Today was mostly errands. One minor annoyance with Gardner is the utter lack of bike racks available. So I set out on foot to do a round about town with my backpack and my metal water bottle for shopping both in South Gardner and Gardner proper. South Gardner can be a bit heart pounding walking wise because if one doesn't take the currently closed bridge over the train tracks, the other path closest to our house is by way of a circle that comes off of a busy state E-W highway with no pedestrian crossing signals built in, although there is a sidewalk on the eastern side. My timing was early for rush hour, so no near misses today. Shy of four hours from setting out on my walk, I came home with:
- some filler groceries until we make our next regular trip
- some half off spring planting bulbs (at $1.50 per pack, I'm betting half will be good after cellar storage)
- Barkeeper's Friend (finally!), graphite powder, and oil for some of the old garden tools at our TruValue
- two new pairs of socks from the local sports shop--I found out the shop opened around the time of the earliest
Wigwam socks
- licorice bits and a milk chocolate bumblebee from the local candy maker
- and last, but not least, the remaining cash balance for items obtained from next door.
I did also get a sense of the spray paint they have at Tru-Value, and next time I'll be taking one of the craft room blinds with me so we can match a color for the steel cabinetry we got from next door. They are in fairly decent shape, just worn with some low base surface rust. It'd be great if we could get those done and out of the garage this month.
Oh, and I also scouted some of their bird feeders, and had a great brief chat with the salesfellow about bird related stuff. I had told him I found a recipe for making suet, and he was keenly interested, telling me they like to stay as organic as possible.
I saw my neighbor's car in the driveway as I was walking home, so I knocked on the door to even things up. She told me now her son wants the wire pickets, but she's a bit displeased because she had promised them to me for free. Right about when we got to that part of our conversation, one of her daughters arrived and joined in, saying worse comes to worse, they might just throw them over the fence and then no matter what...they're ours.
I hadn't noticed before, but earlier in our conversation she pointed out the two pear trees they have out back which are definitely bearing fruit, and she offered some of same (woo!). She laughed when she told me they were supposed to be a dwarf variant, but they grew much taller than they expected. We were looking out there partly because of the pickets and also my telling her the progress with the Oriental Bittersweet. That's when I found out those trees the bittersweet had invaded are barely 40 years old! I was amazed, given their height. She was fussing they might need to come down, and I assured her they were solid enough, although there were a few smaller ones within the canopy that lost the competition and were mostly dead, so those could go without much loss.
While we were looking out the window, she told me how they used to have a full garden out back until those conifers shot up like that. So that's when they pared down to the two smaller beds still there, plus kept the pear trees. As she once again lamented that she hadn't lopped the tops of the Rose of Sharon--3 intertwining with another plant I know I know the name of, but I'm a bit tired and it's slipping away from me at the moment, I saw my first actual hummingbird here in Gardner. I told her the story of the hummingbird like moth, and she fretted over having taken down the hummingbird feeders. I pointed out to her that this one seemed quite content to still be feeding on the (Camilla?) flowering bushes backed against our garage, so she shouldn't worry.
We also talked about what an emotional time it is, getting the house ready for sale. It sort of made me wonder if in forty or so years, Sean and I might be considering something similar or holding fast to our "we'll leave feet first" notion.
It was a lovely chat, and I'm glad to have these moments with her, brief as she will be in our lives as our neighbor. She really is a wonderful lady.
When we did our evening watering round, Sean and I had a lot of discussion on the impending slope changes, and I reminded him that the coupon for the concrete repair supplies expires this weekend, so we best get it so I can start fixing the steps in plenty of time for Halloween. I'll still need to eventually do the finish coat, but we'll see how the bigger holes patch up before then. Sean also realized today for the first time that the left stair rail when you face the house didn't set at a perfect 90°, but I showed him how I think we can pry that up and dig out some dirt on the one side to fix that. Not sure if it will work, but worth a try. More on the conversation in my Park Ave. thread which I'll post soonish.