HGTV Bleah!

So on HGTV, this floor that I have been working on for three months would have been done in four minutes seventeen seconds. Of course, there would have been three or four guys you never see on screen doing all the grunt work. Unfortunately, I’m the grunt-worker. So here goes with a little dose

of reality not seen on tv.

 

    Floor finally finished.  After waiting for two weeks for another carton of flooring to arrive at Home Depot so I could finish, I realized I could complete the last row with some waste pieces.  Hard to see in the picture, but the last 18” are made up of 5 pieces of flooring. 

 

    Now for the door trim and base shoe.  Cut, fit, nail temporarily.  When all the pieces are in place, go back and remove everything.  Prime coat, then paint, and reinstall.  Counter sink the nails, putty the nail holes, cover the putty and a few mars incurred during the reinstallation with a dab of paint.  Done.

 

 

    On to the bedrooms, yes the very same ones where all the stuff was removed for carpet cleaning.  Then put back, now removed again, at least some of it.

 

    Go through the same process of cutting fitting, removing, painting, reinstalling, and touch up.  Put the junk back.

 

                                 During the “drying times”, work on the basement stairway.

 

 

    “’Tis an ill wind that blows no good.”  Here’s one good thing that came out of the floor work.

 

 

     A homely way of keeping the knee pads on the knee and off the shoe tops.  It’s not necessary to have the straps too tight, and it only takes one strap.  And that’s a good thing, Martha, since I’m down to one strap per pad.

    Ideally, the loops should be stitched to the pant leg like belt loops, but knowing not the skill of stitchery, iron-on patches cut into 4” strips worked fairly well, and a little fabric glue aided and abetted when the iron-on stuff turned loose.  I'll bet Thomas Edison would be jealous.

     An enjoyable weekend got off to a good start with a root canal in Ft. Collins on Friday.  Hey, it beats bridge work or plates. 

     Back to the grindstone tomorrow.  One bedroom still needs trim, and there are rain gutters to be installed.  I bet Mother Nature is just waiting for me to get done so she can let it downpour.

Still Hibernating

    It seems like I didn’t do anything this week.  But I remember being tired at the end of the day.

  I got a check in Monday's mail for $35.  But the lady had already paid me once.  So I called her son and he said to tear up the check.  Monday at Lions meeting, the lady, who is in her nineties, told me she had got the check back from the Barbershop Society in Nashville.  Hmmm.  What possessed her to send it there?  It took awhile, but I finally figured it out.  I had somehow got that check in the envelope with one I wrote to the Society.  A review of my records indicated I hadn’t cashed it.  So, I re-called the son and confessed that I am the one who is losing it, not his 92-year-old mother.

   The other big deal of the week was a trip to Hays where I left the Ford seats at the Greyhound “depot”, a convenience store where the bus stops sometimes.  There they will stay until some driver decides to load them onto his bus.

 

 

      I spent most of the day Monday wrapping the seats.  I brought back a bunch of rain gutter stuff from Hays.  I should be able to stay out of trouble for awhile. 

     In other exciting news, the floor is nearly done, door trim and base shoe ready for painting and reinstallation. 

 

 

 

 

                                      A trip to the landfill spruced things up a little bit.

 

 

          And I spent a lot of time working on taxes.  Of course hibernating would be more exciting.

Hibernation

 

     There is sadness in December afternoon sunlight.  A June sunset comes about 8 or 9, the December one, about 4 or 5.  In June, the day is about done, time to relax.  In December, the day is hardly through, and nothing to do but fumble through the dark to finish the day’s tasks.  Well of course we have electric lights.

      January brings a time for reflection following the madness of Christmas rush and New Years. Hibernation wouldn’t be a bad thing, maybe. But ol’ Hamlet got it right—“To sleep, perchance to dream, Aye, there’s the rub.”
     We plant growers have a hard time with winter, nothing to dig, or water, or pluck up. Our charges have passed on or gone dormant and left us to face the frozen earth alone. If we could hibernate, our sleep would probably be filled with Hamlet-like nightmares.
 
        “Nowt for it” but to keep occupied with the mundane chores of living. Here are a few:

 

                                     Hang an old kitchen cabinet in the garage

                                        to replace the old one.

 
                                         Install a new floor

 

 

                                      Welcome a drop of snow 

 

                                    Play a game of Catchphrase with friends

 

                                        Shovel some snow just to be outside in the sun

 

                                       Put up a Christmas tree

   

 

                                        Enjoy someone else’s real Christmas tree

 

                                        Be tied up by a sunny day at the end of the year

 
                                         Have a party

 

                                         Go to a concert

                                        Go for a drive—in the Snowcat

 

                                         Try to finish the floor project

 

 

                                   Stretch the carpet and have it cleaned—and survive the mess

 
                                        Take a peek at the Peak—Pike’s, that is

 

                                         Do a little singing with friends. 

    OK, winter does have a few things going for it.  Take a hot shower and sit by the fire.  Call me in March.

2012 50’s Farmer Review

    Well, it won’t be organic (costs too much and takes too much time to get the certificate), but it will be all-natural, chemical-free, pesticide-free, and fertilizer-free.

     It won’t be gluten-free.  (Couldn’t find any gluten-free seed wheat.)  So I can’t help the gluten-free folks much.  But anyone who wants 100% natural good-milling wheat, say for a home flour mill or a countertop grain mill, or maybe a nice-cracking grain to brew a good hefeweizen, I might be of some help.

    Maybe.  If Mother Nature helps out a little.  Or a big.  Raising a crop of wheat with less than three inches of precipitation falls into the fantasy category.

     But “hope springs eternal” as Alex Pope wrote.  It’s not too late yet!  So, here on the last scale of the dragon’s tail (2012 was the Year of the Dragon), is how it all came about, or at least how it looks now.

 

 

 

      In the beginning was the plow.  And the plow went from the center of the field out.  It could do that by following the chisel marks, which really were the beginning, which wound about outside-in in one continuous coil, the regular way to farm.  And the Goodwife said, “You’re like that old guy over by Colby who used to farm with horses.”

 

       It came to pass that Mother Nature was much more beneficent with her gifts of moisture in the spring of 2012.  The chisel first broke ground on Monday April 2.  Due in part to weather, it took until Tuesday April 17 to finish what should have taken a week.  And the Goodwife said, “What do you do out there that takes so long?”

 

     And it was not a long time by comparison, for lo, the chisel knocked out thirteen feet with every pass, while the plow took less than seven feet in its swath.  The plow first turned over sod on Tuesday April 17.  It had to be retired on Wednesday May 9, for it would no longer stay in the ground and turn over the sod.  The earth was still very wet and the grass had put forth many roots.  Thus, it was left to the old oneway disk to finish the job—almost-- on Friday May 11.  And the goodwife said, “Let us go to Ft. Collins for the daughter’s graduation.”  And that came to pass, too.

 

     Sometime between May 14 and May 31, ¾” of moisture blessed the earth, and then the heavens closed for the summer, just about.  Another oneway disk operation took place, this time using two oneways.  The journey began on Wednesday May 30 and ended on Tuesday June 5. 

 

    There would come to pass two chisel-rod operations, one with the old Miller Bar starting on Friday July 13 and ended on Sunday July 15 in clear violation of the Sabbath.

 

     And the second chisel rod operation with the “new” Miller Weeder commenced on Saturday August 18 and came to an end on Tuesday August 21.  This time, the Sabbath was not violated, except by the baseball players.  And so we played golf.

 

      And all things for which there is a season, particularly the time to sow, especially if there was any hope to reap what we will sow, was about to come to pass, so it was necessary to resurrect the ancient drill, and the ancient truck. And forthwith it was done.

   

      The trip into the next county to procure seed was fraught with many Philistines driving gravel trucks.  But the trip was completed safely without incident.  And all things were ready save for—a sore lack of moisture.  And everybody said, “Boy!  I sure wish it would rain.” 

 

   And it did, sort of, in tenths and hundredths of inches, but not enough at one time to do much good.  So as the time drew near, the seeds were planted into the dry earth.  And many of them arose, miraculously almost, in consideration of the dryness of the earth.  The sowing began on Thursday September 13 and ended on Tuesday September 21.  And some rain did fall the last week of September, nearly an inch in several showers.  And so the wheat was doing fine.

 

 

    But October blew hot and dry, and thus far, winter has produced precious little snow, and even cattlemen with livestock to feed are uttering rarely used words—“I wish it would snow.”   

      So now, I join all planters on the plains in waiting for life-giving moisture and trying not to worry about things way beyond my control.  In farming as in life, one must prepare for a future knowing full well that “the best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men gang aft agley”.