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jimsjournal

An October weekend -- 10/07/12



Friday was a hectic day for me, although I spent it just sitting in this chair, staring at computer screens. I guess I was just trying to get stuff done so I could have the breathing room to take a couple of days off next week so I can get some garden work done. No, not this year's gardening. I'm thinking about preparation for next year, getting some posts in the ground so I can string netting between them for plants to grow up. (It's an idea we got from looking at stuff the URI master gardeners have done with their demonstration gardens.) I also want to get up some deer fencing to keep the neighborhood deer herd from dining on our fruit trees over the winter.

We spend a good amount of time on Saturday doing other yard work. The biggest project was moving an azalea bush from the area behind our kitchen over to another area of the backyard. Nancy was digging and digging to get it loose enough to lift out and move.

While she was doing that, I dug a hole to be its new home. That hole is about four feet wide... and those rocks on the ground next to it were unearthed in the process of digging the hole. Yes, this is New England, the land of stone walls. (Farmers had to do something with all of those rocks they found every time they turned the earth over in their fields.)

And there I am, having lifted the azalea bush into my wheelbarrow, I now have to move it to its new home, about 25 or 30 feet on the other side of that bush behind me.

And now for something completely different... a sleeping cat...

He does like to take afternoon naps on our bed.

Well, he's a cat, so he likes to take naps just about anywhere.

Luther loves looking out the kitchen windows to watch the hummingbirds and butterflies and bumblebees flying around our butterfly bushes. It's like TV for cats. In this picture, however, he seems to be puzzled by what those silly humans are doing outside.

And today, our big accomplishment was removing the window air conditioning units from the kitchen and the living room. It does seem strange not to have an AC unit in that middle window (put there during a miserable heat and humidity wave in July). The view of the back yard is much clearer now that the azalea bush has been moved (and also Nancy trimmed the butterfly bush that is to the right). Before, it was just a solid wall of branches and leaves.

Actually, that was not our only accomplishment today. We got up early and went to the Y for a good workout. (I used the stair-stepper for about 12 minutes as a warm up, then did several of the Nautilus stations, followed by a mile and a half jogging on a treadmill, and finished with seven minutes back on a stair-stepper. Not a really rigorous session, but I had some stiffness from yesterday's yard work, so I didn't want a really hard workout.)

Last year I mentioned that Jeremy had taken up muay thai kick-boxing... and I had an entry about going with him to a mixed martial arts match. Actually, earlier this year, Nancy and I also went with him to a mixed martial arts match, one where the big winner was an instructor at the dojo where Jeremy trains. Nancy had been very hesitant about going, being afraid that it would be something rough and brutal, but she was surprised to see that it was also an exhibition of skill and technique and grace... and that it was exciting to watch. So... in a little while Nancy and I will be going off to meet Jeremy tonight to go to watch another mixed martial arts match.

And that is an early October weekend at our house.

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