Weekly Update: 8.9.26
Of flooring and shortening days
In the years since starting this adventure, I’ve become incredibly attuned to the sun and its place in the sky. Obviously, we are all aware of the long summer and short winter days. When I worked in jobs that required early or late arrival, I noticed the seasonal changes, but I never planned my mornings around the sun the way I do now. When you time your daily waking so that your most active hours are before noon, you notice when sunrise slips from 5:52 am in June to 6:23 am in August. Suddenly, there are a few more minutes to savor my cup of morning coffee, and a few less to get things done. Summer is slipping by, and this reality makes me want to make the most of each day, as warm and sticky as they can be.
Our main focus this week was helping our brother Levi work on his bedroom floor. He had given up hope of finishing it before his new baby arrives, but since my new niece is taking her sweet time coming into the world, we’ve been working hard every day toward that end. He cut the plywood into planks and sanded them earlier this summer. On Monday, he cut them to length for his room while I gave things a final sanding to remove the new jagged edges. Grace and I then stained the boards, working together to get an even application in the heat.
On Tuesday, I got a bit of a late start as we went to vote first thing in the morning.
When we got home, I put a coat of polyurethane on all of the boards. We let them dry outside, stacking them at night and storing them in our storm shelter to protect them from dew. Drippy weather slowed us down on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, I just went for it it. It started raining mid-afternoon, but thankfully, the boards were dry enough to put away quickly
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We finished up the week with a flooring marathon yesterday. We drug everything out of Levi and Erin’s room, piling their belongings out on our trailer so we could work. Then we stapled down a layer of tar paper before putting down the flooring. Lastly, we added a couple pieces of trim — just those that would be difficult to put on once their bed is back in the room. While everything was torn apart, we took the opportunity to do a thorough deep cleaning, making everything extra nice for the new baby. We are tickled we got all of this finished before baby girl arrives. This next week, we hope to finish flooring the rest of Levi and Erin’s suite of rooms.
When we couldn’t work on the floor boards, we worked in the garden. There is so much to do every day — from watering to harvesting, from vacuuming squash bugs on the pumpkins to picking horn worms off the tomatoes, from trellising melon vines to spraying for fungus and blight, from pruning to good old-fashioned weeding.
Finding uses for all the squash and cucumbers has been a bit of a challenge — the solutions for which belong in their own blog post. Suffice to say that when we aren’t working outside, we are processing produce — making pickles, prepping and freezing squash, or whipping up all manner of cucurbit friendly recipes.
While we’ve been so busy, we’ve all been enjoying the cuteness overload that is Bonnie-Jean’s puppy. Caramel seems really mature for her three weeks of age — perhaps because her only dog friend is her mother. Tilde spends so much of her time with her: feeding, grooming, and now playing with her. For her part, Caramel wags her tail, greets visitors, plays with toys, and most recently, fusses to be let out of her whelping box (she wants to walk around the room with her mom). On Friday, Bonnie-Jean introduced her to softened kibble, and she was very much a fan.
It was a long seven days, but I’m satisfied with our progress. We also made time on a couple days to recreate at our creek, soaking our feet and reading aloud for an hour. Times spent at our spring are among my favorite summer moments — and this year in particular, they have been such a gift. With so much chaos in life over the last months, finding time and emotional space to relax has been very difficult. Carving out intentional time to sit in nature, especially when we mix in spiritual reading, has been such a needed solace. It’s always a good time for conversation and connection, which can get rather fragmented during busy times. As each summer day gets a bit shorter, I plan to savor such moments. I’m going to relish making homemade ice cream with my niece, which has become an almost weekly tradition. I’m going to be thankful for our Friday dip nights, where we opt for easier meals and more time together. And in all the in-between busy, I’m going to thank God for his presence felt both in my soul and in the creation splashed with his glory.
