Dust balls, spider webs, dirty windows, and ... my friend Margaret...

It's that time of year.  Spring is here  -- or at least that is what the calendar says.   The winter sun has changed ... intensified ... brightened somehow, and, once in a while, shines piercingly through dirty windows, highlighting spiderwebs and dust balls, as if the time change isn't enough of an insult to one's way of life.  Here come thoughts of Spring cleaning ...  ugh. The good thing though, for those of us in NW Pennsylvania, is that it is also time to put the screens back in, open the windows, and let fresh air inside (if it isn't snowing) - after months of the house being closed up tightly to survive the cold and ... the heat bills.  

I eagerly await for the lawn and pasture to "firm up" a bit -- still too soggy to really work outside even with Muck boots, but ... there is the holding promise of warmer days. You see -- here's the thing. I would rather work outside than inside... although, I do enjoy a clean house.  I am a picker up of sticks more than a chaser of the ever returning "dust bunny".  I prefer the light manual labor of outside. I hire out the big stuff or ignore it as much as possible.  As for inside, I have all the necessary tools for the essential chores in order to get them done as simply and quickly as possible... including an ever faithful Roomba for under the beds. Yes... it is outside for me -- where I can wander about and take my time with things after several months of being inside in front of the fireplace. I am a fresh air kind of person.

Further -- must mention.... I also have my good olde friend, Margaret, to help out with the annual cleanup of the lawn and pasture.  Margaret is a 2007 Trail Hand Bush Hog vehicle with an automatic dumper. She rests in my small barn all winter just waiting patiently under her tarp.  She is bright red. Her cargo bed will tolerate 1000 lbs. or so.  She is a hard worker. I can load up my battery operated saws and trimmers, pile assorted rakes and my Grandpa's Weeder into her cargo bed, take off into the back pasture or around the yard and Margaret makes light work of it all.  Good olde Margaret.  Don't know what I would do without her.  She doesn't go too fast like the side-by-sides of today... just sort of fast enough to get the job done and for the pre-drivers license grand to drive around too. She is a multi-purpose vehicle for sure. It's almost time.  Am looking forward to it. 

Happy Spring....   May the sun shine on you. I wish you gentle breezes as you go about your days.

A Red Letter Day...

 

We have all had days like the one I am going to describe.  It starts out as a sort of a pain in the neck day, but actually turns out to be better than average -- even significant in some minor ways. 

It all started when I knocked the stain remover stick off the counter in the laundry room only to have it land beyond reach behind the washing machine. Now since that was the third item to find a place in the dust balls there, I decided that it was past time to rescue them all -- even though two of the items just needed to be thrown out. One was a plastic lid to something and the other was unidentifiable.  Now you need to have an accurate mental picture of my laundry room to understand the dilemma.  Quite frankly I don’t know how Meerhoff’s Appliances even got a washer and dryer in there... and they have done it more than once. Bless them.  Anyway – the room is the size of a toothpick box – more a closet than a room really – and not a large closet.  It's saving grace is that it is right off my kitchen and thus most convenient. Anyway -- it is sort of difficult to describe how you actually pull the washer away from the wall as it is sandwiched tightly between a counter on the left and the dryer on the right. To add to the challenge – once it is out, it is up against a wall and now blocks access to the rest of the room. So -- there is no room whatsoever to maneuver, and it is necessary to employ a sturdy step stool and a long stick with a cleaning rag attached to try to slide items out to freedom and with which to try to remove what is probably years of dust balls and grit. At one point I found myself on top of the washer.  It was impressive if I do say so myself. (The pole employed was one of those extendable ones. I so love those kind as I am on the short side of the height chart.) Anyway -- after successful recovery of the stain remover stick, et al, and having worked up an impressive sweat – mission accomplished. At this point I changed out my sweatshirt for a tee shirt and moved on to another project rather surprised that I didn’t stop for a coffee break. I was on a roll…

For some unknown reason, after I threw in a load of laundry to make sure the washer still worked, I decided to give three of my four houseplants a haircut. What a mess! That, of course, inspired me to move furniture around. Cleaning as I went, I managed to drag, push and carry until I now have a new, somewhat awkward, pathway throughout part of my house and an impressive black and blue bruise on one shin.  I managed to seemingly reduce the size of my living room area and enlarge that of my book room.  Don’t know why I felt the need to do this.  I simply get into the mood to move things around once in a while.  There are very few pieces of furniture that I am able to move these days. I am hoping that my new interest in chair yoga may help with this.  Guess I just like to do what I am able to do. It is fun once in a while to change things up a bit and to reduce the dust ball population.

It must be Spring! (Fingers crossed on that!)