Tuesday Twitterdeedripdripdum

It's a laid-back, rainy morning.  Very silent outside with the exception of a vehicle passing by every few minutes and the plops of drops hitting the deck below this office window. The dryer downstairs is clacking away as my fleece, a sweater, my windbreaker and a few towels bounce around.

Last night I decided it was time to wash my fleece.  The hope is, of course, cleanliness along with removal of a layer of dog and horse hair.  I don't know what one does besides sending fleeces to the dry cleaners to get rid of all that hair, but the jacket won't look nearly as bad if it's, at least, clean.

One should never wear fleece around animals if one expects to wear the garment anywhere else.  Heck, even just looking at my horses seems to generate a new coat of red, white and gray hair all over my Navy blue coat and any other similar coats and vests that  I happen to wear outside. 

The pink, blue and white windbreaker was just plain dirty from all those utility-cart trips from the barn to the manure pile and from the manure pile to the gardens.  Hard to stay clean when you're playing in dirt for a good portion of every day.

Speaking of dirt, my friend and former teaching colleague Terry Iverson drove his big John Deere tractor with bucket over last night to scoop up a nice load of our aged horse dirt.  Edna, his wife,  said she needed only one load for her small garden.

Terry and I would have visited longer,  but yesterday's initial barrage of mosquitoes kept us both wanting to keep moving.  As I spoke to him sitting up there in the tractor, I could see a whole cloud of the little critters darting around his neck and his bald head.  

Earlier in the afternoon, while painting a fence, I spent half my time  hopping around in a spontaneous Mosquito slap dance.  The buggers were merciless, continually attacking my elbows as I tried to paint, and this attack was out in total sunshine.  No swamp, no excuse for mosquitoes to be hanging out near me, I reasoned. 

But mosquitoes have their own method of reasoning.  Where there's blood, there's dinner. 

Looks like it could be a banner year for the little blood suckers.  Then again, I can remember their intensity during certain times of spring during past years, so maybe they're just so jubilant to be out and about, that anyone's fair game as their victims.  Maybe as time goes on, they'll be more selective in where to find the good eats.

I got a lot accomplished yesterday, including submission of my May column, which is always a relief.  Two garden patches saw their first tilling.  The horses got to go out in an expanded makeshift pasture after I moved a few panels around.  

I visited with Mother and enjoyed a short visit with Willie and Debbie when they brought the pickup back from moving more items from their rental house to a storage unit.

They'll start moving into their new digs on North North Boyer tomorrow and will be completely out of the other house on Friday when my buddy and classmate Mike Rosenberger does some steam cleaning to top off the cleaning process. 

My brother Mike is driving over from DuPont this afternoon and will visit a few days before running in Bloomsday this Sunday.  

Life is moving on, and the rain keeps falling.  It must be time to get to work cuz more and more cars are suddenly passing by.  And, that means it's probably time for me to get out to the barn and finish my chores.  Enjoy the day, and try to avoid those pesky mosquitoes.