Friday it was a little cooler and overcast so I managed to get in a little over two hours on the fence and made it all the way to the tallow tree which is 8 sections of fence from where I started. Each section is 10' so that's 80'!
My sister and I both worked on it (at different times of the day) on Saturday and made a little more progress (three more fence sections).
I hacked down two more trees, a hackberry and a pecan, about an inch and a half in diameter (two handed machete swings, c'mon you bastard). Fruiting dewberries hindered us along the bottom of the fence and now we are into the heaviest, densest part where the fence has been overtaken by the wild grape vines.
I laid down to nap Thursday afternoon after my drenching hour and a half earlier that day, something I never do. Well, hardly ever. I think I slept some. I can't always tell.
Finished my drawing. I had planned two other separate components to the drawing but I changed my mind because the page wasn't big enough so I eliminated one of them.
I have yet to get my periwinkles in, just too tired after my stints on the fence, and I need to fertilize the azaleas and roses which I should have done two weeks ago (I did get the azaleas, camellia, and roses fertilized on Saturday). Maybe today but probably not.
This last week for some reason every morning I have tried to talk myself out of doing my yoga routine. Just do it, I tell myself. Yesterday, though, I had a realization. There is nothing more important that you have to do at this moment than this. So, yeah, yoga.
I've picked four full bowls of dewberries (now five) so far. Usually I keep an amount in the refrigerator and then freeze the rest, washing them and then spreading them out on a towel to air dry and then putting them in a plastic bag, sucking the air out with a straw as I seal it, and then put them in the freezer. Was chatting with my neighbor (six feet apart) Saturday evening and he told me that, supposedly, if you spread the berries out on a cookie sheet so that they aren't touching and freeze them that way before storing them in a container, it will help keep the berries firm when they thaw out. So, I'm trying it. I'll let you know how it works out the first time I thaw some out. I made a dewberry cobbler Sunday with fresh berries and we both agreed it was the best one yet.
I think I've shown my row of bird skulls that sit on the top little shelf of my buffet before. Most mornings, not all but most, I have to straighten them up. Something comes during the night and messes with them. Sometimes just one or two is slightly out of place, sometimes several are knocked over and pushed around. Yesterday morning, the cardinal skull was on the floor, the two smallest were pushed aside and bunched together, and one of the seabird skulls was knocked over. This morning, the same seabird skull is knocked over, the blue jay skull has been turned about 45˚ as has the wren skull and the last two, the finch and the warbler, are knocked askew and bunched together. I have no idea. I need one of those motion detection cameras.
I walked out in the big backyard yesterday to see that the big limb that fell last summer that has been dangling like Damocles' sword over my azaleas, caught in the crook of two main limbs, at least that part of it that we weren't able to get to to cut up and remove, has finally fallen the rest of the way and fell in such a way that it completely missed the azaleas. That was my fear, that they would get crushed when it fell.
After taking the day off Sunday from the fence, I put in another two hours this morning and uncovered the next section. Fortunately it was nice and cool since a cold front blew in last night and I didn't even break a sweat. (I know, I know, sick of seeing pictures of the fence clearing. Tough.)
I haven't been sleeping well the last several nights and haven't been aware of any dreams except last night I caught a fleeting glimpse. I can't even begin to tell you what it was about but I'm pretty sure it was an anxiety dream. The uncertainty of what's going on is starting to weigh me down I guess since as far as I can tell, there's no real treatment even if you are in the hospital and no vaccine. Basically you survive on your own or you die, even on ventilators. I don't think many survive once on a ventilator. About the only thing we can do is just not get infected. Dr. Fauci wants widespread testing to help determine just how prevalent the contagion is, that there's a possibility that upwards of 50% of the population is infected but completely asymptomatic, meaning they don't get sick but are carriers of the virus.
Well, that's enough for today. Maybe I'll try to get the periwinkles in after all or maybe I'll try to take a little nap.
That stretch of grapevine must be the pits. I will like it when your sister is on that lot.
ReplyDeleteGood to see your drawing finished in the midst of your full life. And yoga. Sometimes I walk instead of taking the time for my yoga practice. Like today. When I walk I miss the yoga. When I do the yoga, I miss the walk. The best days are when I can do both and work on a mandala, too, amidst all this uncertainty.
ReplyDeleteLord, woman! What are you going to do when the fence is finished?
ReplyDeleteDo you plant periwinkles by seed every year? When I was a little girl, living in Roseland, it seemed that they just grew everywhere and I never thought about it. I suppose they reseeded.
Your cobbler looks REALLY good - yum! I had a nice visual of you whacking those trees down - except instead of a tree it was something....orange. I'm not usually so bloodthirsty, but sheesh!
ReplyDeleteYou and your sister are putting up that very solid and heavy looking fence? Chapeau! Madam. I’d never even attempt it.
ReplyDeleteAnxiety and anxiety dreams are very common now, I try not to give in during the day but the night brings its own slant.
no, no. not putting it up, clearing all the vines off it. and it's mostly me.
DeleteOMG that cobbler looked sooooo good. I could nearly taste it. I wish David liked cobbler. He has a lot of dislikes in some of the foods that I love. Personally I think that he had bad food that turned him to hate those I love. I need to make him retaste that ones he hates and maybe turn him back into liking them.
ReplyDeleteI love the cool spell we are having. I pulled a few weeds yesterday and this morning then my back gave out and I had to take up residence on the heating pad again.
The business with the bird skulls leaves me to believe you have mice. leave out some peanut butter in a small plate with a layer of flour or cornstarch and you will see the footprints of whatever is visiting the skulls at night.
I did think mice but we have a cat that is indoors at night although that's no guarantee. but also, they don't leave footprints in the dust. but I'll give it a try.
Deleteso, have you ever tried yoga for strength and flexibility? since I started doing my routine again every morning my back hardly ever hurts now even with all the heavy labor I'm doing right now. I also do two ab strengthening exercises.
You are one work hog. Wish you lived next door! Love the drawing and the botanical bent. And please stop with that food or I will post a photo of my strawberry cheesecake.
ReplyDeleteI can be relentless but I'm also up against the approaching summer. trying to get as much of it done as possible before it gets too hot.
DeleteI read a lot of med-twitter. The consensus seems to be that odds of extubation are not good, and even if you survive you can be left with non-compliant lungs (difficult to expand), damaged vocal cords, PTSD and a host of other problems. We're really hoping to not catch it. While I was waiting to go into the dollar store a guy came up behind me (about 3 feet) and hollered at the cashier about did they have hand sanitizer. I'm still disturbed about that. I had a mask on, and my shirt is in isolation, but still. Get a grip people.
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly how I freeze blueberries and blackberries. I don't wash them first, just put them on the cookie sheet, freeze, transfer. I rinse them once I take them out to use. It works beautifully.
ReplyDeleteThat cobbler looks just the right thing after all that work. As usual I am exhausted from reading.
ReplyDeleteWell done!
I think most people don't sleep well these days. We don't. I hope that we get used to other horrific scenarios we've been in (Chernobyl, a bomb threat on a plane after take off in India, flying over Sadam's army just after he declared war - or was it Bush? -, my child rushed to hospital with meningitis, etc.) and if I do this, the current stuff fades into the distance.
I would have loved to have seen you with the machete. I don't doubt you're having anxiety dreams. Mine have surfaced as well. Between the not-knowing and the idiot in charge, it's intense. I am impressed that you were able to make any headway at all with those grapevines!
ReplyDeleteI have definitely had coronavirus-related anxiety dreams. And like you, I rarely have dreams that I remember. It's a weird, scary time!
ReplyDeleteThat cobbler looks fantastic. And bravo on the fence clearing! Too bad you can't just set fire to all that brush and clear it that way. I'm guessing the fire department would frown on that. :)
It boggles my mind that this great technological nation can’t get the testing protocol together.
ReplyDelete