Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Kick Back & Relax

Thursday I decided to sleep until I just woke up. It was wonderful ! Then I cruised on down to Lynchburg & spent the afternoon and evening with my friend Jane. We chatted, we played music, we had dinner - it was fantastic. I'll have to work like a dervish next break to catch up here at the house but that's OK. The housework will be here every break, time with friends isn't always so accessable.

On a sadder note, Mary Travis has died Wednesday while undergoing treatment for leukemia. Bummer. The first record album I ever bought was Peter, Paul & Mary's first album. I still have it. For 50 years they brought us all good music nicely sung. That's some life accomplishment. Rest well lady.

Name That Flower

My friend Gypsy Jane posts pictures of "The Yard" where her RV is parked/camped on her blog. Well here is my yard with the fire ring, hawk target wood pile and the green chair I liberated from someone else's trash. The canvas Civil War dog tent is set up so I could adjust the ropes. I had just finished the rear triangle button on end piece and was fine tuning the setup. About an hour after I took the picture I had my dinner out here. There were 2 or 3 hummingbirds about, several wrens, a blue jay and plenty of bumblebees. The hummers & bumbles were after the little yellow-orange flowers. The wrens have nests in the brush piles and the jays are looking for their next meal.

Here's a photo of the flowers which so interest the local butterflies, bumblebees & hummers. Each flower is an inch to an inch & a half in size. The green part of the plant is anywhere from 2 ft. to 6 ft. tall, very spindly and a light pale green. I would love to know what they are. I've seem them elseware, they like damp ground but seem to do equally well in full sun or open shade.

Mighty Mouse Task Accomplished

TAA DAA ! I got the area at the end of the driveway done, I even got the roofing shingles moved in under the porch ! The shingles were along side the house next to the motorcycles. That's the other section of ground to be graveled so the shingles had to be put in a better location. Now I just need a day or two of rain to wash the gravel and then I'll maybe do a bit of gravel placement readjustment.
Here's the section of the driveway were the gravel was delivered. The lighter area on the asphalt is where the gravel I moved came from. So I've placed about half the gravel so far.

OK, so its not exciting or awe inspiring photography but it sure is nice to have the back of the driveway project done. Plus just think of all the calories I burned moving all that gravel !

Mighty Mouse Tasks Makes for One Tired Puppy

OK, I've got Wednesday & Thursday off, which means I've got 7 days in a row off. WooHoo ! Time to attack house projects ! The weather being accommodating I decided it was time to clean up my driveway & get the gravel driveway extension under way. So Monday I cleaned up the back half of the driveway and then got the landscaping timber cut to size as well as laid out metal sheets from the shed-that-was-in-my-yard-when-I-moved-here where the stones would go. Tuesday I nailed the timbers together with pole barn nails and pounded in short metal stakes to hold them in place. Then I started moving the gravel from the pile in the front half of my driveway to the area between the timber and the end of the driveway. Each wheelbarrel load gets 8 shovelfuls of rock and I'm doing 6 to 9 loads of rock a day. This much Mighty Mouse work means I'm one tired puppy at night !

Anyway, here's a photo of the work as of Thursday. The area is just under half filled with stone. I'm currently putting stone under the porch & then will move on down & away from the house. Once this area is done I'm putting stone down next to the house between the driveway and the house. Uffda !

It has been raining on & off all week so I've been working inside too. The kitchen has been straightened up, all the laundry done and I cleaned out the hall dishes closet. I took all the various plastic storage containers, oddments of microwave ware and general miscellany out & then sorted & washed it all. No more lidless containers, containerless lids or strange kitchenware here any more ! That freed up one whole shelf. Said shelf now has cleaning supplies on it, which means the folding table in the kitchen is 1/3 cleared off. Progress is being made.

Meanwhile I've also engaged in hawk throwing, magazine reading, music practice and hummingbird watching plus spent a half day with the horses. I love fall ! And its barely started !

Who Da Thought

An Early Fall Female Mantis

A little while ago I decided I wanted a butter dish to put a stick of butter in. So butter could be on my table during dinner without a cat tongue checking to see if it really was butter. I looked for a butter dish at my local Food Lion, I looked at my local Dollar General, I even looked at Harris Teeter but no butter dish could I find. I finally found what I wanted at Target - they had one and only one Anchor clear glass butter dish. It was made in the US of A and was very modestly priced. Has the use of butter dishes become old hat ? Do they only sell them with non-electric Melita coffee makers, the kind you pour hot water into the cone ? Butter dishes used to be like salt & pepper shakers, they were everywhere.

Anyway, shortly after the Great Butter Dish Hunt I realized I needed a new writing pad. I love to write letters. Fairly long letters. With a fountain pen. This requires paper. Preferably unlined paper. With a surface that will take fountain pen ink without bleeding. Airmail paper, parchment paper or smooth writing pad paper all work very well for this. So I was at the local Wally World buying pet food and cruised over to the school and office supply section for a pad of writing paper. Except the Wally World didn't have any writing paper. They had 9 different kinds of printer paper, they had graft paper, they had legal pads, they had college & wide ruled notebook paper, they had drawing paper, they had construction paper, they even had carbon paper. But no writing paper. They didn't have any butter dishes or Melita coffee pots either. I found the writing paper I needed at the local Dollar General. I guess folks who shop at DG stores still write letters. Now about that Melita coffee pot . . . . .

Fall Comes to Rucker's Tavern

Its Official - Its Fall

There have been no fire flies rising the last 3 nights & there are no amphibians adding their voice to the night chorus. Oh the crickets & cicadia are going all out but the night birds are silent & the day birds only sound out occasionally. I greeted Fall with a small campfire in my yard's fire ring & then played & sang until full dark.

Mushrooms have popped up under the white pines too. I expect the early migratory birds to appear in about 2 weeks. Ten years ago at this time Urchin was starting her senior year at Chatham Hall. It was a wonderous year that went by way too fast.

This has been a good year for wild things in my yard. I had 6 different box turtles show up, this one was the largest & most aggressive. I hope they paired up & there are little boxes in the woods.
It was also a great year for the bunnies. I spent many an evening watching them nibble this & that in my yard. This bold fellow can hopping to within 6 feet of me & then waited around while I went inside & fetched my camera.

N.B. I have caught up on my summer blogs, for pics of my 'Vous camp check the Shenandoah Long Rifle post for May.

Another Summer Nearly Gone

Its still officially summer here. There are still fire flies rising each evening in my yard but they're few in number. The little yellow orange wildflowers that bloom in August along my woods line are in full bloom right now. The hummingbirds love them and watching the hummers is a pleasant way to spend a late afternoon. Yet those same blossoms are yet another sign that summer is on its way out. They are the last fresh growth of the summer. Once they are gone the understory of my woods will begin to die back, for fall like spring moves from the ground up. Of course school has started but that's because the powers-that-be no longer wait for Labor Day to start classes. Pity really, to not have Memorial Day to Labor Day as summer. Its a waste of 2 perfectly good 3 day weekends to end school in June & start it in mid-August. So much for tradition and a good long lazy hazy summer.

The fire circle behind my house - my favorite twilight place to sit.

I haven't accomplished much of what I wanted to accomplish about my yard & house this summer. Mostly that's because I haven't been able to arrange much in the way of time off from work. Its really frustrating to not be accomplishing any exterior painting even though I know the lack of vacation is the primary reason why painting has not proceeded. Grr. I do have some time coming in early September, hopefully the weather will cooperate and I can finish the house trim. I haven't been able to go camp at the IWLL much this summer either. Again the reason is the leave issue. I suppose I'll just have to make do - its not like I'm fussy about when I'm off and I can't control the leave schedule.