Sunday, July 13, 2008

Love the summer

It's hot but I am not complaining. We have central air to stay cool in when it's too hot outside to work.

No sign of the gardener yet so this is good! I have been mowing all weekend in sections. When it gets too hot I come inside to cool off, then out I go again. I am about to do one more section tonight after I finish this blog. I can do this! I am using the gas mower that I have to push. It's all good exercise though.

Last Friday I took on another cleaning job. The house is a historic home in a section of town called Brown's Addition here in Spokane. It's a gorgeous house and the new owners are just moving in. The house was built in 1899 and renovated in 2006. It's 4400 sq. ft. 5 bedroom 5bath house with 48 stairs 4 levels. All hardwood floors. It has the historic plaque out front and is called the "Olmstead House". So now I have 3 housecleaning jobs plus doing Jerry's books for him. I have so much more energy now I am doing physical work it's unreal. I even went and played 9 holes of disc golf down the road earlier today. I think this is what I needed to get out of my tiredness slump. Summertime and exercise. I do have to admit I am exhausted by the end of the day but I think this is a good feeling of accomplishment.

Yesterday I watched my other Netflix movie, Seabiscuit. I loved it so much I watched it again with Jerry. It's hard for Jerry to sit through a whole movie without moving around. His neck starts to hurt and he has to stand up often and move around. This drives me nuts so most of the time I watch my movies by myself and totally get absorbed in them. Just like when I read a book. I have to have quiet and I go into the book itself and enjoy.

I decided after my last trip to Florence Oregon that I needed to buy a new suitcase. I needed one I could take on board or put on the cart outside the aircraft and pick up upon departing the aircraft. If I had not had checked luggage last time when I got stuck in Portland for 4 hours I could have caught and earlier flight home. Since I am off to Ca in late Aug I decided to go and buy the smaller suitcase. I got one at Fred Meyer that was on sale. It's just what I need. Hooray, I am ready to go now.

Last Thursday Jerry noticed that one of his tiny tamarack trees (about 2ft tall) had vanished. He had planted 15 out towards the back of the house and 5 in front of the property by the road. We just couldn't figure out what happened. Deer would just chomp off the top probably but there was no sign of a tree ever being there. Weird! Friday evening our dog Happy was acting very strangely and was determined to be inside the house. We let her in and looked out towards the tall tree close to the house and saw a porcupine in it. It was then we figured what ate the little tamarack tree. Glad Happy wanted inside. I have heard of dogs getting porcupine quills stuck in their snouts and have to go to the vet to get them pulled out. We haven't seen the porcupine since and hopefully he went on his way to other trees to nibble on.

Does anyone out there know why swallows fly low over fields in swarms? We must have over a hundred here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wow, you are one busy and active lady over yonder. Now where on earth would your tree have disappeared too? Supposedly lots of aliens in WA, but tree nabbers? They have palm tree nabbers in CA--worth thousands those big old thing are. They come out at night and dig them up and truck them off and sell them. $$$ A regular night-time business down there.

Yup must be those UFO tree nabbers again.

Barb said...

Yep, must have been a UFO tree nabber with quills. It was ready to fend off any intruders while eating its snack. Took root and all. LOL

rosemary said...

Teacher, teacher, I know, I know about the swallows......they are "mapping." They were born close by and the parents and babies fly, fly, fly until the babies know the area so they can find the nesting places next spring!!!!!!! They catch bugs in the fields to feed the nest sitters and then the babies. They sometimes nest in groups of males and females and the males also nest sit. They take turns sitting and then looking for bugs.