A Long Day

It's 52 and drizzling. It rained last night. It will probably rain most of the day today. I'll be at work by noon. And, I officially have a cold.

On Saturday, I let Carla and Grady borrow my truck to move a piece of furniture for Linda, Grady's common law wife. Carla came to work yesterday with a cold. She was popping DayQuil like candy. Grady was sick on Monday. Yesterday, he and Linda were both out with this crud. It starts in the nose, moves to the chest, and eventually becomes a long lasting cough. This morning, my chest feels like the cat slept between my nipples. Not good. Did I mention it's cold and raining? Yeah, gonna be a great day. Moral of this story, never let a common law husband borrow your truck on a Saturday.

Fortunately, I have the next 4 days off from work. It was a fluke that the schedules needed to be rearranged and I happily obliged. Now, it looks like I'll be stuck inside most of these 4 days trying not to turn a simple chest cold into pneumonia. We're still going to chop the tree up on Saturday. My dad is bringing the tractor which ought to be interesting since I don't have a good path to get something so large into the back yard without running over dozens of things I've planted this summer. He promised he'd be careful. It beats hauling large pieces of wood by hand out of the wild green yonder.

I know, I could stay inside the next two days and work on the kitchen. But I won't. We've got temperatures in the low 40s forecast for next week. I want to start cutting down the brugs before the frost gets them. All of them are covered with buds. On the largest, I stopped counting at 75 that won't become blooms. If I had another month of warm weather, it would be spectacular. I just can't risk not taking cuttings for all the people who have been promised plants next spring.

Instead, I'll be outside putting together one of the raised beds for next year's potager. At 16' long and 4' wide, it will make a great base for the hoophouse this year. All my annuals and some tender perennials will be wintersown in the hoophouse like I did this spring. It worked out really well. It's not the typical way of doing things, but nobody can claim I'm typical. I have promised myself not to sow any of those containers and seeds until December 21st, the official start date for wintersowing. I've been known to break my own promises, usually within a couple days of making them. It's my only flaw, really. ;)

For today, the next 3.5 hours will be used to do some basic household chores. There's laundry in the machines downstairs. There are a few dishes that need washing. The floors are covered with sand and straw and pine needles brought home from work in various pockets and my shoes. I've got a pile of seeds next to my desk that need to be sorted and packaged. But truth be told, I'm content with sitting here, drinking my coffee, and blowing my nose every 5 minutes.

Thanks again to Trevor for the appropriate banner. Today is also my sister's birthday. I'll give her a call as soon as my cellphone battery is recharged.