Catching up

And it's the end of the week. May goes by so quickly! Next weekend is Memorial Day, I have 5 days (count 'em 5) in a row to spend in Hawkeye. My annual Mem. Day break. I used to divide the house into zones & try to clean a zone a day, but that plan was never terribly successful. Now I just make a big list of big projects, a bigger list of small projects, and hope for the best. I need to weed my clothes, which is now a priority. I need to weed my garden, which is also a priority. I have annuals & perennials to plant and gardens to re-create. I have blackberry bushes--very mean ones--to kill. Pardon my eco-political incorrectness, but I'm using the strongest weed killer I can find. It works well, but of course leaves bare spots for a couple of years. Which is way preferable to the sticks full of thorns that have taken over way too much territory.

This weekend some cousins are coming to put docks in & open their camp across the lake. Wow. Must be some sort of a record for earliest dock-in. The road to camp was damaged by water so we've had 2 loads (or maybe 1--I love my family) of crushed stone delivered and one cousin will spread the stone with his cute tractor that he's bringing from Syracuse. I have some really nice relatives who do a lot for camp. I have some (nice) relatives who do nothing for camp but use it. Then there's me. I don't do much for camp, but keep an eye on it throughout the year. I guess. I'll open the boat house by next weekend, hoping to spend the nights there. I'd be staying there now if the road were good & I were more industrious (you figure out which is the real reason). It's warm and lovely at night. The black flies are out, yes, but it's still nice.

It's been raining for what seems like weeks. It might even be weeks. This means that spring was slow to start in early May but has now sped full-throttle to become the season in Hawkeye. There still aren't real leaves on trees, but the grass is green (and growing) and the birds are noisy.

I spent the day on the road yesterday. Drove to Alexandria Bay (1000 Islands) for a conference. 2.5 hrs each way from home. Not a bad trip. I left at 5:30 a.m., which turned out to be too early, but then left before the luncheon & keynote speaker (who was reporting on the State of Libraries and Librarians, duh). I got home around 3, which was nice. Enough time to walk the dogs in the bog in long shadows of late afternoon. Very pretty. The sun finally came out, which hurt my eyes. Has it really been THAT long? Yes, I think it has.

I planted some containers for my deck last night. Even though I decided not to have as many containers this year, I still bought a bunch of annuals. Not as many as usual, and some are notably absent, but I have 4 or 5 containers planned. Got about half the stuff planted. NOT BAD!! Right, Fred? I do have some perennials in need of dirt, but I also have some perennials I have planted already. And some in pots waiting for attention. All are healthy and will be planted hopefully this weekend.

Work is going well. Much ado about e-books, including one of the programs I went to yesterday and a workshop we had here this morning. We'll be getting a subscription to one vendor's list of e-books by fall, I think. If the vendor pulls through.
 
I've given up on my aquarium at home. Death toll was way too high. I have 3 goldfish here at work, only 2 of whom appear to be healthy. My 2-year-old goldfish died recently and his partner seemed lonely so I got 2 more (for 13 cents each). Big Man is LARGE, newbies are small. One of the newbies is sort of floating around, not really swimming. Geez, I can't even succeed with new goldfish. Big Man is more than a year old and is doing well. Perhaps I shouldn't have assumed company was wanted.


Dogs and cat are all fine. HUGE chipmunk body on the living room floor the other night when I got home. Yesterday Tess was parading around with a jumping mouse corpse in her mouth. Long tail hanging out, a dead giveaway. Why does Kitty insist on sparing the least desirable rodents? Get me some red squirrels, cat, and a regular mouse or two.

Someone says he's moving into his camp tonight. That would be nice, a destination for long peaceful walks, with a glass of rum at the end of the walk. Lin is cleaning Linda's camp this weekend. We'll have a coffee break, then a glass of wine when she finishes. Oh wait, wine at home, rum down the lane--pick your poison, girlie. Poisons. Which I'll enjoy tonight when I get to Hawkeye, planning to stop at Joe & Martha's.

Life is good but not exciting. Which is pretty much my preference.