Where I am

 I'm going up to the church this evening and will be staying for at least a week to manage some things up there. The theory is that internet will be installed on Monday morning, and then I will be in touch with the world again. However, if for some reason it doesn't happen, I'm incommunicato until my husband can come pick me up again next weekend. Wish me luck!

Final fall clean-up

The garlic is planted, to snuggle in the soil and lurk until spring. The last few years, the snow has come before the leaves have fallen, making for an interesting mess. But this year the leaves appear to be starting to fall on schedule. Usually I use them as mulch in the garden, but my husband complains that they blow into the pool, and of course every spring we have to pluck out a million baby maple trees. So this year I am going to bag them up for the city to compost, and I will haul in straw to mulch with.

We got the cracks in the patio repaired. The pool cover is about to go on. There might be one more lawn-mowing. I have a dozen onions left to pick. A fountain to put away. Tools to clean off and sort and stash. Patio chairs to wrangle into the shed. 

I didn't do any bottling this year. I still have a lot left from last year, and I'm not feeding hordes anymore since Covid has kept the kids and grandkids away much of the year. I've frozen or dehydrated the garden produce. And...that's it. I think I'm done for another season. Time to stock up on books and hunker down for another winter.

Library!

 After eight months of dearth, the library is open again! There are some strict protocols, and if you browse anything you don't end up taking home, you set it aside in a bin and they quarantine it for a few days before re-shelving it. But even wearing mask and gloves, I felt so at home to be there again!

I walked straight in, scooped up three Jenny Colgans and two William Kent Kruegers, and checked out without touching anything else. Came home with my treasures in a bag. It's like having candy after eight months of cabbage. This stash will let me stretch out my small stack of purchased used books, in case Covid shuts us all down again.

Books are one of my greatest joys in life.

Basement Blues

 The company renovating our basement had a few set-backs, including the painter catching Covid. So a different painter is coming tomorrow.

Son #3 picked the paint colours, as he uses the basement for his bedroom. He has a good idea for colour and composition, and picked some textured grey carpet with two shades of gray-blue for the walls (mostly a lighter colour, with accent walls the darker shade). I think it will look very nice when it's done---hopefully by next week.

I have discovered in my middle age that I am no good at colours. I can't really tell them apart or tell if one tone matches another. When the cement people poured our front step, they sloshed cement on the green stucco of the house, so my husband and I went to pick some green paint to cover over it. He could tell instantly which colour matched best. I stood there with a fan of gradated swatches and honestly couldn't tell what worked and what didn't.  I'll just have to trust his judgment.

A Day with the Grandkids

 I was remembering back to the last day I spent with my grandkids this summer before we went back into isolation. It was a hot day and I suggested we walk to the park. My 8-year-old grand-daughter agreed it was hot and told me to go put on shorts before we went. I told her I didn't wear them and didn't own any, and she thought that was funny.

At the park, she decided to dig in the sandbox to the centre of the earth. And asked me to take a photo of it. I told her I didn't have a camera with me.

"Use your phone," she said.

"I don't have one."

"Oh."

A while later, I told them it was time to go back to the house, and she told me to phone her dad to see if it was time to leave yet.

"I don't have a phone."

"Oh."

I found it interesting how big a role a phone played in her day-to-day life. She just assumed it was a feature, a tool, always ready to hand. She couldn't grasp that not only was my phone not with me, I didn't even own one.

We started to walk back home, and she suggested we stop at the store for ice cream on the way.

"That would be fun, but I don't have my purse with me. I don't have any money on me."

She thought this over, and then said, "You don't spend money, do you?"

"No. I try not to if I don't have to."

And then she said something like, "You're different from the way it is at my house." And I had to laugh. Yep. A bit different. Grandma is a little bit out of step with the rest of the world, I think.

I like being able to cope without electronics and gadgets. I like kneading dough by hand and grinding my own spices with a mortar and pestle. I like reading by candlelight sometimes, and washing dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher. I like the feel of rolling pasta through the pasta machine and shelling peas and snapping green beans. I like the slow, contemplative threading of the loom and the soft click of knitting needles. I prefer sewing by hand instead of with my sewing machine, and all the towels I weave are hand-hemmed. I like writing with a pen and paper better than typing on a clacking keyboard. I keep my recipes on---gasp---recipe cards, handwritten, in little drawers.

Son #3 was listening the other day to the Andrews Sisters, and with a nostalgic sigh, he told me, "I was born in the wrong era."

Me too, sweetie. Me too.

Speedy Recovery

 Our heroic contractor arrived first thing in the morning, soldered a new pipe piece in, patched the drywall, and went out to get a fan to help dry things out faster. Water back on within an hour. The plasterer followed the next day to do the mudding and taping. They let that dry, and then returned to sand it, and now we're back on track. Priming today. Paint colours chosen. Carpet being ordered. What a great crew!

Slogging along

 Well, so we were about to start painting the newly-drywalled basement, and the end was in sight. But when I got up at 3:30 this morning to let the whining dog out, I heard a weird noise in the basement. I went down and found a hole punched through the wall and water spraying out at high speed, soaking the floor and drywall in one area. I guess someone nicked the water pipe during the construction work, and it has been leaking down inside the wall, and finally punched a hole out of the drywall to escape. Luckily the water inside the wall has been snaking its way to the drain in the laundry room, from what I can see.

Being the capable and calm person I am, I dashed upstairs and woke up my husband (nearly giving him a heart attack). He put on his bathrobe and plastic clogs and went downstairs...and slipped on the muddy floor (water plus drywall compound dust makes for a mess). Down he went. Luckily okay, not injured, just muddy. He turned off the main water valve (silly me for not thinking of that first) and sent a message to the contractor. So we're without water today. The wet drywall (and maybe a stud or two) will have to be replaced, and the place dried out. Then we can start again!

This all keeps getting better and better.