Author: Dave Shevett

As is common on one of those ‘weekends in Cohousing‘, there’s rarely a lot of ‘sitting around, relaxing, and being bored.’ Yesterday started out fairly domestic, with a Metric Buttload of mowing. The grass and weed around here are growing like… well… like weeds. High humidity, warm temperatures, and a lot of rain will certainly do that. Right now we’re at the “need to mow every 2 weeks” stage. Thank goodness for electric pushmowers and simple garden tractors.
Cat and I got about half the property mowed – with me planning on attacking the field today (though the weather looks like it might not cooperate). Right now I’m wishing for a decent battery powered mower. One of my fellow cohousers managed to cut through the power cord already. A simple repair, but managing the cord is certainly tedious.
But we’re not through yet! Under the backdrop of Zach being sick (he’s been running a low grade fever for 3-4 days – we’re taking him to the doctor this morning), Beth and Tim convinced me to go on a bikeride.
Now, I have NOT been keeping up with my riding this summer. Small jaunts on the Giant bike around the site and up the road a bit, but almost no long distance rides on the Haluzak ‘bent. My brother in law had done a full tuneup on it recently, so it was ready to go, I just hadn’t taken the time to get out there. The other factor was I wanted to test a route to work – with the goal of occasionally bikeriding into work. Google Maps gave a decent route that totalled 14 miles each way. Workable.
So we rode it.
In retrospect, it might have been a bad idea to attempt a 40+ mile ride on the first day out. I ended up NOT making the entire ride – clocking out at 22 miles, and asking for a rescue from Cat. She and Steph and all the kids met the 3 bikers at Kimball Farm for ice cream and dinner, and I opted to ride back home in the car rather than bike it. I was wiped out.
Still, I’m pretty happy with doing 22 miles without completely disintegrating. The route was fantastic, with only 2 Killah hills (one of which I hiked up). The jaunt from my office to Kimball Farm is very simple (about 3 miles), though was probably the ugliest of the ride (riding along Littleton Road is not particularly fun, but it was the shortest of the legs).
Particular thanks to Beth for motivating me to get off my duff and hit the road. Both she and Tim were really supportive when I was flagging. I drank gallons of water, ate some tasty ice cream at Kimballs, and slept like the dead last night.
Oh, the title? Well, Kimballs was PACKED. But they had a lot of activities going on as well. As soon as Zach and I sat down while folks were getting food, I glanced over, and LO, this woman had a ringtailed lemur on her shoulder! She was part of an animal show going on, and was very friendly, but it was certainly not what I expected to see. In addition, there was a balloon set up in the next field over giving rides. Not a hot air type – the gas bag is sealed, and it was well tethered to the ground – it certainly had a steampunk look. It was quite surreal seeing it appearing over the tree line during dinner.
All in all, quite a day. Today we have a doctors appointment, and if the weather holds out, I’ll haul the tractor out into the playing field to get that cut.

Generally I don’t post “my life” sorts of things on the blog, but it’s been quiet lately, so might as well chatter a moment.
Today was supposed to be part of a quiet weekend. Zach and Cat are up in Maine, and I have the house to myself. I figured I’d do a couple small projects, some gaming, some normal Cohousing socializing, and generally take it easy.
Today I:
* Dug a pair of holes where we’ll be putting up poles for clotheslines. I had some help, but boy digging through our rocky ‘soil’ ain’t easy. And the job isn’t done yet.
* Hauled out the weedwhacker and cleared grass from all around the hottub.
* Drove the pickup truck to the town transfer station to get a bedful of wood chips for the walkway to the hottub. Laid down cardboard and spread the chips out for the walk (thanks John and Kim for help!)
* Drove same said truck to Malden to buy and haul back a new couch for the common house living room (Thanks Kim and Stephanie for help!)
* Stopped by Arisia storage to dig out one of my badge printers so I can run badges for a convention I’m providing reg services for.
* Helped unload 3 truckloads of hay bales Beezy got for various horticultural projects around the community.
* Had a tasty dinner with John and Judy across the way (thanks guys!)
* Tested out the hottub to make sure it didn’t have sharks in it. (it didn’t). Ahhhh.
* Took a shower and now I’m relaxing.
Yikes. If this is a relaxing day, I’m worried what a busy day will be like.
I have to comment on the above picture. I grew up on a horse farm, and in horse and cow country. Driving, loading, and unloading truckloads of haybales were a fairly regular occurance. I certainly had some flash backs here, particularly since the truck in use there (not Mosaic’s truck, a different one), is probably circa 1978. Got to drive it a bit too. Was an automatic, but boy it had all the fixens of the old country, that’s for sure.