I thought I’d written something since last Saturday. I guess it really was a busy week.

As of today the main room of the cabin’s floor is sanded and has its first coat of primer! We’d hoped to actually get through two coats of primer and one coat of floor paint, but tired backs, or a lunch break or something like that slowed us down. We spent most of the morning finishing clearing the main room out. Or John did, while Logan and I put laundry in the washer and drier, and cleaned what we could in the kitchen and bathroom area, since we didn’t know what to do with the remaining chocolate business paraphernalia.

We have a lot of clean laundry to fold now too.

John rented a floor sander, which we didn’t know what to expect from. Using it took 45 minutes. We used two grades of sand paper, and one of us held on to it the whole time it was running. It nearly floated over the floor, leaving a trail of sawdust at the side. Just before I started typing this I finally took my glasses off wondering why they seemed smudged — sawdust. It also left smudges on the sides of my nose where air went past my dust mask.

Yesterday was my day to volunteer at school, and in addition to the usual cleaning help (Friday is cleaning day), I worked with hand cards and a little bit of wool, and then did some spinning with one of the classroom’s drop spindles. Once I’d gotten my hands to remember what to do, we found that one of the children could keep the spindle spinning for me, while I managed the wool, and we got a fine strand of yarn. If we do it a few more times we’ll have enough to ply and work in to the seat cover they are weaving. John managed to leave work early and get home before me and Logan, and the three of us planted a small Lilac, and a Kiwi (replacing one that died last year) and then John dug Logan an “L” shaped flower and herb bed, and she planted the assortment of plants she’s been gathering to go in it.

The rest of the week was the usual assortment of school and running around. Logan and I checked on the garden things at least one afternoon. We built a fire in the woodstove another one, and tried to go out to get more wood and discovered it had started hailing. Logan reported it had also hailed during outside time at school, but she was already playing under the sandbox shelter then. On two days Logan and I cleared piles of leaves off the deck (oops), and have begun stacking things left on it in to collections of garbage vs stuff to keep. Some things have sat there since we moved back in to the house — such as a stack of tiles from the bathroom floor. Along the way Logan mixed up a bucket of “plant help” with dirt and water and peat moss, and after leaving it to sit for the proper number of days, put it on some roses and the one rhododendron that were looking the worst for wear. She says they’re growing much better already.

Things are slowly coming up where we’ve planted seeds. We’re also scattering egg shells (broken up) around seeds and small plants to deter snails and slugs, and the plants seem to grow much better where we’ve put them. We learned that trick from Nonny Susan. So our strawberries and raspberries are surrounded by shells. Our salad has them. The sweet peas have them now because they weren’t coming up very well, and I wondered if something might be eating them. My herbs have them, since we saw a big snail on the big rosemary along with all the bees. I think we have to eat some more eggs before Logan’s flower bed gets them.

Tomorrow the plan is to put more paint on the cabin floor, and with luck spend half a day or so playing with some of the fleeces from shearing. We’ll try to sort out the second cuts, which are short bits — wool cut twice as it was removed from the sheep, and see what looks long enough to be used. I’d love to get some washed and carded, but I suspect that’s a little ambitious for as busy as the weekend’s been so far.

John’s spotted a second variety of humming bird at our feeder. We’ve identified Rufus by the book, but I haven’t gotten the book out again for the second sort, although both John and Logan have described it to me. It seems to come when I have my back to the feeder.

That’s it for tonight, John has food nearly ready, and we’re all exhausted. Although that last is hardly news, we’re exhausted before 8:30 every night. Today was just more manual labor than some days. I’ll see if I can actually post again before next Saturday instead of only thinking I will.

Filed under: life, Logan's work, school, garden and plants