Of Stuff and Plaster Dust and Fresh Produce…

On Friday this week, I had a man come in to fix water damage in two separate closets. In the one, the wall had been repaired too quickly after a pinhole leak, so crumbled out again. In the other, the outside wall was being affected by a problem on the roof, now resolved. This entailed emptying the closets. I live in a small space, so I don’t have a lot of stuff or store much.

The door to the closet in question…

The front closet holds extra art, painting supplies, out of season clothing, beach chairs, ironing board and suitcases, plus canning equipment. This was the biggest deal as it all had to come out into my living space. The clothing filled up my little couch.

This was piled high and covered with a drop cloth.

Other stuff was stacked neatly around my dining table, so that I could still use it in the awful event that the contractor did not show up. I was not putting things back only to take them out again. Luckily he came.

It looked different with all that stuff piled around it.

The bedroom was easy. That closet has seasonal clothes and shoes and boxes of out of season shoes. I hauled everything out and in the morning hung the clothes in the bathroom across the shower rod. I draped a few things with drop cloths. This was a mistake. I should have layered everything with drop cloths.

Plenty of room here for what was needed.

While my workman was neat and didn’t slop plaster around, there was a fine layer of dust over everything. I am still wiping it up in unexpected places. That’s okay, because my closet walls are beautiful. And I bagged up quite a few things for donation, so now have fewer things in both closets. This will be important when I bite the bullet and actually arrange for the kitchen to be remodeled.

Look at that beautiful, intact back wall!!!!

As a result of all the cleanup and other errands (not to mention going to see Marcia Ball at the State Theatre with friends), I did not do a lot of gardening this weekend. Sarah and Jane went to the Plot garden and weeded and mulched! Hooray, Jane and Sarah! And during the week, I harvested turnips and beets for AFAC.

These were lovely, and there are a few left for harvesting.

This took some arranging, as I didn’t want my produce harvester/deliverer, Alex, to have to deal with the quantities I knew were there in addition to getting the lettuces and driving the produce to AFAC. So I went Wednesday evening with my cooler and pulled and washed beets and turnips.

I am partial to purple top turnips…

Of course, they did not all fit in the cooler, but I had an extra frozen water bottle and an overgrown trumpet vine to shade the ones that didn’t fit.

All pulled and washed.

When Alex got there on Thursday, the beet and turnip greens still looked good. She harvested lettuce, loaded it in her car and took it to AFAC. Twenty-three pounds of fresh produce! Yup. And we haven’t even harvested the carrots yet…

Soooo satisfying to see. Thanks, Alex!