearly done. Then I need to make baby bibs and burp cloths, but until I can sit for any length of time, it's all on hold.

We are finally getting the front room ceiling fixed. For the past several years, the beams in the cathedral ceiling have been drooping, whether from the moisture or just because they didn't nail them into 2X4's in the roof, I don't know. But it's becoming really obvious and a little dangerous, we don't want them coming down on someones head. I have to box up all the china, kachinas and everything else in the room. Sigh...

Late summer sizzle

I'm nearly finished with "The First American", the bio on Benjamen Franklin. He's solved the French and British negotiations, created agreements with both countries for the United States of America, flirted with most of the women of note in both of those countries, and at 79-80, he amazingly survived the long voyage from France back to Philadelphia, even though he had been suffering terribly from gout and kidney stones, as well as various aches and pains of advanced age. He barely got off the boat before the Pennsylvanians elected him President of their fair state. He handled the contentious factions of the politicos with amazing, and typical, aplomb, all the while building onto his own home and 5 new homes on property he owned, to use as rentals and improve the legacy he left his progeny.

Hmmm, and I whine about being crippled and feeling old at 55. Shame on me! Although having 2 heart surgeries and gall bladder surgery 3 years ago and dealing with ongoing fibromyalgia does give me a reason to feel gimpy. I gotta keep focused on the things I can do... that's the goal. I picked a couple more pounds of figs this morning, and we found someone to mow down the weeds burying the property! It looks so much better today. We have a nice crop of tomatoes coming off too, along with peppers. The cucumbers are blooming like crazy, but only one big enough to pick. It's too hot to can anything, so either drying or freezing will do for now, at least what's left that we don't eat. I made some awesome fresh salsa yesterday, and sent tomatoes and figs with the kids, so we'll see what's left to play with.