orkneyjar.com
Back to work

Well it's the last day of my "vacation" and I'm back on family duty starting tomorrow. My to-do list is not significantly shorter. I probably should have stayed home instead of going to the beach if I expected to knock off some of the bigger tasks but I needed the break. Presumably, now that I'm freshly energized from all that sea air, I'll be more productive even though I have less time. I've always done better with less time than more anyway. Just can't get motivated without a deadline.

I returned the Cruiser yesterday with great regret. I have to say I came to really love that car. I'm not a new car kind of girl but it was a pleasure to drive and it was so funny looking that I always half expected to see a troupe of Shriner's clowns come tumbling out every time I opened the door. I discovered it had a twin in town, when I parked behind it at the farmer's market yesterday.

The market was cute. It's very small here compared to the one in Noho. Mostly a lot of bake sale kind of items but I purchased a few more plants for the garden from a old hippie type guy who was barefoot. I can't wait to see how this new squash works out. It's supposed to be an Italian delicacy called something like tomascino. He had photos and everything. It looks kind of like those gourds you grow for birdhouses but he assures me it's delicious. It hardly matters to me anyway. I rarely end up actually eating anything I grow since I never cook but I'm a sucker for a new cultivar. I forgot to ask if it's a bush or a vine but I'm giving it enough space to vine anyway.

The plants I put in the ground before I left are all still healthy and growing although the pinks are likely to be unspectacular this year. Of course they usually don't do much the first year anyway. I probably should have planted those at the family homestead since I'm not sure I'll keep this house into next season but I don't mind leaving perennials behind when I leave. After all I'm benefiting from the strawberries that were left for me. They're growing apace and I have loads of baby fruit already. In the interim the ground all around the garden is loaded with wild strawberries.

Meanwhile my back improved to the point where I could deal with the downed branches in the yard. With all these old trees, I have a pile after every stiff wind and I have to get rid of them before I can get someone to mow the lawn. I had my first very satisfying bonfire last night. All but the really big limbs disappeared into ashes and the yard looks a lot better already. I hoped my neighbors were suitably impressed with how good I am at piling the wood. All that camping experience from my younger days came in handy after all.