Dusting

This morning at breakfast my son, ever honest, told me that our house was dusty and I needed to clean it. I promptly replied with "Maybe you should dust it," as is my reply to anyone who tries to give me more work. He thought that was a great idea. So after he finished his breakfast and got dressed I got him a dry rag to dust with. He started at the bookshelf, dusting only the shelf at his eye level. Remarking that he was giving us a "nice clean house." His sister quickly came over to investigate what her brother was doing with a "Kaleb, what are you doing?" in Laina. He told her how he was dusting and she then wanted to dust too. I said she was too little, that dusting is for big kids. I figure I'll try the same logic as toothbrushing, make them beg to do it and then when I agree make them think it is a special treat. Pretty soon I figure I won't have to desire someone to come in and clean for me, as I will have two children chomping at the bit to do housework. Although, I will have to do a little teaching about dusting more than just those things at your eye level.

The Klompen Classic

We finished! Well, I did anyway. My running boy did a very good job. I think he was probably the youngest one running and he ran for about a block short of two miles. After the first mile and a half he said he needed to walk, but then as soon as someone ran past us--two seconds later--he would start running again because he needed to be the fastest. Here is a picture taken by Daddy from the spot where running boy left the race. I continued on to the finish, making it in about 38 minutes. Not bad, but not my best either. Next year I'll try harder to be faster.

I have found a cleaning product that has cut my dusting time in half or more. The Pledge duster works great. It has the speed of a feather duster, but the cleaning power of the spray and rag I used to use. It comes with multi-surface cleaner, but I just sprayed a little of my Pledge on the duster and went to work. So fast, so easy. A recommended product.

Yesterday I took advantage of the sunshine to plant the garden. I planted two red pepper plants, one beefsteak tomato plant, and one yellow tomato plant. Never had yellow tomatoes before, so I thought I'd try them. I'll let you know how they are. I also planted peaches and cream sweet corn and some zucchini. I wondered to myself as I was doing all this, "why do I like gardening? It is so much work." As an illustration of this, I went out to check on things today and some weeds I hoed up yesterday are already back. Good thing I really like to watch my vegetables grow. Our strawberry plants are doing excellently as well. I think we could have a good crop of those this year.

I also picked some rhubarb. Some is a little bit of an understatement as I got more than 26 cups from the amount that I picked and I could still pick some from those two plants. We still have two or three more out there that I haven't touched, but I needed a break after chopping for an hour and half on what I picked. Needless to say, if anyone wants some rhubarb let me know.