It was so nice yesterday that I worked outside and got a little sunburnt. Mid 80sF and fairly dry, I was able to break a sweat blowing leaves and cutting the grass. 68F when I went to bed, and I expect today to be just as nice.
I got off to a slow start, the meds make me a little groggy and leave me just a little bit ‘off’ in the morning. But I did get out and cut the grass in the back yard. Then I blew all the leaves in the back off the patio. I decided to blow all the leaves out of piles so I did parts of the driveway, under the cars, and all around the front of the house. The lawn guys don’t blow them away from the house, or clean out around the plants, so they have been building up. I decided it was time to clean all that up.
Several hours later, all the leaves were in the grass. Well, all the ones I was able to blow out of the stone, plants, and mulch. I’ll do it again today as the next layer down will have dried out a bit and they’ll move a little easier. I also cleaned leaves out of the ‘pond’ water feature, and cleaned the pump for the waterfall. That was way overdue. I need a fish or two to eat the worms and squiggly things in the pond.
Afterwards, I sat out and had a tiny little fire, a fake beer, and read for a bit. The huge stray orange cat came and looked at me for a while. There was a lot of looking. Then it vanished into thin air. A squirrel came within 5ft of me and got a long drink out of the pond too. Nice sunset. I wonder if my kids can sit quietly outside and just look around. Maybe. But I bet their peers can’t.
Today I’ll probably continue cleaning up the yard and patio and driveway. I’ve got a bunch of “environmental monitoring stations” in the back of the truck. They were originally installed around town and have some air quality sensors as well as a radiation sensor, and maybe some chemical sensors inside them. I’ve been meaning to break them down or sell them for several years. I might do that today.
If I could figure out how to talk to or listen to the rad monitor that would be cool. It’s all custom modules in metal boxes connected to a backplane though, and controlled by another box, with a radio and cell for linking back to whoever was doing the monitoring. Not much chance I’ll actually figure out anything, especially given the amount of time I have for new projects… so most of it will be scrapped.
I’ve got a lot of stuff like that, stuff that I thought might be useful or cool, that I never did anything with. I need the space and some extra money wouldn’t be a bad thing either, so I might save one, and scrap the rest. Time to look at a lot of stuff and make similar decisions.
All so I can stack stuff that IS useful… right?
nick