Saw and Sage
3:54 p.m. - 2012-08-14


Today I was out in the backyard looking at one of my sage plants. Here in California they don't die off in the winter so they grow very large. This particular plant looked horrible with big dead sections that were bare with quite large twigs and branches and weeds growing up through the plant. I'd been meaning to prune it but it was prickly and just a big mess, so I kept putting it off. Recently I bought myself a new pruning shears, so today I tackled the job. Holy cow, some of the branches of this herb were so thick and hard that the shears wouldn't even dent them. I went and got one of the spouse's pruning saws and then it hit me, I'd forgotten to pick up his other saw.

There is actually a place in town called Something-or-Other-Carbide that sharpens saws for a fee. Every once in awhile the spouse will ask me to take a saw into the shop for sharpening, but this time I forgot to pick it up when it was ready last week. The poor saw would have languished there forever if I hadn't suddenly had the urge to trim the sage plant. I know the spouse would never have remembered the saw.

After that errand, I went to the newly relocated thrift store in Nut Creek and found a few items. First thing to catch my eye was a Reagan calendar for 2013 for only a quarter. I also got a new hardbound copy of The Dinner Doctor, and a cool book holder that holds your book up at an angle. This, which looks like an infomercial item, is brand new in the box, and it will be excellent for holding my knitting or crochet instructions up for view while I am working. I think it would be annoying for regular reading, since turning the pages is quite a production, but for holding instructions it will be excellent.

I am working away on the African Flower afghan using my nerdy organizational chart to tell me how many motifs I have made, what colors I have combined with what other colors, and how many of each color there are. The goal is to make as many one-of-a-kind motifs as possible before I run out of options and have to start repeating them.

It's been too beastly hot here this week to do much else but sit around and crochet. Sometimes I will go out and do some yard chore in the early morning, but Oscar will charge out of his house and bark up a storm, waking up the entire neighborhood, so that, while it doesn't stop me, makes the chore unpleasant. I wonder if dogs can get laryngitis? Because that would be terrific, and karmic too.