On Friday morning I got up at 6AM and got the cat fed and the shades pulled up. It was to be a cool cloudy day. I got the kitchen cleaned up and the laundry folded and put away. Then I started on the seedlings, checking them for thinning, transplanting or to go to the cold frame. I also made all the notes about any changes.
Bachelors buttons on left, blue flax seedlings on right
My helper friend arrived at 8AM and he carried 6 trays out to the 2nd cold frame. Then he fed all the seedlings out there. He came inside and fed the seedlings still in the house, then watered all the houseplants. I made sure all the lights were the right height.
I puttered around doing various little jobs that had accumulated. I went out and got the BulbTone and FlowerTone on the West Herb garden as it was to start raining on Friday night and I hadn’t done it when I cleaned out the garden. Then I made the notes on that garden.
Instead of putting away all the equipment we used in the Big garden, we would just put it in the masonry heater woodshed. But the wood guy called and said he’d maybe be bringing wood on Sunday, so I had to get all my stuff out of there, so my son could clean up the remaining wood and have it ready.
Next I got my post up and then messed with the photos a little, enough to determine they would NOT all fit, even trimmed up. When my helper left, I got ready and sat down for a while. Later while I waited for the Senior van to arrive, I started looking for new photos that would fit. I needed ones that were vertical in orientation.
The event was about owls and it was very interesting. The speaker had a video about snowy owls at Logan airport that was cool.
I hear the barred owls all the time in the woods to the north, especially during breeding season in January.
When I got home, I noticed a lot of the daffodils had gone by, so I deadheaded the ones in front of the house.
I went to the barn because I’d noticed the rhododendrons were in flower. We were given 2 of these for our wedding in 1987. They were planted in front of the barn, long before the chickens arrived. The westerly one never did well, but the east one has always been spectacular. Micro-climates are amazing. These 2 are only 10’ apart.
I messed around with the photo project and finally got all the pictures onto the backboard. I made supper and watched M.A.S.H. until 8:15PM. I got the shades pulled and went to bed.
But I couldn’t get to sleep. I was daydreaming about all the things I would do and repair if my sister ever hits the lottery. And I got really stuck on a summer kitchen. I’d been in bed for 1½ hours, so I got up, collected the materials I’d need, and measured a bunch of stuff and determined I could build a lovely summer kitchen off the dining room, out towards the Small garden.
It would have a wood cookstove, the old yellow gas cookstove, a large sink, a dumbwaiter coming up from the woodshed off the west wall. I’d reuse the dining room window again, just hopping it to the next east wall. There would be a set of French doors off the north side of the back porch, and a set off the dining room where the window currently is. And a nice big kitchen table in the middle.
The woodshed would be about 6’ from the bedroom window, with a sloping shed roof to allow air flow to the bedroom. I’m not sure how the roof would run on the kitchen, but I envision another sloping shed roof. It wouldn’t have a cellar, but probably a crawl space for plumbing and electrical.
I finished it at midnight and went to bed and slept until 7AM.
On Saturday I need to finish the photo project as Sunday is to be a nice day. It’s to rain all day on Saturday, and I might need a small fire in the wood stove in the office. I have some other small things to finish so I can be outside on Sunday. I have windows to wash Monday morning in the office, so I need to get cleaned up enough in there for that.