Busy weekend(s)

Got up at 6:30 this morning to begin clearing off the back porches for Joyce who was coming at 8 to clean them.  Rounded up the cats (who usually live on one of the back porches) and put them all inside, and put the dogs in the bedroom where they immediately climbed back into their beds and went back to sleep.  Lucky them! 

It's noon now and Joyce is still cleaning the walls and window sills and steaming the areas of the floors where Gracie drooled so much blood that last week before she died.  I wiped it up, but it had dried down in the grooves of the wood and on the brick of the walls where she shook her head.  Pretty awful. 

Joyce used a steamer on the floors where the blood stains were so once she mops they should look really clean again.  She just told me that after she finishes cleaning the walls and the french doors, and gets the floors mopped, she would even vacuum the furniture before I bring it back inside!  Wow.  The place hasn't been THAT clean in years!  In fact, it will probably end up cleaner than the house is at the moment. 

Here's Joyce working on the cats' porch.  It's nice that it will all be tidy when the company comes next weekend. 

Mark and Jerry are out finishing up the siding on the barn today.  The last guy left it with just the house wrap around it and no exterior cement board.  I told Mark I really wanted the exterior complete before hurricane season kicks in this year or we will end up having the same problems with the sides as we did last time with the roof.  He had finished the roof structure and there was the black tar paper on there that goes under the roofing when the hurricane came through and removed everything.  So we had to wait for the plywood to dry out good, then do it all again before putting the roofing metal on there.  Don't want to have to do the walls twice, too!

Now NEXT weekend is going to be really busy.  We're having that cook-out (or fish fry - depending on the weather) for Mark's birthday.  But the guy that we have been trying to line up to re-do the pond area and finish the grading in back finally called last night and the only time he's available to finish up is (you guessed it) next Saturday.  Given that we've been trying to get him out here since before last Christmas, we decided we better let him come - company or not.   So . . . while we are cooking and eating and hanging out, there will be a bull dozer redoing the pond. 

For some reason, the pond we had dug does not hold water.  Rather than try to line it with something to keep the water in, we decided we would just have the dirt pushed back into the hole so that the sides are extremely shallow sloped.  So shallow that Mark can ride the lawnmower down into the thing and mow the grass.  Then when it floods, it can fill up and when it dries out, we just use it as a "terrain feature" in the lawn. 

That's the pond beyond those dead weeds in the background below.  Mark sprayed all that area since he can't get in there to mow at the moment. 

I think I'll like that arrangement better than a "real" pond anyway.  Then I won't have to worry about any dogs or horses getting in there and then being unable to get out since three of the four sides right now are straight down more than 8 feet.  Who knows if they would know enough to swim over to the end where there's a gradual slope. 

I just hope the porches aren't down wind of the pond while he's working out there!  I'd hate for Joyce to spend a whole day cleaning the place up, only to have an inch of dust blow in there next weekend!