Cleaning up, inside and out

After a dry, dusty summer, a Labor Day windstorm, ten days of thick smoke and ash, and an hours-long thunderstorm, things were looking pretty ragged around here. But we've starting to make noticeable headway. Inside I started with vacuuming up dust and cobwebs and wiping off dust and ash. Then I cleaned and rearranged our tiny laundry room to better accommodate a post-surgical puppy's comfort; I replaced her smallish crate with the two big dog beds from the living room to make a cushy den in which she can curl up or stretch out. I also tackled the 'homeschool closet,' removing and sorting years of workbooks, teachers manuals, homework papers, and peripheral detritus into piles to recycle, toss, donate, and offer to others. Doing that was harder emotionally than dropping off Brian at college, drawing a curtain as it did on my son's childhood, but it was time and now I'm fine. Next I'm going to deep-clean Brian's bathroom, which is also the guest bathroom if we have visitors. He picked up most of his clutter and was supposed to clean it before he left, but it's pretty gross.

Outside, Rick mowed the upper and middle pastures, cleaned up the broken prune limb and some too-low English walnut tree branches, and mowed around the fruit trees. I cleaned up the entry, trimming ground cover and sweeping all the concrete. Then I used the riding lawnmower to 'sweep' the arena and driveway of fallen maple leaves, and picked up a pick-up load of twigs and branches from all over to add to the burn pile. Those jobs will need to be repeated as more leaves fall and the wind blows down more twigs and branches, but with more rain in the forecast (which arrived this afternoon), I needed to "get while the getting was dry." The improved 'curb appeal,' even if temporary, is an instant mood elevator!

The harvest from the grafted pear tree in our upper pasture; yummy!

After raking edges; before sweeping

In today's edition of "This is why we can't have nice things," this is the thanks I got for trying to make Poppy's life more comfortable:

She did that while I was outside getting a lesson with Stella (exciting progress; update coming on my horse blog!) and cleaning up branches. She did it a couple more times this afternoon while I was in the house. Poppy is clearly pent-up and bored, and wants to RUN and PLAY. She has left her incision alone, but it did seep for several days and has a little more swelling than I like to see, no doubt because we haven't been able to keep her from leaping on and off the bed, standing vertically to look out the window facing the neighbor's, doing zoomies around the furniture in the great room, and hunting mice in the tack room while we do chores (this morning she jumped up ON a saddle). I guess she needs to be on-leash inside as well as out! We're going to go to agility class tomorrow afternoon; the activity there will be downright sedate compared to what she's managed here.

Tomorrow Rick's sister flies in from Colorado. She's staying with my MIL but we will all be together on Sabbath. I'm just a touch nervous about being around someone who has flown on a commercial airline during a pandemic, so will be keeping my distance. I'm also a touch jealous; oh, how I wish it were safe to fly down to see MY parents!

That's it for now from a tidier . . .