The Baboon Congress

tim’s august soliloquy

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Today’s guest post is by tim.

august is the month to get ready and to act. the seasons are rolling by and august marks the end of the summer. april is a distant memory june and july were an hour and a half ago, august is wonderful but if you had a summer action planned and haven’t quite gotten it down in ink now is do or die time. the state fair is here in a couple weeks and that marks the end of summer for sure. the kids are going back to school in the new colors of the season. where did pink and chocolate as a combination come from? and the backpacks carry the current rage. i had a beatles lunch box the baseball season is almost over and here comes football then basketball then hockey thanksgiving and xmas followed by february and spring training and the renewed hope for another season . but take a minute and enjoy this while we re here. don’t miss it because it is what we all wait for, what we all hope for what we work to get to and then are so absorbed in our work that we miss it because the distractions that surround us can leave us oblivious to the reality that september is a mere breath away when the leaves start turning and the sweatshirts come out, first for the evening then in the house for comfort then under a fall coat then winter coats and the return to spring.

what did you get done this summer?
what were you hoping to get done?
what are you going to get done before the year is over?

87 thoughts on “tim’s august soliloquy”

  2. Good morning to all,

    Where does the time go? I seem to be slowing down and time seems to be going by faster than ever. Almost all of those home repair and improvement jobs I wanted to do this summer are still waiting to be done. I have tried to make some improvements in my gardening and that just caused me to see more things that I think should be done there. I should have more time to do things because I am completely retired from any jobs away from home. Lots of stuff that I couldn’t get done when I wasn’t retired is now sitting there waiting to be done and isn’t getting done very fast. Really, Tim, I don’t need to be reminded about the problems of finding time to do everything that I would like to do.

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      1. Right! Why am I sitting here? That might be my problem. My get up and go doesn’t seem to want to go as often as it did in the past.

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      3. What surprises me, in retirement, Jim, is how easy it is to get caught up in nothing, I mean caught up and what I am caught up in is nothing. My wife and I cannot really share a retirement, which is a factor for me. Maybe when your wife retires, things will switch.

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    2. I can identify with “should have more time to do things because I’m completely retired.” I cannot understand how anyone can be bored or caught up on anything; there is always a growing stack of things to read, repair, clean and my time spent on garden work is almost a full-time job. Of course, that includes breaks to watch the birds.

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  3. What did I get done? Helped out my kids in various ways, time and moral support. Got the three carvings done for grand kids, The Lily clock, finished yesterday, came out even better than the Mario clock. (I have been pleased with my own work only maybe twice before.)
    Was hoping to do some sketching and pastels. Still hoping.
    Must learn more patience, and right now of course.
    Will learn to bike ride sans music. I also cannot ride the Sakatah Trail, which they closed from either direction now by my entry point.
    OT Cloud swirls and colors are beautiful outside my east-facing window this morning.

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    1. Yes, Clyde, you should immediately start being more patient. Also, why haven’t I started working on one of those many tasks that I need to do, as tim suggested, instead of sitting here typing?

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    2. pictures of the carvings.? i need to get going on the art too. my acrylics are calling out to me. yesterday was one of our perfect days. today looks to be a good one too. enjoy

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      2. the lily is magnicent. mario is wonderful and the pre lily clock not yet a clock is very nice too, wonderful work for a gimp. imagine…. health is not appreciated nearly as much until it is gone.

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      3. Thank you.
        The other set of lilies is for Lily’s headboard. Five years ago I built her a picket fence bed and carved Dora and Map and Diego to place on the headboard pickets. Then two years later she asked for a Disney princess, so we settled on Cinderella with two bluebirds, Disney version, on the headboard and moved Dora etc. to the footboard.
        This winter she, now 8, announced she was “much too mature for princesses.” So we settled on lilies, which are that non-clock set.
        She really touched my heart a month ago. I put up the lilies and when I took down Cinderella, Dora, and the rest, she asked very softly about them, “Grampa, can I keep these?”

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    3. Clyde, I sent an e-mail to the Trail staff asking how long the Trail will be closed. It shouldn’t be too long. They are a month behind on their work.

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  4. They say the way to make God laugh is to make a plan. This is my summer as Court Jester, the fellow who kept God in glggles for three months with plans that mostly went acropper (that’s a British word that means more or less what the German word allesupgefricked means).

    I had high expectations for the summer, but health issues complicated things and pretty much wrote the script for my summer. This culminated yesterday in the comic spectacle of my right hand being so allesupgefricked that I couldn’t run a computer mouse with it. Like Archie the cockroach I was reduced to typing letter by letter, and I had to run the mouse left-handed. The result was much like when I tried to drive British cars in England: everything was swapped out, right for left, so whenever I wanted to signal a left turn I instead turned on the windscreen wipers. Accch!

    For what it is worth, I have high hopes for the cabin get together this weekend.

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      1. I do mean next weekend. They didn’t give me the magic shots because they can’t figure out what is wrong with me. Right hand all puffed up. So I got magic pills instead. And today, oh joy, I can run a mouse right-handed!

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    5. Yikes – sorry to hear about the puffy hand, Steve, that must suck. Glad to hear you’re feeling better.

      The cabin weekend was glorious. I’ve never been out on Superior in a boat. Having electricity was pretty sweet.

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  5. my son has had alergic reactions twice in his life where they anthistimned him do my chagrin. it turned out to be a different clothes washing detergent on his cothes one time and somethng he ate on the other occasion near as i can remember.
    if i decide to ride my motorcycle to the cbin do you have room for a guitar? it sounds like a fistfull of you are going up together. ( i could make it a hacker so we could tie it to the roof)

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  6. We had hoped to get to Montreal but spent a week in SE Minnesota instead. We had a successful front-yard garden, but the Okra and spinach didn’t work out. Before the first snow I hope to have the rock fill removed from under the newly trimmed spruce trees and composted manure put there instead, preparatory to planting hydrangas, ferns, goats beard and woodruff under the spruces next spring.

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    1. they rent a rock vacume at the rental yard looks like a heck of a deal(few tasks are as exasperating as shoveling rock
      spinich and okra can be compensated for with 3 dollars. not the same but what the heck

      montreal… wilmar… never mind

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      1. We found an industrious 17 year old home schooler who started his own landscape business and owns a bobcat and a pickup. He can also go to Stockmen’s Livestock yards and get the compost for us. I have have finished with shoveling rock for the rest of my life. This rock is the very last in our yard and I will celebrate when the last of it is hauled away. I also believe there are soup spoons lurking in that bed under the spruce needles so I wait with great anticipation to see it dug up.

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      3. Ask that kid if he can bring a metal detector. You don’t want to lose any soup spoons with the rock.

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      4. Good idea. Who knows what else this kid can do. He probably has a tax consulting business on the side-just to satisfy his math and civics requirements for home schooling.

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      6. Since I’m guessing a 17-year-old isn’t willing to commute to SW Mpls to move a bunch of rocks, I may need to look into a rock vacuum – who knew that such a thing existed? There’s a rental place around the corner from me, may have to see if they have one…

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      7. Hmmm…. a rock vacuum you say? Hmmmm…. wonder how much they suck? Will it pick up fieldstones? 2′ around, 3″ thick limestone slabs??

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      9. Rock vacuum? Wow. I saw on TV a machine someone made to suck prairie dogs out of their holes.and blow them into some big wagon thing, confused but not much the worse for the experience. I thought that was pretty cool.

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      11. MiG,
        Here’s the deal on limestone; you pick it up out of the field it’s free. You pick it up from my pile it’s $25. We may have to arrange a field trip!

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  7. This summer I tightened up the chain on the chainsaw and put some fresh oil in it. Before winter I have a dead Russian olive that needs to come down. Or, more accurately, come out – it’s already mostly down, sort of slumping over.

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      1. Can’t back up to it without flattening the raspberry patch. I don’t think I’ll need to anyway, though – the trunk is not that big around. I’ll just slice it into pieces small enough to carry out.

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  8. Well, I just go up and repotted a cactus that has needed repotting for a very long time. I guess my get up and go isn’t completely gone.

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      1. I used an old rug wrapped around the cactus to protect me and only got a few small punctures. I didn’t do that in the past and I know what you are talking regarding the potential need for band aids, Renee.

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  9. I grew a garden for the first time this summer! So far I’ve gotten lettuce, kale, red onions, basil, one ripe tomato and a pile of bush beans out of it, with more tomatoes, maybe a few bell peppers, and a second crop of spinach to come. Best of all, I have yet to be crawled on by anything, though I did get sunburn and heat rash. My friend and I will be canning (tomatoes and salsa) before summer is up. Before the end of this year I hope to have written a lot more, mastered vegan baking and worked on my crafts. You know, the usual!

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  10. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    I don’t even want to think about this summer being nearly over–it started so late. My garden has been so delayed. Tomatoes are ripening, but the crop is paltry compared to past years.

    But I did rest and recover from all drama of the summer before, then our expansion at work. And for my troubles I have now caught a bug going around the office, leaving me with a headache and crabby disposition.

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  11. I had high hopes of growing nearly all the vegetables we need for the summer. Had a setback when the peppers I planted in early February (indoors, of course – I have florescent lights to light my seedlings) took 6 weeks to germinate and then they grew about 1/2 inch high and stayed at that height until early June. They pretty much disappeared after I put them out – I think the deluge of rains washed them away.Then very few of the seeds I planted outdoors germinated. Had a few radishes and have enough pole beans. Nothing else really grew. Some of the things I started indoors did okay – we have some broccoli. The pak choi did fine and I managed to harvest a couple until the blasted heat caused the rest to go to seed. Everything got planted or set out late because every single time I had the time and inclination to plant something in the spring, it rained cats and dogs, which dampened my enthusiasm for being outside…a gentle rain is one thing, the deluge is another.

    On the bright side, I think the potatoes are doing just fine, I have some beans, and a volunteer melon plant of some sort that has tons of blossoms and lots of little melons.The black and red currants did well. And the raspberries are doing fine with a huge fall crop set to start ripening in a couple weeks. And the herb garden! I planted lots of herbs and the perennial herbs all came back after the winter and they are glorious. Last night I had fresh picked beans steamed and cooled and dressed with a vinagrette dressing of oil, white wine vinegar, lemon juice, onions, garlic, and fresh mint, oregano, and lemon basil. I also had lemon-thyme buttermilk biscuits. I think I’ve discovered a new desire: to have an herb farm -, or at least grow lots and lots of herbs (and raspberries and small fruit such as currants) in my small city lot.

    My main accomplishment was getting my middle daughter sent off to art school. She applied late and thus was accepted late and it looked like it would be financially impossible. After much online paperwork (I HATE paperwork!), angst, and details that were overlooked until the last minute (“You have to have a doctor fill out all these forms??? And you leave n how many days???”), she left on the train yesterday. Whew, what a relief.

    For the rest of the summer (which I will expand through September just so I don’t feel so bad about not doing anything of significance all summer), I hope to make a trip to Duluth to visit my mom (and to do some playing around), learn more about what to do with my herbs, and have a garage sale.

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    1. sounds like enough edith
      herb garden cool, daughter art school wonderful.
      enjoy late august summer activities (september)
      nice having you around on the blog

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    2. I find that gardening is always an experiment. Every year some thing work and some things don’t. Also, I know about the difficulties of taking care of paper work like you mentioned, Edith. I am not the one in my family that had to deal with that kind of paper work, but I heard a lot about it.

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      3. Steve – I am starting to know what you mean about why God gave us farmers markets. It’s taken me a long time to admit it and in my family that is probably the worst thing one could ever say – but I just am not good at vegetable gardens. However, the farmers market I go to doesn’t have a wide selection of herbs and the berries will cost you half a year’s salary, so I may have found my niche.

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      4. There are societies, Edith, where it would be a huge mark of shame to be known as someone who cannot make lovely garden produce spring from the ground. But all ground is not the same, and not all who garden are gifted. I hope your society is tolerant.

        We have to be on guard against the smugness of the composter for those who dump their grapefruit rinds and coffee grounds or the superiority of someone who gave birth “naturally” for those who were forced to accept more help from the doctors. I had boarders here in my home two years ago. The woman regarded me as pond scum because I didn’t recycle quite as much as she did.

        Humans are so interesting. In religious sects where humility is the highest virtue, you can bet there were folks who were snobbish about being the most humble people in their church.

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      5. I know that there are people who are not very much interested in gardening or who really do not like gardening. However, don’t be too quick to give up on gardening. Many people find that it is one of the most rewarding thing that you can do. My daughters were not very interested in gardening when they were young and now one of them has a fairly high interest in gardening and one or her daughters seems to like gardening. My other daughter has become more interested in gardening because she is very interested healthy eating including eating home grown vegetables which she is starting to grow.

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      7. Gardening is, Hallelujah, an interjection, a shout of triumph to the Creator, or nature or however the gardener thinks the miracle of the seed came to be.
        Gardening is, damn it, an expression of frustration and dismay at the difficulty of nurturing a variety of plants to fruition at the same time in the same area.
        Gardening is, in this modern era of buyer-based food, an interruption, a thing around which you have to place commas in your life, or it will not come to be.

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    3. Oh, I’m not giving up on gardening – because I do like it (at least when the heat index is not 90-120 or the dewpoint at or above whatever the point of discomfort is). I just think I will stick to what works for me. Probably a few veggies, but mostly lots of different herbs, raspberries, currants, and lots of flowers.

      Steve–I like your point about humility. None of us are superior to others just because we garden…or compost…or recycle…(I’m sure the list could go on). I’d rather have a non-gardening friend who is a kind person than a gardening friend who is unkind even if I thought gardening was the best thing in the world. I come from a family who has probably gardened since the days of Eden…I guess they won’t disown me if I stop growing my own veggies, but sometimes I wonder.

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  12. Morning–

    Summer started prepping the place for a HS graduation party. I told myself just because the party is over doesn’t necessarily mean I can quit working on these little projects but that’s pretty much what I did. Really need to add a cable to pull the walls in and roof up on one shed and get that re-roofed and get new shingles on our house. Got a guy coming this afternoon to look at the house. And I’ve been avoiding the dentist all summer but I really do have a need to visit him. (Johnny Depps’ Dentist Dad from Willy Wonka? That was my childhood dentist….)

    Lots of playing with our daughter which was fun.
    Unfortunately my wife’s mother has been ill and her entire summer has been dealing with that.
    I did get a new 14″ chainsaw and just bought a pole saw; both are fun! Also built two ‘rabbit cars’ and two indoor chicken coops for a friend.

    And now getting ready to send our son to college next week. Gosh, he was just born a couple years ago. Poof… and there you go.

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  13. Like Edith, I’m counting September in our summer, but I have to admit it is starting to feel like fall.
    The main accomplishment has been finding a residence/asst. living place for my mom to move to. It’s only a mile from here, has lots of music which is what she’s been missing where she’s been, and her apt. will look toward Crystal Lake (and be visible once the leaves have fallen). Whew. We’ll head down later today for a few days to deal with the remaining details, and then she moves here iin mid-september. I can’t wait.

    Husband just finished replacing the retaining wall, and I helped some – did get to shovel some rock, and I agree with Renee about that. There’s tons of stuff that didn’t get done, but I’ve gotta go now – have a great rest of a beautiful day, Babonners – here, anyway.

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  14. I have lots of small volunteer trees to remove: black walnuts, elms and hackberries. There’s no community compost site in Waterville anymore so if you remove small trees, you have to make an appointment with the City to come and chip them up for you. That small task has prevented me from doing lots of larger ones. I’m hoping to get to it soon, but it’s always hard to get anything done while planning for Rock Bend. I want to dig up three cedar trees and relocate them too – and I really need to divide my hostas this year! The mosquitoes have been really bad this year and it’s hard to be willing to go out and do the gardening or yard work.

    I did get a new back door put on and new blinds in two bedrooms. I should really paint the house. Uff da. I guess that won’t happen this year!

    Rock Bend has taken up a lot of my time this summer, as it does every summer. We’re going to have a great festival this year. If you haven’t checked out the schedule, it can be found at http://www.rockbend.org. You can also visit us on Facebook. Search for Rock Bend Folk Festival and join the fun!

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  16. I have gotten one major task completed this summer: finished turning the dead space under the tower in Daughter’s climber set into a club house. I started that last fall, but was thwarted first by batteries for my drills that refused to keep a good charge (yes, more than one drill…that’s just how I roll), and then by rain and snow. New batteries purchased, and the walls were completed a few weeks ago. Daughter was pleased, but has yet to actually use it. :S

    I have taken a few whacks at the back porch mess, but that will require a few solid weekends of work, and can wait until fall. The basement is likewise a mess, and can also wait if need be. Daughter’s room needs some work when it’s still warm enough to work with the windows open – someone decided it was a good idea to put texture in the paint on the walls (not me – previous owner of the house), and it is coming off in a few places. So I get to try to spackle into those places to make it look good and repaint…frankly, I’d rather sit out in Daughter’s club house with a book.

    And gardening – that has been iffy at best. We have gotten a few small broccoli heads off our plants, the carrots are dismal, and the beans are tall but not producing yet. The weeds keep taking over my flower beds and the back yard has not been touched. I had grand plans to reclaim a part of the yard that had been garden at one time (probably 2 or 3 owners ago), but is now weeds, rocks and white violets, but it is still weeds, rocks and white violets. Sigh. Maybe I’ll move a few violet plants, rent one of the vacuums tim mentioned and then blanket it in newspaper to kill off the rest. Maybe.

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  17. We have a 20-foot shipping container in the front yard that was formerly red-brown. Now it is fresh white (Mr. MNiS’s hand). I am 4 days into vacation and really need to go scale up the intended Mondrian paintjob onto it. Wish me luck.

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