Phew....long day!

I am taking care of my parents place while they are down helping my brother with a home improvement project on his new house. This means that once a week I need to go over and mow, water (inside plants and out), and pick the berries. The berries really probably should be picked a two or three times a week but I don't have that much motivation.

Since Ceridwen called me yesterday to make plans to spend Saturday together, I didn't want to have to worry about doing it on the weekend. So today, I worked my 8 hours straight through without a lunch and then left an hour early to have enough time to mow. Now, you have to understand, that mowing at my parents house involves a small tractor mower (no bailer yet ;>) ) When they bought the property in the early 70's they decided to purchase a second lot because the only way a house could have been built on it would have had it looking directly into their windows. That lot, as we still call it, is mostly grass land, a few trees, some out buildings, and a large garden. We don't worry much about watering the lawn but watering the garden inevitably means that some of the grass gets watered too. It's lovely and lush around the garden and under the 30 foot elderberry trees. My dad has placed a rocking bench out there and it's a nice little retreat. But grass, it does grow and therefore, I must mow.

I have a love/hate relationship with the tractor. Inevitably, when mom and dad are gone, it refuses to start. It's a bit quirky and my dad, knowing its idiosyncrasies, doesn't have any trouble because he knows how to finesse it. I....do not! Today was no exception. I got half a lap through and stopped the mower to pick up the hoses. When I went to start again, it simply errrrrrhhrhrhhrhed and then click, click, click, clicked. ARGH! Now I was thinking at this point, "if I can't get this going again, how am I going to lock it back into the shed?" I tried calling my parents, on both cell numbers. No answer. I tried my brother and my sister-in-law on each of their phones, no answer. I tried my parents again...nothing. I left a frustrated message saying I'm NEVER going to be responsible for their lawns again and if they don't want me to leave the tractor sitting out they'd better call me back...a message, it turns out, that was eaten by the voicemail system. However, they did call me back fairly quickly. Dad, with some confusion walked me through where to find the 100 foot extension cord and the battery charger. Of course, I couldn't figure out how to start the tractor when the battery is under the seat but you have to sit on the seat before it will start. Apparently, there is a trick with the e-brake that allows you to override that safety feature. It started after a couple of tries and with the new trick, I finished the mowing without shutting the tractor down until I'd pulled it into the shed.

Then it was time to set the hoses for watering but first, a walk through the dahlia garden showed that several of the plants needed to be tied up to the stakes before I watered or they'd be beaten into the ground. Mom has gardening velcro for this and it was easy to find but the task was time consuming. Finally, I got the heavier plants tied up and I started the pump. While I was waiting for the water to reach the garden, I cut a small bouquet of dahlias for myself. I just had time to pick the flowers and retie one dahlia that had fallen again before I was in a position to get soaked. Then I locked up all the outbuildings and headed towards the house. I took the hose to the flower beds and pots in the front and back of the house because I wouldn't have time to put the water on them. I had enough faucets to set a couple of small sprinklers in the flower bed around the honeysuckle plants as well. Then I went inside, watered the plants there, and heated up my dinner.

Then it was a matter of killing a little time to allow the garden to get a reasonable amount of water. Usually I'd leave it on for 2-3 hours but it was 7:30 when I finally got it started and so and hour and a half was going to be my max. I'd brought my knitting but I was too dirty to play with white yarn. I made a FaceTime call to Lukas, who has a nasty cold and visited with Candy for a while. Then I read the funnys from a two week old paper and worked on the sudoku. That about used up the time so I started loading my stuff into my car, shut down the water, locked up, and headed for home.

I nearly dove into the shower as soon as I arrived. Grass makes me itchy (no matter what the allergist says) and the trees have a seemingly never ending supply of spiders and webs. So I had the hebeejeebees as well as the grass itchies. So now I'm all clean and very tired.

Tomorrow, after work, I think I'll try to get the knit dress put together that I cut out last night. I know I said I was going to work on the jean's skirt but this called to me instead. I'll get to the skirt, I'm sure.