I took advantage of what might be the last, or perhaps only nearly the last, weekend days the outdoor pool will be open this year and swam two miles. I attempted flip turns during the first 500 meters but I still need to practice them separate from swimming. I did most of the last 25 meters in butterfly and persisted through a muscle seizure before the halfway point, until about two lengths from the end when I surfaced with a shriek. Naturally it was that moment that RDC witnessed, having finished his workout and come to look for me. Hi, I'm suave.
Two miles.
A few weeks ago I trundled the wheelbarrow out front to bring 80 pounds of birdseed and six breadbox-sized bags of coffee grounds from Starbucks to the back. I didn't notice until I tried to wheel it away that the tire was flat, and a wheelbarrow tire has no tube, and when you mash a flat tire against its axle, it comes off its axel. And though bike tools will enable you to shove the tire back over its rim even without spokes to lock the thingies against, a bike pump is not sufficient to the task.
RDC was at a point between coats of paint on the breakfast nook and took it to a gas station, bless him. I'd still be out there with the pump. Also he aligned some bolts better and oiled it, necessary maintenance it would never occur to me to do.
I trimmed the vinca, which grew out over the sidewalk during the summer, so that in case it snows ever this winter, it won't become an ice nest, and barrowed it to the leaf pile. Plus I barrowed the huge pots on the porch columns back to the compost bins. After that the wheelbarrow could rest. I harvested the last of the chili peppers and a spaghetti squash, two cucumbers, a zucchini, and a mound of carrots.
RDC chastised me Saturday morning for fingerprinting chocolate on the pantry door, and I, the not-colorblind one, cleaned off the streak of basil, glad that glossy latex paint does not stain as readily as do fingernails and wooden spoons and the plastic bits of the food processor, and gladder that with RDC away all last week, I was able to harvest and process the basil without him to freak at the kitchen in the meantime. I had the damn Birnham wood in there with me, and did I think to hose it all over before I brought it inside? I did not. But the kitchen smelled great and I froze pesto in convenient ice cube-sized portions.
The next huge thing will be rendering all the carrots into soup.
Anyway, the garden's mostly out. I left the tomato plants for now, in hopes the squirrels do not eat all the green tomatoes currently on the vine--in vain hopes, since I found at least four victims strewn hither and yon. The other victim was my pumpkin. I am considering bringing it to a Halloween party later this month, because I find squirrels pretty scary at this point. But I figure the shorties will not find rotting pumpkin other than smelly and I agree with them enough that it just belongs in the compost.
Today I changed the windows, or most of them. Early, since it's not Standard Time yet, but we've wanted the heat on a few times and all next weekend I'm in class to get certified to scuba dive and the weekend after that, the usual weekend, will be too late. Only two sides of the house, the long sides, but the living room I can do from the porch and the back has only four that I need the ladder for. It was more important to swim.