Not always in control but momentum gets us to the end

It was so cool yesterday morning that the Tall Teenager and I weeded for more than the usual hour or so.  I had watered the day before and the pulling was good so soon not only was I missing breakfast, but I was fast missing  lunch.  I will catch up on the rest this afternoon I thought, gaily yanking out the dreadfully tall weeds, laying onions out to dry, sowing more zuchinni and cucumber. Well, if it is going to be a long hot summer you never know what we can achieve as long as we keep successive sowing. 

There are a lot of slaters in the soil. I believe they are my problem, eating the roots of the plants, so I am going to water a section with the dishwashing water each evening. They hate soap.

By 11am I was thinking of  cleaning out the pig pen before cleaning up to eat, I was filthy anyway, when a truck came up the drive followed by a grader and a semi and some other smelly contraption and they had some left over bitumen from a job down the road  and did we want the leftovers laid by the shed at cost.

Not wanting to contribute to the awful waste of stuff like this and before I had managed a confused ok, they had taken their shirts off and got to work.  Oh dear. By now it was really hot and I still had all these weeds to feed out before they wilted and the pig pen to do and oh my, the yard was full of barely clothed tall men tanned to all shades, all smiles.  They brightened and stopped work to ask me questions every time I was in earshot.  Then I heard this shout Cows Out and turned in horror but it was just Daisy and Hairy walking to the fence to see if they had any food.  They all had to stop and have a look.  You milk her? Yes. They all looked at her, then looked at me, then looked back at her and shook their heads. Her big head nodding from one to the other.

Then it was done, they all disappeared back down the drive on the backs of trucks and standing behind machines and  were gone like strange tall fairies.  Tarmac is not sustainable I thought to myself. But they would have dumped it otherwise and it is all nice and tidy looking, and oh dear now I will have to trim the hedges.

Kupa likes it.

So do his girls. The Tall Teenager whizzed past on the skateboard. The momentum of the day whizzed along behind him. 

My day became a blur. Now I really was behind. I had been trying to get back to the computer to read and reply to all your messages while I had a munch, this is my favourite part of the blog day but the internet was so slow it could not even remember how to write its own name. And I did not have time to wait.

I made a sausage casserole in the crockpot  with a summer sauce from the garden. Then it was 3pm with growing heat.  I had to get ready for the milking and feeding out and the afternoon chores and still no breakfast or lunch, or even a sit down and my feet were literally hurting, my head loose on its moorings, so I made the blueberry, walnut, silverbeet and home made  icecream  smoothie in a jar with my new hand held blender.  Then drunk it out of the jar so fast I gave myself hypothermia of the brain. Then  sorted boxes of old fruit and veges  delivered from the store into the feed buckets. It was getting hotter and hotter.

The humidity like a fog.

I milked and cleaned that up, John came home, staggering into the pool after a day in the heat.   Then I cleaned the barn,  fed and watered the animals, began the evening watering, had a shower, hung the yoghurt up to drain, strained and stored the milk.  By then the boys had dinner mostly assembled,  and so we ate and I cleaned that mess up, then looked at the evenings work and there was just no way. The laundry, the watering, sheep feet. Debris scattered about. John was already asleep in his clothes.  The Tall Teenager had disappeared as they do at the sight of dirty dishes.  I looked at the litter in the house and was overcome.  Do you ever get to that stage where you just cannot do anymore? A wall comes down like a blind. STOP,  it says on the inside of the blind.

By not it was 8pm. So I took the dogs for a walk. Then opened up the internet again and trawled very very slowly through a few blogs. My connection would not even load the comments sections in most of them which is mean because I love to tell you I love your work. But I was sitting. That was good.

Good morning.  Sometimes Gretchen says it best.  This is a very well timed post for all of us.

And Elladee made some very interesting observations about the journey to living a good clean green life on her site.  The last quote of the page is priceless. My connection whizzes along in the early early morning.

The Post Mistress told me, when she dropped in yesterday, that it was going to be 103 today. Ah well. We are getting better at managing. I am sure you are too. It is summer after all.

My neighbour bought in a bucket load of cucumbers to pickle, swapping them for tomatoes, so today I will make more summer tomato sauce and then dill pickles. I will need more jars soon!! Not that IS exciting.

Have a lovely day.

celi

On this day a year ago. Mary’s Cat meets The Bad Thing. This is a very sweet, very short series of images. If the little ones in your house are up you can show them. It still makes me laugh. I have put this one aside for the children’s book. Though the dialogue needs work!

c