May 2022 Island Trip – Day 2

The weather forecast changed overnight. What a surprise!! No rain today, which let me continue with my grass taming endeavors. The day unfolded like this:

• I got about 75% of Stella’s exterior de-grubified. Pollen and dust (lots) settle into the edges of every trim piece, her gutters, window edges, etc. I was compelled to do this after hearing a new noise last night when it was raining (hard). I went outside and brushed off goop from where I thought the noise might be coming from. The noise stopped. Time to clean the coach…
• Our knife sharpening wizard stopped by to pick up his next tasks at 10. He’s going to field mow the property for me in the next 1-2 months. We agreed on how I’ll mark my baby trees, and he helped me get the new (to the) pump room window out of the back of the truck. Not heavy, just too wide for me to carry on my own!
• My next target was to clean up an alder that had fallen across the west driveway. While there were no longer truck pieces across the drive (don’t know who cleaned that up!), there was no way to mow the edge of the drive. Using leverage, I managed to upend the trunk pieces into the brush, and then cleaned up all the bark and frass left behind.
• The ravens have chicks in the nest. The babies are as loud as their parents! I did the string cheese offering on the woodshed. For the first time ever, I saw two of the ravens on the upper barn roof! They’re as tame as you want them to be… Not scared of you, but they won’t let you get too close.
• I saw my tenant off. She rented a small moving truck and hired an amiable fellow to pack it for her. Her helper booked her a ferry reservation on the spot, and she was able to get on an earlier boat. She’ll be back on Sunday to clean and pack up the rest of her stuff into her own truck. I’ll miss her. She’s a lovely person.
• A trip to town to support the local economy was next. I started mowing upon my return. In the middle of slaying grass I saw my AN and my neighbor to the east chatting in my driveway, so I joined the party, hopping back on my horse when they headed out. I ran the mower until it was almost out of gas, and then,
• Gassed up both weed whackers and ran them very briefly, until their line ran out. I didn’t have it in me to restring them in that moment. It’s on tomorrow’s list.
• I took the (amazingly wonderful) cordless vacuum up to Stella, and ran it around.
• As I took off my sweatshirt and shook it outside Stella’s door, not for the first time while walking up from the barn, to shake the grass out of it, a cascade of quinoa sized baby spiders cascaded off of me. My hair, the sweatshirt, I don’t get to know… Spiders don’t flip me out… But the idea of hatchlings growing up in my trailer does not please me at all! I have never shed clothes (at the door) and jumped into the shower faster. Likely there are a lot of teeny spiders in the grey tank. Hopefully, any that survive in the coach will take care of errant insects. I will invite them to leave as I find them.

My list for tomorrow exceeds the hours available. That’s ok.