Weekend at Home

The Barbecue Bench, a photo by suzipaw on Flickr.

It was a lovely and productive weekend. We managed to go beyond just maintenance cleaning and take care of some other chores that have been hanging over us for far too long. I can actually see everything that's in my freezer, and I'm pretty sure nothing in there is more than a year old. The dogs smell fresher. We disposed of some items in the garage that should have been settled into the dump or Goodwill cycle many hundreds of days ago. We broke down the last of the half-winebarrels that I had moved "temporarily" near a side fence a couple of years ago, which meant disposing of some redwood seedlings that had taken root and gotten much larger than we'd ever thought. That was hard. They were on their way to becoming lovely trees. We shifted the as-yet unfilled and unplanted livestock troughs into that space, which looks neater, but...in all honesty I feel a bit defeated by that project. I think my gardening eyes are much bigger than my reality stomach can...stomach. The troughs were not cheap, however, so I have a hard time letting them go.

We rewarded our hard work by taking a ride out to Lake Berryessa on Saturday. It was hard to believe that a hurricane was was threatening the East coast, it was so idyllic for us on the Left. Well, it was a tad hot, but skimming past the vineyards and golden hills, it looked a lot like paradise from the back of the Kawasaki. We vastly underestimated the number of choices to have lunch in the area, and ended up consuming overpriced sandwiches created by some interesting characters and watching bad TV at a funky little deli with a fly problem in Spanish Flat. We did go next door to a nice little collectibles shop afterwards and I picked up a cheap vintage tablecloth I'll turn into a new kitchen cafe curtain. Which hopefully will happen sooner than turning watering troughs into garden beds.

We haven't done many projects together lately, so it was high time we tackled something as a couple. For better or for worse, on Sunday afternoon we decided to build an outdoor table that would be a sort of connecting counter between the the two grills, house the hibachi as well as store the various grilling supplies. I think we did pretty well as a team--M put up with my lack of carpentry skills and I put up with his dismissing my many "helpful" suggestions--he is the tool master after all. We pushed through the project a little longer than I suspect with both wanted to in order to get it done, and in the end our marriage remained intact and the barbeque bench came out OK too. It may be oversized and rough (Uncle Lloyd, avert your eyes!), but it's functional. We suspect it will be the place we take shelter in the next earthquake.

*****

Despite the heat during the day, it's feeling like fall already. Walking the dogs last night, the sunset warmed the sky's color, but didn't do much for the air temperature. The geese are on the wing again and I'm already missing summer.