Springtime @ Pinecone Park & Spa

It’s going to be another beauty day and I have no jobs I have todo. At 1:30 I am going over to Elly Hallam’s place to do some volunteer gardening. It’s my first time going to her place and being a volunteer gardener. Elly and David are encouraging me to bring Sheba; we’ll see how that goes. When I come back, I hope to do some work on the fence if I’m not too tired. I want to finish that and then also finish the spa sign. 

Tonight I go to dog training classes.

Allan and Larry are coming tomorrow now, not today. Hours after they arrive they are leaving with a realtor to look at properties on the island. Then they’ll be back for Happy Hour and dinner. It would change my world enormously for the better if they moved here. 

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I have to keep the studio warm or my paper will dampen and warp. I’ve been leaving the one large electric heater on all day and night and it’s expensive. It also keeps the place too hot so yesterday I turned it off and installed an electric oil heater on a timer; it comes on for two hours and then goes off for two hours. It’s maintaining a satisfactory temperature and will save me a lot of cash.

And today, although it’s hard, I’m not lighting a fire. It’s the first morning in six-and-a-half months of living here I haven’t started my day at the hearth. I’ll light one late this afternoon; the Happy Hour fire will be my new routine. I’ll enjoy it through dinner and my evening using far less wood every day.

(Addendum: I burned some cardboard to cheat a little. It was going to recycling, but I hot a short hot shot of heat to help wean me from the morning fires.)

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Yesterday a local person said I was lucky to be an early riser. She said in a month, I’m going to want to do all my shopping first thing once “the tourists come.” Yesterday a car race passed me even though I was going along fine: “Tourist.” 

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Praise the Lord: Yesterday I tried something new. I took my single bag of Styrofoam, put my $3 sticker on it and put it out with the garbage and it was taken. In two weeks, I am going to try the same thing with one of the six bags of rat urine infested insulation. It they take, I’ll be giddy. Over time I will get rid of a lot of stuff I don’t want via the garbage collection every two weeks.

I also have a mountain of wood to saw into burnable sizes. It’s left over from the renovation. I’m sorting stuff for GIRO — metals, old paints and solvents left by the previous owner — and I may hire a local garbage hauler to take away the plastics and lumber I can’t burn.

I have OCD focused on tidiness. It “doesn’t interfere with my life;” when it comes to my creative work, I value my OCD. So Dr. S. and I agree it’s fine; it’s a function of my C-PTSD she says. She posits that the lack of control around me turned me into someone who has to control myspace. 

It’s OCD that “forces” me to deal with all the construction detritus but I am going to enjoy the methodical sorting and slow removal. I feel that in ridding Pinecone Park & Spaof all its unnecessaries, I honour this wonderful place.

Note Ethel crushed contentedly under Sheba's butt.

This is  my main door. My office is right inside and my
office is open to the kitchen behind me. The pots are full
of scented plants.

This is taken from the barbeque looking at my outdoor
eating area beside the ugly spa. 

To the east of the spa is the siesta area.

This is "the glade." It's wild natural foliage but I put
rich topsoil over the surface and added some plants
for colour.

Thi is the entrance to my porch and dining room area.
Inside, double doors stay open all the time when it's
warm but the cats can't get out to slaughter my wild birds. 

The fountain is over the septic field. It's sound is truly
a wonderful thing to hear in the silence here.