dirt, plants, rain, and film at 7
Busy weekend.
I'd rather reuse material than consume new material. Conveniently, dodecadragon had a big pile of "dirt" (sand, pebbles, and rocks) on his lawn, and he didn't need all of it for his own home project. He offered the sand to me for my patio project if I did the work of sifting it through a wire mesh. I showed up early Saturday morning and got to work on it. After a few hours, I had a decent haul of sand in the back of my truck. I took it back to the patio and spread it around. It was almost enough to halfway finish the patio.
Afterwards, I collected plants from the garden to eat. I cut fresh quinoa leaves, lettuce leaves, and tomato fruit. I rinsed them off, then I added some raspberry vinaigrette dressing from the store. Fresh food is yummy. Quinoa leaves, though, are similar enough to spinach that I may need to consider recipes for cooking them rather than eating them raw. The leaves are thicker than I was hoping for in a salad.
I need to find a recipe for something to do with all that fresh huge squash, too.
Before I fell asleep for a quick nap, I hung my laundry outside to dry. That's new. I haven't done that in many years. I was annoyed with myself, though, for not changing my habits after the Gulf oil spill. I've decided that the large items will no longer be thrown into an electric dryer. They will air dry instead. Now I need to find a good source of wooden (not plastic or metal) clothes hangers or all-wood clothespins. Otherwise, I'm not really prepared for air drying clothes outdoors in the wind and sun. How strange is that?
foeclan woke me from my nap to warn me about the impending rain. I got outside to bring in the clothes. It was only the first line of rainclouds, though. A few hours later, storms arrived with high winds, heavy rain, and even a tornado somewhere north of us.
The next day, I went back to dodecadragon 's place to sift more sand for the patio. I quickly found, however, that it was too thick with rain water. I could still sift it, yes, but it was taking a lot longer than before. I could sift all day and not collect as much sand as I did on Saturday. It needed more time to dry. Since I was wanting to finish the sand portion today, I went to Home Depot and bought some sand base. It was soaked too, as it turns out. Some of it was so thick coming out of the plastic bags (ugh, and me trying to be more "green") that it looked almost like wet cement. It needs more time to dry out too.
Next weekend, I guess, I finally get to compact the sand, level it, and then lay the bricks.
At 7pm, I treated myself to a movie. I walked over to the Heights to see "Inception". Long movie, pleasantly complicated, plenty of action and psychology. Like "Matrix" and "Total Recall", much of the movie is filled with the viewer wondering if the current setting on the screen is real or imagined. You have to wait until the very last second of the film to witness as much evidence as the movie will offer you to answer that question. I liked the movie.
The walk back home from the theater offered a nice "back to earth" transition as the sky turned dark.
I'd rather reuse material than consume new material. Conveniently, dodecadragon had a big pile of "dirt" (sand, pebbles, and rocks) on his lawn, and he didn't need all of it for his own home project. He offered the sand to me for my patio project if I did the work of sifting it through a wire mesh. I showed up early Saturday morning and got to work on it. After a few hours, I had a decent haul of sand in the back of my truck. I took it back to the patio and spread it around. It was almost enough to halfway finish the patio.
Afterwards, I collected plants from the garden to eat. I cut fresh quinoa leaves, lettuce leaves, and tomato fruit. I rinsed them off, then I added some raspberry vinaigrette dressing from the store. Fresh food is yummy. Quinoa leaves, though, are similar enough to spinach that I may need to consider recipes for cooking them rather than eating them raw. The leaves are thicker than I was hoping for in a salad.
I need to find a recipe for something to do with all that fresh huge squash, too.
Before I fell asleep for a quick nap, I hung my laundry outside to dry. That's new. I haven't done that in many years. I was annoyed with myself, though, for not changing my habits after the Gulf oil spill. I've decided that the large items will no longer be thrown into an electric dryer. They will air dry instead. Now I need to find a good source of wooden (not plastic or metal) clothes hangers or all-wood clothespins. Otherwise, I'm not really prepared for air drying clothes outdoors in the wind and sun. How strange is that?
foeclan woke me from my nap to warn me about the impending rain. I got outside to bring in the clothes. It was only the first line of rainclouds, though. A few hours later, storms arrived with high winds, heavy rain, and even a tornado somewhere north of us.
The next day, I went back to dodecadragon 's place to sift more sand for the patio. I quickly found, however, that it was too thick with rain water. I could still sift it, yes, but it was taking a lot longer than before. I could sift all day and not collect as much sand as I did on Saturday. It needed more time to dry. Since I was wanting to finish the sand portion today, I went to Home Depot and bought some sand base. It was soaked too, as it turns out. Some of it was so thick coming out of the plastic bags (ugh, and me trying to be more "green") that it looked almost like wet cement. It needs more time to dry out too.
Next weekend, I guess, I finally get to compact the sand, level it, and then lay the bricks.
At 7pm, I treated myself to a movie. I walked over to the Heights to see "Inception". Long movie, pleasantly complicated, plenty of action and psychology. Like "Matrix" and "Total Recall", much of the movie is filled with the viewer wondering if the current setting on the screen is real or imagined. You have to wait until the very last second of the film to witness as much evidence as the movie will offer you to answer that question. I liked the movie.
The walk back home from the theater offered a nice "back to earth" transition as the sky turned dark.