Running From Thor

I have a secret I'm ashamed to share.  And since I'm so ashamed I am illogically sharing it with the world.  I have been wishing for a nasty weather day.  Yes, one of those days that are dreary and cold(ish) and drizzly and cloudy and it's impossible for you to do anything other than stay inside quilting and watching Uncle Buck or Turner and Hooch or Drum Line or The Quiet Man ... or all of them.  A day when the weather is so bad you are forced to stay inside and bake bread or cookies or muffins ... or all of them.   A bleak day when you can eat your freshly baked muffin in front of the TV guilt-free.  There.  I've said it.  I need a break from the progression of nearly perfect days we've been having.

It's not that I want it to snow.  I'm not ready for blizzards and wind and freezing temperatures.  I don't like that it's dark when I wake up in the morning and is dark before 8 p.m.  I love autumn and its warm days and cool nights.  I love sunshine.  But enough is enough.  The pressure to be outside and take advantage of the fine weather is beginning to overwhelm me.  And the guilt if I am not hiking or canoeing or working in the yard or taking walks or sitting on the deck or just plain enjoying this awesome weather is weighing me down.

It's not that I haven't been taking advantage of this incredible fall weather.  Last weekend I decided to do my part in the yard upkeep department.  I don't like yard work.  Oh, sure, I get excited when the first tulip leaves pop up through the snow.  And I feel as bad as everybody else when the daffodils are hanging their heads under six inches of snow.  I even kind of enjoy mowing the lawn the first couple of times during the spring.  But on the whole I would be perfectly happy and content never mowing a lawn, planting a garden, or weeding a flower bed again.  Isn't that why artificial turf and  men were invented?

However, since I do have a propensity for guilt, as I said, I did my part last weekend.  I did some weeding in the flower beds and as I finished one area, I looked over at the raspberry bushes.  About a month ago the bushes liked like this.  I was whining about them migrating into and taking over the grass in the backyard.

Anybody out there want to share their raspberry disease expertise?

Within the last month they developed some kind of disease and began to die.  So many died that I couldn't stand looking at all the dead leaves.  My clutter gene took over and I started hacking the dead canes out.  It was like eating potato chips.  Once I cut out the first dead cane, I couldn't stop until all the dead wood was gone. 

Throwing any type of organic material away is a federal offense in this house so hours later, after the yard was strewn  with dead raspberry canes flecked with blood from my scratched up arms, I started hauling them to the compost pile.  Unfortunately, since they were diseased Dean said I couldn't put them in his compost.  That meant I had to first drag them back out of the compost, and then cut up a bajillion canes of raspberries into a trajillion six or eight-inch lengths so I could lay them carefully into flimsy white garbage bags and toss them into the garbage.  I wish I had a picture to show you but my fingers were bent into a permanent garden clipper position by the time I was finished and I couldn't push the camera button.

The good news is, if they're going to insist on dying, our migrating raspberry bush issue may be over.  The bad news is, four hours of weeding and raspberry chopping did not relieve my “please, just one nasty day” guilt.

Because our summers are so short it's a frantic marathon to do all those awesome summer things before the blizzards and icy winds roll in.  But I'm beginning to wear out. Enough is enough.  I just need a break.  Just one day to hunker down with rain pelting on the windows.  But no.  Those perfect days just just keep coming. And every moment I'm not outside adds to my guilt. 

My arms weren't red from the welts I get when I touch the pine bush when I mow; and they weren't speckled in bits of red blood from an errant raspberry cane, but I was wearing red yesterday, and we were outside, and we did our best to make the most of a picture perfect fall day.

Final Score 38-14 ... Go Huskers!

Once again today is another in the never-ending string of “this is why we live in Wyoming” days.  A day I should be outside.  Not in here.  At a computer.  Typing.  The forecast shows no break in the weather.  Days and days of continuing warm days, cool nights and bright sunshine.  The increasing shame weighing on me because I should be outside on this magnificent fall day has nearly incapacitated me. Before I am completely exhausted by these beautiful days, and immobilized by my guilt, I must go stand on the deck, in the sun.

I will watch Dean work in the garden until I recoup my strength.  Or until I am struck down by lightening for even harboring the thought of a less than perfect day.  Wait a minute, lightening means rain ...

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Running From Thor

Beautiful Fall Day

There are all kinds of signs telling me that the season is changing from summer to autumn. One of the biggest, of course, is the change in temperature. I don’t need a thermometer to know the nights are getting cooler. I don’t even need to stick my nose out the door to know if we had a frost. I have Lily.

I know the outside temperature is somewhat cool if I can’t move my feet during the night because her fat little body is lying on top of the covers. But I know it’s gone from cool to cold if, during the night, I feel her walking around sniffing heads, looking for the person who will let her under the covers. She’s a smart kitty. She’s smart enough to know that if she waits at the bathroom sink someone will turn the water on for her so she doesn’t have to drink dog-slobber water. She’s smart enough to know that each night after dinner I will give her some Greenies —as long as she doesn’t trip and kill me in her race to beat me to the bag of treats. So you’d think she’d be smart enough to know that Dean sleeps on the same side of the bed every night and she doesn’t need to waste her time sniffing his head. I’m sure she knows the odds that he would quit hoarding junk collecting treasures are a thousand times greater than that he would ever lift the covers for her to snuggle up next to him.

You just never know when you're going to need a trophy or computer part.

But that doesn’t stop her. She sniffs his head; then she walks over and sniffs my head. Safe in the knowledge she has found her favorite human form, she begins butting my head and doesn’t stop until I roll over onto my side and lift up the covers. Then she crawls under, pushes herself up next to my stomach, and drops her fat, furry body like a lead balloon. That’s one way I know it’s not summer anymore.

Another indication that those lazy, hazy days of summer are ending is Dean trying to weasel out of letting me use one stall in the garage to park my car during the winter. We have a deal. Dean can have the whole garage to do whatever he wants as soon as winter ends, and I get one measly stall when it gets so cold that I need to scrape my windows in the morning.

The other day he even played the retirement card. “I won’t retire this year if you let me build a second story above the garage so I can have a big workshop. That way you can have the WHOLE garage.” Right. I’ll “let” you continue to work so you can fork out more money than you would lose from retiring to make our house look like Rapunzel’s tower. Then I’ll go get a second job to pay for your medical bills and the repairs my car will need after you walk out of your huge workshop, lose your footing, roll down the stairs into the garage and dent my car with the chunk of wood you were carrying. Nope. Not happenin’ buddy.

But for me, the Farmer’s Almanac of all indicators that the dog days of summer are ending and Indian summer is beginning is … here it comes … get ready … the waterproofing of the BFD. Yes. The B  ·  F  ·  D. Betcha weren’t expecting to see those three letters again! It is still alive and well. Not only well, but healthy and whole. And FINISHED! Totally, absolutely, no question about it, completely, for-reals done. It has new stairs! Beautiful new stairs.

Stairs that will give the grandkids a fighting chance if they accidentally somersault down rather than walk in the normal upright stance most of us take.

You’re amazed aren’t you? And impressed, I’ll bet. Me too. Nice job, Justin!

Oh…you thought WE built the stairs? We could have. Oh, we could have, but it wouldn’t have been fun, and I would have been forced to torture you with dozens and dozens of BFD stair-whining posts and then you might get grumpy from reading cranky posts so when Windows froze up you’d lose control and throw your glass of ice water at the monitor. The computer would spark and smoke and as you were running for the fire extinguisher you’d slip on the ice and break your leg and you’d have to drag yourself through the gritty dog and cat fur on the floor to get to the phone to call for help, but before you got there the fur would make you sneeze and then not only would you have a broken leg but your back would be spasming and … anyway … we did not build them so you should probably be counting your blessings now. The thing is, one of the best parts about getting old(er) has been spending some of the money we used to spend on tuition, books, dentists and doctors on us. What could be more enjoyable than hiring young muscle to do something for us we both dreaded doing.

I’m telling you, the feeling of having somebody working outside in the sweltering heat FOR you, all the while remembering that last year it was YOU who was out there  ... well  ... it’s blissful. And, after the stairs were completed, I somehow (unintentionally, of course) managed to be busy during almost all of the 12 hours it took Dean to completely waterproof the whole dang B  ·  F  ·  D again.  That was as heavenly as a crisp fall day with nothing to do but watch the leaves fall gently onto a new deck.

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Beautiful Fall Day