A Sense of Accomplishment

Today has been one of those days that began with high hopes of getting  several things on my to-do list done.  I  got two of them done, and it exhausted me. I managed to get three loads of laundry  washed and dried and one load folded and put away.  The other two loads   still sit in the baskets reproaching me.

 The job that  took the most time was   our poor little water feature.  The water feature consists of a  big plastic  flower pot  with a fountain pump that sits atop an inverted clay pot. There are a couple of large rocks and a fake frog to anchor the fountain pump. Here's a pic of it  taken in May when it was all clean and spiffy.

Before I got my port and began chemotherapy in late  May I   kept it cleaned out regularly- or at least I cleaned it when it wasn't serving as a frog nursery.  However, thanks to the fatigue that  hits me frequently and the   miserable heat and humidity we've been having  the garden and everything on the deck  have suffered  neglect.  The water feature has been getting nastier and nastier as algae and  who knows what   have formed a thick, slimy black coating on the  container, the  fountain parts, the rocks.  Today I decided it was time to declare war on the yucky black stuff. Mr. G had a meeting, so  I got him to  dump all the water out and   unhook the pump before he left.  I  put on my   long rubber  gloves and began to blast away at  the  container with a jet from the garden hose. Nothing.  I  didn't want to use any  chemicals  to kill the algae because of the frogs visiting it regularly, so  I  began to scrub with  the scrubby side of a sponge. Nothing. Finally I  went in search of a brush of some sort.  The best I could come up with was a little nail brush.  By golly it worked, but it was taking absolutely forever and I kept running out of steam in the heat, so would take frequent breaks, then move  everything  to a shady spot and  continue working. This has become my primary mode of operating lately- work a while, rest a while, repeat.  It takes longer to get anything done, but it does get done, eventually.  I finally got  the container and the rocks scrubbed clean and picked up the pump to remove the fountain.  I was immediately covered in ants! While I had been scrubbing away the ants had been moving into the filter on the pump. There must have been lebenty kazillion of  those nasty little things. I was finally able to  get the pump taken apart, get rid of the ants, clean up the fountain parts and  refill the  water feature just before the rains moved in  this evening. The fountain is  now happily gurgling away on the deck, looking once more   clean and spiffy.  I feel a sense of accomplishment.

The fountain creates so much foam it looks as though the froggie is  having a bubble bath.  Notice the Terro ant bait thingy  at the side of the water feature. 

I wish  I felt the same sense of accomplishment   about the dinner I cooked tonight.  In an effort at variety I decided to try a recipe from an old cookbook for pineapple  burgers with a spicy sauce, served with  buttered noodles and  frenched green beans. Mr. G. was not impressed.  I told him it was a recipe from the  1960s.  He said it should have stayed back in the  sixties. Oh, well, you can't win them all. I have discovered a  great way to  french cut green beans, though- in the food processor! Works like a charm.  You can see how it works on the Clever Carrot Blog.