In what, you ask? Maybe general life, daily things, this blog. I don’t like the way life has become so much smaller in older age and retirement income. On one hand, my body tells me it’s good to slow down and take it easier but my younger-brain self says there’s still things left undone and I should be more energetic about doing them. The daily barrage of political angst doesn’t do anyone any good either and I’m extremely resentful that what may be some of my best final years have to be constantly colored for the worse by an absolute maniac and his endless-baby daddy-sidekick.
I give the excuse that Wisconsin winters are hard for trying
to accomplish much outside of the confines of four walls and my cabin fever
this year was a real thing. I have managed to churn out quite a bit of sewing
art though. We’re finally getting a few days where, like turtles, we can stick
our heads and necks out and do something under the glorious sun for a few hours
of the day but I’m so out of shape my body screams with the effort.
We’re trying to knock the garden back into shape since we plan on spending the entire year here instead of up North. We’ve kept it covered with lumber tarps held down with small pieces of leftover Trex decking material in a futile effort to mitigate the quack grass from totally taking over. A losing battle if there ever was one! We gathered all that up, with the plastic shredding in our hands, for Marc to haul to the dump the other day (800 pounds worth). He bought a burner torch so we can eradicate the dead weeds when they dry out and he has started rototilling. We want to build some beds up high somehow, to prevent having to work at ground level. That’s still in the planning stages of what will be best to use on a limited budget.
The humane society’s latest online auction has come and gone and I contributed 32 items and all but about three sold. The shelter made around $7300, a real shot in the arm for them, out of items folks had donated. Speaking of the shelter, they’ve been very successful at running their low cost spay and neuter clinic from the new building Marc was overseeing last year. They also offer very reasonably priced vaccinations, charging a mere fraction of what a normal vet clinic charges. This has actually now become their prime money-making endeavor so we have to hold less small dollar events in an attempt to raise money. Keep in mind folks, that most Humane Societies are not supported by anything other than a few small grants and loads of donations from people in the communities they serve. If you’re an animal lover they deserve your support once in awhile!
We took advantage of their services for our feral kitty yesterday and found out it was a female and we got her spayed just in the nick of time. We’ve set up a small shed as her abode, where we provided a heated water bowl and food all winter and a box specially fabricated with a heating pad so she could survive all the minus temps we endured. We’ve now got her locked in the shed for a few days while she heals. We first noticed her hunting her little heart out as a young kitten, trying to stay alive, so we worked to get her to stay on our property. We’ve got plenty of rodents and now that our primary hunter Jerry has passed on, no way to control them, so we hope she sticks around as our “barn kitty”, which is what everyone calls them here.
Marc continues to slowly work on our kitchen island, the longest woodworking project ever, LOL. We continue to have lots of fun with Buster but have been unable to get him and one of our girls, Spirit, to get along. It presents a lot of stress and aggravation into our daily lives but it should ease a little this summer as we are able to let Spirit outside more. Buster will remain an indoor cat.
On a final note, as we watch the economy and housing market
absolutely turning to shit under Trump, we became delayed with getting our lot
on the market. The Realtor we want to use, a very nice and professional man, recently
lost his 22-year-old son in a horrific car wreck, so we told him to just take
the time he needs to deal with everything and let us know when he’s ready to
work again. Although Wisconsin still deals with a lack of inventory, the buyer
statistics are sure in meltdown elsewhere in the nation, so we’ve no idea how
it will all play out. It will sell at our price or it won’t, and if not, we’ll
just continue to own it.
