Meredith Mansfield, Author

This weekend has been more about yard work and some very overdue spring cleaning than it has about getting back up to speed with where I left off on BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING.

Most of that has been due to the fact that two weeks ago we had to cut a very large branch off the Brazilian pepper tree (which shouldn’t even be where it is and wouldn’t be, except for some passing bird). The branch was going to break off and would have basically blocked the path from the house to the car when it did. So, a controlled removal was far preferable. Three trash days later (as of tomorrow, anyway) I will finally be able to say that all of that brush pile has been cleared.

Which will leave me, hopefully, time (and space in the trash cans) to finish clearing up the yard. With all the rain we had in Southern California last winter, it got completely out of control. Just about the time I’d decide to mow, it’d rain again. And the taller the weeds and grasses got, the longer it stayed wet. It’s going to take awhile to get it back under anything like control. As I go, I’m planting out some water wise plants, starting to transform what once was lawn (but not lately, with the drought) into something that makes better sense and will, hopefully, be easier to take care of. It’s a big yard and I hate to mow almost as much as I hate to vacuum.

Also, at some point soon, I’d like to be able to start looking for another dog. It’s been almost a year since I lost Aliza.

The first time I saw Aliza

But I need have a yard a dog could actually run in, first. (Micah, at thirteen and change, doesn’t do all that much running any more. More like trotting.)

There’ll be paths among the shrubs when they eventually do grow in, which should be more interesting than just running around a blank open space anyway. (Also, some of those weeds are foxtails and they have to go.)

Then, too, I really have to clear a path so that I can carry the ladder around to the side of the house and cut back the bishop’s cap vine that’s also grown out of control because of all the rain. Not only because it really shouldn’t be up against the house like it is for several reasons. I also need to get back there so I can put the screens up in place of the storm windows before it starts getting too hot. (We don’t really have storm window in Southern California. But we do have stupid louvered jalousie windows. I still have three that I haven’t yet been able to get around to replacing. It’s basically impossible to stop a draft with jalousie windows, so what I do have is some pieces of plexiglass in wooden frames that I put up in place of the screens, usually sometime in November. I need to be able to get around there to put the screens up about now.)

I confess, I also spent a fair portion of the weekend, while I was resting and cooling off, goofing off with a computer game. In between, though, I think I have finally come up with a new cover for “Wyreth’s Flame”.

Though I haven’t done anything yet about uploading it.

But, at least one major task has been accomplished. So, yay for that. And there’ll be time to get back to work on BECOME: TO CATCH THE LIGHTNING during the week.

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