Schooool's out for summer!

Quite a bit has occurred since I last wrote. The chimneys have been rebuilt as has one of the skylights. The large skylight from the bathroom has been removed.

Skylight being hauled down as seen from kitchen

Skylight on the ground

The roofers delivered it to New England Skylights and is currently in the process of being re-fabricated. The new skylight will be even better than the first one because it will be made out of copper. The old one was made out of steel, which as you can see, eventually does rust.

This is probably one of the sources of the leak, if not the source

We have had some good rain with no leaking so far. Here's to hoping that this fixed the problem. We haven't been using the third floor bathroom since it is only capped with plywood for now. I personally can't wait to be able to use my own bathroom again.



We have also been steadily working in the garden. I finally have a job to do to: Master Weeder and Controller of the Grape Vines. As I think I have stated before, I do not care for rose vines. A carefully controlled rose shrub is o.k. Wild rose vines are difficult to control and don't even look that nice. At least not to me. The Good Mr. Dr. likes anything that grows. Except grass, which we both agree on.

Here's what I've learned in my new gardening job: rose vines do not die. They are like zombies. Actually, they are worse than zombies because at least zombies die when you cut off their heads. Rose vines will simply sprout new shoots up from the roots that have spread wide and deep underneath the garden. This past week I decided to do a little bit of weeding. That turned into the Great Battle of the Rose Vine Roots. It was epic. Our neighbors next door were witness to it. I believe I only partially won that particular battle. This will likely be a life long war between me and the rose vine roots. There will be songs and poems written about my War with the Roses. Curses to the person who planted those damn weeds!

I will begin to start pruning the grape vines this week. As you can see, they are growing quite vigorously. Since the Good Mr. Dr. can't get himself to kill any living thing that is not suffering from poisoning (because he is a good man), I have volunteered to be the one who does the dirty work on that one. As we learned last year, if we don't control those vines, we will end up with a ceiling over our garden and it will kill all of our newly planted trees and perennials.

This picture was taken a week ago and there are even more today

The Good Mr. Dr. replanted the rose bush that was in the back in order to make room for our new vegetable patch. It isn't doing as well as we'd like, but the french marigolds that the Good Mr. Dr. planted in the wine barrel with the rose bush have started to sprout.

The transplanted rose bush. We're hoping it recovers.

Those little green things are the shoots of French Marigolds.

Our pansies must also like it here, since they've sprouted seeds.

Click on the picture to see the seeds.

And, among our proudest accomplishments: the geranium is back!

The secret is to water it, keep it in the sun, and tell it that it is loved.

We have finally planted our vegetable patch. We are starting modestly this year, which just one vegetable.




It should come as no surprise to anyone that we would try to grow pumpkins. These are Connecticut Field Pumpkins. They are heirloom pumpkins, your classic jack 'o lantern pumpkins. If everything goes well, there will be enough for us and to share. And if not, well, there are plenty of pumpkin patches around.

One row of three pumpkin mounds.

Second row of three pumpkin mounds.

The Good Mr. Dr. also planted Sunflowers, because we are need to keep up our Latino cred.

All sunflowers were planted along the fence.

In other news, I have another position at my university which started this weekend. I'll be working with students in our executive doctoral program helping them with getting their thesis completed. It should be interesting. I realize that this bit of news belies the title of this post, but it's a part time gig. As far as I'm concerned, I can still go to the movies at noon on a Tuesday, sit in my garden and read fiction on any random day of the week, and stay up as late as I want, which is the definition of summer.

Two quick shout outs before I end. I want to recommend a company to those living in the Boston area. If you need someone to do small pick up and deliveries, I suggest a company called Small Haul. I just bought one of those big lateral filing cabinets off of Craiglist. It is not something that would fit in the new car. And, the thing weighs more than 6.5 times what I weigh, so there was no way I would even be able to get it into a Zip Car. Matt and his assistant picked it up, took it apart, brought it up our narrow stairwell to our second floor office, and put it back together again. Great people and incredibly affordable.

And last, but certainly not least, I want to make a big shout out to Lt. Big Sister for getting her dream job. May I offer a paraphrasing of a snippet of a poem by Lucille Clifton (originally titled "we are running"):

I pray that what you want
is worth this running,
and pray that what you're running toward
is what you want