Spring is here, spring is here...

...Life is skittles and life is beer
I think the lovliest time of the year is the Spring
I do. Don't you? 'Course you do.

And Spring means sweating like a pig during the morning Walky, and then waiting for the wind to pick up and blow us all to Kansas. But there I go bitching about weather again.

Got an early start this morning; I meant to water the trees yesterday but forgot, so decided to get it done while I was thinking about it. Lately for some reason my new coffee-maker seems to kill the electrical power just when the brew is finishing up, so while I was re-booting I started the generator and plugged in the well pump. Cistern's only about half full anyway. Turned on the flow to the meadow hose and let the basin around the apricot tree fill. When I went down to change trees I helped the boys chase a skinny white cow away. The trees are starting to leaf now, and that draws the frigging cows like flies to shit. Nice tender buds.

I've recently lost the washing machine to my greedy, avaricious landlady who moved to a place where she could use it. She decided she wanted her own property back; can you believe the nerve? Fortunately my friend I has access to a truck with a lift gate, plus it freed up a hose. I got a new spray nozzle last weekend, and extended the hose to the Lair. The stovetop had gotten so disgusting by the end of the winter that I couldn't get it clean without flooding the kitchen, so I took it off, propped it on some sawhorses and gave it a good scrub. Now while I was thinking about it I propped open the Jeep's hood; the coolant has run low again and I can use the hose and the last of the stored coolant to fill it. Also want to blast out the black-water tank before coiling the hose again and setting up the garden sprinkler.

I started a bunch of herb seeds in these little plastic greenhouse thingies from Home Despot, and I'm hoping my landlady will agree to let me clear out some of the strawberry vines that spread like kudzu but never produced any berries. She should be visiting in a week and a half, and I'll ask her then. If not I'll see if I can't amend the soil near the Lair's gray-water pool and plant them there - assuming they sprout at all, of course. Ol' black-thumb Joel.

Time for walkies. We've been staying away from the roads lately, getting over the winter "let's just take a quick walk" habit. Climbed the neighboring ridge, crossed it till we got to the cliff-face, then paralleled it for a while till we came to the fence that bisects the ridge. There's an easy way down there, and a big meadow between the cliff and the wash. Follow the fence to the wash, do a u-turn, and follow the fence back to the cliff. The junipers are high enough and close enough there that there's lots of shade. I'm doing all right, but the dogs are looking for a chance to cool down a bit. They dig in under the branches and I wait ten or fifteen minutes till their respiration rate falls. It's true, what I was reading in a book recently: Whole-body sweat is a much better strategy for dumping excess heat than panting is. This is why humans rule the earth and dogs don't. That and thumbs: dogs will never abandon us while we hold the can-opener monopoly. Up the cliff, which hugging the fence is still an easy climb, over the ridge, down and into our wash, and away home. The boys queue up at the water bucket, and now the big fellas are hiding in the cool of the workshop next to the scriptorium and settling down to their morning snooze.

It always seems to take a good bit of time while it's going on, but when I get home and look at a clock the total elapsed time is almost always less than an hour; sometimes far less. I'm such a wimp: When we go on a good multi-hour hike my stump is so sore at the end that I'm good for nothing for the rest of the day. That, as much as my natural indolence, is what keeps me from being a serious hiker here in this place that cries to be seriously hiked.

Whew. Now it's time to start feeling guilty for not being at the build site, pouring concrete. I really, really must get to that, but damn. My back just healed from buying the stuff and getting it here. I'm too old for this shit, but it must be done.