Chillin' with Patsy: Labour Day and Some Actual Labour, Some Sun, Some Rain, Some Turtles and Some Earlier Pictures

Monday, September 4, 2017

Labour Day and Some Actual Labour, Some Sun, Some Rain, Some Turtles and Some Earlier Pictures

When I woke up on Labour Day, Monday, Sept. 4^th it was after 7 and I was surprised it was so late. I slept well, another night full of dreams, and felt well rested. It is not unusual for me to sleep for 9 hours since I am usually in bed by 10. Sleep is not something I need to improve on!

A very bright picture out our back window

Bill and Clem got up with me which explains why Bill does need to improve on his sleep hours. He stays up later and is awake a couple of times through most nights. The sky was just another typical Ontario summer day up here, cloudy, peeks of sunshine, windy and cool. I hope this new month isn’t going to be all like this. Last year we had a wonderful September and normal October.

A smaller snapping turtle was in a hurry to cross the lane

I think today may be a day when I can get another walk in as well as get some cooking into the schedule. I have my soft apples to make something out of as well as too many tomatoes. My plans for lunches on a couple of days with friends didn’t pan out for one reason or another and I had bought 4 large ones that need to be dealt with. I’ll let you know later today what I ended up doing, I’m sure you’ll be waiting with baited breath!

this one is not very old

With the sun tempting me, I took a walk down the lane and dropped a couple more pieces of recycling in the bin at the road. Even though a holiday, the schedule says today is garbage pickup day. The wind is strong but it has warmed up considerably already this morning. Every time I walk down there, it reminds me of a project I’ve talked about for a while but I forget when I get back up here to the Suite.

Strong wind

Today, when I came back up from my walk I went straight to the storage shed and got the shovel out. I leaned it up against the bunky so I could see it from inside. After making bacon and eggs for our brunch I first thought I would do something with the food I mentioned earlier. Nope, don’t have brown sugar to make apple sauce and don’t have the celery and tomato paste to make a batch of spaghetti sauce. They will wait until tomorrow.

Starting to dig

Bill sat at his laptop to work on his own project and I decided to go out and start digging. Down at the fence along the north end of the driveway I want to dig up the grass all along the fence, in between and around my tiger lily plants. This will make it easier to cut grass down there and trimming won’t snip off so many lily leaves. I also want to transplant some Lady’s Mantle down along the fence in October before we leave.

I wanted to get rid of the grass against the fence

With shovel, water, gloves, phone and camera in hand I headed down and set to work. It was actually a great day to do this, the strong wind would keep me cool enough. Oft times I stop working because I get too hot. I first dug up the area where I want to replant, digging then sitting to shake as much reusable earth off as possible. The grass and weed clumps went into piles.

I had to change positions often so my back didn't cramp up on me

Bill 'sneakily' came down the lane without my knowledge

I think I went down around noon hour and kept a bit of an eye on the sky. It was fine for the first hour and a half but around 1:30 I thought I might be forced to make a mad dash. Bill texted me at 2 and asked if I was okay and that was when I took my sunglasses off and realized it wasn’t as bad a sky as it looked. I worked away, determined to finish to the lilies for today.

The wind had this tree rocking

When I felt a couple of mosquitoes around my back I called it quits. The clumps of grass and weeds will be fine where they are for overnight if I don’t get back down there later with my wagon. I’m impressed with today’s efforts, really pleased that I got at it. I think it will look so much better with plants along there and less grass to deal with along the fence line.

So, lilies trimmed and piles of brush to pick up

Inside, I addressed a second birthday card and will walk it down to the mailbox before the pick up tomorrow afternoon. I’m sure I’ll feel a bit of today’s work in my back later and tomorrow but I’ll keep walking and stretching it in the meantime. I poured myself a small glass of Forty Creek Cream Liquor. I hadn’t even opened it yet and it was quite nice for a sipping drink in the middle of an afternoon. We also hadn’t eaten yet so we had a Chapman’s ice cream bar and a piece of cheddar.

Clemson gets his supper - note the time

I saw that Bill had started a new post which was great so I settled in my chair with my book. You can check his blog post out here. I’m reading a new author (for me) Jeffrey Archer called A Prisoner from Birth and it is quite good. A little different but I was hooked from the first page and that is always good. The rain started about 4 pm and so did the storm. Lightning and thunder filled the sky and even a bit of hail. Oh no, just what we needed, more rain.

Just to clarify, Clem won that battle

It continued on and off for a couple of hours but nothing too terribly serious at least. I know my eyes closed in my chair for a few minutes so it couldn’t have been too loud either. Just before 6 I prepared a Caesar salad (opened a bag left by Brenda) and coated the two chicken breasts for baking. While they were cooking I opened a packet of Swiss Chalet sauce mix and began heating it up on the stove. I know some people don’t like this sauce at all but Bill and I enjoy it with our chicken.

Again, at 6:30 the heavy rain returned and Bill turned the news off when we lost our satellite connection. No sunset, no space station views, no stars and no walk tonight after supper. It has been a good day, I accomplished a lot in my garden and can finish it tomorrow or Wednesday to prepare it for planting.

The 3 pictures below were from my girlfriend, Brenda. Ones she took on their visit Friday and Saturday.