Me, Afraid Up On Ladders

I consider it a little fitness challenge to get the old house into shape for whatever we will wind up doing with it...renting or selling or holding onto it.  We manage one visit each week and I have a list of chores for each time I'm there.  Last time, I scrubbed the oven.  It is a Jenn-Air stove, very old - several decades but still working beautifully. Not sure if you know but with a Jenn-Air you don't need a range hood; the outdraft is built in so you save valuable space in your kitchen.

 Cleaning the oven is definitely not my favourite thing to do but it gives so much satisfaction to see it all shiny and sparkling at the end.  I guess that is the upside of some of the tedious household tasks...the body gets stretched and the end result is pleasing.

Sunday was another trip back, this time to give the outside of the windows a clean.  This meant me afraid to go up on ladders because the windows on the back side of the house are quite high in places.  In the end, I decided not to risk it.

I decided to give the three regular sized basement windows another shine inside and out.  This meant me, deep in the grass, on my knees outside.  The weather was glorious and I had steady accompaniment from a couple of birds.

Late afternoon, on our return to the new house, we were surprised and in awe to see a barred owl sitting in the middle of our laneway.  I didn't have my camera and my arms would have been too tired to lift one at that point, but I recognized its features.  If finally lifted itself up to a tree just like this one and looked at us quite casually relaxed, me only a few feet away by that time.  It finally opened what looked like huge wings and swung itself rather majestically and silently off into the woods.
I considered that sighting my own personal  reward for a hard day's work.





We have engaged the movers for one more day with us.  They will get to finish all the basement, gardening and outbuilding stuff.  We thought we maybe could manage this ourselves but it was being moved in dribs and drabs and we are feeling like we need this all clued up. I like the idea of the house all clean, snug and secure with the winter coming on.

Meanwhile, harvest time is in full swing here in Ontario and the farm stands are dotting the roads.  We've been enjoying fresh corn for the last month and now the tomatoes, cucumbers. beets, green beans, peas, etc. It is a food bonanza to enjoy fresh picked food even if only for a few months of the year.

A time of year I wished I canned or bottled.  My mother is the queen of bottling.  Many times we would leave her house with a case of samplings of all the things she bottled.  She bottles lots of stuff, jams, beets, moose, carrots, berries..even her baked beans to keep handy for a quick meal.  She always says to me..so you're still not bottling anything?  with a kind of disappointed tone.

And now the apples are starting...
 


I love these old vintage style paintings.