Rainy Day and the Blackberry Tree

Blackberry Tree

Rainy Day is a happy camper! After all the fuss and frustration of people being unable to leave comments without going through a PhD program and signing on for only-Google-knows-how-many things, she found a 'fix.' Disqus, a third party fixer has been downloaded/uploaded/glued in place. Now friends of Rainy Day should have NO problem leaving comments. Rainy Day apologizes for Google for fixing something that was never broken and turning it into a mess; however, one should now be able to leave comments, thanks to Disqus, with ease;-)

Now, back to the regularly scheduled programming.

Rainy Day loves well-maintained lawns and gardens – as long as she doesn't have to do the maintaining. She thinks she would like doing gardening, getting her hands dirty, getting close to Mother Earth, all that wonderful stuff. Alas, Rainy Day is allergic. She spends ten minutes outside, hands in the dirt, and all that Mother Earth stuff, and she can't breathe. Oh, it would be so nice if she could just take a pill, and be able to breathe again. Alas, the pills that really work are now verboten by her doctor. The others ones put her to sleep. The ones that don't put her to sleep really don't work all that wonderfully, either.

When Rainy Day bought her house a few years ago, she was thrilled to find a settled yard that was, relatively speaking,  low maintenance. She hired someone to come in and mow the lawn weekly (and she makes sure all the doors and windows are closed while they do this!), and she enjoys the fruits of their labors.

She discovered a prior owner planted raspberries and blackberries (no thorns!) and left them for her to pick and freeze the fruit as it ripens. When fall comes, and Rainy Day and two of her Sisters of Choice come from across the mountains, they use all the frozen fruit they have each collected all summer to make jams.

She has one real garden. It is even fenced off from the rest of the yard. It belongs to the birds. They plant the seeds and they harvest the fruit. Well, they get most of the fruit. Now, some very strange things have shown up in that garden – sorrel, chives, sunflowers, and a blackberry tree! Yes, you read that correctly – a blackberry tree.

Rainy Day had never seen such a thing as a blackberry tree, so she immediately called her friend, Becky, who is a Master Gardener and knows everything there is to know when it comes to plants. She laughed and told Rainy Day she had a mulberry tree, not a blackberry tree. And, yes, the mulberries are edible (but pretty tasteless). Rainy Day now collects mulberries to add to the fruit for jam. She hears, from an impeccable source (Maura's Mom), that though they have very little flavor, they play well when mixed with other fruits.

Rainy Day still isn't 100% convinced it's a Mulberry Tree, though. No matter how often she checks, she never finds any silk worms.

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Rainy Day and the Dust Devils

Before the really cute Dust Devils arrived, to turn her house into the National Dust Bowl Arena, Rainy Day looked at several photos of water, and then watched the video at the end. Rainy Day loves the sea, but believes it has its own place, and that place is NOT on land! When Rainy Day was a little girl, she wanted to live in a Light House. (She also wanted to be a Navy Jet Pilot and take off from, and land on, carriers, she wanted to be a neurosurgeon, she wanted to be a herpetologist, a botanist, a ballet dancer (she saw the movie, The Red Shoes several times), a nun (she wasn't Catholic), and she wanted to be a Forest Ranger. Rainy Day wanted to be lots of things when she grew up. Instead, she became a WAC, then a mother, then a Technical Illustrator for a large airplane company. But, I digress.) After carefully studying these photos, and watching the video, Rainy Day is now considering removing from her list the idea of living in a Light House. Rainy Day often considers discretion to be the better part of valor.

Now you see why Rainy Day likes contractors! Removing Saltillo Tiles
Johnny and Bill

The Dust Devils (aka Cute Contractors) have arrived and begun the laborious, noisy, and dusty process of removing the Saltillo tiles from the entry, hall, and living room. They made a lot of noise, and created a lot of dust. However, this morning's dust will be several magnitudes higher – they are going to sand the sub flooring before putting down the underlayment and then the Real Floors! Rainy Day will supervise all this work from the patio where she will be comfortably ensconced on the swing with her iced coffee and eReader. Rainy Day loves work – especially when it is done by Cute Contractors!

Two Thirds of the Cute Contractors
Vince and Johnny

Rainy Day is looking forward to her new floors – she is NOT looking forward to all the dusting and cleaning that will come after they are in and the Cute Contractors leave. But, then, once they leave and the dusting and cleaning are finished she can sit back and relax, enjoy the floors, and wait 6 months until she needs to do it all over again.

Rainy Day is very frustrated! She has a couple of photos of two of the Cute Contractors and for some reason Blogger.com would allow her to upload them, but not post them. Perhaps it is their cuteness factor? Too much for the general public to be allowed to see? Rainy Day will continue to try to get them posted; however, you can at least read about them for now.

Now she is more frustrated. She got the pictures to upload, but can't seem to move them to someplace nice! Grrrrrr!!!!!!  Finally! Rainy Day got two pictures in. Doesn't her new floor look beautiful?

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The Hoarder's House

Rainy Day has never been one to waste a great deal of time cleaning house. There are always too many good books to read, or even to write, to spend time dusting (she lives in a windy, dusty, area, so why bother?) or mopping floors. She took her house keeping lessons from Joan Rivers who taught her, years ago, that there was no reason to mop the floor, make the beds, do the dishes when you just have to turn around in six months and do them all over again!

No, Rainy Day is not the best housekeeper, but even Rainy Day has limits, and she's reached it. She decided to get new flooring for her house—hardwood, that wouldn't need vacuuming, just a quick once over with a dust mop. To that end, she contacted her favorite Cute Contractor and they met at the Floor Store where she picked out, and bought, the last 1800 feet of Natural Hickory engineered flooring.

She packed just about everything packable into boxes. Boxes that are stacked in the kitchen (not getting new floor), she stacked boxes in the sewing room for easy removal. Boxes, boxes, everywhere, and nary a one...oh, sorry, wrong metaphor. Rainy Day is good at mixing metaphors.

Then, Rainy Day went on a trip to visit good friends in Florida and while she was gone her Cute Contractor and his Cute worker bees, made three stacks in her house of the flooring. It was still there when Rainy Day came home, and is still there, neatly stacked, as I write this.

But, Rainy Day and Cute Contractor assure me, the process for putting down the new floor will begin this coming Monday. While I am not looking forward to the dust of removing old tile and carpet, Rainy Day is jumping up and down in anticipation of having, finally, a good floor throughout the house.

Rainy Day is also looking forward to having that Cute Contractor in her house again. Have I mentioned that Rainy Day is a raunchy old broad? Oh, and that she knows to keep her hands off Cute Contractors who are happily married.