Recently, I was offered the opportunity to write curriculum for an online learning company. It sounded like a good gig, and they asked me during the summer, so I agreed to contract on for a unit or two. Of course, by the time the ball really got rolling on this project, we were into the school year. Needless to say, it has been hard to find time to get the extra work done.
I am not really worried about it, yet. I have about 9% of the work done, and about eight weeks to do it. As far as my regular school work, I am staying out in front of my planning by about a week, and I have a back log of only three days on my grading (really, that is nothing). So, right now, I am managing.
However, in two weeks, it's time for mid-quarter grades, already! This means I have to make sure that I have some meaningful grades in my grade book by then. Perhaps meaningful is the wrong word. What I mean is, I need to make sure that I have assigned and graded an adequate amount of student work to show a true reflection of student achievement (or lack thereof). Really, this just means I have to assign one more writing assignment in one more class. But, that one assignment might be the tipping point.
The way I figure this, I need to create a topic and a quarter per week for the online folks, and grade at least five sections of writing assignments per week as well. This is extremely doable, and will not add any real extra time to my school work load (which is already 60-plus hours a week). It will add time to my workload, in general, as I steal hours from somewhere to work on the online stuff.
And here is where the problems begin to start, since tomorrow ushers in another season of NFL football. Will I be stealing hours in front of the TV, in order to generate contracted curriculum? Maybe. More likely, I will be in the basement, tapping away at my laptop, while the games play on the TV. Unfortunately, that means the only place for me to steal some time from somewhere is to put a moratorium on yard work. As long as the grass stays brown and the leaves don't fall, I guess that will work out.
Zoinks!
Showing posts with label Lawn Care. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lawn Care. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Back in the Middle
A longish visit to the East is over. I'll miss the ocean for another long while. Spent a good amount of time with the family, and we managed to get in some time with Monkey's peeps, too, before flying out on Sunday evening.We returned to a warmish house and a garden bursting with greens. The squash are growing like monsters and the beans are coming in, too. As well, the lawn took our hiatus as an opportunity to shag up quite a bit. After mowing yesterday, I decided to take a longish bike ride down to Roca and back, a round trip of about 24 miles.
The weather was not too warm and the terrain was extremely level. Still, my out of practice legs were burning on the way back. I took a short break at the halfway point to eat a sandwich, do a little writing, and watch a farmer mow a field. The rest of the day was spent reading and cooking dinner.
Man, it's a hard life.
Tuesday, June 03, 2008
The Campaign Ends
The 07-08 "Teach the Churlen" Campaign has drawn to a close, friends and neighbors, and not a moment too soon. Our last day of finals was Friday. That went swimmingly. I manged to get all of my grading and end of the year checklist-type things done by the end of the day. That meant I had a weekend of practice for the summer.
So, Saturday and Sunday saw the Monkey and I doing a lot of reading and sitting around on the patio, as well as some additional yard beautification (a lifetime project, it appears). The Monkey Grounds are certainly looking good. Perhaps a few pics are in order, but, that will have to be later.
Monday was a cake walk. We had an awards breakfast (I didn't get an award), followed by a final faculty meeting. After that, I had three hours to kill before I was off to join in the sixth annual faculty golf extravaganza!
After a lunch with my foursome (and a few other department folks), it was off to a local course for a quick nine holes. Let me tell you up front: I have never golfed in my life. I have hit a ball around on th eputt-putt course, and I have gone to a driving range a couple of times. Hell, I even have five clubs that I bought at Play It Again Sports about six years ago. But, I have never actually tried to hit a golf ball toward a three inch hole 300 yards away. So, I wasn't expecting to impress anyone.
Lucky for us, it was a team game, so, we got to use everybody's best shot each time down the course. Believe it or not, I'm not too bad at hitting off the tee, but the short shots are impossible for me. I shot so many putts about fifty feet past the hole it wasn't funny. But, our team had a lot of fun (and drank a lot of beverages). We came in last, but, we got a prize for that! And, we all got major league sunburns! It was a great way to end the school year.
Of course, the end of one year also marks the beginning of the next, so, tomorrow, I will attend my first professional development workshop of the 08-09 "Learn the Churlen" campaign. A Wednesday morning of multicultural breakout sessions (I don't really know what that means, even after being in hundreds of them), and then I can not think about school for about three weeks, since Monkey and I are off to ITALY on Sunday morning!
I hope to communicate with y'all before then, but, let me tell you, there is some serious excitement in the Monkey House, right now! Ciao.
So, Saturday and Sunday saw the Monkey and I doing a lot of reading and sitting around on the patio, as well as some additional yard beautification (a lifetime project, it appears). The Monkey Grounds are certainly looking good. Perhaps a few pics are in order, but, that will have to be later.
Monday was a cake walk. We had an awards breakfast (I didn't get an award), followed by a final faculty meeting. After that, I had three hours to kill before I was off to join in the sixth annual faculty golf extravaganza!
After a lunch with my foursome (and a few other department folks), it was off to a local course for a quick nine holes. Let me tell you up front: I have never golfed in my life. I have hit a ball around on th eputt-putt course, and I have gone to a driving range a couple of times. Hell, I even have five clubs that I bought at Play It Again Sports about six years ago. But, I have never actually tried to hit a golf ball toward a three inch hole 300 yards away. So, I wasn't expecting to impress anyone.
Lucky for us, it was a team game, so, we got to use everybody's best shot each time down the course. Believe it or not, I'm not too bad at hitting off the tee, but the short shots are impossible for me. I shot so many putts about fifty feet past the hole it wasn't funny. But, our team had a lot of fun (and drank a lot of beverages). We came in last, but, we got a prize for that! And, we all got major league sunburns! It was a great way to end the school year.
Of course, the end of one year also marks the beginning of the next, so, tomorrow, I will attend my first professional development workshop of the 08-09 "Learn the Churlen" campaign. A Wednesday morning of multicultural breakout sessions (I don't really know what that means, even after being in hundreds of them), and then I can not think about school for about three weeks, since Monkey and I are off to ITALY on Sunday morning!
I hope to communicate with y'all before then, but, let me tell you, there is some serious excitement in the Monkey House, right now! Ciao.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Order in the Garden of Good and Evil
The yard was nothing but a fence
The sun just hurts my eyes somewhere
It must be time for penitence
Gardening at night is never where
--REM, "Gardening at Night" (all lyrics approximate)
Nature is not an orderly thing. It’s unruly. It’s messy. Life and death usually are.
It’s about competition and dominance. It’s about procreating to the fullest and elbowing out all competition through strength, growth, and offspring. How does the European starling come to be so prevalent on a continent it never even saw until the 1880s? By copulating like mad and storming every nest they see to evict the owners and set up their own residences. That and the enviable ability to ingest everything from seeds to French fries.
Monkey and I have set up our own residence, as you know, in a house that is, ostensibly, our own (held in a minority partnership with a mortgage company already several times removed from the one we originally drew up a contract with, but, I digress). In the past, our living arrangements have been of the rental variety: apartments in giant complexes, beater houses in “less desirable” neighborhoods. (In the interest of full disclosure, there was a short period of time that involved a sort of squatter arrangement with her brother, but that really is irrelevant to my thesis.) After one year of ownership, it’s still a new experience for us. And, it involves a lot of work that I never expected myself to be doing and, dare I say, enjoying.
The upkeep of our former residences involved minimal effort. The cracker-box apartment (labeled so because it was small, not because it contained any crackers, metaphorical or otherwise) was on the second floor. We had no property at all, and no house plants to worry about. There was no mowing, weeding, whatever. The bungalows of the past demanded a slightly greater demand, usually a weekly mow in the growing season, some shoveling in the winter. In the interest of beautification, there was some experimentation with container planting, but the maintenance of those was not even enough to warrant consideration as labor. The high mortality rate of flora in and around the Monkey House was evidence enough that not even the minimal amount of care was being provided to those poor plants that had the misfortune of crossing paths with this dude. But, this is a different story, and, like all stories, we need to understand some back story in order to see where the protagonist (that would be me, for those of you with less acute skills of inference) stands philosophically.
I have railed in the past about the waste of water and the contamination of the soil that many homeowners engage in an effort to keep their lawns and yards looking beautiful, tidy, and ordered. I always thought it was stupid to water grass simply to encourage growth that required one to mow more frequently. Why would someone want to make more work for herself? Also, it seemed to me that gardens were attempts to bring some of the diversity of nature into one’s own little patch of earth, but, in the natural world, the beauty we appreciate isn’t a rose bush all by itself surrounded by cedar mulch and a few pansies playing ring-around-the-rosie at its base. Nature was a mulberry bush muscling out some joe-pie weed all in the midst of a scruffy clutch of ferns and a patch of wild onion pushing up through seasons-worth of leaf litter and other detritus. My mother, spending hours on a Sunday to pull everything that was deemed a weed was the most ridiculous thing I could imagine.
Yet, here I am, out in my own yard, slowly and systematically restoring order to patches of border that have been “overgrown” with who-knows-what kind of ground cover. What is wrong with me?
One thing, it seems, is the influence of others. Our neighbors on either side have beautiful yards and enviable landscaping. I don’t want our house to be “that house.” You know, the one that people look at and say, “What kind of trash lives there?” I’ll leave that to someone else. The goal here is not to compete with my neighbors. I don’t need my yard to be something out of Southern Living, I just want it to fit in with the rest of the neighborhood. I’m not about to weed and feed the lawn, although I have watered a few bare patches where I reseeded the grass. But, I am pulling weeds (a lot of them) and I am laying mulch (and, dammit, it looks nice). Not only that, but, this morning, I am off to the garden center to buy some hostas to fill in a few spaces once overrun by some unseemly gang of miscreant growth.
And, you know what, while I am out there violating every philosophical belief I used to have about the insanity of unnatural nature, remaking beautiful chaos in the orderly (and, somehow, more beautiful) image that I want, I am going to be enjoying every minute of it.
The sun just hurts my eyes somewhere
It must be time for penitence
Gardening at night is never where
--REM, "Gardening at Night" (all lyrics approximate)
Nature is not an orderly thing. It’s unruly. It’s messy. Life and death usually are.
It’s about competition and dominance. It’s about procreating to the fullest and elbowing out all competition through strength, growth, and offspring. How does the European starling come to be so prevalent on a continent it never even saw until the 1880s? By copulating like mad and storming every nest they see to evict the owners and set up their own residences. That and the enviable ability to ingest everything from seeds to French fries.
Monkey and I have set up our own residence, as you know, in a house that is, ostensibly, our own (held in a minority partnership with a mortgage company already several times removed from the one we originally drew up a contract with, but, I digress). In the past, our living arrangements have been of the rental variety: apartments in giant complexes, beater houses in “less desirable” neighborhoods. (In the interest of full disclosure, there was a short period of time that involved a sort of squatter arrangement with her brother, but that really is irrelevant to my thesis.) After one year of ownership, it’s still a new experience for us. And, it involves a lot of work that I never expected myself to be doing and, dare I say, enjoying.
The upkeep of our former residences involved minimal effort. The cracker-box apartment (labeled so because it was small, not because it contained any crackers, metaphorical or otherwise) was on the second floor. We had no property at all, and no house plants to worry about. There was no mowing, weeding, whatever. The bungalows of the past demanded a slightly greater demand, usually a weekly mow in the growing season, some shoveling in the winter. In the interest of beautification, there was some experimentation with container planting, but the maintenance of those was not even enough to warrant consideration as labor. The high mortality rate of flora in and around the Monkey House was evidence enough that not even the minimal amount of care was being provided to those poor plants that had the misfortune of crossing paths with this dude. But, this is a different story, and, like all stories, we need to understand some back story in order to see where the protagonist (that would be me, for those of you with less acute skills of inference) stands philosophically.
I have railed in the past about the waste of water and the contamination of the soil that many homeowners engage in an effort to keep their lawns and yards looking beautiful, tidy, and ordered. I always thought it was stupid to water grass simply to encourage growth that required one to mow more frequently. Why would someone want to make more work for herself? Also, it seemed to me that gardens were attempts to bring some of the diversity of nature into one’s own little patch of earth, but, in the natural world, the beauty we appreciate isn’t a rose bush all by itself surrounded by cedar mulch and a few pansies playing ring-around-the-rosie at its base. Nature was a mulberry bush muscling out some joe-pie weed all in the midst of a scruffy clutch of ferns and a patch of wild onion pushing up through seasons-worth of leaf litter and other detritus. My mother, spending hours on a Sunday to pull everything that was deemed a weed was the most ridiculous thing I could imagine.
Yet, here I am, out in my own yard, slowly and systematically restoring order to patches of border that have been “overgrown” with who-knows-what kind of ground cover. What is wrong with me?
One thing, it seems, is the influence of others. Our neighbors on either side have beautiful yards and enviable landscaping. I don’t want our house to be “that house.” You know, the one that people look at and say, “What kind of trash lives there?” I’ll leave that to someone else. The goal here is not to compete with my neighbors. I don’t need my yard to be something out of Southern Living, I just want it to fit in with the rest of the neighborhood. I’m not about to weed and feed the lawn, although I have watered a few bare patches where I reseeded the grass. But, I am pulling weeds (a lot of them) and I am laying mulch (and, dammit, it looks nice). Not only that, but, this morning, I am off to the garden center to buy some hostas to fill in a few spaces once overrun by some unseemly gang of miscreant growth.
And, you know what, while I am out there violating every philosophical belief I used to have about the insanity of unnatural nature, remaking beautiful chaos in the orderly (and, somehow, more beautiful) image that I want, I am going to be enjoying every minute of it.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Doing the Unthinkable
Back in the day, before I lived in Stinkin' Lincoln, before I lived in CoMo, before I lived in HoCo, before I got married, I lived with a friend of mine in a little house in Hamilton, a neighborhood in the northeast section of Baltimore. She owned the house, and I had moved in with her from a second floor apartment in a house not two blocks down the street. It was so close that the move took forever, since I never rented a truck or anything. I borrowed this old Ford Econoline van from my dad, that smelled like chicken blood and Big Gulps. We used to use it to make short trip deliveries for the wholesale biz, but anyway....
This little house had a few trees around it. In the fall, the leaves fell, as they are wont to do.
For most of my life up to that point (about 26 years), I had raked nary a leaf. I never saw the point in it (nor did I ever have the necessity to do it). I always figured that, well, that was where the leaves were supposed to be, right. Mama Nature didn't drop all those leaves just to give us all something to do, did she?
But, this particular year, for whatever reason (I think I was compelled by my housemate/landlord), I went out and raked leaves. And damn if she didn't take a picture of it. Lucky for us all, I do not have a copy handy, and, if I did, it would be in an old-fashioned format, one you could put in an album, with pages; one that you'd have to say, "Careful, don't get fingerprints on it." Remember those kind of pictures?
I bring this up (the raking, not the photo albums), because I spent a good deal of Saturday raking leaves, trimming bushes, and generally preparing for winter. On Sunday, I wrapped the water heater and weather stripped the doors. That, I don't mind. The leaves, however, are something I need to reconcile myself with.
There were so many, and the backyard is already patchy and thatchy enough. I had to do it. I had no choice. Still, a part of me wishes...well, I just hope I don't get all lawn obsessive like the rest of the block and start watering my lawn in the summer. Now that...that's just plain stupid.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Being a Discussion of Baby Birds, Order Statuses, and Things Left Undone
Open house went well enough. It was poorly attended by my students, with a total sign in of five students and three parents for three blocks. It seems that open house here is mainly for your garden variety freshman (should I say "freshperson"?). Maybe we should call them "hatchlings." Thus making the sophomores "fledglings," the juniors "juveniles," and the seniors "hawks." Such a suggestion, however, goes to the heart, perhaps of school culture and should probably be discussed by some sort of institutional committee or such. Let me take a preemptive moment to refuse the nomination as chairman of said committee, thank you.
The fuel tank assembly is on its way! I never received a reply to my email to customer service, but, after sending it, I noticed the status of my order changed to: BACK ORDERED, a status tagged with the note: "We don't know when you are going to get this, man." Today, the status is listed as: SHIPPED, and is again stating that I shall receive my parts in 4-7 business days (or was that 47 business days?). It looks like the edges will be ragged at Monkey House Nebraska for at least another week.
I still have a bit to do to prepare for Tuesday. I will most likely spend some time at school this weekend. I feel like I did not work very effeciently this week (smarter, not harder!), but, I got enough done to feel like I am in a position to be as ready as I can be when the curtain goes up.
The fuel tank assembly is on its way! I never received a reply to my email to customer service, but, after sending it, I noticed the status of my order changed to: BACK ORDERED, a status tagged with the note: "We don't know when you are going to get this, man." Today, the status is listed as: SHIPPED, and is again stating that I shall receive my parts in 4-7 business days (or was that 47 business days?). It looks like the edges will be ragged at Monkey House Nebraska for at least another week.
I still have a bit to do to prepare for Tuesday. I will most likely spend some time at school this weekend. I feel like I did not work very effeciently this week (smarter, not harder!), but, I got enough done to feel like I am in a position to be as ready as I can be when the curtain goes up.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
The Slower Side of Sears
I have recently had some mail order issues with a few companies. Some clothing I ordered from a small record co. never arrived. It was on back order last time I checked, and the guy who runs the place gave me my money back! I had some issues with an order from a large electronics box store, but that got resolved, and I got the shipping charge refunded. I goofed up my own order from a big box book store and sent the shipment to my old address in MO. That got returned, and I got my money back for that one, too.
My most recent online debacle involves a department store whose name may or may not appear in the title of this entry. I ordered a fuel tank assembly kit for my gas trimmer. That was officially fifteen days ago. My order status tells me that my order should ship in 4-7 business days. It has said that since July 31. I think it has been at least 10 business days. I emailed the customer service folks on Monday night, but I have yet to hear from them.
In the meantime, my trimmer is in pieces in the garage, and the weeds are busting out all over, what with the deadly combo of hothothot, humidhumidhumid, sunnysunnysunny, and afternoon gully washers.
Had a productive day at school, today. Some more district mandated meetings tomorrow, along with open house from 7-8:30 tomorrow night. Monday is the first day for freshman (of which I have none), and Tuesday brings the school year into full effect.
I've been pretty weak on the show-going front. The Monkey 'rents' visit coincided with Centro-matic's show at Knickerbockers (along with a monster headache on Friday afternoon), so I missed that. I am skipping Gillian Welch, too. Okkervil River plays Omaha on 9/14. I'll represent, then, I promise.
My most recent online debacle involves a department store whose name may or may not appear in the title of this entry. I ordered a fuel tank assembly kit for my gas trimmer. That was officially fifteen days ago. My order status tells me that my order should ship in 4-7 business days. It has said that since July 31. I think it has been at least 10 business days. I emailed the customer service folks on Monday night, but I have yet to hear from them.
In the meantime, my trimmer is in pieces in the garage, and the weeds are busting out all over, what with the deadly combo of hothothot, humidhumidhumid, sunnysunnysunny, and afternoon gully washers.
Had a productive day at school, today. Some more district mandated meetings tomorrow, along with open house from 7-8:30 tomorrow night. Monday is the first day for freshman (of which I have none), and Tuesday brings the school year into full effect.
I've been pretty weak on the show-going front. The Monkey 'rents' visit coincided with Centro-matic's show at Knickerbockers (along with a monster headache on Friday afternoon), so I missed that. I am skipping Gillian Welch, too. Okkervil River plays Omaha on 9/14. I'll represent, then, I promise.
Tuesday, July 31, 2007
Mowers, Trimmers, Water Meters...Don't Worry, It All Works Out
So, I did something pretty dumb yesterday. I was mowing the lawn, and, in a fit of total zoned-outedness, I ran over a water meter in front of the house. It is made of metal. Hard metal. The mower blade hit the water meter. The mower blade goes really fast. Have you ever seen one spinning? Well, me neither, but I judge by the speed at which pieces of twig and such come shooting out of the discharge that that blade is spinning pretty quickly. Like, I bet you can't even see it if you tried to look. (NOTE: DO NOT TRY TO LOOK--only bad things can result.)
Anyway, fast moving blade made of metal vs. hard metal water meter, buried in the ground and linked into a city's worth of pipes large and small =water meter wins. My lawn mower's blade made a heinous noise and immediately stopped spinning at all. I had bent the blade on one side into almost a ninety degree angle.
Not a problem, since I went to the hardware store this morning and bought a replacement blade (and an air filter and some oil and a spark plug--I figured, you know, while I was taking the thing apart, I might as well tune it up). But I learned some things--as always, the hard way. First, always put WD-40 on rusted bolts first. It saves a lot of trouble pushing and pulling on a wrench, determining that the bolt is rusted in, and you need to apply WD-40 (which helps to remove the bolt like magic if you let it sit long enough). Second (and most important), do not tilt the lawn mower to either side. Tilt it back, leaving the spark plug (which you did disconnect or remove right?) facing up. Otherwise, oil and/or gas leaks out and runs all over everything. Luckily, I put a drop cloth on the garage floor, saving me a great deal of cleaning up and being mad at myself for getting oil all over the garage floor. However, the oil that gets everywhere, gets everywhere, and when you are finished putting on a new blade and putting in a new spark plug and installing a new air filter and putting in fresh oil, the mower shudders to a start, runs rough for a while, belches blue smoke all over the place, and vomits a streak of old oil out of the muffler. It's painful to watch, but, the mower gets over it.
I may already need a new air filter.
I also figured out what is wrong with the trimmer, which I haven't used all year. The fuel lines are all rotten and busted. I ordered some parts (nobody has them in stock), so, I hope to get that up and running before the end of the season.
I have just been on a small gas engine streak today. I smell like one, too. Don't light a match near me today!
Anyway, fast moving blade made of metal vs. hard metal water meter, buried in the ground and linked into a city's worth of pipes large and small =water meter wins. My lawn mower's blade made a heinous noise and immediately stopped spinning at all. I had bent the blade on one side into almost a ninety degree angle.
Not a problem, since I went to the hardware store this morning and bought a replacement blade (and an air filter and some oil and a spark plug--I figured, you know, while I was taking the thing apart, I might as well tune it up). But I learned some things--as always, the hard way. First, always put WD-40 on rusted bolts first. It saves a lot of trouble pushing and pulling on a wrench, determining that the bolt is rusted in, and you need to apply WD-40 (which helps to remove the bolt like magic if you let it sit long enough). Second (and most important), do not tilt the lawn mower to either side. Tilt it back, leaving the spark plug (which you did disconnect or remove right?) facing up. Otherwise, oil and/or gas leaks out and runs all over everything. Luckily, I put a drop cloth on the garage floor, saving me a great deal of cleaning up and being mad at myself for getting oil all over the garage floor. However, the oil that gets everywhere, gets everywhere, and when you are finished putting on a new blade and putting in a new spark plug and installing a new air filter and putting in fresh oil, the mower shudders to a start, runs rough for a while, belches blue smoke all over the place, and vomits a streak of old oil out of the muffler. It's painful to watch, but, the mower gets over it.
I may already need a new air filter.
I also figured out what is wrong with the trimmer, which I haven't used all year. The fuel lines are all rotten and busted. I ordered some parts (nobody has them in stock), so, I hope to get that up and running before the end of the season.
I have just been on a small gas engine streak today. I smell like one, too. Don't light a match near me today!
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