jaunthie | Weekend adventures

As seems typical these days, it was a very busy weekend.

Saturday morning was chores and a bit of gardening. The overwintered leeks needed to be harvested before they developed tough cores, so I dug them all out, washed them, cleaned them, trimmed them, and then thinly sliced most of them and put them in the dehydrator. I should have a good batch of dehydrated leeks for adding to soups and other dishes. Even after filling the dehydrator, I had a lot of fresh leeks left, so I packaged some up to give to friends. I took a brief break for a much-needed massage, and then it was more housework, followed by a lovely evening with Luthien and RocketMan. I had contemplated cooking for them, but we wound up going out to the local English brew-pub/restaurant. They're very popular, and they've added on space, which is very nice. And it turned out that it was just as well that we went out, because upon returning to our place, we discovered that RocketMan is pretty drastically allergic to at least one of our new kitties. He never reacted badly to J or M; in fact he even cat-sat J more than once. But some cats are worse for him than others, and clearly one or both of our new kitties are on the super-allergen scale. Clearly we will need to take steps before having them back over at our place.

Sunday started with a trip to the gym for spin class, which has become too popular for words with the local gym crowd. It's getting increasingly hard to get a reserved spot in the class, and

monkeybard and I have to show up at least twenty minutes early to secure a good bike even if we do have a reservation. Oy! But it's worth it, even on a gorgeous morning like this one. It was a great workout. Of course, as soon as I got back to the house, I had to put on the gardening clothes and get busy out in the yard. I had intended to anyway, based on the weather reports predicting sunny weather today, but I had extra incentive to get going today.

You see, some thrice-damned idiot tagged part of our fence sometime in the last few days. Someone took a permanent marker and wrote what I assume is their name or street tag or whatever the hell on our back gate. Needless to say, I was not going to let this stay one second longer than I could avoid.

So in addition to turning over the rest of the back veggie bed, and weeding the area under the lilac and peonies, and doing serious foxglove transplant/removal in the front beds, and totally overhauling and turning over one of the raised veggie beds in the front yard, and finishing fencing in the front herb beds... Um, yeah. I had a full slate planned already. But in addition to all that, I had to sand down and re-stain the back gate. And while I was at it (and had an open can of stain and sealer handy), I went ahead and redid the front gate and the side gate as well. They were looking rather weathered, and keeping the wood sealed is good protection against vandalism as well as bugs. (The marker didn't sink in nearly as far as it might have otherwise.)

And that idiot tagger brought down their karma on themselves. I'm just sayin'.

Anyway, it was a very busy and productive day in the yard, which is WAY ahead of schedule in terms of leafing out and getting going. Not only are the daffodils blooming and the roses leafing out, but my LILAC is showing masses of purple swellings that will be flower buds. (Lots of them. Apparently this is going to be a heavy bloom year for my lilac. Yum!) In FEBRUARY. This is just sick and wrong. On top of that, I have volunteer nasturtiums up and growing. And to crown it all, when I turned over the first half of the back veggie bed a week and change ago, I decided to put in a row and a half of pea seeds, just on the off-chance that it really was warm enough to start the spring sowing season for cold-tolerant crops. I didn't expect it to work, frankly. I didn't soak the seeds, or inoculate them, or anything.

And wouldn't you know it, but looking at that part of the bed this afternoon, I've got pea shoots starting to poke through the soil.

It really *is* spring. Gotta get going in the garden for real!

So after all that yardwork and gardenwork, I was plenty grubby. Time for a nice relaxing bath. I'd earned it. So there I am, soaking in the tub, and who should come to investigate but L, our water-fascinated kitten. She loves to look at water, particularly moving water. She plays with the water in the water bowl. She comes running when she hears a toilet flush (swirling water, oo!). She frisks around the edges whenever one of us takes a shower.

And hey, hadn't I just realized that I needed to start bathing the kitties to help with the allergen problem? And wasn't L already trying to clamber onto my chest where I was relaxing in the bath?

So I scooped up the kitty and brought her into the tub with me. Yes, this sounds incredibly dangerous, but it's exactly what I did with J all those years ago. And just like J, L didn't offer to bite or scratch or anything. She was a little intimidated by the depth of the water - I hadn't drawn the bath with kitty-washing in mind, so the water was too deep for her to stand in - but I kept her supported with one hand while getting her fur good and soaked with the other, and it was all fine. I kept her in the tub for a few minutes before levering her out and toweling her off thoroughly. She came away none the worse from the experience, and even had an improved toy. Apparently a wet tail is extra-interesting and must be chased in circles incessantly until she falls down.

As I said, a very busy weekend. I need at least another day, but alas, weekends are only two days long. Who came up with this system, anyway?