Thursday, September 25, 2008

Best Picture of the Season




Okay so here is the joy of photography. I didn't realize how good a picture this was going to be until I brought it up on the laptop. The little bug to the right, I think really makes the picture...it gives it energy and perspective and makes the whole image alive.

What to talk about today...other than the fact that I keep getting horrible horrible headaches alternating with horrible stomach roiling illness, I'm just fine. I don't know if it's stress or my immune system has let any beg stroll into the ole Jules Saloon or if my body is just sensing the oncoming winter and flaking out on me...or quite possibly I could just be doing too much.

In keeping with the theme of doing too much but not inlcluding watering trees, I'll tell you how I spent Saturday, my last full day of vacation.

I went to the farmer's market in Urbana where I got eggs, maple syrup, bacon, soaps, trail mix and Cortland apples. Cortlands are my favorite. Sweet, juicy and just a little grainy, they seem to me like the most "just picked off the tree" kind of apple.

Then I got some gas for the mower. Then I spent 7 hours in the yard. Don't worry I wore lots of sunscreen.

What did I do?

I mowed the front yard, back yard and "back forty" which is the part of the yard that wasn't seeded with grass but retains its pasture grass from when our lot was, well a lot.

This always needs mowed twice as it grows with a vengeance. So I mow it with the deck up and then all the way down.

Then I ate lunch.

Then I hooked the mower to this little red wagon and hauled mulch, lots and lots of cypress mulch and garden soil to 8 of our pine trees...think of the little guy enjoying a shower in an earlier post.

I had done earlier in the week all the trees on the south side of the property--and now it is time to work on the north side. I also mulched two crabapple trees and a maple.

Mulching is like putting little scarves around your trees for the winter. For the trees that were planted in 2007, less work was involved...pulling up weeds that had taken advantage of the shade, water, and fertilizer stakes then adding mulch.

The 7 pine trees Andrew and I planted this spring though, require a little more love.

Because of being recently planted, the dirt in the hole is loose and the soil we added had settled, leaving the base of the tree not filled in with dirt even to the ground. In some cases there are cracks in the dirt that can lead right down to the base of the tree in the hole to its roots and this is very bad.

Because when water settles in and gets down there and it gets cold (like it tends to do in winter) the water freezes and wreaks havoc in the space where the tree is sleeping for the winter.

So I have to scrap all the mulch that I had placed over the summer and fill in with nice rich garden soil to fill in cracks, make up for the settling of dirt and just give the tree a nice layer. Then I put the mulch back and then add mulch to it. I haven't spent all this time watering these little darlings all summer just to loose them in winter.

I'm still not done. I ran out of top soil and still have 4 more trees to do plus three lilacs...if I don't decide to just rip them out and plant pine trees because the little jerks seem to not want to live very much.

Jules you ask, why are you killing yourself on the yard you still have the whole month of October.

Um, not really, because after I get the mulching done each tree still needs.

A fertilizer stake for food.

And I'd like to spread a boatload of grass seed in an attempt to have a nice lawn someday.

Plus, I have some professional things I need to get done in October including one trip and a large author visit and some other things and besides that.

IT COULD RAIN EVERY FREAKIN" DAY IN OCTOBER.

And while that would free me up for the myriad of indoor endeavors, like writing...it's not helpful to get these last crucial things done my friends.

Gotta make hay...
Or Mow Grass
Or Mulch Trees
Or something

Okay well, see ya, Jules

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Almost Lost

I've been dragging my feet posting a new blog because I've been in a bit of a panic. I have misplaced, but at this point can say I have officially lost all of my vacation pictures that were on my flash drive. At least I thought I did. In a rare instance of rearranging my routine, I saved the pics onto a flash drive, uploaded them on shutterfly, without saving them on my laptop. Luckily, I can create a dvd disc from shutterfly and regain the pictures. So as soon as I get the dvd I'll post some more pictures.

I took a nice picture this weekend so maybe I will post that later.

Almost Lost is a good title for my little quirk of misplacing important things. I tend to take things I should really not lose and putting them in some weird place where it couldn't possibly be thrown out...and then promptlt forget where I put it. This happens abnd home and at work. Finally I bought a "safe box" to keep at work.

Almost Lost is a good title too, for this past week, a sorta vacation week.

I always like to take the third week of September off because it's our anniversary week and we may or may not take a trip so I just take it off just in case. Andrew doesn't have any vacation time built up and between teh July michigan vacation and our upcoming trip to Chicago in November, staying home seemed like a good idea.

But I didn't stay home. I went to 8 hours with or work obligations. They were worth it and I really needed to be there...but that's 8 hours that I could have been doing something else. As it was this is what I did on my sorta vacation:

Kitchen: Cleaned, really really cleaned.
DVDs watched:2
Trees re-mulched for fall: 20
Lawns mowed: 2
Big breakfasts made: 2
Writing: 0
Pictures taken: About 20, 3 are good.
Long Baths: 2
Nice suppers made:1
Loads of Laundry:12
Fitness Classes taken:3

Fitness? Fitness? What's that all about. Eh, I'll tell you eventually.

More later J

Saturday, September 06, 2008

Love Joe

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

Movies on TV

Okay so last night I was waiting for Andrew to get done working out in the basement so we could retire for the evening. I was in the family room flipping channels and taking notes out of a non-fiction book when I found lo and behold, Star Wars A New Hope on the spike channel.

It had just started, you know where the droids are running around the ship before Darth Vader comes on.

Now here is the thing, I have like 4 versions, the original on tape, the original on DVD, the remastered versions...but it was on tv. And, like a favorite song on the radio I was delighted by the wonderful randomness of cable television.

So I watched. Andrew came upstairs and got some dinner and sat beside me.

"Do you want to watch something else?"

"No, why?"

"Well, it's not like we haven't seen this five thousand times and could watch it whenever we wanted."

"Yeah, but it's on tv."

"What is it about favorite movies on tv that compells you to watch? Which movies are like that for you?"

"I'd say every movie I own."

"Andrew, you own like dozens of movies, you'd watch every one if it popped up on tv?"

"Yep?"

We watched Star Wars until Han Solo shot Guido in the cantina and Andrew complained about the remastered version where it shows Guido missing Han. I suggested naming a hypothetical child "Han Solo Scordato" and Andrew made a number of ways kids could tease a kid named Han Solo.

So, what movie would you watch when your flipping channels, even if you own it and/or have seen it 5,000 times.

I expect comments.

swish crack!