Some Awesome Days

Friday, June 10, 2011

9:09pm

Today, as I was eating breakfast, Patricia came in and reminded me that I had promised to fish the tadpoles and pollywogs out of the greywater level indicator and put a screen over it. So, I took a tea strainer and a jar of water and went to work scooping several different varieties of frog young out of their puddle. When I’d gotten as many as I could catch, I released them into the pond, successfully rescuing them from starvation and death. Hooray! I was less successful, however, in getting a screen to cover the hole. I got the screen cut (and just the slightest bit thin on one side… dang it!), but it refused to be fixed with twine. We’ll have to find a bungee cord or some sort of elastic to make it stay.

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Saturday, June 11, 2011

9:11pm

This afternoon, Lyndon, Kane, Chynna, and I helped Joe start his shed project. Joe plans to take everything out of the shed, build all new shelving units, throw away all of the junk (which was about half of what was in the shed), and put the rest of the stuff back in an orderly manner. Today, we started the project by taking everything out of the shed.

As we removed every last little piece of junk, we discovered several wasp nests. Lyndon decided to remove them with the time-honored traditional redneck hit-it-with-a-stick-and-run-like-hell method. We all stood around (fairly far back, mind you) to watch the spectacle. Between Lyndon’s terrified look during the run-like-hell part and comments like “This here is some redneck entertainment right here,” “We’re mountain folk fer sure,” and “Hell! This here is better’n TV,” we were all rolling! Fun bonding moment.

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Sunday, June 12, 2011

9:46pm

Today has been really awesome!

I got up this morning and did a large load of laundry in the bike-washer. I have a feeling that is going to get old quickly if I don’t get a rhythm going with a partner. Also, I am planning to wear my clothes longer between cleanings, especially the heavy ones.

When I finished hanging my clothes up to dry on the brand new clothes line (which is much more accessible and usable… and less mosquito-y), I headed to the shed to help Joe continue the project. Since all the junk is out of the shed, we were able to rip out all the shelving. And I do mean rip, for some of it. I used the power drill to unscrew as many of the shelves and brackets as possible, while Joe tore the rest out with large crowbars and a hammer… and brute force. There was some more redneck wasp eradication, and a fair bit of cleaning. Tool sheds with wide-open faces get shockingly dirty!

Over lunch break, we brainstormed design ideas for the layout and functionality of the tool shed. We both contributed some excellent ideas, and drew up a basic layout. We went over a bunch of different ideas for shelf design, but we decided that we should do more research on shelving options before jumping straight in.

After that break, we took a short detour to make an appearance at council. “New Roots” are supposed to introduce themselves to council as soon as possible after arrival, so we went to do that. However, there was no way that I was going to stay for the whole, dramatic epic saga of a four-hour council meeting in which I have no say.

So Joe and I headed back to the shed project. We poked around up in the attic for suitable wood to build new and improved shelving units and work benches and hauled that lumber down from the fourth floor. We did yet more cleaning, and then set up saw horses and rummaged around under the tarps for tools that we will need – circle saw, level, etc. After that, the daily afternoon thunderstorm started, and we decided to call it quits for the day.

This evening, we had a great time playing Catchphrase. Some of the best quotes:

[among a bunch of random chatter]

Heather: This is what you do with an infant.

Joe: Squeeze.

Heather: No after…

Joe: Squozen!

Chynna: There are a lot of these in San Francisco.

Patricia: Queers!

Patricia cracks me up! She looks like a sweet grandmotherly older lady. She even bakes us cookies and takes good care of us when we aren’t feeling well. But, oh buddy! Some of the things she says! Oh, SO FUNNY!