Category: Olio

Sunday Morning

A blogger friend challenged to begin Sunday morning with a 25 second video from the front porch/door to show the changing season from Autumn to Winter. Here is this morning, a mostly clear, sunny, but chilly 43 f (4.1 c), quite the change from the past few weeks. We aren’t getting the pretty fall colors this year, most of the trees are yellowing or browning and the leaves dropping already. Some are already bare or nearly so. I don’t seem to be able to link it as a video, this is just the opening shot. The video can be viewed on my Instagram if you follow me there at spn_knt.

The last time I mowed, I had hoped it would be for the last time this year. The mower needs an oil change and the blades sharpened or replaced. I picked up a chunk of erosion fence in the blade last time and it was quite the challenge to get to free from the blade it wrapped around. Day before yesterday in late afternoon, I brought the mower and line trimmer out again and though I didn’t do all the acreage I usually mow, I got around the house and coop and trimmed around the flower garden in the back. The chickens love when I mow and run into the area I have just passed, gorging on newly clipped grass and the insects it disturbs. I am always amused when the Perdue chicken commercial comes on TV and the actor tells the family what chickens from other breeders are fed and to go down to the Perdue booth, that Perdue chickens are given only clean grain feed. If you have ever watched chickens, they are Velociraptors, they will eat snakes, mice, frogs, bugs, grass, seeds, and just about anything, they are definitely not vegetarian and chickens fed that way are not healthy.

We have two aging pups, the younger of the two has never been a healthy dog and for the past three mornings, I have had major accidents to clean up while they are outdoors and before I can feed them. That is not the way I prefer to start my day and though I really dislike scented candles, I have had to use a wax warmer with a sliver of eucalyptus scented wax with a chunk of beeswax to clear the air.

Our daily schedule generally involves a walk after lunch, today we are headed out this morning, so hubby can watch a football game and I can prepare Sunday dinner for Daughter and her kiddos. I think this will be the first walk of the season where I don my jacket that hubby gave me for my birthday a few years ago, maybe a knit hat as well. At least it is sunny and not wet and windy.

“Our Town”

We live in a Village in a county of only about 15000 folks, but are closer to a town in the next county than to our county seat where Walmart has run most of the local business out of business. The town is a University town and other than a couple grocers, fast food, and CVS, it is locally owned businesses.

Several years ago, Main Street and College Avenue were renovated, with brick sidewalks, old style lamp posts that each have two hanging basket hooks and a flag pole holder. In the spring, every post is adorned with baskets overflowing with flowers, the medians are planted with flowers and a crew maintains them with weeding, pruning, and watering regularly. The flag holders hold flags for various events. For the local high school football games and graduation, each has a flag that has BHS for Blacksburg High School. On national holidays, American flags are displayed. Virginia Tech flags for their home football games. International flags when the University is celebrating international events.

This is the town I moved into while our house was being build and while hubby was still across the state until he retired. We consider it our town. It is where the Farmer’s Market is, where the restaurants we frequent are located, and a small single screen movie theater that has been there since my father was a student here in the 1940’s.

This afternoon, we spent a few hours staining the ceiling and posts of our front porch and after all was done and cleaned up, including us, we went to town for dinner. About once a week since the weather warmed and we can dine outdoors, we have reinstated that into our lives. On Friday nights there is live music on the hill in the first photo.

We love the local feel of this town and the opportunities for plays, concerts, and sporting events if we feel the urge through the University. The adjacent town to this one has all of the big box stores and chain movie theaters, so if we can’t find what we need in town, it is a short drive over.

As we sat with our drinks, awaiting the service of our dinner, I pulled out a spindle and did a bit of spin in public time. My spindles are often pulled out around town for a spin time. Sometimes it draws a question or comment, sometimes I just see someone watching from a distance, tonight, one of the ladies from my spinning group and her hubby arrived to dine on the same patio. Small towns, the best.

Olio- 6/22/2021

Olio: a miscellaneous collection of things

Son 1 and Grandson 1 arrived on the weekend for some work and some play. Son 1 and I did some staining, trying to get parts of the log house stained that didn’t get done year before last and that the pandemic prevented from getting done last year. We also needed to have our septic tank pumped and hubby and I were unable to dig down through our rocky soil to get to the tank top, so a couple weeks ago when Son 1 was also here working, we used the site map to try to locate it, used a metal detector to confirm the location based on a length of buried rebar, and attempted to hire someone to come dig it out.

Now mind you, we live near a University town and there are Help needed signs posted everywhere. There aren’t many students here in the summer and I guess the ones that are either are struggling to stay in school or trying to get ahead and don’t want jobs. I posted a paid gig on Craigslist and one guy said he would come out, but wanted $25 more than we offered. We agreed, he showed up almost at dark, dug for 5 minutes with our tools, said he would be back the next morning at 8 a.m. with a helper and “more equipment” and we never saw him again. The second inquiry also was a no show. Son 1 upon his afternoon arrival went to work and the tank top lid and observation port were uncovered, working together, we freed the lid yesterday afternoon, and the pumping crew came and did their stinky job this morning. Grandson 1 and I will pick rocks from the soil pile and refill the hole and we are going to put in a small flower bed of annuals on topsoil right over the lid and port so it will be easy to find and easier to dig in a couple years when we have to have a repeat pumping session. The lid is about 28″ down. Son 1 us a gem to leave his home, his own tasks, and come on his weekends, away from his job to help us get these tasks done. It is a shame that we can’t get people locally to come out for pay to do them.

Grandson 1 will stay with us for a couple weeks to help me with some other tasks, but Son 1 headed home this morning.

For fun, after we worked on Sunday with staining, we cleaned up and with Daughter, took a couple hour kayak trip on the New River.

After we were back at Daughter’s house with the kayaks and they were rehung, Son 1 and I went out and bought all the fixings for a fantastic Father’s Day meal for hubby and Son 1 that we prepared and ate at Daughter’s house.

Grandson 1 on his first afternoon here used the riding mower to finish mowing our lawn that I had barely begun the day before and yesterday, mowed Daughter’s lawn with her AWD lawnmower, a necessity as her lawn has a steep hill in the front and a serious though not too steep slope in the back.

Last night at egg collection time, I found the first pullet egg from the littles. It was from an Easter egger and will be blue when she figures it all out.

Her first attempt is kind of green, blue, and gray speckled, but it had a nice hard shell and it did have a yolk. A couple more of the pullets look like they are about ready too, but most look like they may still need a few more weeks.

I had gotten frustrated with Ms. Houdini’s escape and attempts to get under or on the porch and caught her, putting her in the enclosed run with the pullets. That lasted only 24 hours until she managed to escape from there too and spent the day yesterday again trying to get on or under the porch, then all of the free rangers got into the walled garden yesterday afternoon and started digging up my flowers. They were treated with a hose spraying to send them into and over the mesh fence to get out and away from the jet of water. It is raining today, but when it ends, I will have to repair their damage to the bed and restring the mesh. I really like for them to wander the grounds eating bugs and ticks, but hate for them to get into the gardens and wreck havoc, and also when they are unrestricted free ranging, they hide their eggs and I may or may not find them. Yesterday there was only 1 from them, 1 hen and 1 pullet from the coop and penned ones. Maybe I need to use electric fence around the orchard and both coops and have controlled free range time. Soon the two roosters and the old hens will find their way to freezer camp. They are farm birds after all, not pets.