Monday, July 01, 2019

Mowing Monday

 Today's sun- tea choices:Prince of Peace Oolong tea in the gallon jug; Green/pomegranate tea and peppermint tea in the quart jar. I suspected no one would want the herb tea except me. I was right.  I sweetened this tea with monk fruit. Some wouldn't drink the batch sweetened with Stevia....I considered it a win that all tea drinkers drank the monk fruit sweetened tea. Dad DIDN'T add sugar. It was a bit of work to find monk fruit without Erythritol(makes me and Michael ill). I will have to find time to research some good baking recipes with monk fruit. The bag says to "add sugar" if baking. I find that hilarious. Think about it -  "add sugar to your sugar substitute." ::snort:: 

I was going about my morning when Dad came out of his room and commented he was going to get the riding mower out. He talks loud - and mentioned he mows Will's for him and he was sure he could mow ours. The difference being our place has steep inclines to navigate...and I have a 17 year old son who has taken mowing the big areas on as HIS job.  He is happy to let me do all the push mower spots. I can't get the weed eater to work for me, so Alex has to do that too. 

Alex came out of the bathroom and snuck out behind Dad. Dad smirked and laughed when we heard the mower start up.  Alex was trying to honor his grand dad; there was no way Grandpa was going to mow while Alex was here. 

The problem is Grandpa wanted to help. I could tell he really wanted to....and I suspected the movement would do his blood sugar levels good.  By the time I got outside he had the push mower out and was looking for gas. It seemed best to get out of his way. 


HE wanted to to this! AND I did jump in when he took breaks. In fact, I missed a work out because of this mowing war.....so I joined the mowing tea rather than work out ....turns out I walked over 5 miles and kept my heart-rate in the target zone for 153 minutes by the time I was done with my part of the mowing.  There is something to this "moving naturally" idea. LOL  

Dad enjoyed some time in the sun and was on hand to help anytime we ran into a problem...

At this point a spring slid over and the mower was blowing grass all over me and into my face, instead of into the bag. It's a NEW mower. Dad alerted Alex. Alex figured it out, and the rest of the mowing was much more pleasurable. 

A Bit later I was suddenly enveloped in a cloud of smoke. That excited Dad fast. It turns out the oil cap had blown off and much oil had escaped  - what a mess. 

While I did the orchard and around the edges of the yard...Alex tackled a job Michael had left for him.  Devil's club is good to eat in the spring. Michael, however, says we don't need it all over our yard. It can be painful stuff....and it takes over. I would guess over 1/2 of our place is in the woods. This time of the years it's more like a jungle. We are working hard to increase the civilized spaces and make the woods at least accessible to US -  not just the wildlife around here. Devil's Club is the tall white flowering bush. Even the moose leave this stuff alone. 

Alex has a machete in his hand....and he is attacking....he ran into a couple of hornets nests in the process. Shortly after these photos he went inside and covered from head to tow, and got leather gloves. It was needed.


A cleared area

I weeded the two raised beds, the broccoli, cauliflower, and a path way while Alex worked with Devil's Club. Lunch never tasted so good! 

We have lots of cottonwood in our yard....
Look at all the cotton - poor Stacia
It is only right to share that Stacia cleaned the house while Alex and I worked outside.

Stacia and I are on a mission. We want to find some kid-friendly things for our yard. We have some yard games - but they really don't work for toddlers/pre-schoolers.....We still haven't found a swing set structure. We headed out to find a pool,  sand box, slide, or "something" at thrift stores.  No luck in THAT, but we had too much luck finding other things...we picked up with 5 dresses.....and pared it down to 2....

This is the cart before we started putting  things back. LOL The dish went back, we decided we didn't need 2 gallon Coleman jugs (do you REALLY want to carry them when fishing?), we put back a game, a book, a stroller.....We ended up with a couple of games, some books, clothes for the grands and a portable crib for my house. Soon,  I will not have grandkids living in the house.. I'll need to have my OWN sleeping area, toys, and high chairs for when they visit. I decided the girls can bring their own strollers if I'm watching their kids over here. 

Nolan went to work to open this a.m. and he was sent home as soon as manning allowed it. Several commented he looks friendlier with a round face. He came home around 10:00 and sat the rest of day with ice and meds.

He asked for pierogies for dinner. Michael had asked me if I could make the friend pieorgies in the air fyer. I wasn't sure, but gave it a shot tonight. Yes, I can.

Tonight we played Farkle with Lorri. She is in OR, we are in AK. We used Marco Polo but will be looking into a video chat program for the next game. LOL Lorri won. 

Michael and Krista called. They started late yesterday. They enjoyed time with old friends at church....It looked like they may not be home until the 4th. They called this evening and were stopping for the day. They had driven all night, with a break for a dip in Liam Hot Springs. They are only 900 miles away.