I had planned on taking the day off on Saturday after the opening for “Old Spokes” at Commonwheel.

I gave it my best shot at resting, but I really don’t sit around and do nothing very well. And even though I felt pretty exhausted, I couldn’t just sit and do nothing or read all day. Though, even though it was a gloriously sunshiny day, I wasn’t up for a hike.

So sitting out on my sunny porch, I decided I needed to clean it up a bit. I wanted to be able to sit at the table for lunch or work on a computer out here in nice weather again. And the half-blind squirrel needed a better place to get fed than on the box I use to elevate my leg.

And then there were the pheasant feathers in a large plastic container that needed to be either thrown out or salvaged to be used in some feathery jewelry. Even with having put a moth killing item in there, the remaining feathers were pretty ragged looking. And the dead eggs made it a real challenge to clean up. But I did it. I always swear I will never again accept ring-neck pheasant feathers from a hunter, then someone brings me gorgeous looking skins and tails and I accept them. I have learned to always put them in a sealed box with moth balls and leave it outside for at least 3 months before checking to see if they are really clean of bugs, or if they have bugs that eat feathers. If they have bugs, I try and cut off the feather parts without the fuzz and again put those bits in another box with moth balls for a bit of time to be sure no bugs are traveling with those cleaner feathers.

So I cleaned those up, swept off the porch, threw out a chair that the squirrels had tried to get the stuffing out of to line their nests and washed off the table. There was a glass table top that no longer was connecting properly to its legs. Cleaned that up and left it in its metal ring, and placed it upside down on a long wooden bench to use for feeding that squirrel buddy. The porch is a much more useable space now. And later, I washed the sheet that is covering the old futon, not that it looks very good, but better than it did.

Didn’t sit long again. Went into the back yard to look at the tree that had been cut down by my neighbor, but the tree trimmers had just left much of the trunk and branches on the hillside. In trying to figure out how to get it off the hillside, I began to move some items around back there. Last year before the flooding, I had done some clean up, but had left boards with paint on them that couldn’t be burned in a fireplace leaning against my house. Not a good thing to do! So I hauled all of that to the front yard. And I found a couple of waste baskets. One would allow me to get rid of a waste basket that came from a place with not really positive energy, so time to switch it out for one that my recent tenant had left under the porch. 

I want to hire either my new tenant or the neighbor kid who both have trucks to take some things to the dump. There are odd bits of furniture and rugs left by past tenants that need to leave the yard. Some have been hanging around since last year, and some from this last tenant moving out. Just time to get it taken care of and make the yard look not so junky. Oddly, my tenant hasn’t been home the last two days, maybe on a family Easter Holiday trip. I always like to offer work for pay to my tenants when possible, and he had been interested in doing that when I mentioned it when he was moving in.

When I was flipping a rather heavy metal cabinet towards the gathering area, a young man walking by asked if he could help me. I said sure. He just picked it up and carried to where it needed to go. Ah, youth!

Next, I looked at the porch I use for my photo studio. I unburied lots of gardening tools, and many items that could just get thrown away or used better. I took many items in to my laundry room and washed them off. This is when I washed the sheet from the couch and washed the garden gloves and a few other really dirty items.

As I was in the laundry room waiting for the washer to finish, I decided to clear off the top of the dryer, which led to clearing off some items on the floor and another cabinet. So that room also feels more spacious and one doesn’t have to carefully reach over a stack of items to reach the light switch. Much better!

I found the perfect container to store the “Old Spokes” that had been carved by Sophie Cowman many years ago. At least I feel they will be much safer until I figure out what to do with them permanently.

So the day progressed and I just kept cleaning up different areas rather than actually resting.

I do wish I had thought to take some before and after pictures, but I didn’t.

I had thought about working in my garden, but somehow kneeling and pulling weeds sounded harder than doing what I ended up doing . . . maybe tomorrow as it was gently raining as the day ended and that would soften the ground a bit.