Weekend Chores - Roof Sweeping

Yesterday I didn't have the time nor energy to work the U-turn exercises with my dogs.  Thursdays and Fridays are John's days off (our weekend), and we usually try to get one big job accomplished between watching reruns of TV series, streamed commercial-free from Netflix.  Right now we're addicted to McLeod's Daughters, an Australian cattle ranch series with 8 seasons and 22 1 hour episodes per season (we're in Season 3).  Before that, we streamed these series:  Weeds, Monarch Of The Glen, Dead Like Me, Little Men, Wildfire, and there are plenty more to choose from.  We may never watch commercial television again  again.  Goodbye CNN, CNBC, FOX, Hallmark, even Discovery and History (with all those twirling, whirling, flashing, scrolling screens and little figures walking across the bottom of the screen, advertising some other show).  We are sick of your glitz!  And especially your repetitive, loud, vulgar, fear-mongering, brain-washing commercials.  What kind of idiots do you think we are???

I thought we paid for cable so we wouldn't have to watch so many commercials! Wasn't that the original draw of cable? What happened?

If we're not careful, our bodies will atrophy sitting in our recliners, glued to the screen, in love with the characters, absorbed in the convolluted plots in each series.  So I made a rule, we have to get up between every episode and do a "useful chore" -- sweep, mop, vacuum, cook, dust, feed or groom the animals, cook, take out the trash, listen to phone messages, sharpen pencils -- something.   And every weekend, we have to accomplish at least one BIG PROJECT.

This weekend, John chose to get up on our roof and sweep off all the leaves.  , and trim all the tree limbs that brush the roof when the wind blows.  My job -- lay out 3 large tarps on the ground below to catch all the debris, and pass him up tools, water and lit cigarattes.  He finished his part in a few hours while I stacked limbs below.  I made 6 sleds out of the biggest widest branches and stacked the smaller limbs on top. 

That was yesterday, after which Audrey came over and we ate a sumptuous home cooked meal (crab stuffed catfish, eggplant casserole, corn, asparagus and baked potatoes), then we watched 5 episodes --  til midnight.

Today I dragged the sleds up to the front ditch, one at a time. They are heavy but that's OK!  Helps me build up my leg muscles for the next agility competition.  I also bagged the leaves, 16 bags in all - stretching those tendons, building up those back muscles.  The yard was dry enough for John to drive the truck to the wood pile, throw away the rotten stuff on the bottom and stack the newer stuff for this winter. He cut several limbs up for firewood, using his chain saw.  I picked all the dead twigs and branches around the whole yard and loaded piles of them into the truck, too.  We even raked!  That should take care of our little estate for awhile -- and improve my stamina for the next trial!  I'm doing it all for you, Maxie!  Thanks for the inspiration.

You know the lyric "a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down"?  Well, our sugar is knowing the next episode awaits us, and McLeod's Daughters, being based on a cattle/sheep ranch in southern Australia, all the characters, including the 6 amazon woman ranchers, are always working their asses off trying to make a living.  Hard, physical farmers' work, with so many things going wrong from cattle poachers to foxes in the henhouse, to electrical problems, storms, equipment maintenance, sick or pregnant horses, not to mention the disfunctional families, star-crossed or jilted lovers, assorted village politics, etc.  It makes our work seem easy, our relationship sweet, our life calm, our troubles minor.  We both realize we are pretty much in hog heaven, enjoying the good life, etc.  And that ain't bad.