kevin_standlee | Enough Done for This Trip

One of the challenges of trying to work through such a large backlog of chores is that often when you start one job, you discover something in the way that you have to do instead before you can even start the other one.

This afternoon after lunch, for instance, we started to open up some of the covers on the trailer in the hope of getting some of the mold and mildew washed off and some fresh air into the trailer. We started to slide open the front-window cover and jumped back quickly, for there were five wasp nests inside, at least one of which was clearly active, with wasps flying around and cells covered with what we assume were incubating wasps. So we had to put a hold on that job, go over to the hardware store again, and look for wasp spray. Lisa hates using poisons around the trailer, particularly in this area, which is only centimeters from the kitchen, so she was pleased to find a non-poison wasp killer that consists of mint and lemon extract in a CO2 suspension. It comes out in a thin jet you can spray from three meters away. It covers the wasp nests and sometimes knocks them off completely. After kitting up -- face shield, heavy jacket, gloves -- Lisa liberally sprayed the nesting area and we smashed the nests as best we could, managing to avoid being attacked by angry wasps. Lucky we were doing this now when the wasps weren't especially active.

After dealing with the wasps, Lisa sprayed one side window with disinfectant and scrubbed a lot of mildew and mold from the window and frame. There are other windows that need doing, but it's an all-day job to be done only when you're sure it's going to be bright and sunny throughout.

The clouds moved in this afternoon and it got humid, which is not good for more mowing, so instead we got out the push cart and attacked yet another brush pile. I think this might be the last pile of brush created from the Christmas/New Year storms. It took four or five cart-loads of branches to clear this area. There's still the monster pile of debris from when the Good Old Boys tore down the old garage and ignored all of Lisa's instructions to separate wood and brush from non-burnable things like old cans of unidentified chemicals and what-have-you. Besides, they piled it under the branches of one of the trees, so even if we did feel safe burning it, it would likely set the tree on fire! And besides all that, Lisa's father forgot to drain the pipes on the pump-house on that part of the property and it froze, busting the pump. See what I mean about one job on top of another?

Finally, with mowing off the agenda, Lisa had me pull one of the small carts with a large bag of potting soil and a smaller one of grass seed. Our job was to try and fill in some of the worst holes in the field. Some were created by us -- like where the sawdust had killed a patch of lawn -- and others are divots left behind from her father's weeding. What the field really needs is to be completely burned, disked, and replanted, but, like like Thornton Avenue in Fremont, there's no funding or resources for a complete rebuild, so, again just like Thornton Avenue, the lawn is now full of patches, although instead of being patches of asphalt, it's patches of potting soil spread over liberally-sown grass seed.

You're supposed to run a roller over the sown areas, but we don't have one. What we did have was a 290-pound guy with size 14 boots, so Lisa had me stomp the soil down after she'd spread seed and soil. The timing is pretty good. It's supposed to rain tonight. I guess we'll know by the next time I come up here in three weeks whether any of the patch jobs took root.

I am completely wiped out, but feeling pretty accomplished. We got a whole lot of work done this weekend. While much still remains -- and will probably always remain, that being the way of property maintenance -- I still can feel that there's nothing to fault my efforts. We did luck out a bit, with my not flying back until tomorrow (a consequence of cheaper air fares on Monday afternoon and a very generous supervisor) and with us finally having a stretch of good weather on a weekend. Still, I feel like I could sleep for a week right now.

Lisa is glad we got so much done, but she's still sick from the cold/flu, and her ear continues to wail at top volume. It's no fun at all, and as of this writing, she has not slept for 38 hours.