Home work

While I still don't have a job, I can really fill up my days with work around here. I laugh about how I always thought more acreage would be better, but now 5 is just enough thank you!

Agh, just now as I am typing this, my arm stuck to the keyboard because I have paint on my arm. Laquer, that awful sticky stuff.

Today was painting day. I had 5 windows to paint, the window frames were all chipped and terrible looking. Last week I used my electric sander on the wood to get the biggest chips off and smooth the remaining paint down. I breathed a lot of powder cuz that mask made me claustrophobic!





My painting was not so great, cuz the actual wood must be replaced, it is falling apart. Oh well, I tried.




It is a beautiful sunny day, 26 degrees out. That is 80 something F, really warm, but good for painting.






Water Work

A few days ago we had lots of rain so it was perfect timing for me to use the pressure washer to wash our driveway and the roof of our green house. Well, I tried to do the roof of the greenhouse with that thing, but it didn't work out. So I stood on the top of a ladder with a broom with a soapy towel tied to the end and scrubbed until my arms fell off.

I didn't think I would manage that job, but somehow I did. You can see blue sky thru the roof now, not blackish green muck.

The driveway was my real triumph. We have a brick driveway and around every single brick was a border of moss. Thousands, tens of thousands? of bricks that had to be individually pressure washed. I didn't know how messy pressure washing is. I would end up soaked to the skin and covered in moss and mud flecks. It was a 3 day job.


The end result is amazing!











I didn't even know the color of some brickwork, this pinkish wall by the pond was covered in moss before, and now it just glistens. I felt bad cuz so much muck got out onto the street, and this being Germany, you don't leave a dirty street in front of your house. So I swept it up and prayed for a hard rain.


We sure got it! Rain thrashed that street clean, the dusty remnants what I could not sweep up. Note the waves of water rolling down the street. YAH!







I don't know how long it will last, before moss grows between each brick again, but I am sure enjoying it now!











Country Boy

Here is my man telling me what a good job I did. Uh, um, well, I'm not sure what he's saying here, but he looked so handsome, I had to post the picture. Maybe when he reads this post he will remember. I love how he is wearing my flannel shirt, cuz he was cold so I put it on him.

Now is the time to poison blackberries, so I am. Yesterday I stood there spraying, felt something painful, looked down, and there were ants all over my feet, crawling up my pantlegs. I have horrid yellowish red bumps on my left leg where ants taught me a lesson. We have so many ants living in the ground here it would be impossible to find them all, if we wanted to exterminate. How is it such a tiny mouth can cause me such painful bites? My leg is disgusting right now, and 24 hours later, throbbing.

OK there is a lot of paint on this keyboard now. Oops. But this is the "kitchen" laptop, the crappy unreliable thing whose English setting gave up long ago, and I have had to learn to alter my tzping a bit. Typing. So many kezs in the wrong places. Keys. And that little tilde symbol I was so fond of signing my name with, I am to lazy to learn where it is, so I will just type what is in its place, the °. In case you were wondering, hehe.

Block Party!

We had our first block party and it was so fun! It started at 4, and the dancing started at midnight, and we stayed til 2. I met so many new neighbors! They all call me the girl with the white horse and yellow car. The American.


I made chocolate chip cookies, perfect ones, 72 of them, and they got eaten up! I was so happy! And everyone ate up my man's wonderful cucumber salad. In fact, his was the only empty salad bowl at the end of the night.

It turns out the unhappy man with the horses across the street (owner of that mean Arabian horse), he is totally different with a few drinks in him. He kissed my cheek so hard I had burns from his beard! Totally different.

I met a neighbor from Vancouver, and she invited me to coffee tomorrow, and would like me to join her free church. It was the last free church on my list to visit before making up my mind which I would join. It is FUN to talk English with a neighbor! My man whispered to me, "Does she say 'aboot'?" Zes. Yes, she does. But she has been here so long, half her life, I am not sure there is much Canadian left in her.

Yesterday I mowed our pasture fenceline again, it is MUCH easier when you do it often! Baasha stands in the way of my mower, completely unafraid, and I have to wave my arm wildly at him to get him to move, cuz he can't hear me saying, "GIT!" over the motor. It is really not a good practice to mow around a horse, but he just has no fear. Funny what doesn't scare him.

As I mowed, Isabel and friend came over to give me German waffles that her mom had made. German waffles are sweet thin things eaten plain or with powdered sugar. I offered Baasha a piece and he said "no way!"

I picked some of my raspberries and put them on the waffles and oooooooh that was good!

I got a lot done this week and it feels good.