On Wednesday morning I was up at 5AM and got my post up. Then I cleaned up the kitchen. When it was time to pull up the shades at 7AM, I started taking screens out as I went.
But when I got to the back porch, I realized I’d never taken down the last plant light. So I hauled the santolina, which was still alive, out to the cold frame and got the plant light set-up taken down and the screens out. They were all put in the hall to go downstairs. I hoped my window guy would have some time when we finished to do this.
Then I started in the bathroom and emptied each window out.
I had to keep taking breaks every half hour or so. I got all the plants out of the roundtop window and cleaned up a few of them. They went onto the dining room table.
The jade plant in the foreground has exploded its clay pot. I plan to have my helper friend repot it while I’m planting garlic on Thursday. I was given this plant for Christmas by my husband’s grandmother in 1974. It was about 6” high then.
Once all the windows were ready, I started washing up the prisms and knickknacks that came out of them.
At 10:30AM the window guy called and asked if he could come an hour early. I said sure even though I hadn’t gotten everything done I’d hoped to do by noon, his scheduled time.
I had 2 screens that stay in windows year round on the first floor, the pantry and the bedroom. For some reason, the outside of the bedroom screen was coated in fluffy stuff, almost like fleece material. This took quite a bit of vacuuming to get off.
He arrived at 10:45AM and must have been on his way when he called. He got the 8’ ladder and we got started in the bathroom and then did the other 2 awning windows on the south side of the house.
Then we moved to the roundtop window. We found a dead mole in the garden. That’s the second one I’ve seen in the last few weeks.
Next was the back porch. There was a congregation of wasps on the fascia of the roof near where he had to work. But they didn’t bother him and we got this window done.
When we worked out way around to the north side, we found 2 dead sparrows there. I don’t know what’s up with all the dead stuff this year.
We were making good time as he was the one who had come in the spring and remembered most of what I’d showed about the windows. We finished with enough time to clean up and clean the roundtop things and get it back together.
I was really exhausted and did a very small amount of clean up and putting grills back in windows so they wouldn’t get broken. Then I sat down for a couple hours before making supper.
At 6PM I pulled the shades and was able to take this photo of the pink sunset in the east through the very clean dining room window.
At 7PM I got the fire going and sat down to sort out and count the garlic stakes. I need something over 200 and had 207. I was, of course, supervised.
I didn’t get to bed until 9PM and need to be up early on Thursday. I need to put the windows back together; I have 1 small window to wash, and then finish prepping for planting garlic. I have to harvest kale and parsnips before my #1 intern arrives at 10AM.
My helper friend arrives at noon and he will re-pot the jade with the broken pot, process the kale for the freezer, and clean up the parsnips to store. He also needs to run the vacuum around to clean up the mess we made on Wednesday.
I also have 2 people coming from TimeBank, a blast from the past. I still had 13 hours on the books and they are coming to do weeding. I also have to set up for them to work in the New Herb garden. I hope to get them to remove all the invasive weed from the walkways and garden beds.
And I hope to get the mulch on the south end of the Big garden cleaned off and start planting garlic.
Another wicked busy day….