Vacation

Vacation, what is that?  Who invented vacation?  Why do we think that, while not going to a job everyday, we need to be doing something?  Where is it written that working twice as hard on vacation, as at work, is manditory?  Everyone I know says, "I had to come back to work to get some rest".   My story is no different.

My vacation started out slow.  Not much to do but clean the house, clean the garage, start a garden, clean the yard, burn leaves, build a fence, plant the garden and start the deck.  All in a span of 10 days. 

Well my house is a disaster area.  Due to the fact that by the end of the day, after my list of things to do, my enthusiasm for cleaning my house was non existant.  My dogs of course were no help, bringing in every dead thing they could find in the yard.  Half a snake, two dead moles(babies of course), half of a bird and about 100 feathers(some nest fell and ended up on my back patio).    Now the removal of these treasures, was something else.  Rudy, my youngest dog, thinks keep away is something that mom wants to play.  So to get anything from him is a marathon in itself.  He runs and does not hear his name being screamed, or at least he pretends not to hear(just like kids).   Once you get the loving gift away from him, and deposit it in the trash or outside again, he spends his time scratching at the trash bin or door, hoping it will somehow appear again. 

Now Bear, my other dog, is something else all together.  He wanders around outside without a care in the world.  You turn to see a noise that has occured, and this mild mannered dog(who never moves above the speed of a snail) is GONE.  Not sure where he goes, but you can spend an hour looking for him, without a gilmpse, only to come back to the house to find him sitting on the step waiting to get in.    Then come the stupid questions "Where have you been"?  Like he is going to answer you.  Another morning shot. 

I am going to plant a garden.  Make it bigger than last year.  The fresh vegetables will be grand.  My garden is in after three truck loads of dirt.  After some thought, this was kind of stupid since I have 13 acres, 10 of which are covered in plowed dirt and would not have taken a day to load and unload.   Over a period of three days, I figured I unloaded a total of one ton of dirt, manure and cement blocks.  My garden is not that big, but when you have no where to plant, you build one.  I spent all of one day doing nothing but stringing and planting all the wonderful seeds, only to have to entire garden covered in dead leaves due to a 50 mile an hour wind that happened later that day.  Leaf picking was the next project to add to my list.

My husband has wanted to put up a fence.  Your on "vacation" so you can help me.  This would give our little wandering four legged babies a place to play.  No more wandering off in the blink of an eye.   Little did I know what putting up a fence entailed. 

I have put up fences before, but had always pounded posts into the ground.  This was a chain link fence, which involves digging post holes 22 inches deep and pouring cement to hold the posts upright in the holes.  The project started early one morning.  Now post holes are not that big a deal, when you have a few to do, but we needed 16.  OH MY GOD.   I did not know I even had those muscles still.   Michael did get a post hole auger for mechanical support.  Well this thing looked like someone had put handles on a weed whacker.  The handles were covered with black electricians tape and it shook and wobbled all over the place.  You still had to dig out the base of each hole when it was done, mainly because, what it dug out fell back in the hole when you pulled it up.  16 posts.  We got all but one in.  They are straight and will hold up the sturdiest of fence material.   Not sure when that will happen, but THE POSTS ARE IN.

Now my flower beds have been neglected for the past year.  Easy to find, as the only thing in the middle of my yard is a huge pile of 3 foot cooch grass.  Fire I say, Fire.  Out comes the water hose.  Out comes the lighter.  Well this would have been fine, if there had not been a 30 mile an hour wind.  The flower bed went up in flames and burned in about 3 seconds.   Good thing there was no dry grass on the east side of the bed, or we would have had a real problem.  Not sure where my head was, thinking that day was a good one to burn anything.   Anyway, other than a few scorched bricks and plants(by the way they survived), the garden can be seen for what it is now, a flower garden. 

All in all, I had a pretty productive vacation.  Did not sleep in, did not get my house cleaned, did not clean the garage.  But I did however, do that one thing that I said I wanted to do during my vacation.  I spent most of the time I was away from work with my wonderful husband.  We did most of what was accomplished, TOGETHER.  We worked side by side to finish all the things outside that we had tried for months to accomplish.  We did have a good time together.  Only one thing missing now. 

Still no sign of the deck.  Maybe next vacation.