Not That Again!

Yes, had to "clean out" the woodshed again this morning....

...I was looking for this...

...the Weedwacker...

...thank goodness I'd saved the instructions and hadn't yet taken them down to the apartment.  I'm now finding that's an issue.   Although my intent has been to not take anything down there I think I'll need here, I've already determined I've taken the instructions for my cordless drill down by mistake.  I purchased and used this trimmer once last August after I returned from spending July with my brother and his family in Tacoma.  The grasses were chest high when I returned, and although we'd had a much wetter winter and spring in 2011, I don't want to let them get that high again this summer.  Last year I had to assemble the thing and everything was going well until I decided the cutting string didn't look as if it were installed quite right on the spool, tried to straighten it out and ended up with this...

I did all the yard work when I was married, but don't remember ever using one of these trimmers.  I guess we didn't have one.  So I'm unfamiliar with the apparatus.  Luckily I had purchased some additional spools of line, so I think I've installed one of those correctly although the instructions on the back of the spool package include one of those "Oh, by the way" instructional phrases I just hate....

"When replacing the spool make sure that you include spool spring when resembling (I'm sure that's supposed to be reassembling since we'll hope no user, short of a Dick Tracy character, resembles this weed whacker) the new spool.  The spool spring sometimes sticks in the old spool and can be removed easily by slightly prying out with a small flat-headed screwdriver."  

Oh, no.  I have no idea what happened to the old spool.  Maybe it got spit out in the yard when the above happened.  Since the instruction booklet that came with the trimmer makes no mention of the spring, I'm going to see what happens.  Right now I'm charging the battery.


While I had everything out of the woodshed, I pulled out this awful table of which I'd hoped I'd seen the last...

I had replaced it with a cute rattan table, which, I have to admit, was too low and now has been taken to the apartment, so this is going to get the royal brown paint treatment so it disappears into the wall here at the cabin.


I also got my snow tires tucked away.  They were accumulating rainwater and were becoming a breeding ground for mosquitoes, which are bad enough with my help.  I sure wish they had bagged each tire individually instead of putting two to a bag.  With my bad arm it was a bit of a struggle to get these into the woodshed.

There were quite a few things in the woodshed that I wanted to take to down to the apartment, so those are now loaded into the car.  I don't think I'm making a run down today, though.  I didn't feel well yesterday...had another one of those days when I felt as if I were getting the flu..and was so glad I was no longer working and could just rest.  I don't know whether it was the weather...we had clouds to the right of us and clouds to the left of us...

...and it felt as if the barometer was really down.  The temperature dropped precipitously about mid-morning, I think it was, but we didn't get any rain.  I do think they have been having very unsettled weather in Denver and environs, including tornadoes.  Today I feel as if someone had been jumping up and down on my lower back.  I suppose this could all be the residual effects of turning myself into a human torpedo, but it's been three weeks.  I did make a follow-up appointment for next week, as advised by the urgent care doctor, just to see if there are any exercises I can do for this arm and I may mention the back pain.  I suppose if the rest of my injuries are keeping pace with my black eye, I'm just not quite there yet...

Well I polished off my second library book yesterday while I was being lazy, so am heading down to get a couple of replacements and some ice for the cooler.  It's almost 80F degrees today and very sunny.  More later...Teddee

Spring Cleaning

I spent most of the day cleaning, but I can't really see much difference.  Several years ago my sister and went together and split the cost for four of these really large plastic storage containers...

...in which we had been storing extra bedding in case more members of the family came out on vacation and needed blankets and sleeping bags for their tents.  She and her husband had also left some clothing here.  After Christmas I decided I would use the boxes, which fit under the bunk, to store my craft materials.  I bagged up all the blankets and clothing and stored them in my car, which I use as another room, this one-room cabin being a bit small.  This didn't work.  Not only was it a nuisance to have all those bags of bedding and clothing in my car trunk and inside my car, but once the craft materials were shoved under the bunk, it was too much trouble to get them out whenever I needed them, so I quit crafting.  

Today I dragged all of the storage boxes out from under the bunk, removed the craft materials...

...which I had carefully sorted and stored in individual containers last winter.  Then I dragged all of the bags out of the car, sorted through the contents, put the bedding and my sister's and her husband's clothing back in the large containers and put everything else back in the bags and put them in the woodshed.  There were some table cloths (I remember my mother using this one for Sunday dinner back on the farm in Missouri when I was quite young)...

...and even odder rugs that looked like they were crocheted, but in really unusual colors.  One was a flirty black with bright green and peppermint pink touches.  I felt like doing the can-can....

It was as if everyone had brought to the cabin all of the things they didn't want but couldn't bring themselves to give away.  I'll let my sister decide when she comes out in July if she feels sentimental about any of these items.  If she does, she can take them home with her.  Otherwise, they're going to Goodwill.

I also took the plastic storage container that serves as my toolbox out to the woodshed, rigged up a different cover to hide the white and wild-colored print on the hide-a-bed that my sister brought out here and prefers to sleep on.  I've been trying to get the other hide-a-bed, a black Naugahyde beauty, to Goodwill for two years but can't seem to find anyone willing to haul it to Boulder even for pay.

In order to do all the above, I had to move a lot of things out on the deck...

I can't decide if these cat curtain rod holders are cute or creepy.  People driving by kept slowing down thinking I was having a yard sale...hmmm...they might have something.  I wish I could count on the weather, particularly wind, lack of, so I could actually plan one.  Perhaps in September.  By that time I should have everything done to the cabin I want to do and I can sell all the leftover decor items.  If I recall, we had some very nice weather last September.

I thought around 3 p.m. we were going to have rain...
 

The wind came up so I quit working and got everything under cover then Dixie and I went to the spring and got water.  If this is spring run-off then I may be forced to buy water this summer...

I also stopped and picked up a big bag of pine cones for kindling.  My brother had questioned several months ago why I wasn't using pine cones and I told him I had seen hardly any last fall.  Well, the side ditches over in Caribou Canyon where the spring is located, are now filled with them...

...so I'll take a sack for pine cones each time I get water.  This should cut down on the need for those pricey fire starters that have just gone up a $1 to $13 a box.

So now the boxes of craft materials have supplanted the plastic tool box bin on the couch, a couple of piles of books and magazines (already sorted once to get rid of the chaff), which I'd secreted away in one of the plastic bins under the bunk, have now reappeared to join a couple of other piles of same that had accumulated since Christmas. 

Out of all this effort, I do have two bags of clothing and miscellaneous in the car to take to Goodwill or Savers, I removed one of the heavy jute rugs my sister brought out here that sheds and had started raveling along the edge, moved furniture and swept thoroughly, so made some progress.

I'll sign off with a photo I just took of the western sky...

Have a wonderful evening...Teddee