Same old, same old.

Still living with minimal spending.

Today, though, will be a treat. After my morning census meeting (God, i hate them, they drag on for over an hour while you sit there waiting for them to review your completed surveys....), my friend and neighbor is taking me out to lunch at a favorite Italian restaurant in town.

It's the 2nd lunch and "thank you" for my help in clearing out her garage, which is still far from done. I think I've been there 5 times now, usually 2 or 3 hours at a time, hauling books to donate to the library (probably about 12 boxes), loading and then unloading trash at the landfill, and lots of heavy lifting since she's way out of shape.

I don't mind it too much, though this weather sucks. Strangely, I do get a great deal of satisfaction out of decluttering, even if it's someone else's stuff!. (Perhaps a new career direction for me?)

In garden news, I smelled a bad smell in an area of my yard north of the house. I've smelled that smell before...dead animal smell. It didn't take long for me to discover one big, and yes, quite dead, woodchuck, probably 8 feet from one of the three woodchuck burrows on my property.

It was gross. Flies were buzzing around it. I couldn't tell how it died becus i didn't really want to examine it closely. But I'm wondering, since I saw that coyote puppy in the same area just a week ago, if coyotes and the woodchuck crossed paths.

The thing stinks. I don't even feel like going near it to toss dirt on it. Gross.

Part of me feels a little sorry for its short-lived life, but another part of me is glad becus that darn woodchuck kept munching my black-eyed susies, my astilbes and my autumn joy sedums, which I'd planted becus they were impervious to deer.

So...I'm hoping that's the only area woodchuck and that I could even be woodchuck-free for the rest of this season. Could I be so lucky?

I'm wrapping up my 10th week of Census work. I'm maybe averaging 4 hours a day, but with the mileage reimbursement, it does add up so that I gross about $100 or so a day. But I'm with my fourth crew now and these 2 crew leaders really take forever. The Census meetings occur daily, and you're forced to sit through an inquisition-like process where they study each survey you're handing in and question you closely, sometimes handing it back to you for further investigating if they don't think it will pass muster with higher-ups. It gets very, very frustrating. Why should it take over an hour for them to review 4 surveys?

With this crazy heat and frequent thunderstorms, it's been tougher finding time to go out. I typically don't head out until about 4 p.m. or even 5 pm becus i know i'll catch more people home. But if it's hot, i don't feel like going out at all.