7:30 am.  Got up, got out of bed, dragged a comb across my head….

Breakfast first and then we got to work.  Started by packing up the hill the new solar panels and all the bedding and mattresses used to ‘comfort them’ while they were in storage. Then took the bedding stuff over to a neighbour who needs extra comforting due to a giant family visit.

The nature of giant family visits means that any and all such comforting will be in short supply.

Jumped in my newly ‘lame’ boat to go pick up other neighbours needing a ride to their property with their supplies.  Mine was lame due to the need for a haul-out to get my bottom scrubbed (yeah, I know how that sounds).  And so, after dropping them off, I took the boat into the shallows and put it over two embedded horizontal struts on which it could settle when the tide went out.  While the tide slowly receded, I stood waist deep, cleaning what I could and keeping it positioned.  Half an hour, maybe forty minutes.  Boat settled nicely.  I was shivering a bit.

Went back home to get dry and then re-position big ol’ heavy electrical cables from one side of the property to the other – that required dismantling some under-the-house connections – for the new solar array. Doesn’t sound like a lot of work but it was and it required Sal and Brian, too.

Later…back to the boat with Sal and the ‘kids’ to clean the bottom and paint it.  Lying in the mud, scraping and painting, everyone was a mess.  But the boat looked good.  Three or so hours later we went back home to get clean, make dinner and start back on reviewing the book…..which, by the way, is NOT going well.

And then, a few hours later after dinner, Sal went to get the now-floating boat and took it back to the dock.

It was 9:30 pm. “Geez, Dave, what do you DO all day?”

“I dunno……stuff….you know…..chores……”

The real answer is that our chores are NOT like city-oriented chores.  Ours require climbing steep slopes dragging heavy equipment, carrying and using tools and standing in the water cleaning the boat (instead of getting it hauled out by a machine and then using a pressure washer) and on and on it goes.  Chores out here are ‘jobs’, really.  Not just chores.  Usually a bit bigger than tasks.  They are jobs.

‘Cept for the book.  That is just a pastime, really.  No heavy lifting.  No slopes.  But – here’s the message – the book is killing me.  Seems reading aloud is an extremely effective editing technique.  Doing that exercise makes me hate what I have written so far.  There is some interesting stuff there but it is covered in word-mud.  I have written a heavy stew and half of the ingredients are off. The whole thing stinks.  No wonder writers are reputed to drink heavily.

I am trying to wire in a new solar array with all sorts of complications…but I’ll get there.  I am needing to build more outbuildings and just don’t have the time….but I’ll get there.  I have some huge jobs, a gazillion tasks and too-many-to-count chores to do before winter ….but, I’ll get there.  But I may not get that book done.  It seems to get worse instead of better…I just may not get there.

Writing is easy.  Good writing is hard.  Great writing is impossible.