Work Day

Lots of people have been enjoying Leahaven recently.  In fact, it's been occupied almost half of July, and we have had to turn people away because the weekends filled up so fast.  Part of making peoples' stay pleasant involves keeping the property and house in good order.  Leahaven has gotten more rain than we have here at home, and the grass grows like nobody's business!  So Herb takes one day a week to mow and edge; if time and weather permit, he does other work.  Yesterday he bush-hogged part of the back pasture, a tedious job in the baking sun, thanks to the rip-rap dams put in by the strip-miners back in the 70's to stop erosion.  They stop a bush-hog blade, too, if you hit one in the long grass!  If he ever catches up with the bush-hogging, there are fences to be mended, the cabin to finish siding inside and out, and screen doors to hang on the cabin.  And then it will be time to mow the grass again . . .

Thanks to thoughtful guests who have done a great job of cleaning, I've had very little to do inside.  But dust collects, cobwebs multiply overnight, and bugs manage to get onto the windowsills.  So after some touch-up cleaning, I got back to a project I began months ago.  Inspired by some of the magazines I read, I decided to "shabby chic" the bedside tables with some country white paint.  I had already sanded one table and put the first coat on when I got side-tracked.  So yesterday I put two more coats of paint on, sanded the other table, and put its first coat on.  Two more coats of paint, sand-paper work to scuff it up, an antiquing glaze of wood stain, old wallpaper to line the drawers, and I'll be ready to get back to cleaning . . .