Sunshine And Shadow

It's all about timing.  Neighbor Joe came up early yesterday to see about taking the log splitter down to the corner where he's been cutting up the oak.  It makes more sense than loading the rounds in his truck, bringing them up here, unloading them to split, then loading up the firewood.  Good grief!  It's true when they say a wood stove heats you twice.  The splitter is a heavy piece of equipment and Joe isn't getting any younger.  It's hard to admit you can't do what you used to do without a second's thought, but I think Joe's going to have to wait until his son-in-law comes up to help drag the splitter out of its little shed.  It sure wasn't going to be me!  Then he thought maybe the tractor could pull it out.  I found the towing ball in the hellhole of a barn (another subject for another day).  That dadratted John Not So Dear fired right up for Joe.  I knew it!  John NSD hates me.  He likes men only.  Well, he doesn't know it yet, but I'm trading him to Dave and the Freed Spirits and I'm getting Fu Manchu back.  John NSD and I will both be happy, and I can only hope that Fu will be pleased to be back in the wide open spaces.

Because I was up and outside earlier than usual, the area of the herb garden where I stopped to pull weeds was in shadow.  That sounds like a good thing.  It was not.  It's mosquito season and the booger bugs lurk in the shadows.  They got me good (or bad).  I'm allergic to the mountain variety and welt up big time when bitten and my back is a mess.  Fortunately I inherited my Dad's old-fashioned bamboo back scratcher or I'd be rubbing up against tree trunks like a bear with an itch.

While weeding has to be done in sunshine, watering the deck plants (what's left, that is) has to wait until the sun has moved over enough to put them in shadow.  It gets so hot on the deck that I'd boil those that I wanted to save, and I'd get sunburned in the process.  It's all about timing.