I Love To Go A Gardening
Growing Our Life in Northern Michigan
Monday Rain
Yesterday EJ and I spent the day doing a bunch of odd jobs in the kitchen. I can’t really remember everything we did, but it took all day. I cleaned each item as I put it back where it belonged, EJ put cabinet trim back up and rehung shelves, and he painted and installed the switch plates, which we think adds splashes of color to the kitchen. We hung our awesome “Michigan Home” art that was created by Michigan in Metal, as well as two pictures of two impressionist pictures of an outdoor cafe. I put our collection of baskets on top of the cabinets. I also moved our succulent plants into the corner of the kitchen. They just seemed to fit there. I grew the two large cacti from tiny little nubs that I got from Walmart years ago. I bought the aloe plant last Spring.
We totally love the new look of our kitchen. EJ and I both agree that photos do not adequately capture the true color of the yellow. You can see below that the yellow looks different in the different photos.
I told EJ that every time I walk into the kitchen, I get a warm feeling of contentment and happiness. It’s a similar feeling of coming home after a long trip away, or like a warm fire and a hot cup of cocoa after a cold snowy day outside, or walking into a house and smelling the fragrance of homemade bread, or spending a rainy day sipping tea and reading books. Those emotions are what our kitchen makes me feel.
It rained for most of the day. We had steady rain punctuated by heavy downpours, lightning, and rumbles of thunder. The thrumming of the rain on the roof made us all drowsy. We had a quiet day, and only felt motivated enough to do a few tasks when the rain moved off. I washed the ceiling fan blades in the kitchen, while EJ installed new headlights in the Buggy and also dismantled the porch light, cleaned its lenses, painted the housing, and reinstalled it. When EJ first took the porch light down, he found a black widow spider in it. I never saw any downstate, but I’ve seen a couple black widows near the front porch since we’ve moved here, so it didn’t surprise me. EJ killed it after I photographed it because their venom is dangerous to humans. They aren’t good spiders to keep around.
In between bands of rain this morning, I took the ducks and chickens a treat of watermelon, which they love. The ducks were all dirty because they had fun playing in the mud puddles which were created by the heavy rain.
The Rouen ducks are beginning to moult a bit. Rouen ducks look like mallards (they share a common ancestry), and females have bands of blue on their wings. I’ve been finding some of the feathers on the ground. The feathers are actually very beautiful and I can’t keep myself from collecting them. When I hold them in the sunlight, they shimmer with luminous colors that seem to change when seen from different angles..
When I took the ducks and chickens their watermelon treat this morning, I paused at Shelob’s lair, as I often do. The lair is located just a few feet from the gate into the poultry pen. Although Shelob scares me, she also fascinates me. I was amazed to see that she had made her entrance much, much smaller–no doubt because of the heavy rain. After the rain stopped, she enlarged the hole again. I think that’s pretty amazing.
Shelob isn’t the only insect that is busy. Yesterday evening EJ and I strolled down the driveway. We came across several groups of ants working busily. We could see them carrying grains of sand out of their holes. Apparently, they also are working on home improvement.
I Love To Go A Gardening 