The big question

Dad worked last night and so he was sleeping all day.  On days when he sleeps he gets up and always asks, "What happened exciting here today?"  Normally, nothing exciting happens exciting.  Today however we had two things to report.

The first was that some vermin ate all but one and half of our sunflowers.  Spark and I planted those sunflowers in April.  It took forever for them to come up, so long in fact that I thought they weren't.  Finally a few popped their heads out of the ground when we were expecting snow and frost.  So that they wouldn't freeze, I went out there and put flower pots over the tops of them.  They did survive the frost.  A couple weeks ago, which would be about six weeks after we planted them, more of them started to sprout and we had a pretty good crop going.  I have been diligent about weeding and watering them so they were doing really, really well.  But last night while we were sleeping, I don't know if it was while we were sleeping but it does sound more dramatic, something slinked into the garden and ate them right off at ground level.   Perhaps I will put the live trap out there and see if I can find out what ate them.  Sunflower seeds might be the right bait to catch whatever it was.

Secondly, the clothes washer broke.  For the last few years it hasn't filled by itself.  I have to fill it with a hose and then when it is ready to rinse we have to listen for the cycle and run down and put water in it.  Today, on only my third load, there is a lot more down there to be done, it quit spinning.  I had to dig all the dripping clothes out, put some of them in the bin and haul them outside to hang up.  They were so  heavy it took three trips to get them all out.  I wrung them out as best I could before hanging them on the line and with the low humidity and wind of today they dried amazingly fast.   When I told Dad he says, "Is the washer broke?"  Not finding that humorous, I was a little snippy when I said, "Well, if you call filling it with wash water with a hose and just having it drain out, then filling it with the hose with rinse water, swishing the clothes around with my arms in the water up to my elbows, having it drain out again  and wringing each any every piece out before hanging them up not broke, then no it's fine."   And what did he say?  He laughed!  It reminded me little of when I was little and I would watch my mom wash clothes with the wringer washer.  Actually, today I wished I had that wringer part.  I don't know if we will get a new one or just go to the laundry mat.  It might be just as easy to go in, fill all the washers at once and get it done in the time it takes for one load.  Our town has a laundry mat so I wouldn't have to drive too far.  The only time it would be really inconvenient is when someone says they need something clean by tomorrow and I wouldn't have anyway to get it done.  The winter wouldn't be too fun either.  Hmmm, maybe we should just get a new one.

Tomorrow we have something really exiting to post but I will wait until then to talk about it.