Aug/Sept Island Trip – Day 15

I put away the gray paint today, and am sure that the walls are rejecting it the same way the bathroom wall did the primer and white paint yesterday, just in subtler ways. But, I’m done with grey paint! And it looks great. Interior primer got taken out and put back away too. Tomorrow will see the last of painting for this interlude between tenants.

Lots of other work got finished or furthered. It is not lost on me that the line item “Paint the bathroom” explodes into 14-interdependent steps. However, when we start out, all optimistic and shit, all we hear ourselves say is, “I’m gonna paint the bathroom!” Say that about a 7-ish room house, and now you know how I feel, and how grumpy my left wrist and elbow are. No, I’m not left-handed, but ambidextrous…

After a second rinse on the grey paint brush, I gathered up a half dozen things no longer needed in the house, walked them back to the barn, and then spent 40ish minutes on the big mower where one is in control of life, because the only goal is to cut grass. It was 3:30PM.

My goal was to stop working at 4:30. After mowing I ran my roofer’s magnet on wheels around the exterior of the barns. This thing is about 3.5’ wide on wheels. It picks up metal (duh). I picked up about a pint of rusty metal tire biters. I’ll ask to borrow this contraption again! After metal remediation I took the wheelbarrow over to Stella’s slope and yanked out thistles from her garden. A number of plants have survived this year without irrigation. Granted, it was wet through June. It let’s me know what’ll survive deer and drought.

My neighbor to the east came over to dinner this evening. We had a lovely visit. Her pup came and went the entire time. I got brave and figured out how to use Stella’s oven. The pilot light has to be hand lit. The oven roasted veggies perfectly. It’s a very small oven, and so the potato’s were roasted on the BBQ in a cast iron skillet. Marinated boneless/skinless chicken thighs to the left…

After my friend and her doggo headed home, I addressed the pile of dishes, and thought: I’ll use the dishwasher in the house in the morning!! An hour later I wondered dubiously: Do I have any dishwasher detergent? 97% sure I don’t have the needed detergent. If not, first thing tomorrow is a trip to town. There’s more on the list than this one item, and it’s worth the 4.5 mile drive not to have to wash this many dishes in Stella while the resource in the house is available!