sultry Tuesday

What projects, you ask. What's lurking there, waiting for my attention? Of course, the ever unfinished book project. Long time Ocean readers might say -- you clearly don't have it in you to finish that one. Maybe it's not a good project for you?

But the truth is, I've come to like the leisurely pace of writing. The task of forming complete texts has never been my livelihood, my career, my professional path. Like travel, I've done it because I love doing it in its own right. True, I am past the halfway point and so it would be doubly pleasant to get closer to the end. I thought a year of retirement might do the trick, but now I know that it will take twice that and, most importantly -- it doesn't matter.

Other projects do include bringing the farmette even closer to an aesthetic that we like, that I like: empty the insides more and keep the external spaces -- so carefully tended for the wedding! -- under vigilant control. That's less fun, especially outdoors, especially now, in the buggy days of August. But I continue to put in my hours there because I wont quickly forget how hard it was to reign in the tremendous proliferation of superfluous growth. I must keep on top of it!

Other projects are percolating. They need time to rise to the surface. I haven't yet given them much attention. They're ideas. Dormant at that.  But I will get to them! One day I will!

In the meantime, it is a sultry, gray day. I push Ed out to do chicken duty just after sunrise, then feel guilty and follow shortly after to tidy up the coop.


After breakfast...






...we take the time to spray our cedar oil mix again around the farmhouse, because it really does keep us sane even as the bugs in other parts of the farmette are crazily active right now. Ed mists, I zap the mosquitoes with a paddle.

The cheepers watch and follow us around...
















Isis the cat runs away -- he hates it when we walk around with a mosquito zapper. And the little and big frogs (we have many of both) watch from their curious perches throughout the yard.






Typically, this would have marked the end of the active part of our day. But in thinking about weed and sapling growth, it strikes me that I could, we could clear out the corner of the barn where the cheepers' coop stands.


Two hours of pulling out saplings and weeds and slapping at mosquitoes and I feel that we have paid our dues.

I take a look at the best of the blooms (in my mind, anyway)...






...and I again retreat to the porch, for one last round of reading and writing.


 



It was a very good day. My phone tells me I barely took 7,000 steps. Dumb stepper app. I feel I ran a marathon with a potato sack on my shoulders. Yep, a really good day.