Homesteading with ADD on a Wednesday

i arrived home from work after a short day and began unloading the car. I took the bag of popsicles, the mail, and my purse into the house. I let the dogs into the dog run and filled one of two water bowls for them. I took a look around the property while i was unloading the car and noticed that the bull thistles i kept cutting the flowers off of really needed a mow. They could no longer be kept at bay by just taking off the flowers with kitchen scissors before they seeded…they were now producing another flower in about two days, trying to outrun me and my scissors to successful procreation. I mean the evolution is impressive really. They now flower at only an inch tall and make smaller blossoms so they will take less time to create and open in response to my lazy behavior of lopping off the flowers rather than mowing. I know, the only way to get rid of them is pull them up by their roots. Do you know how many hundreds of them there are?! Im not doing all that. Im not getting rid of them…just keeping them at bay. I decided to get the mower out and finally do the deed of cutting everything down to a nub. The grass was LONG overdue to be mowed inside and outside of the dog run, although the dog run was the worst. Their urine makes the grass and thistles grow taller and faster than the other areas of the property. It’s watered more often. I decided i would start on mowing and then at some point return to the task of filling the second water bowl. They had one to hold them over for now and i just needed to get started on this mowing project or i’d never do it at all. I went to the house to get a battery for the mower but something caught my eye on the porch. It was a grass hopper. They were everywhere! All over my plants and trees on the porch. There were big ones and small ones. They were all green and each one was horrible and needed to die. They were eating flowers and leaves indiscriminately. I grabbed a couple plastic cups and tried trapping the big ones in there to give to the chickens in their pen. This didnt work for the little ones so i caught them between my fingers and pinched them gently until i got to the chicken pen when i released them and the chickens went to town on the welcome snack. Once i was sure all the grasshoppers had been removed from the porch for the moment i went back to unloading the car. Then i saw a thistle and remembered the mower.

I went to the shed to get the mower and on the way there i noticed i still hadnt taken up the winter blankets around the bases of the fruit trees. It was may. I left the shed and went to get the blankets from the trees to put in the shed after i removed the mower. The tree deer cages were fastened together pretty good so i went to the house to pull the toolbox out and grab the tool i use to grasp and bend or cut metal fencing. When i was in the house getting the tool from the toolbox i noticed the rock collection on the shelf. I had gotten two more rocks in the mail and i needed to add them to the displayed collection. Once i put them by their other similar rocks it looked a bit too crowded on the left side of the shelf and spacious on the right side so i had to reorganize the whole rock display so that it all looked even. Once i got that done i realized i hadnt put the popcicles in the freezer. I put the popcicles in the freezer and noticed that the boxes had fallen over and were also mixed in with the vacuum sealed bags. I reorganized the freezer and then i had to pee. I peed and then flushed the toilet and as usual the little rubber thing didnt go back down completely and the toilet just kept on running. I took the lid off the tank of the toilet and found that there was some white buildup that wasnt allowing it to get a good seal when the handle popped up, releasing the chain, and dropping the rubber thing. I cleaned all the little rubber bits off and then flushed the toilet again. It stopped running. I returned the lid to the toilet tank.

I grabbed the metal bending tool and went back outside to take apart the plant cages to get the blankets out from around the fruit trees so that i could make a pile on the shed porch and put them in there when i was done with the mower. Upon return outside i realized it was beginning to rain. I put the metal bending tool back in the house and grabbed the mower. Time was of the essence. If i didnt mow before it rained the grass would be gummy, the mower would have trouble cutting it, i’d dull the blade, overheat the batteries, and have to work twice as hard to push it. I dragged the mower down the stairs and in doing so scuffed one of the steps with the blade. This got me thinking about the post holding the greenhouse porch roof up. I had ripped a piece off of it by running into it with the trampoline a couple weeks earlier. I picked the sharp bits off of that and sanded the place i had splintered on the shed stairs and then went back to the house to get the battery for the mower. I found the battery for the mower but in passing the shelf where i put my jewelry i realized i really wanted to not be wearing a bra. I only put them on to go in public and they’re wildly uncomfortable. I cant imagine women invented the things. They’re like torso prison. They’re suffocating, scratchy, and the clasp at the back is never properly covered by the little piece of fabric that is supposed to keep the metal bit from digging into your skin, and mine are even underwire free! Don’t get me started on the kind with metal semi circles jammed into the sewn tunnels in the fabric. Would anyone on earth look forward to donning a metal contraption about the torso with glee and anticipation? I would expect their head examined if they did. So i took off all my jewelry, got rid of my scrub shirt, and ditched the bra. Then i stood in the middle of the house for a minute trying to remember what it was i came in there to do. Right! Mowing the lawn! I put a battery in the mower and brought it into the dog run. I began mowing the grass when i realized there were some thistles outside the dog run that were blooming. I ran to the house and got the scissors. I left the dog run to cut the heads off the thistles. While i was doing this i noticed there were even more volunteer mimosa trees than i thought or knew about, but they were growing like bushes. They needed shaping but their tiny trunks were woody and the kitchen scissors wouldnt work on them. I left the scissors near the thistles and went to the shed to get the sheers to shape the newly discovered additional baby mimosa trees. While i was shaping the mimosa trees i noticed that a critter had tried to dig where petunia the chicken was buried behind the house. It was probably the armadillo looking for bugs because his den was 8 feet away. I stopped to put mulch over the burial site to deter critters from disturbing her and replaced the wire plant cage i had put over the area to keep critters out.

It began to sprinkle again at which time i remembered the grass, which i returned to mow, but then saw the empty second water dish and the now half empty first water dish. I took the water dish in the house and filled it in the kitchen sink. While i was filling it i noticed the sink got stained with brown droplets when i tried a tea this morning, realized it was absolute horrid crap, and dumped it down the sink. I set the newly filled water bowl in the dog run and then returned to the house to clean the sink. Once i cleaned the sink i returned to the dog run to mow the grass. All was going well until i hit a wooden stump that was hiding in the grass and loosened the blade so that it was rattling back and forth while it spun. I returned to the house to get a wrench from the toolbox. I got a wrench and brought it to the dog run. I flipped the mower over and tightened the nut holding the blade onto the bottom of the mower. I then set the mower upright and tested it. This was indeed the problem but the fix was a temporary one. Within minutes of mowing the blade loosened again and began rattling around. I returned to the house to get work gloves. I was afraid to tighten the blade too aggressively because i was holding it still with my hand and if the wrench slipped, would i lop off some fingers? I grabbed the work gloves and returned with the wrench at which time i tightened the nut sufficiently enough to buy me about fifteen minutes of mowing before i had to stop and do it again. Basically, i shouldnt have hit that stump but i would just keep the wrench handy and it would work out.

I went through the two good batteries i had and then went to the house to switch them out for one of the additional 4 knock off batteries i had bought years ago. They were shot batteries and they held about 60 seconds of charge. They did just that. I was so fed up i decided to get rid of them and buy non knock off batteries. 4 non knock off batteries ended up being 300 dollars. This was disappointing but what good was a cheap battery if it wasnt going to work. I bought the 4 brand name batteries after making sure all the specs were the same and began charging one of the two good but spent batteries.

At this point i realized i never finished unloading the car so i started doing that. Then i noticed the food scraps in the chicken container in the kitchen and went to give them those.

It was hot and humid outside and i overheated and went all shaky so i stopped to put ice and juice in a cup and then drink that, except that all the ice had become one big block so i took the hammer and broke it all up through the bag. Then i returned the bag to the freezer and went back outside. I put the mower on the shed porch in case of more rain. Then i noticed more thistles behind the greenhouse shed and went to get the sheers. I cut the flowers off of those. At this point i remembered more tea had arrived in the mail. This was not tea to try. It was a moringa mango tea that was exquisite, 5 out of 5 stars, and so i had bought a box to add to the wall shelves collection. This tea was the off limits tea that i was just going to alphabetize until i had filled the wall shelves with 5 out of 5 star teas and then i would drink one cup of tea each morning in alphabetical order and order replacement bags/boxes as necessary. There was also everyday tea (not exquisite but still pleasant tea that i could drink in the meantime while i was creating the master tea collection) and shed tea. It was tea in a floor to ceiling tea cabinet in my shed that i had put so much stuff in front of i now couldnt get into the cabinet. One day when i had time i would liberate it from the mess and then i could drink that again, if the bugs hadnt got it (i seal everything in plastic before i put it in so they cant smell the contents). I added the moringa mango tea box to the collection on the wall shelves and then reordered the tea which shifted some of them a bit from one shelf to the next to allow space in the alphabetical order for “moringa” amongst the m’s. Then i found laundry that hadnt made it to the machine so i put that in the washer. I had left trash and dishes on the stove from the morning so i threw away the trash and put the spent water bottle in line for the dish washer on the floor in the kitchen because the dish washer would have to stay in the shed for the rest of the week, until rain wasnt in the forecast because the outside could not get wet. Then i sat in the rocking chair and blogged and charged the phone until the lawn mower battery was done charging. I took it off the charger, put on the remaining useful battery, and returned to the yard to continue mowing the grass.

This is just one of the reasons my life only runs smoothly if im the only human here. Can you imagine if i had somebody else in this mix? I’d never remember what it was i was originally supposed to be doing. sili watches from a distance and cashew happily follows me this way and that, wherever i go, without question or care. The chickens all sit in a gaggle, some of them on top of each other, waiting to see if ive brought food in their direction. Everything else here just waits until i get back to it. I come around to everything eventually and it all gets done in the end, but not in a linear fashion. I more just start things and keep going until batteries stop me, im scheduled to be somewhere, or the sun goes down.

This bit isnt finished but its time to make supper and do the evening chores. I’ll do a bit more mowing during each pocket of time that im home this week when it is not actively raining.

I did finally tighten the blade enough for a permanent fix but it required more oomph than i was giving it and i had taken the glove off my wrench holding hand to get a better grip. The wrench slipped off the nut and the thing spun around into my ungloved hand and made a nice dent in my middle finger. I can appreciate the irony because i always said if i had to lose one finger id vote that one so i wouldnt be tempted to flip anyone the bird. Hurts like the dickens but i dont think i need stitches. Moral of the story, the better grip aint worth removing the glove.

I finished mowing the dog run. i decided i might as well after all that.