I remember the days when Labor Day meant work. I feel so lucky that I have a job now where I get Labor Day as a holiday. But I never forget that for the retail and restaurant workers in this country, Labor Day is a day of retail sales and shoppers going out for meals. All part of the money-making machine.
Without the Labor movement, we would not have Labor Day, or 40 hour weeks, or minimum wage, or sick time, or weekends. So we can thank liberals for fighting tooth and nail for the protections we do have.
I’ve had a lazy morning so far. Sandy is a little over halfway finished with cleaning up the computer room and it has been rearranged so that my desk faces the window, and the window of my former kitchen next door about eight feet away. And the jungle that has sprung up on the other side of the property line since our absentee landlord neighbor hasn’t bothered to clean it up in at least a year. There are electricians out there now working on something. I hoped that it was Joey cutting down the freaking TREES growing next to his foundation, but no. The last time it happened was when I went to him directly and asked him to take care of his side. What really irks me are the comments that my neighbors on the street make about what a great neighbor he has been. He only cleans up the front yard, which is very low maintenance to begin with. They can’t see the mess on the sides and back of the house.
I went into the Back Forty and yanked a few vines out of the ground along the fence between our other property line this morning before I got too hot and beset by skeeters. Now THIS is Back Forty news. My former schizophrenic NDN is now in assisted living in the Asheville area and will not be moving back here. For the past few weeks, crews have been hard at work clearing out nearly all the vegetation in her yard, including all the small trees and bushes, and there is so much more light and air. Of course the vines along the fence will come back, and are still rooted and spread over onto my side, but now when I clear out that area it will not seem so pointless. I wish that I could do it now while the ground is wet and the vines are freshly cut down on that side, but it is just too much with the heat index of 109 degrees yesterday and West Nile virus making a comeback. I look forward to tackling this when the weather cools down.
Figs have been plentiful and I did get enough field peas and butterbeans last week to cook a pot. The Juliet tomatoes have done so well in the whiskey half-barrels that I may get out the dehydrator today and dry them. My Nanking cherry bushes died this summer. I can’t say that I’m really sorry about it, though. They were taking up too much valuable space for the amount of food I got from them.
I finished my Dingle tapestry yesterday, so I’m going to cut all the small pieces off my tapestry loom today. It may be slow because I’m going to try to cut the Lake Waccamaw found object one off one warp thread at a time and sew it in over a driftwood stick to get a good fit. I have a strong feeling that while this is a nice theory, it will prove to be a huge pain in the ass and I’ll end up cutting it off in a fit of frustration.
slowly she turned 