A Day In the Life

So your wondering what a former trader turned maple syrup magnate and versatile blogger does on his 34th birthday?  Well, today, I woke up around 7:45, checked my email, read the morning's stories and banged out a post about Greece's latest Ponzi attempts.

I went for a run while Mrs. Dynamite went to grab some supplies so she could make me superstar waffles with strawberries, bananas and cool hwhip.  Then, I showered up and went to the dump, which is about a 45 minute round trip.  After I was done taking all of our regular trash and recycling, we strapped our old hot tub cover to the top of the car, and I made another trip to the dump, and then continued on to Concord for grocery shopping.

When I got back from grocery shopping, me and Mrs. D planted some grass seed in some sparse areas around the house, and then I caught up on several old episodes of the WSOP Europe Main Event that I had on my DVR.

Mrs. Dynamite made me special cookies with butterscotch chips and peanut butter chips, and then made my favorite dinner: roasted veggie meatloaf with balsamic glaze.  Don't worry - there's still plenty of meat in that meatloaf (1lb each of veal, pork and beef)  - it just gets its name from the plethora of diced veggies that are also incorporated.

That's pretty much it.  Exciting - I know.

I did bask all day in the post-mechanical glow that came from getting my John Deere STX38 garden tractor running yesterday.  The people we bought the house from last year left it for us, and my uncle, a handyman ninja, helped me jump start this thing last fall.  When I tried to actually mow with it, it stalled out, and I pushed it back to the barn for the winter (after loading the tank with fuel-stabilizer gas, and re-jumping it to run the stabilizer through everything).  I've spent the last few months stressing about how I'm going to get it running, since I lack those types of skills,  but all it needed was a new battery and voila - country mowing power. 

Our property is roughly 1/3rd lawn, 1/3rd longer growth field, and 1/3rd woods.  I immediately assaulted the field, mowing the crap out of it while howling like a banshee.

I also planted three fruit trees yesterday in my "orchard" which previously consisted of a dozen very old, very poorly manicured apple trees that are pretty vertical.  My sister-in-law and mother-in-law surprised me Saturday afternoon by showing up unannounced with two apple trees as a gift for my birthday.  I added a peach tree that I bought on Sunday at Lowes, and exercised my inner Johnny Appleseed, planting them on Sunday afternoon.

Next up this week is transplanting my cucumber, eggplant, brussel sprout and Anaheim pepper seedlings to slightly larger pots, before they go outside in about 6 weeks.

I have discovered a new enemy which might be even scarier than the wasps - poison ivy...

This is my life...

-KD