Vacation = projects

Today is the first real day of our summer vacation. He has been off since Monday, but I had to work this week, since I took last week off for an SCA event. But I never work Fridays, so today we got to play in the earth cellar.

We managed to put in two very large stones and a number of smaller ones. While he is slightly disappointed that we can't use his dad's tractor this summer, the new rock cart we built seems like it will be good enough to do the job.

We made it by purchasing a couple of sets of tires on axels. He then screwed together a solid platform of thick scrap lumber from his dad and attached all four axels, spaced as close together as they can be. We attached a soild metal hook that we found in the shed to one end of the platform, and a short lenght of chain to the other so that it can be pulled from either end.

It turns out to be sturdy enough to take the rocks. We dragged one up the hill from the field, pulling the cart after the ride-on lawn mower. The other was already up the hill, having been one of the long stones we set around the deck last autumn, so we needed only push the cart by hand.

It feels good to finally be making real progress on this project again. It has been more than 50 days since last it froze here, so in theory, we could have been working on this all along. But between work, dance performances, SCA events, trips to help his dad and brother with projects, and other unavoidable distractions we hadn't managed.

In other news, it looks like it might be a good berry year--the strawberry patch has more and larger berries than last year already, though this early in the season they are, of course all still green, though I think I see a hint of pinkish colour on some of them. I think they have forgiven us for transplanting them last year.

finally caught up

April and May were particularly busy months for me, and included travel. As a result my exercise log got kind of behind. Not the basic data entry--these days I do that on my phone, but the excel spreadsheet where I actually tally up the number of hours spent on various activities and convert the data to graphs--that part didn't really get done during those two months. Since then I have managed to keep that part up to date for new stuff, and have, every so often, gone back and copy-pasted the older data into the spreadsheet. Tonight I finally finished all of that for those two months, to discover that while April was fairly typical in terms of my exercise levels, May was the lowest month since I started keeping the logs in Excel where I could see the graphs as they form. I strongly suspect that, had I been pulling that data into Excel and looked at the graphs as they were forming, I would likely have been a bit (ok, a lot) more active that month. Oh well, the logs are current now, and likely to remain that way--nothing like seeing a record low to inspire one to return to paying attention to that aspect of one's life!

We managed another four batches of concrete today, and, since today's rock were on the back side of the wall, we were also able to fill in lots of gravel and dirt behind the walls. (Why, yes, yes that does count towards the above mentioned exercise log.) Sadly, some of the rocks used today were particularly pretty, but no one will ever see them again, since they are on the back side of the wall. So it goes, and it can't be helped--there are far too many pretty rocks available for all of them to wind up in visible places in the walls (and, sometimes, rocks that aren't so pretty wind up in visible locations because that is where they happen to fit best).

While I was updating my logs lord_kjar managed to do some maintenance on the ride-on lawn mower and make progress on the great computer stuff sorting project which has been filling the guest room. Not too much more needing to happen in there before it will be ready for mom's visit in September.

If it isn't raining tomorrow (or only does it lightly) we can make more earth cellar progress, if it is we can focus on other projects. Monday some friends are coming over for dinner, one of whom I have been discussing the possibility of her becoming my apprentice. I hope she says yes, it would be lovely to have a local apprentice.

Have I mentioned that I will be running Norrskennsfest in November? It is the big event of the year for the shire, and I am looking forward to it. We are looking at doing a day-time feast and bardic competition, in addition to some of the traditional activities.