Cleaning, etc.

The weather is perfect and here I am spending part of my days inside cleaning. After my backpack trip I needed to clean stuff before putting it away.

Because the tent had smelled musty at the beginning of the trip I decided to wash it completely inside and out after airing it out a few days. Last night we had an unpredicted rain. I had the tent completely washed except the bottom of the tent. I already had washed the rain fly and put it away. Therefore the inside of the tent had no protection from the rain. I ran out in the darkness and moved the tent to under the patio roof. Good thing this tent is the type that holds the A frame shape with0ut having to stake it into the ground. After drying it this morning I washed the remainder of the tent and put it away.

Yesterday I washed my sleeping bag in the bathtub as I didn't have the non-agitator type of wash machine recommended to use. Today I washed another sleeping bag I have. I think I got this bag with a bunch of miscellaneous stuff at the Creston Auction this past Spring. The bag looks new and appears to have no need of a washing, but I washed it anyway - again in the bathtub. My hands feel dry tonight. Wonder why?

This makes five sleeping bags I own. I have my original sleeping bag used on all my bicycle tours. I have the lighter bag used for many backpack trips. This "Creston Auction" bag. And two more bags I got as a package deal when I had bought a dome tent back when I camped with my former girlfriend Tammy.

I also washed clothes.

I went through my backpack stuff and washed and re-packed it for my next backpacking trip.

Since I was in the basement I vacuumed the carpet and rearranged some boxes as I found a few ants roaming around. This year has been bad for having ants in the house. The ants must be doing well due to the dry weather.

I trapped another five pocket gophers today. Fat gophers. What are they feasting on that they are so fat?! The grass is dead. It looks like a pocket gopher has moved into the loading corral. Not only are they fat, they are roaming around. I'll see if I got him tomorrow.

The garden looks good - now if the frost will hold off until most items can ripen.

I've been watering the garden and the fruit trees and berry bushes. A little each evening. It is so dry it takes forever to water stuff. My thornless blackberry bush has a number of red (unripe) berries on it. The berries are late this year, but that may be good as hopefully the birds that eat them are gone and I can actually eat them myself for once.

The yellowjackets seem to be fewer, else they have eaten so many apples most aren't interested in eating any more.

I limbed the smaller of the two trees that had blown over and broken off in the middle pasture during last month's windstorm.

And I baked an apple pie today. I need to do something with all my apples other than chowing down on them all the time. If I get some ambition and find some jars I may make apple sauce and apple butter.