C-c-c-c-cold

Oh, mercy, was it cold today.  I think the temperature topped out at -1 degree for the day.  I've had to go out to fill the birdbath the last two days and this morning I noticed small tracks next to my boot prints.  Rat prints.  Doesn't surprise me but it's disappointing to see.  I've decided that I'm not setting traps.  It's just too darned cold.

It was sunny all day too, bright and cheerful, which meant that the horizon clouds turned bright colors at sundown.  I think that by Wednesday we're supposed to be in the teens and, believe me, it'll feel a lot warmer than today.

I finished the brim of the Mulberry Snow Day hat and knitted into the body of the hat.  I had a case of the slows today so I only knitted about an inch of hat.  That's okay, I'm not in a rush.

07 February--Barbara Malcolm, The Seaview. 

Also at the back of the cargo container were two square tables that I positioned in the lobby sitting room of the Seaview.  In the months leading up to my arrival on the island I had found sixteen wooden chairs in many different styles that I stripped, sanded, and repainted fifteen of them in all five of my colors, three each, with glossy black seats, and I painted one chair all black because every room looks better with a little black in it, and because I wanted to.  I had also bought a long wooden trestle table that I planned to put outside in the back yard for parties.  Silas insisted on applying a couple coats of Tung oil right away while I raked the back yard and got Stanley to help me level a place for it. 

Under some of the overgrown bushes that had nearly taken over the back garden were a couple hundred cement patio blocks that Stanley and I decided to use.  We worked late into the evening with a spade, using a long two by four for a level, making a place for the blocks.  When we were pretty sure our spot was level we spread sand that Stanley made Luke haul in a wheelbarrow from down the beach, leveled that, and laid our blocks.  There were enough of them to make a nice sized patio where we put the trestle table and a few of the painted chairs.  I put three of the chairs at each of the tables in the lobby and one in each of the guest rooms upstairs.  One went in my sitting room and the rest were pushed against the walls in the lobby. 

Silas and Will had made those bedside tables and they were perfect in each of the guest rooms holding the little lamps I had gotten at thrift stores and recovered the shades with plain burlap.  In two of the rooms, one overlooking the sea and one overlooking the garden, we put small desks that I had gotten for a steal at a rummage sale at home so that guests could write letters or journal entries or even, if my dream really came true, a writer would use one of my desks to write a bestseller.  Okay, any kind of novel or poem written in my new guesthouse would thrill me immensely. 

Today's toss was more dresses, summer dresses this time.  Like anybody will wear those anytime soon.

The prompt today asked me to describe yellow.  I finally realized that the only way I could describe it was by listing things that are yellow and using good, strong adjectives.  I'm not especially satisfied with what I wrote but am satisfied that I did it.

--Barbara