Well I should say summer work, but work is fun when it comes to playing in the dirt.
I used to have a nice lawn mower. But when we lived in the cabin I didn’t have a yard, just woods and a gravel pad which the cabin was built on. So one year when my friend Morgan watched my kids for a week while I went and worked at Mile 101 check point for the Yukon Quest, I gave her my lawn mower in payment.
When we moved into this house, it was November and already had snow on the ground. Winter passed, spring passed, summer arrived and I still had no lawn mower. The grass grew and grew. I finally got up enough spare money to buy a lawn mower and every one in town was sold out. Well there were still plenty of the $300 variety but really, who needs a $300 lawn mower? Not I. After all, this isn’t “lawn”.
On Saturday I took Olivia over to a co-workers house for a Pox Party. Yes, that is Chicken Pox. (Funny that this is coming up right after Chickenstock and our Fowl Adventure.) Her children had them, mine as of yet, have not. We do not vaccinate for Chicken Pox because I choose to not use my children as guinea pigs. I prefer the natural, lifelong immunity obtained by actually getting the Chicken Pox. Ok ok, sorry for the side ramble. While at my co worker’s house, exposing my daughter to her children with the pox, she was showing me this huge generator they had just bought for $100 from the garage sale across the street. I was duly impressed. So we walked over there to see if they had a lawn mower. The young man said he didn’t, then said, “Wait, hang on a minute” as he went digging around in his garage. As he brought one out of the depths of his full garage and started dusting it off, he stated that he forgot about this little one.
Long story short, he started it up and after being totally dry for storage, gassed up, it started on the first pull. He sold it to me for $40. It doesn’t die when the handle is let loose but you can manually shove the lever on the motor to kill it. *Sigh, the mowing ensued. It took two tanks of gas and a couple of blisters to get this monster mowed but I did it. Oh my aching back. There are ruts in the yard from when the land lord drove his truck into the yard for several days last fall. Then someone felt the need to fill the ruts with sticks… ARG! So, I still have a few piles of sticks in the yard but after a few more times of mowing, this yard should start looking nice.
We also went and gathered up rocks from a rock site, some dirt from a secret dirt spot, and built more beds. I found a half off plant sale last week so bought some squash. My garden is very small this year but considering it is a rental with no dirt but old river silt, at least we’ll have some fresh veggies. Olivia and I had a really nice day out in the yard today. She said she “felt very healthy spending so much time in the yard” lol. Yes! We were not ready to go inside yet when it was such a beautiful evening so grilled out on the old grill that had been left here from the last tenants. I’ve been cleaning it up…. Grilling is a learning process for sure. Really, how hard can it be? Start the charcoals on fire, put the food on, cook, eat. Guess this is why Justin always did the grilling. But we are learning…
Porch flowers from the half off sale.
This is the newest part of the garden spot that we just built today.
Tomatoes, basil, and squash.
I didn’t have any BBQ sauce on hand so made some from a bunch of schtuff in the kitchen. Ketchup, A1, balsamic vinegar, brown sugar, wine, olive oil, Tony’s Cajun Seasoning, garlic powder, onion flakes, salt, pepper, maybe some other stuff that I’ve forgotten. It was yummy.
Alaska, The Madness 