We talk a good game...July 24th 2011

We talk a good game...

Robert and Rosie did the framing of the screen house/shed extension.

Robert and I talk a good game about sweetly "doing nothing" but as soon as the sun went down I was immediately engaged in transferring old family videos to DVD. This is my idea of fun.  I love that the little gizmo in white is now all that is needed to connect and digitize from VHS tapes to .mov files. Back in the day I had to borrow a set up from a film-maker friend that cost about $1000 and was 20Xs the size. This set up was less than 1/10 the cost as well. Early in the AM I set this up to run with tapes of Xmas 2000. But when,  like an old fire horse, I heard Robert pounding nails into his screen house project and I found myself strapping on a tool belt to help shingle while the infernal machines worked on my project.

White rectangle in middle is 'gizmo'

My favorite yellow hammer - which I used for 2 years as we built the houses here in Royalston, felt like an old friend. The hammer is light, well balanced and has an easy grip. But my upper body muscles did not find work familiar and hammering was not an old friend. The only muscle I use in my upper body is my damn mouth. Which came in handy as I convinced Robert that the 90+ degree heat was better suited to blue berry picking. After whacking my index finger, nailing shingles too low and bending and pulling 2 nails to each I sent home, we broke for a quick late lunch. And then we went in search of the low bush blueberries that were sited by Maureen earlier in the week. The roads in Lake Dennison were dry and dusty so we went slowly, drinking in the smells and sounds of summer.

Patti was our guide/companion on the back roads of Dennison and we found the blue berries after a few false starts. The berries were not as plentiful as we hoped. Nothing like the top of Gap Mtn.  I pick berries carefully, eating a lot as I go and with a mind towards cooking and freezing them. Robert picks with a clear "quantity over quality mentality" and I have always been the one to prepare the berries for eating. His is a tough act to follow - it can take hours to get his berries usable! This time I got him to agree to clean and separate the berries when we got home.  He was happy to agree because he was certain I was just being whiny - How hard can it be, really? Just to sort the ripe berries from the leaves, twigs, unripe greens and dessicated grey berries? Well, it took him over an hour to clean about a gallon. I think I have a convert to quality picking. The heat was relentless so we drove down to the lake for a swim. Normally, it takes me many minutes to walk in and get all over wet. I'll dive into anything but I HATE walking into cold water. This time I was in before Robert. The water was about 70 degrees and the air temp was over 90 - my fave conditions for swimming. It was luscious.

We had a quick dinner after our swim and finished the day with more work on the screen house. This has been Robert's project - I have not been any help. In fact, the project has been stalled for years because we could not agree on the location, design and materials. I gave in ( I want a barn with a studio - been promised one for 30 years...bon chance ) and Robert, assisted by youngest daughter, Rosalie, did all the framing during the precious 3 weekends while I worked on grant reports, videos and other matters. It was fun to be swinging a hammer again. We worked in the cool of evening until the bugs drove us in.