There was a lot of activity this weekend at the Lockardugan compound; in between feedings and naps, we got the lawn mowed for the first time in two weeks, a garden plot dug in the backyard, more seedlings planted (and cucumber sprouts showing), doors on the garage and the Scout started (cough cough), attended a 1st birthday party, and found a secondhand backpack carrier for Finn. All that activity must have worn on me more than I expected, because I’ve been dragging ass ever since.
Alas, I forgot to take my Claritin this morning. Yesterday I was about 80% OK with the combination of rain and pharmaceuticals, but today I am at about 50% and tired of this throaty Brenda Vaccaro voice. I will have to walk over to the local pharmacy to see how much they gouge inner-city denizens for allergy medication depending on how many tissues I go through in the next two hours.
This is the opening shot in what I hope will be a successful battle to make our greenhouse productive and useful. I’ve got a source for a temperature-controlled fan to add air circulation ( and hopefully pollination) throughout; the plan is to add more tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, cucumbers and radishes.
Among the more annoying symptoms of increasing age, my ability to recover from short excursions with alcohol had to be my least favorite until this weekend. It’s been a slow progression from four beers to three beers to two that used to give me a righteous headache in the morning, but now I can have one stinkin’ Corona on a Friday night and wake up feeling like there’s a midget swinging a hammer at my skull on Saturday morning. What gives? Corona is just beer-flavored water, for Christ’s sake. What have I done to deserve this?
Of course, this could be a symptom of the passive-aggressive weather patterns we’ve been living through the past couple of months; every time we have a new front blow through, it feels like I’ve had cement poured into my sinus cavities, and this phenomena has only gotten worse as I’ve gotten older. So it should come as no surprise, then, that the sudden spike in temperature kickstarted pollen production around our house, which caused my nasal cavities to start leaking snot at prodigious and embarrassing levels—all weekend long.
It didn’t used to be this way. I never had allergies as a kid (not that I can remember, anyway) and last year’s pollen dump didn’t affect me as badly as it has this year; in fact, I remember shoveling green pollen off the cars last year by the bagful and not blinking an eye. So what gives? Has the pollen mixed with a new and more potent brew of toxins and swine flu, or has my body decided 38 is the year to finally see if we can transform into a flesh-covered snot monster?
Whatever the case, I mowed the lawn for the first time since last September (coincidence? I THINK NOT), trimmed the sidewalks, watered two hedge plants (moved from the backyard last weekend to fill a huge dead spot), and attempted to repair our back gutter, which has sagged and leaked for the last two years. We also took the girl on an epic journey to find organic starter vegetables but were thwarted by poor selection and the commercial dominance of Miracle-Gro. Having the window in the Jeep fixed could not have come at a better time, though, because Her Highness spent most of the day in a onesie and still wore a rosy pink glow, even though I put the air conditioners in the windows and chilled her cave to a comfortable 72°.
Plans are afoot to purchase a fan for the greenhouse, and I will have tomatoes planted within the week, but finding other organics to grow indoors remains a problem. In the meantime, I will continue to blow my nose and fill wastebaskets and curse all of the pretty trees and shrubs and flowers that herald the arrival of springtime in Baltimore.
70° days are rare in Maryland this early in March, so this weekend we tried to balance spending as much time as possible with Finn and as much time as we could outside in the fresh air. Saturday was dedicated to long-overdue yardwork, which consumed a good portion of our afternoon, but, what a beautiful afternoon to do it!
I made the mistake of wearing work jeans, and after a half an hour raking leaves off the foundation, I had to switch to shorts because I was too hot. We had five inches of snow last Monday. I am surprised I did not blind the pilots of overflying passenger jets with the sunlight bouncing off my pale knobby knees.
Anyway, while Finn slept off her second breakfast, Jen and I filled twenty bags of leaves from the back of the house, the driveway bed, and the odd area under our back porch, which seems to attract all of the loose leaves in this zipcode like a great sucking vortex.
Once that was accomplished, we three got a bite to eat, changed our diaper, brought the swing outside, and commenced to cleaning out the sad, dilapidated tangle of weeds that was our garden while Finn supervised. I cannot describe to you the sense of satisfaction it gives me to look out on that bare patch of earth and know the neighbors aren’t cursing us under their breath anymore.
While raking up the leaves, I reflected on the sad harvest we reaped last year (mainly due to the toll taken by varmints), and decided that this would be the year I modify our greenhouse to grow vegetables properly. Doing some research, I found online suppliers who sell polycarbonate glazing and ventilation systems, which will be an up-front investment and take some engineering to install, but should turn our useless sealed hothouse into a productive greenhouse.
Meanwhile, I straightened up the pots and barrels and soil and made way for seedlings.
Then, I moved out to the garage and straightened up as much as I could around the Scout without actually diving into doing something on it. I did break down and disassemble some of my new parts–but I’ll go into that elsewhere.
Sunday we got the girl up early—or is that the other way around?—and made preparations to take a long walk around a lake in Columbia before doing our grocery shopping. After her first bottle of the day, this child, who almost never stops moving, did something she’s never done with me before—she leaned her head down onto my chest, under my chin, and quietly nestled up against me for three of the longest and best moments of my life.
Once we got out onto the trail, she was fine for the first fifteen minutes or so, but soon decided she wanted to be facing forward, which meant we wound up carrying her like a football for two and a half miles. Once out of the stroller, she was her usual observant self, appraising each new passerby with a taciturn stare, careful to warn away strange ladies who, no doubt, were plotting to rush over and pinch her chubby pink cheeks. Touch my face and I will projectile vomit all over your track suit, that glare said. And it worked.
Jen and I are afraid nobody will ever see the inside Finn, the girl we get to see who is giggles and smiles and gets so happy her entire body spasms repeatedly like she’s hooked up to a car battery. When she’s around us, she’s Miss Congeniality, and when she’s out in public, she’s Steve McQueen, staring down a hostile world with those steel-blue eyes and a .44 magnum. I will show you proof that she can smile:
After our return to the car, we hightailed it over to the grocery store, where Mama stayed with her in the parking lot while I hustled around and got our shopping done. A quick trip to the health-food store, and we headed home for a three-hour nap and some more yardwork: the front hedge got cleaned out, the greenhouse got a final sweep, and the toolbench in the garage got cleaned off.
About the time I was finishing up for the day, Finn woke up for dinner: avocado and pears. MMMMMMMMM, avocado. And then it was bathtime, and as soon as she was diapered and dressed, it was time for sleep. I’m exhausted just writing about it all.
One of a basketful of wild cherries we got off the trees in the side yard, after getting smart and wrapping branches in netting to fend off the birds.
My original intent, when I began the front porch renovation, was to keep the costs low by using off-the-shelf materials to replace the crap I was tearing out. I’d looked at stuff at the local superstores and found inexpensive candidates, but I knew I’d have to special-order certain things (windows) because nothing in this house is standard size.
With that in mind, I’ve been hemming and hawing over the replacement windows for weeks now, unsure of my plans. The window openings on the porch were all framed in by drunks, so their heights all vary by as much as an inch, and the horizontal level is off by at least a half-inch. In order to figure out what I was going to do (and what shape the framing was in), I pulled all three of the front-facing jalousie windows out on Monday to see what I was dealing with. The base of the frame on the far right was in terrible shape, and I had to pull the entire thing out in order to see what I was dealing with. For a temporary fix, I cut sheets of plywood down and nailed them up until we got our new windows delivered.
Aaaaaaand, here’s where things go south.
Returning to Lowe’s Tuesday with my 10% off coupon, Jen and I looked at the off-the-shelf offerings, and she helped me realize how shitty they look. The mullions (crossbars on the top window) were inside the glass, which looks funny from the outside, and the entire window is covered with a screen, which is ugly. After some discussion, we got a quote for better quality replacement windows which turned out to be about three times as much as I was originally expecting—not what I was hoping for. With the coupon and a firm quote I figure it will go down to about twice my original budget, but this is still putting a major dent in our plans. I’ve got a couple calls in to the better window companies to see what decent replacement windows will cost; I’m not expecting miracles but I’m hoping for one. The hard part will be getting a quote for the windows minus installation fees; I’m pretty sure that’s where their markup lives.
Meanwhile, eating our breakfast in the upstairs bedroom has gotten more exciting due to the looks of shock and awe of the passers-by as they crane their necks trying to figure out what happened to the front of the house.
Outside, we wrapped a couple of branches of the cherry trees so that we might be able to enjoy some of the fruit this spring. With the exception of the Year of the Locust (when plentiful, if earthy-flavored food was burrowing out of the ground all summer), the birds have cleaned out all of the ripening red cherries before we’ve been able to taste it. The grape arbor also got wrapped on Monday to keep the bunches protected for the season (and to keep the vines off the stairwell).
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In other strange news, I had a dream last night where I was asked by Daft Punk to sit in on one of their concerts. I knew all the parts to the songs, but the “instrument” they stood me in front of was like no other I had ever seen, and made no sense. They got pissed at me when I couldn’t figure out how to play it (it was like a vibraphone stood on its side, with lots of added glowing sampler buttons that made no sense), yelled at me in French, and kicked me off the stage. I was so psyched to put on a helmet and a jumpsuit and rock out, too.
This morning, waiting for coffee to brew, I was sleepily cleaning the dishes in the sink when I spied the first three dirty yellow male finches of the season on our thistle feeders, munching away. By the time I was able to get to my camera and put the long lens on, they were gone.
Jen came upstairs as I was hunched over the computer to show me this. With the exception of the basket, everything in there came out of our garden, and there’s a lot more to come. We have a ton of corn coming in, the squirrels seem to have left the second wave of beans alone, and there are several eggplant growing larger. The green peppers are getting pretty big, too. Plus, we’ve already used a couple bushels of basil leaves.