Saturday, June 27, 2015

jouska

n. a hypothetical conversation that you compulsively play out in your head—a crisp analysis, a cathartic dialogue, a devastating comeback—which serves as a kind of psychological batting cage where you can connect more deeply with people than in the small ball of everyday life, which is a frustratingly cautious game of change-up pitches, sacrifice bunts, and intentional walks.

Dictionary of Obscure Sorrow

Thursday, June 25, 2015

This, that, and everything,,,

First harvest of herbs:

Fiskars-palooza

Got the truck started and moved on Saturday:
On Sunday the remnants of Tropical Storm Bill was passing through, so in the rain ran up to Maine for a Lobster Roll (and a stop at Kittery Trading Post for a mattress pad for camping):









Amused me to see the mirror effect in the big monitor at work:

Thursday, June 18, 2015

More progress...

Not as much done this week as I wanted...pretty much out of it both Tuesday & Wednesday evening, had pretty bad dehydration I was fighting since Friday. Finally licked it drinking a gallon and a half at work Wednesday (of course then I didn't feel like doing anything Wednesday night with a stomach sloshing full of water...).

Was able to work a little in the garage tonight, hoping my insides will be back to normal by tomorrow night.

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Strawberries and other things...

Finally got the racks painted Friday morning and moved back in on Saturday morning:

And lined:

Pam, Courtney, and Jaxson stopped by and I didn't even hear them pull in while I was in the garage o_O. Add to them since Memorial Day Mom, John L., A. & L., Erik, which may be more people two weeks than the last two years.
Made some clam chowder that was in the crock pot overnight Friday:

Sunday morning's mission was to get Strawberries...at some farm with an unpronounceable Polish name in Hatfield. I was dehydrated Friday, thought I did well with drinking 5 quarts of water plus a few beers on Saturday, but having driven to the Pioneer Valley and back drinking 3 quarts and peeing only once I guess I was dehydrated again on Sunday :(. But first...let's walk up the Quabbin Tower (discovered it last year but I knew my Achilles wouldn't have made the walk, at least without a lot of pain.)

You could see Mount Monadnock on the left and Mount Wachusett on the right...I used the window frame to make sure I had both mountains in the pic, but the iPhone barely had enough contrast to pick them up in the photo. You could also see Mount Greylock over 60 miles away from another window, but they were in too large of an arc to see all at once.


Strawberries...guess I'll be freezing some!

With coffee ice cream to watch the season finale of Game of Thrones.

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Picking up stones...

Pic of the whole stretch of driveway I built up this past weekend. Still needs some probably mostly manual work to finish level off a few spots and make sure the entire surface drains off.



Did spend a couple hours this afternoon picking up the stones on the side, and used some to build up the fire pi


Monday, June 8, 2015

Three days in June...

Took Friday off.

I wanted to prime the racks on Friday, but the wind came up too soon in the morning so I kept cutting wood and finished the log pile. Five weeks since it was delivered, used more gas on Friday than I expected so let's call it 10 saw tanks worth of gas. Now I have to cleanup a spot to stack wood so I can start splitting.





Finally got the knack of putting down gravel in the driveway. The 150' or so section by the garden that got muddy in the spring I raised up about 4", though I still need to pickup the rocks on the side and make sure there is no spots where water will pond up. part of the 13 hours I put on the tractor this weekend.





So I wanted to prime the racks before Uncle John's burial on Saturday....but it ended up taking me over an hour (and a trip to Walmart for a cheap electric mixer) to mix it up. Had to use a metal bar to scrape the sludge off the can bottom up to wher the mixer could mix it up. Worked well putting the can and mixer inside the five gallon pail -- I could just let it go on it's own while I cleaned in the garage.



So Sunday morning I *finally* got the next three racks primed:




Now that's one big ass rock:

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

Another cold day...

Think I've gone about as far as I can go till I get those other three metal racks painted and back in place this weekend to give me some place to store stuff away as I clean the rest.
And the label maker has come out :D

Monday, June 1, 2015

A cold day in June

Came home from work, lit the woodstove, put on a pull over and a hoodie and went and worked in the garage a bit more: