Thursday, July 27, 2017

I spent all morning (over three hours) in the back; it took an hour to finish off the roses but, as Pat predicted, it did seem a bit easier. I wore long sleeves and long pants so I didn’t get too many more scratches. The tricky part was having a thorn embed itself in my pants and then when I took a step forward it almost pull my pants off. While I was at the top of the wall I had a couple of interruptions when friends stopped by and, after a little chat with each of them, the shade was pretty much gone and I was working in the sun.

After I cleaned up the canes I pulled out I decided to sweep up the carport. The rose petals look lovely when they first come off; they leave a lovely layer of pink over everything. Now that they have turned brown they don’t look quite so nice. I swept them up and then proceeded to pull out the weeds I sprayed yesterday. Many of them came out easily but as I pulled them and swept up I resprayed each crack; hopefully new ones won’t come up and I’ll finally kill off the roots that were left in the ground.

We have a drain trough at the back of the carport that is meant to carry the rainwater down to a drain pipe. Over time it becomes full of silt and dirt and then the weeds and grass start to grow in it. I expected it would be really hard to pull them out but, because they have very shallow roots, they came out quite easily. I didn’t finish the entire length of the drain but I’m encouraged to get it all done and then spray it with a heavy-duty coating of vinegar.

I was hot and tired when I came in so after a shower, a drink and a rest I headed out to the new library. It is lovely, although I can see parking might be an issue (I never worried about that before as I always just walked across the street). I felt a bit overwhelmed with all the books; I purposely didn’t take my book list with me because I wanted to be inspired by books on the shelves. I brought home four books by authors I’ve never read. The space is bright with lots of seating; they have a little coffee bar so I enjoyed a London Fog tea and read a couple of magazines after I used the self-check out for my book. From now on I think the library with be a destination outing, not just a stop along with other errands.

Yesterday afternoon I finished cutting all the pieces for my O Canada project and I even went ahead to the next step – I traced the pattern onto my fabric. But when I put the first maple leaf on I realized what I had dreaded had come true – I should have reversed the pattern before tracing. I hate when I “always” make that mistake and I should know by now to test just one bit of it first. I’d like to say it doesn’t make any difference but I don’t know that for sure so I’ll remove my first set of tracing lines and start over. But not this afternoon.

I’m going to grab a cold glass of wine, sit in the shade on the deck and finish my current book so I can take a new one with me this weekend.