This morning was a morning of efficient town trip. I ordered some mushroom spawn (shittake) and need some logs to inoculate with the spawn when it arrives. The three old apple trees near the driveway need to go away – they take so long to prune and only one produces decent apples. When we moved in they were old and had reached about 8 feet over the power line and I had pruned them back to 5 feet or so under the wires, but they were a lot of work to keep there and produced lousy apples. The other two just make windfalls that have to be constantly picked up. So, they’ll be cut down and used for multiple purposes – spawn logs and goat browse. One of them will be grafted onto new rootstock for a new tree.

So, I wanted to make sure my chain saw blades were sharp and one was dull and the other was quickly dulled by cutting up the remains of a big walnut that blew down in a big windstorm years ago. I cut until the blades were dull. It was one of those things that is “on the list” it doesn’t necessarily take that much time, it’s just that so many things are on the list! So we got all but the biggest log sawed up.

Then we took the truck and dropped off the load of scrap metal, dropped off the chains, stopped by Big Lots going out of business sale and by a stroke of luck, bought a split queen box spring as our box spring will not fit up the stairs to the attic after the remodeling is finished. Then off to the lumberyard for more cedar for another raised bed.

We had our first appointment regarding Emma’s orthodintia and one of the options was to saw her jaw, move it forward and re-attach it. That didn’t sound like a great idea, even if it would immediately “fix” her mouth. Since there is not a health reason, just a cosmetic reason, we all agreed it was a bit excessive. Emma was very relieved. So I took her to the ISU women’s NIT game and watched them lose in OT to Marquette – but it was a hard-fought, exciting game.