Carrot Tops

Maya looking out the dog door....

vanity, vanity...

Carrot tops....

...the last layer of stucco, stuck!...success!

There isn't a single square foot of the old House that doesn't require something...I made a hinged drop door ramp for a dog door door, and Maya was slipping on it, so I found at Home Depot some turf to put on the board, I used rounded headed screws, but Maya chewed it all off, so I put another piece down today with waterproof wood glue, and she's started to chew it off too, but maybe by tomorrow the glue will set and it'll stay...that was one dog door frustration...the other was I wanted to use eye hook clip things to keep it up and shut sometimes, and I've done that, but they only just hold, as the wood they're screwed into around the dog door is old and rotten, subterranean termites I suspect, which seemed to have left due to the dryness...Maya is sure to pull the hooks out..new ones today have the locking clips...the ones without didn't deter, though I'm pleased at her clever persistence...my folks had a handyman enclose the back porch and make a small room...it's nice, but musty because of the old wood...I sleep out there with Maya most of the night, and she's learned to go out the dog door for poo and pee, so I don't have to walk her...my tenant gets up before dawn, and so she can water her garden and such, I trundle back to my room, the den, put Maya in the carrier, and back to sleep until sunup, sometimes past sunup...and then feed Maya and get myself going...a routine...but the whole porch needs to torn out for the most part, a realization from just trying to get the dog door to work...overcast, some clouds, cool...a good evening for the final stucco coat, and with much trepidation, went about it...got a good tip on youtube how to mix the cement in my wheelbarrow...use a hoe, one with holes best, and pile the cement in one end of the barrow, add water, and hoe it bit by bit...my own innovation was to get it too soupy, and then add dry cement until the right consistency...a bit like doing bread dough...I made pizza pie blanks for awhile!...when I thought I had the right mix, I put some on the trowel, and trowled it on the wall, and it stayed on pretty much like in the youtube clips!...and I quickly covered the whole patch...and feel very lucky the stucco is on there...I've even got it pretty level with the rest of the wall...keeping it wet now all night and tomorrow...meanwhile, this morning I spied in the garden experiment plot, carrot tops, so not a fail, not very many, but, carrot success too!