Spring fever pt 3
Today was a day marked by one of man's lesser know noble pursuits "improvisation". The plan was to fix the water break and continue on with the list. Before breakfast this morning the plan went swimmingly. I put on a pot of beef ribs for my dinner. Then I put on a pair of work gloves and I commenced to shoveling. I now have a partial mote around the front of the house in front of yesterday's water break. The dirt I dug from the mote I added to the wall of yesterday's toils. I also have blisters on my right hand the likes of which I hadn't seen since puberty. You can take that however you like.
Breakfast, three hot biscuits covered in strawberries topped with whipped topping, was had. It was as yummy as it sounds. So here I was ten AM, my hands near bleeding. Shoveling is out of the question for the rest of the day. Fine, I can get out the mower and do some mulching. By the time I got to the mower shed, I realized that it was too wet still for mulching. Before I realized it, I was, shovel in hand planting a dozen black walnuts. Should society collapse, my children will have a source of black die, and some highly nutritious nut meat. If society doesn't collapse my children will have black hands from getting the nut meat out, and some of the tastiest baked goods to be had.
From there I fell in on digging up an old Primestar dish. the company might not have survived the 90's and I have no idea what their service was like, but I will say this for them. They put the dishes in for the long haul. I dug until I hit concrete, I dug around the concrete. I broke a two by four in three places trying to use it to break the thing lose. This would be a job for a 4X4 and a chain but it was wet out, and the tires on the truck are getting a little thin. I had no desire to do all that work getting the truck into place with the chain only to slide across the surface of the ground frictionlessly. So I dug some more and finally decided to quit. My right hand was hurting and I needed some water.
While drinking my water and nursing my weaknesses, I noticed that the bumble bees were hard at work trying to tear my porch down. So I waged war against the bees with a tub of grease. I think I packed enough grease in every hole. I'll know tomorrow.
Today would be a perfect day being all wet and all to move those cedars, however for the moment I should avoid any more shovel work. Maybe I'll take a nap. Yeah, you know that actually sounds like a swell idea. Be back later.
Later: After my nap, I sent the beef ribs through the BBQ sauce and across the flames. Then I played a little Unreal Tournament while I waited for the sauce to caramelize. Oh joy! Oh Rapture! I could not eat more than seven at a standing. That leaves one lonely rib taunting me. victory will be mine. I just need to rest up first. Once the beef broth cools I'll skim off the tallow and make my soup. This I will freeze. I am not feeling soup right now. Heck I can't even polish off the last rib right now.
I'm feeling the urge to mark something off my list. I suppose I should put my pants back on, waddle outdoors and give it another go. No shovel this time. I'm serious.
Annoyingly useless Primestar dish, you now face The Tick. I had been thwarted earlier, but I am not the kind of guy to stay thwarted long. Clever monkeys took a lesson from the Egyptians. Creating a false door, or in this case a false concrete slab. Mortal men would have gotten the first foot thick slab out of the way and finding it was for nothing would give up. I am not mortal men. I came at it from the west side, and it mocked me. No one mocks me from the west like that. I went to the north side and it mocked me no more. I took a victory lap around the back yard dragging my prize, eighteen inches of forbidden concrete wrapped around the base pole of an annoyingly useless Primestar dish. I thought briefly of taking the receiver module as a trophy, but I am not a man to take trophies. They just end up cluttering up the place and need constant dusting. But I was left with a hole. What to do...what to do. I could use this hole to place a time capsule so when future space men opened up the hole to see the surprise left from the past they would find me. It was a good plan. So I filled the hole with the shattered pieces of the dish itself and covered that with shattered concrete and less shattered dirt. I'll show those future spacemen who was boss.
Now I'm all tired and sweaty again. Good thing I've been wearing the same cloths since Friday. Can you imagine the laundry load this would have created otherwise? Think I'll break out an ice cold cider and savor my victory. But only one, The conquering heroine returns tonight and I have to pick her up in the boro at Midnight tonight.
Its 5pm and the thunderstorms from the west are right on schedule. I guess I'll upload now. If you are keeping score at home, I completed nine of seventeen tasks on my list. Also, if by chance on Sunday evening right around 6pm you think you may have heard, right at the edge of hearing, a wail of heartfelt angst and despair...that was me. It means the water break is still broken.
