The Project

 The kitchen is no longer in the kitchen.

Instead, part of it is on the bed in my office.

Another part is in the closet .                                              

 Boxes of food from the cabinets are stacked up by the front door.                                                                                                  

Our dishes have taken over the dining area.

 

And our cups are nestled in amongst the house plants.

The only part of our kitchen still in the 

kitchen are the stove, fridge, sink and 

cabinet frames.  Hugh is making us new 

doors for the cabinets and our one 

tiny job has been to paint the frames.  

It didn't seem like it would be that big

a task.  I was wrong.  I began to get a 

clue when I realized that the contents

of this one room had filled up every other 

room in the house.  

Then Bruce removed the cabinet doors and 

we washed the frames, sanded the frames

wiped down the frames, and painted the 

frames with primer.  

                                                                                    

The contents of our kitchen have even spilled out onto our porch.

It is now one in the morning.  I just finished painting the last cabinet with primer.  I'll take pix in the real morning.  I was just congratulating myself that at least I was done with the primer, when I realized that I'd forgotten to do the window frame.  It'll wait.

Zzzzzzzzzzz.....

Red Flag

It is with a sinking heart that I read this message from the National Weather Service when I clicked on their link.  January is supposed to be our rainiest month - a time of cold, green, mossy wet.  We've had no measurable rain since the first half of November.  The grass that started to sprout from our nice little deluge just before Thanksgiving is now beginning to die and the ground has turned powdery and dry.  There is a high pressure system that has locked over our entire state that just won't let up and no storms can sweep in from the north.

I'm trying to remain optimistic, but I'm beginning to run through the scenarios of what the summer will be like if no rains come.  Our well was so low at the end of the summer that I'm fearful of what is in store for us if the water table isn't recharged.  The "pond" is completely and utterly bone dry -- not a drop of water.  No frogs.  No turtles.  Just an expanse of dried mud.  Can the oak trees hang on if there is another dry year?  I suppose that I shouldn't even try to plant a vegetable garden... I have to work to keep from panicking.

I tell myself that the winter isn't over yet.  The high pressure system may move out next week and storm after storm may dump much needed rain.  All may be well.  However, just in case,  if there's anyone out there who has a special little rain dance that may send precipitation this way, please dance away!

Amaryllis

Two years ago I bought three amaryllis bulbs.  They have delighted and surprised me two times.  Amaryllis are humble and rather unimpressive for most of the year -- but when they decide to flower, they sing!

Honk...

       
                                                          ...if you like goose eggs.


Girl goose laid a second gargantuan egg and Bruce decided that they looked like breakfast to him.  He cracked them onto the griddle and they sizzled away -- just like chicken eggs.  But really big.  Then, like Fred and Wilma Flintstone, we sat down to a game of cribbage and a breakfast of  dinosaur  goose eggs.  Delicious.

Butt Buster Hill

I've been doing pretty well with keeping going with the daily walks.  Most days I get in my two miles and I've lost four pounds since Christmas -- another six and I'll be back to my fighting weight.  And most of my pants will again fit.

Yesterday I decided to skip my walk on the neighbor's trails and instead marched up Gopher Ridge with the two dogs.  A long time back, one of my neighbors christened it "Butt Buster Hill."  A good name sticks and we all call it that now.


Walking at a brisk pace on a road that climbs 500 feet in the space of a mile is quite dramatic -- for me, at any rate.

Goose Egg and A Day Off

Yesterday was my birthday and our young Embden goose gave me a present.  This was lying in the straw of the stall where they sleep at night -- her first effort.

This morning we were discussing The Egg and Bruce asked, "I wonder why they call nothing a 'goose egg'?"  He laughed when I called him over and he saw this picture.  Looks like zero to me!

The Egg alongside a hen's more humble offering (actually, the chicken egg is a very large one).

Today I'm staying home from school.  I'm not sick or busy or anything like that.  We're fortunate in our district that we have three "No Tell" days that we are given each year where we can use sick days to use as we will.  I've never used one of these "No Tell" days but today I just wanted a day at home -- I'm tired.  So earlier in the week I filled out the required paperwork and got approval from all the higher ups.  And then yesterday afternoon I stayed in my classroom and worked on substitute plans until dark.  Being gone for a day is a lot of work.  But this morning, as I sit in my bathrobe and contemplate having a day stolen back from work, I'm feeling pretty smug.  

Tomorrow (Saturday) I'll be putting on my work clothes and driving off to the college to deliver my first-ever full morning teacher workshop.  I'm feeling fairly confident (the workshop will be on using Writer's Notebooks in the classroom), but will be very relieved when I've navigated through this.  And I'm very happy to have a day to myself today.

In a Boat without a Paddle

I never shared Bruce's Christmas present to me.  Several times over the summer,  I mentioned that it would be fun to tool around the various lakes around here in a kayak.  Then I  forgot all about it.  Guess what Santa brought?

I was very surprised, touched and pleased.  Also a bit perplexed, as I haven't the time to devote to my various activities as it is -- walking, riding the Cornelius, gardening, weaving and writing.  Add kayaking to the mix and it made me a bit anxious.

But I decided why worry about it?  Just go with the flow (hah -- a pun!) and enjoy.  So that's what I'm doing.

So far, the Christmas kayak sits in the carport.  We have no water in the pond, so I can't try it out there.  Even if there was water, I haven't got the paddles yet (we're getting them this weekend).

However, who needs paddles or water when one has a perfectly good lab/border collie cross dog to enjoy the boating experience with?  Murphy LOVES the kayak.  So do I.

And we haven't even touched water yet!

Back to School

Winter Break is well and truly over.  It's ironic that this time that I thought would be rejuvenating and a good time to catch up on things around here got so derailed.  The death of a student will do that.

The funeral was last Saturday.  Monday morning, our 4th grade classes were back at school and careful plans had been set in place to deal with the students reactions.  Two counselors were standing by in each room, should they be needed.  As it turned out, the students reaction was pretty subdued since their parents had already talked with them about what had happened.  The children were given paper hearts of pink and purple on which to write messages to or about Mariah and then they made cards for her parents.  I put on some soft music and we had a peaceful morning of it.

This morning we started back on more of a routine in class.  I think that this came as a relief to both the students and myself.  They picked out new literature books to read and then we got silly and acted out the meanings of our spelling words.  I began to feel almost normal again.

In the afternoon, Sue and I attended Mariah's burial. That was sad.

When I got home this afternoon, the dogs and I took a two-mile walk up and down the hills.  That helped settle my emotions.  This evening I spent working on my presentation for Saturdays workshop that I'll be giving on Writer's Notebooks.  This will be the first actual workshop I'll be facilitating (I did a demo one last summer, but Saturday's will be the actual thing).  I'm sort of nervous, but I've got enough other things on my mind to deflect any great worries about it.

And now I'm off to bed.

More Planting

 It took until early afternoon, but all my students' Writer's Notebooks have been read, commented upon and the grades duly recorded.  Never, never, never will I let three months of student writing pile up like that again.



As soon as I could, I got back to my bulb planting.  This time, it involved setting a ring of rocks around a small oak tree along the drive.  Inside the ring is fresh compost in which I planted about 25 daffodils and a scattering of California poppy seeds.

Farther up the drive, Bruce had augered a hole in a place I thought would be be a good spot for a tree.  He also constructed a wire cage to protect the baby tree's roots from the many gophers that tunnel and ravage everything they can sink their yellow little teeth in.  I do not like gophers.

I know that this sounds ridiculously self-evident, but planting very small trees is infinitely easier then planting larger ones.


We have about nine more trees and some roses to get in the ground very soon. I really need another week of "break."

The First Day of the New Year

 Today I stayed home and busied myself around here.  I finally got the poor shivering tulips out of the fridge in the garage and planted them in the center bed.  This is what a bed of 200 newly planted tulip bulbs looks like.

I still have about 100 daffodil and 50 or so Dutch iris left to go.  We'll get those in tomorrow.






All the Christmas decorations have been taken down and boxed away in the garage for another year.  The house looks rather plain after several weeks of being festooned with holiday finery.

I also made myself begin grading writer's notebooks.  I waited much too long to collect them and am now faced with 43 notebooks with 40 entries apiece for me to read.  That's a lot of reading...

But with strong cups of tea and Arby's help, this will get finished tomorrow too.

Looks like tomorrow's going to be a busy day.