What Next? Part 13

My birthday gifts: the lovely potted plants from Ann, chocolate bars from Joel and Abby, and a chocolate orange from David.

Another weekend has come to a close. The highlight of Mom's weekend (and mine) was seeing Audrey on Friday night for my birthday get together.  

Audrey about a month ago

How fast she's growing!

 (I have some pictures of Audrey and Great Grandma together, but my phone is not cooperating.)

Carl and Mom looking at interesting things on the interwebs

  Mom had a so-so day today, but she's still suffering from the loss of her clear sight.  She can see shapes and colors, but the adult coloring book is too much for her to cope with. 

She's worried about messing up Dave's coloring book despite all of us assuring her he wasn't going to be upset.  "I want you to have fun," Dave told her on Friday night.  "You can't mess it up."

"No, I won't take the chance," Mom said.  "The book is too pretty to have me scribbling in it."

"Oh, don't worry about it," Dave said, "You're doing a good job."
 

David modeling some goofy shades we found upstairs.

Mom didn't believe him.  And no amount of cajoling on my part will convince her to continue, either.  Carl came up with a temporary solution and printed off some nice stained glass patterns we had here.  Mom was willing to work on the designs once she saw they weren't affiliated with a purchased book.

Mom looking at David's 'Fancy Glasses'

 Carl was explaining chess pieces to Mom on Friday night; I'm not sure why, but she was seemingly interested.  We all try our best to keep her spirits up and if having the intricacies of chess pointed out takes her mind off her vision issues and living situation, all the better.  


On Saturday afternoon, Dave came home and helped Carl tar down the shingles which were blown off our roof by last week's high winds.  Last week Wednesday and Thursday we were under a wind advisory; 30-50 mph sustained winds were blowing non-stop for the two days.  Sleeping upstairs so close to the roof, it sounded as if Santa Claus and the reindeer were back for a return visit in March.  The shingles were flapping in the gale and eventually broke off.  We were lucky to find all fifteen of them lying in the flower beds.
Like it or not, we're going to have to put a new roof on the house this summer.

While Carl was tarring down shingles and Mom was having a short nap, Dave and I started burning down the ornamental grasses that weren't too close to anything to cause harm.   'Karl Foerster' and miscanthus grasses burn incredibly hot and fast, and it sure beats having to cut them back by hand.  You have to exercise caution with them, though, as Dave and I discovered too late.  Dave's pants caught fire and he had a big blister on his hand from swatting it out. Luckily he remembered to stop, drop and roll.  

Fire in the Quarry

On Sunday, Carl and I set Grandma up with my organ and when she was happily playing, we went outside to discuss our garden situation.

Thank goodness I had Mom's hearing corrected; at least she can enjoy playing the organ even if she cannot see very well.  She plays by ear and does not read sheet music.

The snow has all melted again for the second time this winter (though it's snowing tonight) and we were able to walk around in the yard where the Riverbed used to be before the new septic tank was put in.  The yard is frozen dirt (or mud when the temperature comes up) right now; it's really a mess.

We've been discussing building a seasonal out house for the garden and all of the visitors who come for tours/parties.  I had the brilliant idea of moving the gazebo to the west side of our house and walling off half of it for restroom use.  The other half could simply stay gazebo-ish.  We went outside armed with rulers and soon discovered the area I hoped to cram the gazebo into was not large enough.  

Back to the drawing board on this project; time will tell what we come up with.

Well, Mom has settled in for the night, so I guess I'd better do the same.  She told me she can see a little better tonight and folded towels from the laundry basket to help me.  I hope her eyesight continues to improve; we'll see what tomorrow brings.