Let me start Friday, end of shift.
I had planned to go get Compost and Soil, which - from past experience - I expected to take about an hour. And indeed, going there, loading, getting back to work does take an hour - however, I wasn't going back to work, but home. On the way there, I saw a sign for the on-ramp to the Highway I take from work - major shortcut! So, all in all, it 'cost' me only half an hour - and I was at the milk farmer by half past three already. (I had estimated one hour to get there and back, plus the usual half hour to get from work to home).
I got lucky there as well! He was there! And, not only did I get my 5 liter milk (3 per day for the weekend, plus 2 liter for cheese), but due to the power outage, some of his milk had gone sour and he gave me a 2 liter sour milk for free! A customer had rejected it, and he said since I buy such a lot of milk from him, I may have it free! Awesome!
Okay, now in a normal store, milk that has gone sour is not something any sane person would pay for. But: a) this isn't a normal store and b) I get even better cheese from sour milk than I do from fresh milk! And since I'm not 'buying' it out of charity, but as a product - I see no reason why I shouldn't pay?
When I got home, I let mippies out and offloaded the car - Uff! What a job! Especially the potting soil - those bags are quite heavy!
I took a walk through my garden ... sigh, all I see is work! The pleasure of seeing things grow is always tainted by the amount of work I see my garden still needs. Anyway, I moved some of the eggplant, as they were really bunched quite close together, as well as the carrots. That took quite some time, as I first had to extend the bed to make space. I also used the Potting soil to fill the 'Celery' pot - it had been dug into and nothing was sprouting - and then sowed more Celery seeds. Last, I cleared a place for the Strelizia. I had placed it in the garden, but somewhat too close to the fence - now I've moved it a little further inside the garden. I hope it will forgive the double handling - I'm afraid its roots were damaged some more during this last move.
Saturday was not a good day for me. I was in a bad mood most of the day; I tried several re-starts - didn't work yesterday. I think what irritated me the most was having to spend half my weekend washing those danged floors! I started by re-arranging the broom closet, after I had washed all the dishes. It took me most of the day to sweep and wash all the floors - I take quite a few breaks when it is this hot, but still. All that moving furniture and putting it back does take a lot of time.
Late afternoon I got a bit of a fright - I feared Lady Jane might have seriously hurt herself! From the evidence I saw, I am guessing she was on top of the highest book shelf when she started hurling, and somehow she fell off. What scared me the most is that I had 2 kebab sticks stuck into a box (point down) and they had somehow got involved - what if one of them went into Lady Jane? I could find only the one - at first! And Lady Jane herself was not clean, either - she must have fallen into some of the ... urgh. And she was sitting strangely just outside, not moving, just panting. I was greatly relieved when I found the second kebab stick! Neither had any blood on them, so I'm not sure how they could have got involved, but at least they hadn't gone into Lady Jane! The were flat against the box, really, only in some freak accident could a cat have been injured - especially as the points were inside the box! Trust one of my mips to have a freak accident!
I'd washed my clothes, washed one of the duvets (sigh, it had a piddle puddle in the center!) and then the towels and bed covers. When the last load was drying (in the machine - it's the only time I use the machine's dryer) Leon came to complain that the machine is using water, setting the pump to go on and off and on and off - costing too much electricity and I must do something about that. Just what the heck am I supposed to do? I only do that once a month, so really, lets keep this reasonable, okay? I mean, I pay rent, electricity and I take my own waste away - except what can be recycled. Give me some credit, please!
To top my day, the cheese also didn't seem to be turning out right. Sigh. Instead of a layer of curd as usual, I had some lumps here and there, but nothing solid. So, I decided to try a different approach and I just emptied the whole pot through the cheesecloth bag, catching every bit of cheese, no matter how small!
I'm happy to say that worked out well in the end! It's really lovely and creamy! And plentiful! I've put it into a bowl this time - looks nicer than using the soup dish.
I'm not sure what I want to do today, though. I've washed the dishes again, finished the cheese, and the milk I got Friday is busy going sour - I'm considering trying to make 'cuttable' cheese. It's a different, more complex, process ... but I'm not really in the mood.
There's also a lot of work to do in the garden, but the sun is blazing ... although there is some shade under the trees.
I'm still not in top form and definitely not feeling overly energetic. I still need to bake a loaf of bread as well, so I set that going. This time, I'm trying a rye bread. I used the recipe for brown bread and used 2 cups white plus one cup rye flour. That turned out quite nice.
Leon tells me that they plan to switch off our electricity on Tuesday from 6:00 - 18:00, if all goes well. They plan to repair the local power station to avoid the constant outages, every time the flip a switch. He also recommended I unplug everything as they fear some power surges while they repair - I hope I remember that Tuesday morning! I'm already unplugging everything I won't need - mixer, bread machine, etc. Tuesday morning I must just unplug the PC and Fridge.
I think that the Many paws is playing with my energy and emotions. This month is another period-free but flush-filled month. I'm not taking the Menograine at the moment - I don't like taking chronic medication when I don't have a condition that requires chronic treatment. My 'condition' doesn't REQUIRE treatment, although it makes life easier for me.
Anyway, Sunday afternoon, I tried working on the lawn, getting more weeds and thorns out, but the ground had already dried and hardened too much. The roots all broke off, I couldn't get them out completely. So I moved to my new Basil patch. I cleared quite a lot of ground around it, so that I could see my Basil growing from my table - the grass was hiding it. I added more plants to the patch, clearing another pot, giving the Peas free reign over that pot. I still have two pots with Basil growing ...
I'm afraid the carrots and eggplants did not take well to their new location! They look dead to me - but I'm watering in hopes of revival. Plants are funny that way - sometimes they look like they've had it, and then, with water, suddenly they stand up and carry on as if nothing had happened!
One nice thing about walking through my garden at the moment is to see new sprouts every single time! I've got some maize poking through - I counted four on my last round! And the bulbs are also coming along, last count was ten! The Alyssum seem to have finally taken and are coming along nicely. I'm not so sure about my herbs, though. Oh, there's stuff growing in the pots, but it doesn't look anything like what I sowed! Where I sowed Rosemary it looks like two Vieruurtjies are growing! Nothing in that pot looks like it could be Rosemary! I'm not sure what's growing in they Thyme pot, but it also doesn't look like Thyme. Only the Sage is clearly identifiable. I'll see next weekend what happens and decide whether to re-sow.
And then I decided to make another little round bed near the Basil bed. I took some of those succulents Leon had planted along the path and placed them on the outside of the bed. Inside the bed I sowed Shady Ladies! Ha ha! Always enjoyed that name! It's basically a mix of flowers which do better in shade than full sun - and since that bed is under the Wag-n-bietjie tree, they only get morning sun. And, they are supposedly tall plants, so, once they've grown, I'll be able to see the flowers from my chair. The bed is right behind another Spekboom, one of the mushroom-shaped types, with the large leaves and lots of stems.
Since I wasn't up to finishing this blog last night, I can also add that I was finally successful in booking appointments for At and myself for drivers licence renewals! This time the submission went through and we each got booking confirmations - still waiting for the confirmation sms, though.
Leon tells me that they plan to switch off our electricity on Tuesday from 6:00 - 18:00, if all goes well. They plan to repair the local power station to avoid the constant outages, every time the flip a switch. He also recommended I unplug everything as they fear some power surges while they repair - I hope I remember that Tuesday morning! I'm already unplugging everything I won't need - mixer, bread machine, etc. Tuesday morning I must just unplug the PC and Fridge.
I think that the Many paws is playing with my energy and emotions. This month is another period-free but flush-filled month. I'm not taking the Menograine at the moment - I don't like taking chronic medication when I don't have a condition that requires chronic treatment. My 'condition' doesn't REQUIRE treatment, although it makes life easier for me.
Anyway, Sunday afternoon, I tried working on the lawn, getting more weeds and thorns out, but the ground had already dried and hardened too much. The roots all broke off, I couldn't get them out completely. So I moved to my new Basil patch. I cleared quite a lot of ground around it, so that I could see my Basil growing from my table - the grass was hiding it. I added more plants to the patch, clearing another pot, giving the Peas free reign over that pot. I still have two pots with Basil growing ...
I'm afraid the carrots and eggplants did not take well to their new location! They look dead to me - but I'm watering in hopes of revival. Plants are funny that way - sometimes they look like they've had it, and then, with water, suddenly they stand up and carry on as if nothing had happened!
One nice thing about walking through my garden at the moment is to see new sprouts every single time! I've got some maize poking through - I counted four on my last round! And the bulbs are also coming along, last count was ten! The Alyssum seem to have finally taken and are coming along nicely. I'm not so sure about my herbs, though. Oh, there's stuff growing in the pots, but it doesn't look anything like what I sowed! Where I sowed Rosemary it looks like two Vieruurtjies are growing! Nothing in that pot looks like it could be Rosemary! I'm not sure what's growing in they Thyme pot, but it also doesn't look like Thyme. Only the Sage is clearly identifiable. I'll see next weekend what happens and decide whether to re-sow.
And then I decided to make another little round bed near the Basil bed. I took some of those succulents Leon had planted along the path and placed them on the outside of the bed. Inside the bed I sowed Shady Ladies! Ha ha! Always enjoyed that name! It's basically a mix of flowers which do better in shade than full sun - and since that bed is under the Wag-n-bietjie tree, they only get morning sun. And, they are supposedly tall plants, so, once they've grown, I'll be able to see the flowers from my chair. The bed is right behind another Spekboom, one of the mushroom-shaped types, with the large leaves and lots of stems.
Since I wasn't up to finishing this blog last night, I can also add that I was finally successful in booking appointments for At and myself for drivers licence renewals! This time the submission went through and we each got booking confirmations - still waiting for the confirmation sms, though.
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