Ravenwood Cottage

Work around the Cottage...

Continuing to restore my computer, but I did manage to work outside a bit today in the garden. I weeded and fertilized the blackberry vines; they are putting on new growth fast now and are beginning to bloom. Woody gave my name to a gentleman who was willing to do yard work as he had been laid off at his regular job due to the downturn in the economy, his name is Ralph.

Ralph came today and began working in the yard and around the Cottage; raking dead leaves from the yard, filling in holes from decayed tree stumps downed several years ago and the endless job of digging up privet! We are expecting rain soon so I asked Ralph to scatter the special fertilizer around the dependable pecan tree we have in our yard. We did not get a crop winter 2009, so should be due a good harvest this fall and winter. I hope he will be willing to work for awhile to help me push back encroaching Mother Nature.

Sunday was a lazy day…I was sore from the yard work. Mother and I viewed several episodes of the ‘West Wing’ on CD from Netflix; I made homemade hamburgers for supper, yum!

Got the pecan tree and blackberries fertilized just in time as we had 2 inches of good rain today. No outside work today so I puttered around in the house doing things that never seem to get caught up. We moved the hall table from the rear entryway to make a spot for a bench I had been using in our ‘tornado closet’. Mother and I decided that we might make better use of the bench by the back door to allow us to remove our shoes so we would not track in so much sand from the driveway. Mother also ordered paper shoe covers for workmen and guests to put over their shoes upon entry. I wish I had a paved area for entry or even just some gravel to cut down on the dirt and sand gathered upon our shoes. Someday…

Beth and I planned to attend the Stockbridge Crop tonight and decided to dovetail some errands and eat supper out as a treat. We first went to Pet Smart to stock up on cat food as the price has been lowered temporarily from 47 cents a can to 40 cents. When one purchases as many cans as Beth and I do, the savings mounts up. Then we looked around in Michael’s Craft Store. It is getting harder and harder to find bargains at Michael’s because of the restrictions they place on the use of their discount coupons. I did however luck up and purchase a Making Memories table top organizer that I had been wanting. I wanted a place to store recent purchased items so they would not become lost in my…uh..cluttered scrapbook room. With the 40% of coupon it was still a splurge, but one I felt I could make. We had a nice steak and baked potato supper at Longhorn’s Restaurant and then traveled on to crop with our friends for the evening.

Not such a "Good Friday' for me...

Never in the 11 years that I have had a computer have I had to use my Recovery Disc to re-boot my computer…up until now! I heard all the horror stories about scrapbookers losing all their digital files & photos; documents and such but never realized the depth of angst that would occur if such an unthinkable act happened. Luckily for me about six weeks ago I purchased an external hard drive and began faithfully backing up my desktop and files. Even with my photos and files retrievable, I lost many small software programs that I had downloaded online over the three years I have had this computer. So after spending several hours on the phone with Dell tech support, he advised me to use my Recovery Disc and begin again.

Slowly I rebuilt my data base, adjusting settings to suit me and trying to remember all the tiny details of my computer world so that they could be restored. What a nightmare! Needless to say, I have begun a document listing all the programs that had to be re-installed to get me up and running again. When I could not find the exact moon phase calendar I had previously used I purchased one online and burned it to a CD. This is something I will diligently do from now on with online downloads.

Readers, if you do not have an external hard drive and have not burned photos or software to a CD…trust me…begin to do so at once. I can not number the hours I have spent to make things comfortable again for me! In addition to my external hard drive I now have an online backup service which was recommended to me by an acquaintance. The online server is called Mozy. I had several questions about starting up their service and I was very impressed with the customer service I received! I had follow up emails several days after my concerns were addressed to be sure all was well and did I have further issues that needed attention. I can highly recommend their customer service. Check them out if you have need of such a service, they are reasonably priced as well. With so much of our lives stored on computers it is foolish not to take every precaution to safe guard the information.

Mozy

Not much new...

Busy day today; three trips into town and back. I would have never believed that I would be doing so much shuttling back and forth once retired, one really never knows what life will yield. Gretchen had classes at Griffin Tech and then later in the afternoon a Staff meeting at the Hospital. I ran a few errands while she was in her meeting. I bought a 6 pack of ‘Rutgers’ tomato plants at Ace Hardware in town; was really hoping for another flat of lettuce but they didn’t have any. I have some older seed tape with lettuce seeds and may try planting some in the garden.

A few weeks ago Mother purchased a police scanner, we are always intrigued when we listen to the one Beth and her Mother has. It is interesting to hear what is going on in the county or city as far as emergency services goes. I did an online search and found a website that gives the scanner frequencies that local law enforcement uses in Spalding County and the City of Griffin. Everything is all set now for Mother to listen to the police scanner whenever she chooses; I also printed out a sheet with all the police codes on it so she can interpret the activities she hears.

Heavy Frost this Morning...

Goodness winter seems to have returned to the Cottage the last few days. I know we usually have a cool snap around Easter time and my blackberry blossoms are near to beginning their bloom cycle, but between the torrential rains, piercing winds and bone chilling temperatures it certainly doesn’t feel like spring.

Yesterday afternoon I took my spun bond fabric and wrapped it round and round our largest peach tree that is loaded with fuzzy baby peaches about the size of your thumbnail. I will still need to thin the fruit somewhat to take stress off of the young branches, but Mother and I are so looking forward to maybe having any crop at all of our own peaches. The one remaining apple tree that lived through the drought the year we planted it is almost ready to bloom. What a lovely shade of deep pink the unfurled buds are, I shall make every effort to photograph the blossoms soon.

I also have a baby head of broccoli the size of a child’s fist and the cabbage plants are having a growth spurt as well. The sugar snap peas I planted two weeks ago are just barely poking their cotyledons up through the moist soil. I think the rain buried them deeper than I had planted them.

Have not mentioned my food storage activities in a long while; I am deep cleaning the pantry and taking inventory of what we have and keeping my eyes out for sales at the market. When Mother and I went to Wal- Mart Monday we found our favorite brand of cake mix, Duncan Hines, on sale. The mixes have risen to about $1.60 each as their regular price and were on sale for .98 cents! We stocked up buy buying a dozen mixes. I am certain we would want a cake once a month so this is a nice addition to our reserves.

I found a very useful website in my surfing and have been following their suggestions for a month or so now. I will share the link with you.  Actually it is a group of three websites joined together that discuss food storage, how to save money while building up your pantry and how to cook with the items you store, especially very basic items such as wheat. It is very frustrating that the Utah area has such helpful resources for saving money on stocking up where as in our area one is pretty much on your own. Hopefully I can begin posting more frequent additions to my efforts to build up my pantry better.

Food Storage Made Easy

Woody and Grits came yesterday to repair a small leak I discovered in the roof of the attic space in the new wing of the Cottage. I was rummaging around in the storage space looking for any odd photographs that I might have missed when I developed this passion for scrapbooking when I noticed a small puddle on the floor. It seems that the foam insulation around the ridge vents had decomposed and perhaps allowed a small leak to develop. Hopefully that repair will solve the problem but I will keep a watch out in case we need to extend the search for the cause of the leak. The upkeep on a home is like an annoying insect, constantly attacking you and draining your pockets. I love this old house...but honestly it is just more than I can care for at times.

My poor old worn out knees have felt like they are rusted stiff lately, I creak and pop when working in the garden and have had to take a mild analgesic more often than I would like to. Mother and I had a serious discussion recently about me scheduling knee replacement soon. As much as I do not want to have this procedure, she is correct in saying I need to do it while she is still active. I shudder to think how we would manage if Mother became unable to care for herself and my knees were worse than now. So I am trying to convince myself that late summer is the time for me to have this surgery. Ugh!

Guess I have rambled enough and need to get up and busy inside, tomorrow I am planning on working in the garden. Thankfully I have the mower going now and cut the grass for the first time this year Saturday. Will try to post some ‘catch-up’ journaling soon with our activities.