Wednesday, October 19, 2005, 18:57
Sticks and Stones
Seeing as the temperature was in the 40s this morning, I started clearing one of our snowshoe trails. I hesitate to walk through tall grass and brush when it's warmer because then the deer ticks will be more active. The deer ticks are active when the temperature is in the 40s, too, but they're not moving quite as fast as they would have been yesterday when it was nearly 80 degrees.
With the dogs accompanying me, I walked down our hayfield and then cut across at the fenceline onto the neighbor's property. At one time, the neighbor's fields and pine plantations were part of the farm owned by my mom and dad. The neighbor purchased the property from my mom and dad and doesn't mind if I walk around with my dogs.
I cut down the hill and walked into the pine plantation where hundreds of sticks anywhere from a foot long to three feet long litter the trail. Every summer, the pine trees shed dead twigs, and the sticks end up in the snowshoe trail. I know that if I do not pick up the sticks, we will have trouble later on when there is 8 or 10 inches of snow on the ground. I don't know how they do it, but the sticks always work themselves up through the snow and into the webbing on our snowshoes. When a stick is stuck in the bottom of your snowshoe, perpendicular to your foot, walking becomes much more difficult, and I would just as soon not be tripped up by a stick.
I fell down with my snowshoes once a few years back and getting up again was quite an adventure. I ended up floundering around in the snow for a while, and then I took the snowshoes off, got to my feet and put them back on again. Too bad someone didn't have a video camera because I would imagine I looked pretty funny, trying to get up again.
Gathering sticks off the snowshoe trail is a gradual process. From now until we have enough snow so that I need to wear snowshoes, I will pick up sticks and toss them aside every time I walk through the pines. The dogs think it's a lot of fun, running around in front of me and behind me, following the scents of deer and rabbits.
Now, with any luck at all, none of us picked up a deer tick. . .
Bathroom: I finished painting the bathroom Tuesday evening at around 6 p.m. At first I thought I would only have to do one coat, but upon closer inspection this morning, I can see that it needs another coat. Especially the ceiling. And that's the hardest part, too. I have to stop every once in a while and give my shoulders and neck a chance to straighten out. Oh, well. My mother always said that nobody promised life would be fair -- if it was, then painting would be faster and easier!
LeAnn R. Ralph
Tuesday, October 18, 2005, 18:06
Finally. . .
Remember last spring when I said I wanted to paint the interior of our house and then when we went to buy paint and the salesperson was such a . . .well. . .was such a "doodle-fritz" (we *are* in polite company here, aren't we?) -- and then I said I would have to go through picking out colors all over again from another paint store?
Well, I finally got around to picking the color for the bathroom. Two weeks ago I bought the paint. Yesterday, I started painting the bathroom! Actually, I started out yesterday afternoon by washing the bathroom walls and the hallway walls. Then last night I started painting. I got one wall done, part of another wall done, and part of the ceiling done.
I got enough painted to be able to tell that, yes, the color is going to be fine -- but also, boy, does the bathroom need painting. Once I got some paint on one wall, I could really see that the old paint was in a bad shape. And what a difference. I chose a pale lavender for the bathroom, and it makes it stark contrast to the off-white, antique-white paint on the walls now.
Of course, I can also see that once I get the walls painted, the floor is going to need help. And so are the shower tiles. And the tub. And the counter. I'm going to have to find some kind of powerful cleanser to make it all white and sparkling again. When it's against yellowed antique-white, you can't tell that the floor and tiles and counter need a whitening agent of some kind. But I can sure tell it now.
It's been 25 years since I have painted inside this house. The house was painted 12 years ago on the inside. I didn't do the painting then, though. So, I guess it's about time that *I* paint.
Carrots I pulled some more carrots from the garden this morning. On one side of one row, it looked like there were carrots because the tops were there. Except that when I grabbed a handful of tops, that's all there was. The carrots themselves were gone. When I eventually found some carrots, I pulled one that was half eaten off from the bottom. That's definitely a gopher. But on the other side of the garden, the tops are eaten off. So that's definitely a deer.
Goody. The gophers are working at the carrots from one end and the deer are working on the carrots from the other end. I got six packages of carrots out of the batch yesterday that I put in the freezer. I will probably have closer to 10 packages today. And if I'm going to get my carrots done, the bathroom finished, and also work on promoting my new book, "Cream of the Crop," I'd better get busy!
LeAnn R. Ralph