The Week in Review

This has been the most prolific week around Dirtmanland in a long time.

Monday, I got up early, found myself wanting caffeine and drank three cups of coffee (my usual consumption is one cup. Before I knew it, I had done eight loads of laundry (including putting it all away instead of dumping it on the sofa for SisIg to do. I also stripped the bed and remade it, dusted and vacuumed the entire house and shuffled the dogs in and out.

Tuesday I started working on the new gate for the chain-linked fence that John Boy and I had built last year. If you will recall, our landlord didn't buy a gate then and we had to resort to a temporary fix - using a portable dog pen to keep the terriers and aussies at bay.

After four hours of trying to get the cemented posts out so we could re-set them, I called in reinforcements (John Boy) for Wednesday.

Wednesday morning I picked veggies from the Victory Garden for the first time (Black-Seeded Simpson and Romaine lettuce, four white onions, two radish and one six-inch long banana pepper).

Once JB got here, we tackled the two posts (going from a five foot gate to an eight-footer). We finally extracted them, dug new holes and reset each in a Portland cement / sand mixture. We then waited a day for them to properly set and enjoyed the salad Sis made from the garden produce along with a very fine dinner.

On Thursday we finished re-stretching the chain link fence, installing the gate which, by the way was a section of a dog kennel our landlord had lying around his property. What's cool is it is now a gate within a gate. We can open the door or the gate, depending on what we need to move from one side to the other.

With the gate in place, Salt and Pode can now enjoy being outside in a secure shaded pen -- if we can live with the constant yapping that's so annoying to everyone around us.

Afterwards, we had another great meal.

Friday I worked in the garden trying to train the cucumbers onto the fence I had installed, tied up more tomato vines and, while waiting to get the neighbor's roto-tiller, I mowed the entire yard. Then I went shopping for food and supplies.

The tiller was finally available on Saturday morning and two hours later I headed to the shower to get cleaned up before Sis and I sojourned to Dark Garden and family for an excellent outing and cookout.

Thanks to Dark and the Mrs. for a lovely summer sojourne!

The week upcoming will also be busy. I need to dig a trench to bury the sump pump discharge line; I need to apply grass clippings on the garden now that it's tilled and I am hoping, beyond hope some real work will show up.

And I'm hoping your week will be fruitful too.