Wednesday, November 6, 2013

End of Season..

For most folks who garden, it's the end of season.  A lot of my friends and acquaintances gave up on their gardens about two weeks ago when we had our first frost.  I've been debating on over winter garden and may still do it if I can find garlic and onion bulbs.

But for me, the frost was just the start of another part of gardening.  It is time to prep the beds for next year.  And move those beds that need to be moved.  And add another bed.  Oh, and make sure to grab that last harvest.  So that is what I've been doing, in increments, because somehow I irritated both my lower back and my shoulders at the same time.  In truth, I did it so severely yesterday that there were debates as to whether home treatments would work or if I needed to go to the emergency room.  But since I know that almost all the treatments that an ER could offer won't work for me, I won the argument.  The trade off is that I most likely won't be doing anymore garden work this week.  But I do have a friend's son who is willing to barter his labor for some of my canning, so he is coming over to finish the bed that I was in the middle of filling with compost.  Next week I will move on.

Since I can't work in the garden, I've been working, carefully, in the house.  I got certain freezer groceries repacked into the sizes that we use.  And I worked on lesson plans, and lessons.  I've also been doing laundry.  And making large batches of our taco seasoning, with dried herbs and peppers from the garden.  I processed 15 pie pumpkins into puree.  And I have about 100 more to go.  Getting those pumpkins is why I was in so much pain yesterday.  But since my garden produced no winter squash this year, I am immensely grateful for the gift of pumpkins.  I got lots of lovely vines, but no squashes.  Tomorrow I will can some chicken breasts, and maybe if I'm not too sore, do some more pumpkin.

I also received the gift of a new dining room table and chairs - in white.  I love them but if I want the chairs to last I'm going to have to make chair covers.  I've already made a plastic cover for my boy's seat and made the patterns for the cloth covers.  I've also cut one of them out.  But the hours at the sewing machine will have to wait, just like the garden, because it has the same effect on my back and shoulders.  The covers will be a really light cream color, which yes will get dirty like the white, but can be pulled off and washed in the machine.  I will also be making a set in a light sage green if I've got enough of that fabric.  Or at least a couple of spares.

I also receive a few other surprises.  The worst is that Murphy is still playing.  My van is still leaking oil.  This time the leak is from a front seal on the shaft for the timing belt.  This of course resulted in a face palm moment with lots of head shaking.  But it is what it is.  The mechanic is giving us a discount on this repair because he feels that he should have found it when they were doing the last repair.  Since I don't know this vehicle's engine very well I can't comment on that but I'm grateful for it regardless.  On the positive side, the timing belt will be replaced since the old one will have to come off anyways to do the repair.  We don't know when, or if, the existing belt was ever replaced so this is somewhat reassuring.

But the others have been positive.  A friend who was helping her son move brought me his old computer chair.  It has a few issues but nothing that I couldn't fix.  I took the arms off because one was broken beyond repair.  And since the original fabric cover is tearing in areas, I will be making a cover for it.  Because it has wheels my son keeps snagging it to roll around the living room in.  It's cute to watch.  And he fully understands that he has to surrender it when I need it.  But he sure enjoys those moments that it is his.

That same friend is "clearing out" her excess sewing stuff, so she brought me a big bag of upholstery fabrics.  There looks to be enough of one of them to recover the couch cushions.  And enough of another matching fabric to recover the two chairs' cushions.  So that is the project in line after the covers for the dining room chairs are done.  This project will actually be two fold.  First I will use some plain sheets to make a plain covered cushion.  Then I will use the upholstery fabric to make a removable cushion cover.  This will make it a whole lot easier to take care of messes and spills.  I've got some experimenting to do regarding a protective layer though.  I'm not sure if I'm going to add a plastic layer or just do a really, really good coat of the water resistant upholstery spray. 

The other part to this is that I will be learning just how they made the spring cushions that are the bottom cushions.  I will be taking lots of pictures of them as I work on them.  The reason for this is to see if I can make a set for the two chairs.  Those chairs used to have spring cushions but a family member decided to replace them with 4" foam.  I'm going to try to restore them if possible.

So, it is the end of one season and the start of another.  And things are, hopefully, looking up.  

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