The walls were sanded and primer applied in the kitchen on Thursday

March 14, 2014 – Friday

24 degrees/high overcast/calm

Pentoga Road

I’m looking at the tomatoes that have pushed through the dirt that are housed in the small indoor greenhouse. It took only one day after transplanting the sprouted seeds for them to make tops and emerge. The peppers should begin coming up in the next day or two. Unbelievable.

Maybe that’s what I find so fascinating with gardening. One takes a small seed, plants the thing, and several months later, he’s eating. Just another of God’s many miracles.

I walked my five miles Thursday  morning in record time while wearing winter clothing and heavy boots by shaving almost twenty minutes off my previous best. Dry roads and warmer temperatures have a lot to do with it and I was happy I couldn’t feel so much as a twinge in the left knee.

The majority of the day was spent in the kitchen. First came mudding and sanding the holes previous owners had left in the walls. I know most are from hanging pictures, clocks, pots and pans, but yesterday, I felt as though someone must have used the walls as a dart board.

Sanding the joints

The dry wall in one corner was cracked and had fallen away. In another, drywall tape had come undone and was peeling. I hate drywall. Never have liked it. But still, I stayed the course, took my time, and had that chore done by early afternoon.

Next came taping the trim and cabinets in preparation for priming the walls. That took almost an hour and a half. Golly, about the time I thought I was finished, I’d get down and stick my nose inches from it and find the tape was half an inch onto the wall or trim. Probably a good thing Sargie wasn’t home to hear the words that poured from my mouth.

And finally, I began priming. My original goal was to prime two walls, but for whatever reason, I kept on and before afternoon’s end, the entire kitchen was primed and ready paint. Even Sargie gave it two thumbs up when she got home last night.

I can hardly wait to surprise Uncle Terry and Aunt Sue when they come to visit, show them the “new” kitchen. It seems every time they're here, Uncle Terry gets roped into a painting job. Two years ago, it was the house; last year, the kitchen cabinets and Brutus’s doghouse. A professional painter, he says he loves to paint. I’m a professional teacher, but when I go visit friends or relatives, I don’t want to teach. This summer when they come, I hope we can simply spend time visiting, sight seeing, and not painting.

I keep thinking of Uncle Terry during these painting adventures, especially when I used his canvas drop cloth yesterday. Poor Uncle Terry has tried to teach me the proper way to paint; how I should only coat one side of my brush, rattle it back and forth from side to side in the can, and gently apply the color using a one-sided stroke. When he paints, it’s a work of art, laying the color on the wall.

I tried. I really really tried to follow the Uncle Terry Method of Paintology, but in the end, I scooped too much primer onto the brush and hurriedly slapped it on the wall before gravity took over and it began to drip.

There were a couple of times I got myself into a bit of a mess and taking a deep breath, I thought, “WWUTD?” (What would Uncle Terry do?)

No doubt, he’d have told me to get out of the room and let him paint, but since that wasn’t an option, I just kept on slathering and slapping primer onto the walls. In the end, it came out okay; not as good as Uncle Terry would do it, but it’s passable.

There was still daylight left. Brutus had been playing outside by himself all day, so, armed with a tennis ball, I joined him and we played half an hour of hardcore fetch.

I cranked up the old snowmobile and attempted to go over all the maple trails that were made last month. Problem was, I couldn’t see the darn things and ended up stuck in four feet of snow more than once. To stomp the snow and make new trails going to the old ones was quite the workout, but in the end, all the paths are remade.

I spent the last remnants of daylight getting out the maple equipment, old spiles, the drill, bags, etc. Hopefully, I’ll begin to assemble the boiler in the next few days in anticipation of tapping sometime next week.

Sargie arrived home bearing a family-sized pizza from Papa Murphy’s. We plunked that in the oven and later, enjoyed a very filling, very happy, evening together.

Sargie closes tonight so it will be a long and late day for her. I’m going to tackle the ceiling this morning. With everything taped, it shouldn’t be too horrible of a job… should it?

  

Sargie’s purchasing the new paint today and applying that will be tomorrow’s project. Sunday we’ll put up the tin backsplash under the cabinets and hopefully, by the time we attend the St. Patrick’s Day corned beef and cabbage feed with Yooper Mark and Sheri late Sunday afternoon, the kitchen will be clean and the furniture moved back.

Time to get busy. There’s five miles to walk and a kitchen ceiling to paint. Ah, I’m tired just thinking about it.

But then, you know, a man’s work is never done.

So are the tales from Pentoga Road…

Seems as though there's always someone looking for a free handout