Sweets and I have been very busy these days, primarily on the weekends: working in the yard, making small improvements, doing some of the things on the long list of projects that we’ve wanted to accomplish around the house to make it more comfortable. We’ve had almost two months worth of weekends spent in the yard, enjoying the mild weather while getting dirty and exhausted (unfortunately, not that way, you pervs).
The garden is starting to shape up as we are planting a few more things in it. At this time there’s only about four different veggies in there, but that’s owing to the time of year, and the fact that we’re still learning how to start things from seed without killing them — most notably some of the herbs were left in the starter tray far to long, and they stayed too moist — live and learn. Our garlic is growing like there is no tomorrow, and the peas and beans are just starting to take off and climb their poles. Planted peanuts too, and they are growing fast! In about a month, we’ll be able to transplant our bell pepper and jalapeño seedlings into their containers and see where that goes.
I’ve seeded/over-seeded the lawn with Argentine Bahia grass seed, but quizzically enough, it’s been too cold in the evenings for it the start germinating. Let me repeat that: It’s been too cold. In central Texas. During spring. For grass seed to germinate. *blink* *blink* At any rate, once the weather warms up at night, it ought to take off.
Continued work on the kitchen cabinet doors. With Drew’s help (and his huge cache of tools) I built the new doors and assembled them, puttied all the nail holes and miter joints, sanded the living hell out of them and made them purdy, and stained and sealed them. Currently I need to make the solid panels to install into the lower doors, and soon enough will come the glass for the top ones, then I can install everything and mark that project off the list.
Lastly, our hammock is finally usable again. At the apartment I had it strung up on the patio, and that worked nicely. Since we have no big trees to fasten our Yucatan-style hammock to in the back yard we opted to install a pair of 4″x6″ posts 2′ into the ground. Well, that proved to be more challenging than I anticipated. Welcome to Austin, where the ground is 6″ of soil, then limestone as deep as you care to go (as opposed to NOLA, where the ground is 6″ of soil then solid gray clay as deep as you care to go). Digging that out with a standard post-hole-digger took 2 hours, a lot of sweat, left Sweets covered in dirt (as she was scooping the loose soil/stone out of the hole while laying flat on the ground), and left my hands sore for three days — but it makes for a sturdy post! We set the posts with concrete and let is dry for 24 hours. They seem to be sturdy as can be. Spent an hour the other evening under the shade of the trees, dappled sunlight playing across me, reading and listening to the bird chorus. I was more relaxed than I had been in months.
The house is continuing to feel more and more like home, and for that matter, so is Austin. It’s not that is hasn’t been “home”, but it’s finally seeping into my bones slowly but surely. It doesn’t hurt that I have a wonderful girl that is making it her home along with me, and I feel like I’m getting my life back again.
Now, if we can just get Sweets a job that will be more than happy to get her a work visa, that would make things even better — that way we can stop worrying. At least she has her externship lined up already, so that’s one less thing to lose sleep over.