A Grinder, Comets, Criticism
This was a grind yourself into the dirt weekend. The project responsible for this was redoing the garden area. The garden was set up at least 15 years ago, maybe closer to 20. Over that time it has undergone a number of reworks. The space was in pretty poor shape and Cindy was eager to change things up. Part of this upgrade was actually downsizing the garden real estate. At one point I thought we were going to be doing a lot more gardening than reality turned out to be so we had a bunch of raised beds that were empty the majority of the time. We cut the garden size almost exactly in half.
Saturday morning we made a run out to good old Jack and Ann’s in Immokalee. The last time we were there was when I bought supplies for the chicken fence. This place looks like it is straight out of the 50’s, which is why we find it fun to shop there. We bought some hay and a cattle watering bin which was going to be one of our new planters.
Getting the old fencing down was a grind. Since the area was raised up last year some of the staples I hammered in to the structure were now underground. Some I could pull out but a lot of them I just cut with my bolt cutters. The fence posts were in bad shape as well, about half of them snapped off at ground level as I was trying to pull them out. It was just tedious, annoying work, made more miserable by the high heat and humidity.
Cindy and I worked out there till after 5PM until we reached a decent stopping point. She was wiped out just like me and didn’t feel like preparing a meal. We decided to stop at Culvers after picking up a few supplies I needed at Lowe’s. When we got home we watched Greenland, another end of days movie with Gerard Butler. Gerard is far removed from his 300 spartan days but I still enjoy his films. The scenario of comet fragments wreaking havoc around the globe is a theme I find interesting, perhaps because it is a certainty to occur, sooner or later. The plot to survive the disaster gets sort of silly, even for Gerard, but I still enjoyed the movie overall, B.
Sunday was Mother’s Day, Cindy understandably wanted a labor-free day which I did my best to accommodate. During the morning I was back out in the garden attending to stuff that needed to be finished up. Part of this renovation is using three much higher metal planting beds. I had to finish cutting out the bottom of the livestock waterer we bought at Jack and Ann’s. I started on Saturday but I consumed an entire cutting wheel on my angle grinder before I could complete the job. I finished it Sunday using the metal cutting blade on my sawz-all.
I had to stop the work after 11 to clean up for a Mother’s Day lunch with Cindy, Katie, Cindy’s mom and DJ. We once again went to Brooks, Cindy’s favorite place, Katie had never been there. Keeping DJ entertained and under surveillance requires somebody’s attention at all times. We traded off that responsibility. I pushed him around in a stroller for awhile and he, Katie, and I went to the pet store next door for a bit for him to look at the fish and small animals. Our meal was good but our idea of sitting outside was not ideal. The second the breeze stopped it just felt sweltering hot, even under the umbrella.
When I got back I was right back at work, finishing clean up of all of the supplies and tools from the garden work and then washing both the Tesla and Cindy’s car. We actually had a thunderstorm roll through mid-afternoon which dropped a nice chunk of rain, something our area desperately needed. I had no time to ride my EUCs but I did make a quick video. It was a response to a NYC rider who made a satirical video about me. I utilized satire in return.