Musings of a rural(ish) geek

The wood floor was installed Thursday. It only took them a day -- they were done and offsite before 5pm, taking all the old carpet & tile with them. We then spent the evening putting everything back, including stuff that had been moved 6 weeks ago when we painted. I still have to hang things on the walls, but that's pretty easy, once I decide what goes where.

The boxes still in the basement will be moved back upstairs and emptied when the new cabinet arrives, at which point this stage of home renovation will be done. The base of the old hutch is still in service as a microwave stand, but that will change.

The cats barely noticed the flooring change. They were annoyed by the noise and strangers in the house, but other than that, it doesn't seem to have affected them at all. Ji is much more interested in the sleeping bag on the floor (I need to take it to the laundromat, as it's too big to fit into the washer that I have).

Thanksgiving Day was quiet here, and Friday we went to my mother's for dinner. A good time was had by all, and then it was time to drive home. On the fresh dusting of snow over freezing rain. It was slippy!, and it took us an extra 30 minutes to get home. But we did get home safely.

DB has been spending a lot of time in the auditorium. Once Footloose! was done, the crew started moving in the Nutcracker sets, and setting up for that. He went in Thanksgiving weekend, was there until 9 MTW for dress rehearsals, and will be there Saturday all day and Sunday afternoon. Somewhere in there were auditions for OneAct and the beginning of second term classes. He has a concert Monday evening, and will be working the Middle School holiday concert on Tuesday.

I will be spending time in auditoriums as well -- stage rehearsal tonight, concert on Sunday; then a concert in a different HS auditorium on Thursday. (and I will probably be at the Middle School concert on Tuesday night, as there is a parent meeting for OneAct at the same time, and it's silly to drive home only to turn around and go back to pick him up.) There is a stage rehearsal/mass band run-through on Monday that I will miss (DB's holiday concert), so I will be sight reading the mass band piece. OTOH, as I understand it there's only one, and it's a simplified Sleigh Ride. The trickiest part, I think, will be ensuring that I have a seat in the layout. DB will miss my Sunday concert, as they're a bit under-crewed for Sunday's performances, and he can run a couple of the larger sets by himself.

I had hopes of getting into the workroom to do useful things today, but Anna-kitteh thwarted me. I couldn't have done a lot anyway, as I do have rehearsal tonight and I really don't want to go in to rehearsal with a sore hand. I did get some fabrics pulled out, and may be able to get something cut out tomorrow while Anna is sleeping. (crosses fingers).

The minister has decided to do another lesson and carol service on Christmas Eve, and wants to reassemble the Praise Band. DB has opted out of the band (says he'll join J as a low voice), which is probably good for the balance, as the band can get a bit bass heavy with the both of us playing (and the choir is light on low voices, so probably good all around). I may be playing flute on Silent Night, which will be an entertaining swap. :)

More weeding. It never stops. The ground's been drying out, and in a couple of the flowerbeds that means that the weeds break off rather than come out. The rain we got yesterday should loosen the ground enough that I can actually pull weeds.

More birds. We saw a pair of Downy Woodpeckers at the feeders yesterday. There's also a pair of male indigo buntings, and probably a female or two (the females look quite a bit like female house finches, so they can be hard to ID). Not a lot of male goldfinches this year, although ours often fade as the summer goes on and the mating season is over. SR thinks she saw a female oriole -- wrong size & shape to be anything else, but didn't get a really good look at it.

And frogs! We've seen a couple of frogs in the pond in the last couple of weeks. Dunno why we don't have more, but I suspect the cooler than usual temperatures have something to do with it. We also have duckweed in the pond in addition to the algae that we usually have. I hope we'll get more frogs as the season goes on -- the usual peak is sometime in September.

Anna is being quite "helpful" in the workroom. Every time I go down, she comes over for attention, and so I lose 30-45 minutes to that. And then she falls asleep in my lap until I try to do handwork and then she wakes up. (If I actually try to do something, she gets between me and what I'm working on, or tries to headbutt the iron, or catch the scissors, or play with the pins, or get under my hand as I'm feeding fabric into the sewing machine.) So yeah, not a lot getting done.

lots of them! The ones over the field are blinking quickly, and SR says it looks like glitter. It's very pretty. SR and I are fairly certain we saw a pair of Baltimore Orioles in the backyard a couple of days ago. Guess it's time to get an orange feeder for them.

In other news, 500 sq feet of hardwood floor is a lot. There's a stack in the living room and a smaller one in the den.

( house natter )

Back from band camp! Wow. I'm tired, and my brain is buzzing. A somewhat different experience than the first time I went, partly, I suspect, because I had a better idea of what I was getting into. Well, and I actually played bari sax parts! OTOH, the staff keep telling us that the quality of the band has been getting better every year, and so their expectations keep getting revised up. Lots more walking this year -- woodwind sectionals were way at the other end of the camp (about a mile away from my room), and I usually skipped the shuttle ride and left the space for the elderly folk who were having real problems with the walk. Stayed up late at the afterglow last night/early this morning, and still managed to leave around 9am. I will sleep well tonight. (assuming that the dog lets me on to the bed -- she's had my spot all week, and she doesn't share well.)

Esme was admired by many, and I didn't make any horrible mistakes in the performance. They tell me I need to play louder, though. sigh. Don't wanna -- I just got my reed & mouthpiece balanced, and now you want me to blow more air through the horn?!

In my email this morning was a instrumental arrangement of a hymn that the new minister wants us to play this weekend (and next). This weekend is scheduled to be flute & barisax, and next week she wants to add in clarinet, as well as the HS kids (trumpet, trombone, tuba). The Sunday before I left for camp, we did it as a vocal trio - SSA. (I bet you can guess who was the alto.)

The cat is still stinking of skunk. The cool damp of the last week hasn't helped, as the kids haven't been able to leave the windows open.

Ji was outside when the farmer & his crew came by with not One but Two (2) combines to harvest the wheat in the field behind the house. I've not heard that particular note of "oh CRAP! lemme in lemme IN LEMME IN!" from him since one day last summer when he got spooked by the hawk.

it warmed up today (after being well below freezing this morning - 24F at 0630), so I was going to go pull weeds. But it's been so long since it rained that the ground is holding on to the weeds, especially in the E bed that needs weeding the most. So I trimmed off the hyacinths there, then moved up to the NE bed where the soil doesn't hardpack when it dries out, and pulled weeds there. I don't think the lavender made it through the winter, which will leave an empty spot in the center front of that bed -- I'll probably fill it with another geranium, or maybe some other mounding perennial. Then I went and trimmed off the spent daffs in the NW bed.

Newsletter layout is done. There will be another one next week.

The basement has warmed up, so it's not so uncomfortable to work down there. Now if I can just keep the cats from 'helping'....

Snerk. I heard the cranes whirring this morning, and looked out to see that they were poking around in the garden (they really like gleaning the corn), and Ji was over by the pond, slinking about and appearing to be trying to decide whether he wanted to get closer to them. Then the big crane saw him, and whirred at him. Ji started slinking toward the house. Then I tapped on the door, and he came trotting toward the door. And pranced in as though coming back inside was his idea, and had nothing to do with the trio of cranes.

- the bread machine will make much better bread if I tell it what to do with the ingredients I put in it. three hours ago.

- a 14 gallon Roughtote will hold 48 pounds of black oil sunflower seeds. The platform feeders that we have hold half a pound, maybe. No, the excess is not on the garage floor, although the mice would like that. (The manager of the feed store was trying to move a 50# bag of sunflower seeds that someone had spilled a beverage on -- hadn't soaked through the paper bag yet, and I thought it would fit in the Roughtote. Not quite.)

- snowflakes show up really well on a black dog

- old-lady cats don't want to go outside in the snow and cold

- crows are big. really.