But Does He Do Windows?

The answer is yes he does!  I spent a good portion of the weekend cleaning windows.  Now I'd like to say that this was part of my semi-annual maintenance, but truth be told, we have not done a thorough cleaning of the windows since we bought the place two and a half years ago (and I can't begin to tell you when they were cleaned before that).  I never really realized how dirty they were until I cleaned one, and then I had to clean the rest.  I also didn't realize how many windows there are on our house between the regular panes and the storm windows until I started this very tedious job.  My thought half-way through was thank God we have a one-story house.  Although the job is in no way glamorous, I cannot describe the feeling of going inside and looking out through sparkling, clean windows.  It was very satisfying to see the world in full color instead of through the whitish-gray haze that was there before.  Of course, someone had to put a finger print on one of my freshly cleaned windows within hours of me cleaning it.  Ross assures me he did not do it.

This was just a precursor to the interior cleaning that we will be doing this coming week.  We are having family visit next weekend.  As such the whole house will be getting  a good going-over.  My mother accused us once of keeping our house too clean, and referred to us a Felix and Super-Felix (me being Super-Felix).  I took it as a compliment.  One of my fondest memories of meeting Ross' family was the first time I met his grandmother, affectionately referred to as Sito.  She came to our place for Thanksgiving, and her first remark after greeting everyone was to compliment us on how clean our home was.  Personally, I think our house could be cleaner, but that's just my obsessive compulsive disorder talking.

It has been a banner year for our tomatoes.  Ross was able to can another batch of his tomato sauce this weekend.  I love his tomato sauce.  For Friday supper, he made homemade spaghetti in his sauce with garlic bread (he made the bread himself and the garlic was from our garden); I am so spoiled.  With all the tomatoes this year, he has canned three batches of sauce, two batches of tomato soup, a batch of salsa, and two batches of tomato ketchup.  We will be eating well this winter!

Of course with me washing windows, Ross was on chicken patrol.  Blackie, our Black Australorps, had a tough Saturday.  Every so often chickens can lay soft-shelled eggs; the shell is there but it is not rigid or hard.  Blackie for some reason does this pretty much once a month, but instead of one egg she usually lays two in quick succession.  This was the case on Saturday.  It was later in the day, and Ross noticed that she was all puffed up and was looking like she was going to lay.  He got the other girls to go to their run so he could baby sit Blackie while she passed her eggs.  I was out front with them cleaning windows at the time.  To my great dismay, I heard a pack of coyotes in the distance howling while Ross was herding the rest of the girls to the back.  Coyotes are common place here, but hearing a group of them howling in the distance during daylight hours is not.  I said a little prayer that out little Australorps would get her eggs out before our property was overrun with hungry mongrels stumbling upon a chicken dinner.  She did get her eggs out, and we were not overrun by coyotes.  Of course, had we been, we would have been able to see them clearly through those freshly cleaned windows!