Clear and warm weather again today

[Clipper]

Another sunny day ahead. I plan to spend most of the day soaking up some more sun and continuing my spring time yard work. What are you planning to spend the nice spring day doing? If I still lived in CNY, the yard work would have to wait because I would be trout fishing in one place or another. Fishing was always a priority for the first couple of weeks of the open season, followed by catching up the other chores before walleye season opened and required another week or so of designated fishing time.

My friend that has the farm, the taco truck business and a video drone business, is down for torn rotator cuff surgery and a torn muscle in his neck right in the prime planting season for his two acre organic garden. I am going down this morning to plow his garden and disc it. He has a full sized farm tractor and can't operate the controls or steer it with one arm. I will probably spend a bit of time down there for the next few weeks on and off while he has his surgery and goes through the recovery for a couple of months. He has a wife and daughters but with the beef cows and a couple hundred chickens they raise for slaughter I am sure that help will be needed as his wife is a nurse and the daughters have outside day jobs. He will probably be restricted to operating taco truck business for whatever time it takes for him to recover. I will enjoy the farm work. I have always loved farm work. I took agriculture in high school for a couple years, worked for a vet and at one time I considered going to school to be an artificial breeding technician.

I spent the afternoon yesterday placing landscape timber border around some of the flower beds across the front and down the side of the house. I paid for it last night. The bending and the carrying the heavy treated lumber timbers took a toll and put me in a chair with Advil after a long hot shower. I sprained my right wrist with the cordless drill and just rubbed it up with Thera-Gesic cream. I am drilling a 1/2 inch hole in each end of the timber so I can anchor them with 12 inch pieces of rebar. The drill caught and twisted my wrist. That made driving the stakes with a claw hammer a bit uncomfortable to say the least.

I love my time outside in the fresh air, but at 74 I am finding that I spend 10 minutes or more of every hour taking a break in a chair in the carport. Each year it becomes a bit more difficult to get a garden prepped and planted. I did the tilling in three sessions this year and in years past i spent a couple hours wrestling the tiller and got it done. Every year I say I am not going to plant a garden, and every year spring fever gets me and I find myself out there torturing my back when I could just go up the road and buy a damned cucumber or bell pepper, haha. This year it is only going to be a dozen bell pepper plants, 6 or 8 hills of cucumbers that will climb on a wire trellis and 3 or 4 hills of butternut squash. I planted 8 hills a few years ago and ended up with two heaping wheel barrow loads of squash for the freezer and to give away.

I see on WKTV web page this morning that it is going to be warm up there in God's country today also. Enjoy the day.

[clarencebunsen]

Yesterday Barb and I went for a walk around the neighborhood. Beautiful day. Later I had a runny nose and a headache so I guess something was in bloom. Today also looks good. I should get out and do some yard clean up.

[artsyone]

I am still in recovery, believe it or not, from my second shot, but today was a sparkling clean sunny day, so I forced myself to start cleaning my upstairs. Beginning with the bedroom...and ending with the bedroom... bathroom, studio and dressing room will have to wait. I have four new paintings which I am bringing out to Rome tomorrow. I contract with a gallery there :"The Copper Easel" and sales have been very good. I painted from December to April and managed to crank out four good ones. I have my doors open and far off I can hear a dog barking...and then, far off, another dog answers... isn't that just the way of the world...

[Clipper]

"I have my doors open and far off I can hear a dog barking...and then, far off, another dog answers... isn't that just the way of the world..."

That's just the canine gossip line in action. When I take our little dog out in the back yard in the morning a dog will bark somewhere in the distance and set off the chorus of yapping and barking all over the neighbor hood. Our chihuahua, the couple across the road has a pug that is usually out at the time, the next door neighbor on one side has a big great dane that sings bass in the canine chorus, and the tenor part is sung by a golden retriever 3 houses up the hill. It always tickles me. It is just like they are talking. One will bark, and another will reply. I would love to know what they are chatting about. haha. It is just rural enough around here for EVERYONE on the road to have a dog and a fenced yard.

[Clipper]

The family with the huge black great dane have a 4 foot fence around their property and the dog looks over the top like a horse hanging his head out of it's stall. Ben says that the dog must be happy enough or else it would have figured out by now that it could jump that fence with no problem, haha. That thing is as gentle as a kitten. A bit intimidating when you open the gate and start up their driveway. It comes bounding like a horse, tail wagging and tongue hanging out. I might lick you to death but it would never bite anyone.

[artsyone]

My neighbors have a pit bull in there fenced in yard next door to me. Now, I ask you, how does this dog know that a fence is a fence? It spends most of it's time checking the perimeters of the yard and them attempting to dig under the fence. There are tunnels of sorts all along the fence line.

[Clipper]

I had a friend years ago that had beagles. He had one that kept digging under the fence and escaping. He had two choices. Either confine the dog to a chain link kennel on a slab or bury chicken wire around the perimeter of the fence. He buried an 18 inch strip of chicken wire with and inch or so of soil and reseeded the grass. It solved the problem but I always thought it endangered the dog and there was a possibility that it's paws could be injured before it learned not to dig.

I think our little 10lb chihuahua would have to grow wings to sail over our fence and thank goodness she doesn't dig. Probably afraid it would damage her pedicure. lol

[Clipper]

I went down to my friend's farm yesterday morning and plowed his 2 acre garden for him and then took the plow off of the tractor and hooked up the bush hog and clipped the horse pasture to keep any weeds from growing tall enough to go to seed. Spent an hour on the patio, chatting, drinking sweet tea, and demolishing two of the large tamales that his wife makes for the taco truck.

When I got home I went across the road and cut down a small dead tree for my neighbor and buzzed it up, came home, cleaned and sharpened the chain saw, and called it a day by 2:30 or so. Had the lazy's the rest of the day and sat in my recliner watched TV the rest of the afternoon.

After supper I took a dreaded trip to the Walmart zoo to get my fishing license so I can take my little buddy Nathan fishing some evening soon.

Are you feeling better today Artsy? I hope you are feeling well enough to make your trip to Rome to the gallery with your paintings.

We are bowling tonight so I am relaxing today. I probably will just play in my shop or veg out in my chair until it is time to go bowling. Ya know you are getting old when you have to reserve your achy back in order to be able to bowl three games, haha.

[artsyone]

Yes, I am feeling better. Yesterday I had the actual shakes, so I stayed home. Today I had a beautiful drive out to Rome and delivered 4 pieces to the gallery. Now I am sitting on my Irish duff and for now, that's enuff.

[BHU]

I spent 3 hrs. yesterday & another 3 today hacking away at a tree stump from a cherry tree out back that we had taken down a few years ago. Some of it was punky & some of it is like stone after all this time. Shoveled & raked up the mess into my truck & took it over to the green waste facility in N.Utica. Now I have a 10x10 area that I have to level off. Think I'll let Mother Nature take care of the rest of that stump, put in some plantings, some mulch & be done with it. It's a beautiful day here with sunny skies & yesterday & today was the first time since last fall that I was able to work in a t-shirt.

Enjoy that fishing trip. I'm thinking of hitting Oriskany Creek next week to try my luck at some nice trout. I give up on the West Canada.