Tuesday, September 30, 2014
I have just arrived at the little house in the city. Attila and I pulled out of the country house driveway at the same time. At the highway junction he turned left, I turned right, and we flashed our headlights at each other. It was still dark enough to see each other’s headlights in our rearview mirrors.
My trip was an easy one, with lots of stops. I had to come to a complete stop twice on the Highway, for a school bus. I had to stop three times for construction. I stopped once for fuel. I stopped once to buy a snack because I was feeling a bit tired and needed a pick-me-up. And I stopped once at an apple store to buy a quarter bushel of Spy apples.
Just as I left the highway, and was driving through the countryside right outside of town, I passed a field with a huge tanker moving across it. The tanker was spraying liquid manure, and the smell hit me like a fist! This stuff was not composted manure, as we used on our farm, which has very little odour. No sir, the liquid coming out of that tank and spraying around was pure, fresh, liquified manure. Miles down the road, when I arrived home and stepped out of the car, the smell was less strong, but definitely being carried into town on the autumn breeze.
Upon arrival at the little house in the city, I unlocked the door and immediately called Attila to let him know I had arrived safely. Then I turned on the water supply, and checked to see if we had caught any mice in the mouse traps set as we left over a week ago. One was set in the basement, and it was still empty. Another was set in the tool cupboard, and it was not empty. The dead mouse was just beginning smell bad. I got that job over with as quickly as possible, carrying the mouse trap to the compost pile, digging a hole, and burying the mouse in the hole. I will spray the trap with bleach, reset it and place it back in the tool cupboard.
It took about an hour to carry all the luggage and items in from the car. Then I took a long rest, with a tall glass of water, and a handy pen and paper for the inevitable supply list.
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Then it was time to pick up a few supplies; a quick trip to the local grocery store was in order. When I got back Terra was waiting form me, she stopped by on her way home from work. We had a nice chat, short and nice. She was going to go home to sleep, because she had to be back at work within eight hours, to work the night shift.
The rest of the day disappeared into cleaning and cooking activities, and ended with a brief conversation with Attila, via Skype.
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
I do not know how I turned off my cell phone, but I did. The result was that I slept in, until 7:14 a.m., a truly rare event in my life, and as a consequence, was too late to chat with Attila before he left for work. I felt very well rested. I slept deeply my first night here at the little house.
We receive free delivered newspapers here at the little house in the city, and they are stuffed full of flyers. I noticed that turkeys were on sale, and decided to purchase a few for the freezer. We generally eat between four and six turkeys every winter. We roast the turkey, prepare all the trimmings, mashed potatoes, vegetables, stuffing, etc. Then we eat leftovers for many days, and then Attila makes his turkey soup with whatever is left of the turkey.
So far, during this visit to the little house in the city, time seems to be getting away from me! It is passing so quickly, I hardly notice, and wonder where the day went.
On the agenda for the day was a large pot of chili, for quick meals while I am here alone. I tend to forget about preparing a meal until I feel hungry. Once I am hungry I do not want to wait until a full meal is prepared. My solution, make a big pot of chili, and a large quantity of fried mushrooms with rice. That provides me with two healthy, instant meals. I used two jars of my pressure canned Chili Beans to make my pot of chili.
Thankfully, the mouse traps were empty this morning!
The dehumidifier in the basement was full this morning. It has been emptied, and is ready to be turned on again when the electricity prices go down tonight.
During the afternoon, while the chili was being assembled, a flock of wild geese could be heard flying overhead, heading south.
I picked about four quarts of tomatoes from the garden. The squirrels have been busy raiding, and some very nice tomatoes were lying on the ground half eaten. In order to beat the squirrels to the food, I harvested the largest green tomatoes, and will ripen them on the windowsills.
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The last of the cucumbers were peeled and chopped today. I boiled them in a pot, let them cool, put them through the blender, and froze them to use as an ingredient in a future Stone Soup.
I am snacking on Coronation Grapes, I love them. They taste like Concord Grapes, but are seedless, and grown in Niagara. I bought them at NoFrills, a grocery chain, for anyone in Ontario who might be interested in finding them. I also chopped one of the Spy apples into my oatmeal this morning, and added a bit of cinnamon, yum.
When I talked to Attila at 9:00 p.m. last night, he had only been home for about an hour and half, he had worked until 7:30 p.m., no breaks, no lunch break. He came home and chopped wood until 8:30 in the evening. When I talked to him he was preparing his evening meal. They are very busy where he works, and they appreciate what he does for them.
It was a beautiful sunny day today. It was a stinker though, because somewhere near the periphery of the city, fields were being sprayed with liquified manure again. The smell was eye watering at times. This is one of the disadvantages of having farmland nearby. When city folk move to the country they are often horrified by the smells. We do not live in a Fisher Price or Lego world, where everything is made of plastic, and can be sterilized before use. No, real life includes smells, all kinds of them, including manure, and the flowers that grow because of it.
Today I didn’t accomplish any of the bigger projects on my list. I puttered about, and did a lot of little things that needed doing. Lots of time left during this visit for the big projects, to pressure can beans, mow the lawn, and sew the dining room curtains. I may, or may not, get around to all of these projects, as none of them are urgent.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
I have completed the database work for the first draft of my next genealogy book. It was a tough slog! I am sure I will find errors as I go forward, but that is to be expected.
Now I am looking for photos to include, which is tricky. Old photos are no longer under copyright, but I have few of those, as the family history I am writing starts in the late 1700s, and will end in the early 1900s. My biggest challenge is defining parameters, the size and resolution of the photos and charts is where I am starting, and there is a sea of too-much-information out there!
I am beginning to narrow it down though, and am looking for online publishers who provide a lot of step-by-step written guidance on how to prepare for publication. I could publish manually, as I am a registered Publisher in Canada, but I probably will not go that route, as I have to distribute the books myself. The last book I published sold many more copies than I expected, which meant trip after trip back to the printers. Choosing an online publisher should mean that I don’t have to do the legwork myself.
This morning I awoke at 3:30 a.m., and could not get back to sleep. I was worried that I would sleep in, and miss my chat with Attila before he left for work. It was an early start to the day!
After chatting with Attila, which was challenging because Skype was suffering from feedback, I made a cup of coffee and reviewed my plans for the day. There are so many projects to choose from.
But first, time to have a little breakfast. I peeled six Spy apples, sliced them into a saucepan, added a little water, a little cranberry juice, a little sugar, and a generous teaspoon of cinnamon. Then I prepared the oatmeal crust for the apple crisp. The recipe called for baking soda, but I am trying to limit my salt intake to a healthy daily limit, and so used baking power instead. While the apple crisp was baking I hopped into the shower while the water was still hot. I had turned on the hot water heater after 7:00 p.m., and turned it off in the morning before 7:00 a.m., to take advantage of the almost half price electricity rates. Taking a shower takes a bit of planning.
Because the weather was predicted to be fair, it seemed a good opportunity to tackle mowing the lawn, so that was the project I chose for the day. I checked the back yard, and all of the leaves had come down from the big tree, covering the lawn in a thick blanket of leaves. Time to put the new mulching lawn mower to the test!
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It took me about two hours to complete the task, I didn’t hurry, and only stopped doing a second pass because I ran out of gas. It was just as well that I stopped, I think I had reached my physical limit. The lawn looks pretty good I think, and the mulching was a great success. I have decided I like mulching the leaves rather than raking them up. The area mowed was about one quarter of our lawn, we have a double lot, and we really know it, when it comes time to mow it.
After taking a break, I wandered into the garden with a big plate and picked a dozen or so hot peppers, and a few dozen tomatoes showing just a hint of red. I am determined to beat the squirrels to the harvest!
And happily, they have stopped spraying liquid manure, the air today was fresh and fragrant!
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Worldly Distractions
Weather
17°C
Date: 1:00 PM EDT Tuesday 30 September 2014
Condition: Mostly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.4 kPa
Tendency: falling
Visibility: 13 km
Temperature: 17.4°C
Dewpoint: 12.6°C
Humidity: 73%
Wind: NE 19 km/h
17°C
Date: 2:00 PM EDT Wednesday 1 October 2014
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 101.9 kPa
Tendency: falling
Visibility: 13 km
Temperature: 17.1°C
Dewpoint: 13.3°C
Humidity: 78%
Wind: N 21 km/h
19°C
Date: 2:00 PM EDT Thursday 2 October 2014
Condition: Partly Cloudy
Pressure: 102.0 kPa
Tendency: falling
Visibility: 24 km
Temperature: 18.9°C
Dewpoint: 13.6°C
Humidity: 71%
Wind: SSE 8 km/h
Quote
“People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within.”
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross
The rhythm of your days is a delight to follow. Unlike you, today was non-productive for me. I don’t know why I punish myself so when I have a day of *nothing*.
Omigosh. I just realized why I become disgruntled with my nothing days.
But I will write about that another time. 🙂
You inspire me.
Reenie, I was thinking just today that my entries are largely “much ado about nothing”. I am one of those people who thinks that it is the little things that make life worth living, that connect us to ourselves, and to others.
Nothing days are like taking a cup of tea with a friend, saying to them “you be mother”. I hope you enjoyed your nothing day Reenie!
Do you use a quote generator, Maggie? You come up with some authors that are well-known to me, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, Kahlil Gibran, Rabindranath Tagore. Gibran and Tagore are favorites from my teens and early 20s. Kubler-Ross, an excellent, re-known author on death and dying from my university years.
*chuckle* DH and I get moments of “Dairy Air” (aka derriere) whenever we drive out to SS28’s, in the country.
You’re sadness at missing your call with Attila and then devotion to talking to him the next morning, such that you were awake from 3:30AM brought a smile to my face. That’s so lovely that you have a relationship that inspires that kind of devotion. Over here, DH has never actually been away from me. From the time we met, he began to refuse work travel. And unless I nudge him to keep up some semblance of sociability, he seldom even goes to company socials that don’t include wives.
Hopefully all your green tomatoes will ripen. I’ve found, though, that unless they have some yellow on them when picked they tend not to turn red.
Love the pics of the veggies and the bee. Very nice photography!
Teri, I visit different sites that specialize in quotations. Sometimes I take quotes from the books on my shelf. The process of choosing a quotation is completely intuitive, I read until something sings to me, then I transcribe it or copy and paste it into my journal entry. My inclusion of quotes is in memory of a dear friend who had a photographic memory, he was haunted by quotes; none of our chats were ever without them.
I have high hopes for my tomatoes! Some of them are completely green, those will sit in sunshine on the windowsill. If some of them do not ripen, I will chop them up and add them to a future Stone Soup.
I had to chuckle at the “Dairy Air” as TT calls it… wafting from the fields. It reminded me of our honeymoon in England. We drove all over England and Scotland and wound up one night in a B&B farmhouse near Thirsk in N. Yorkshire. We drove there in a heavy, heavy fog and rain and couldn’t see a bit of the scenery around us until we arose the following morning and came out of the old stone farmhouse into the garden to go to our car. The barns with the farm animals in it was just next to the car park there, and the Dairy Air that hit us in the face that first morning almost knocked us on our derrieres! I would never have imagined such an odor! But we were there for 3 weeks and by the end of that time, were quite used to the lovely farming smells of the countryside.
What a lovely honeymoon that must have been Bex! Dairy Air, derriere is a very good name for it, first time I’d heard it was here!
As far as I know, DH and I coined the term Dairy Air. 😉
Hi Maggie,
I am new here. Recommended by a friend, Irene and I am friends with Bex on Journalscape. I am just starting to read your posts and enjoy your blog. You are living a life dreams are made of. I’m just not the same without a garden. Apartment living has limits. If we are still here next spring though I will attempt container gardening.
I like reading your day to dayers. I love that photo of the bee and blossom.
Take care and get a clothespin for your nose….:)
Best,
Nora
Welcome Nora! lol, yes a clothespin for my nose would work! I tried container gardening at the country house, but I think it was too shady for a garden there, we didn’t harvest much, two tomatoes. I lived in apartments for many years before my daughters were born, and liked it, but in those days I did a lot of camping, and had family members who owned farms, so I think my experience was a bit biased.