Up too early for a Saturday morning, but the young one had to be at Basketball Camp at 8:45 a.m. and it is a bout an hour drive over if there is no traffic, no accidents on the interstate, and they aren’t actively working on the expansion and sound barriers that involve the last 15 or 20 miles of the trip. Before we left, I had to make his lunch, pack a cooler with enough drinks and ice to last him til 5 p.m., get the 16 year old out of bed (no small feat in itself), gather laundry for a load, fix him breakfast that he could eat in the car. We made it and got back to the Farmer’s Market only a bit later than usual for a Saturday and yet many of the goodies I wanted were already sold out. Oh well, there will be another day.
On our way home from the market, we stopped to get a few more paint brushes that hadn’t been in the oil based stain so we could start on the front porch rails, balusters, kickboards, and floor that still needed to be done with the latex stain. We don’t want to wait too long as it was freshly washed Thursday evening.
Hubby and I got it all done except for the floor. He had to quit to go pick up the camper and when I opened the two old cans of stain, one was so separated it couldn’t be remixed even with the paint stirrer on the power drill. The other can that had never been opened except to tint it had sat too long (several years) and it was the consistency of set up pudding. We had one new can and used slightly more than half of it, so there certainly wasn’t enough to do the whole floor. We have thunderstorms, much needed, predicted for tomorrow, so I guess we will go get more stain on Monday and try to finish the job. What we got done looks good and the floor should be easier because it is flat and we don’t have to worry about drips or getting latex stain on the parts that were oil based stained. I’m hoping that by Monday or Tuesday, the staining on the house will be done for this summer. Still have the coop to go, but I will get my tall 16 year old helper to assist on that.
I will be glad when it is done and this furniture put back on the porch.
The pullets have been allowed to free range for the past few days. At first, they stayed very near their coop and pen. Today they have ventured over toward the house, especially if they see me come outside to set sprinklers on the flower bed and vegetable garden. I don’t want them to get as comfortable around the flower garden as the old hens did. I don’t need 13 of them digging up the bed. They are a prolific lot. I have gotten at least 8 or 9 eggs from them every day this week. That’s a lot of eggs, but there are folks that appreciate them.
Here is a basketful, but not all of this week’s as a dozen and a half went to daughter’s house, there are a dozen in a wire basket, we have eaten nearly a dozen this week. The spindle and ball of wool were added to the basket for the last day of July spinning challenge. We had to put our spindle with something that was too many to count. I did this, then also did seashells, because there are too many of them to count. And here are gals that provided them right after they were lured in from free ranging this evening. They still aren’t real good at that skill.
One more day of travel to and from camp and then some other chores can be done.