Labor Day Weekend

The long weekend passed with much of the same; laundry to be done, house to be cleaned, but thanks to some friends, no mowing. Friday night, friends stayed the night on their way home to Chicago. They arrived a few hours before Art and I got home from work so, because of their love of mowing grass (and the sight that our lawn hadn't been mowed in a couple of weeks), they mowed our yard. All of it. I got a call from my friend (it was her parents staying with us) telling me "I just wanted to let you know that my parents are mowing your lawn". It was pretty funny but greatly appreciated!

We also dog sat my parents' dog, Ringer over the weekend while they celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. Ringer and Buddy had a great time together, although I had to talk Buddy into being a bit more entertaining. He's too much like his antisocial parents, I'm afraid. But once they got to know each other they had a blast. Linda was not as impressed by Ringer and, being top dog in our house, had to express her dominance a few times. She's also what I like to call a 'fun hater'. Buddy and Ringer would be having a grand old time running and jumping all over each other when Linda would notice their activity and run over and ruin it. So she was relegated to the upstairs while the other two played in the dog yard. I couldn't let the boys have free reign of the farm because Ringer, perhaps due to his Australian Shepherd breed, likes to kill things. I let them out to see how he would do and he made a beeline for one of my chickens and would have eaten her had she not been smart enough to wedge herself between a wall and some gates. She was traumatized and may never lay eggs again, but Ringer was pretty pleased with himself. It was a lot of fun seeing the three dogs together, but as each of them was more needy than the other and as I have only two hands, it made me glad I only have two dogs.




I also cleaned out the garden. The pumpkins were pretty much dead and looking really scraggly so I mowed them down. I cleaned out the tomato plants; I forgot to stake them before they got too big (not my best moment) and I just couldn't get the tomatoes before the bugs did. There isn't much left in the garden except sweet potatoes and green peppers but it'll be apple season before I know it so I'm always glad to be done with the garden about this time.

Art made me a yard cart! I had been begging for one so that I didn't have to carry the garden stuffs to the compost pile (yes, I'm lazy) and he finally got one for me! Somehow he found an old bomb cart (yes, a bomb cart. They used them to move bombs around at the armory in Rock Island) used some scrap plywood for the floor and sides and voila! a garden cart I can hitch behind the lawn mower. Now if only he can install a hydraulic lift to dump it...




We also baled about a half a load of hay and started on the much needed fence around the pasture.

The best part of the weekend is that Art fixed the dishwasher! We discovered a leak about six weeks ago and he just hadn't had a chance to fix it. I hate the chore of dish washing only second to vacuuming and consider it akin to slave labor, so I'm very, very happy!