Michelle,

I had the kitchen somewhat updated when I moved into this house, and put new counter-tops on the existing cabinets. The carpenter put in the sink (they cut the hole in the counter-top with a template that came in the box) but unfortunately, a carpenter also hooked up the plumbing. It was the oddest Rube Goldberg collection of bends and twists to get from the drain to the outlet, and it leaked onto the MDF flooring of that cabinet. It rotted out. I had a plumber come fix the sink (he looked at it, looked at me, I said "a carpenter put it in," a knowing look came over his face, and he took out half of the kinks and straightened the whole thing out.)

That was in about 2004. I had to pull out the bits of moldy, rotted board, but I wasn't going to store anything in there until I had the bottom of the cupboard fixed. It happened that an English professor friend came through town on his way from Arizona to Virginia. He is also a halfway decent carpenter, and he measured and cut a new piece that we dropped into place. The next year when he came by he helped put up a big mirror in the bathroom. He hasn't been by for a while--maybe he's afraid I'll have him replace a roof or something next time! :)

Meanwhile, in the present day, laundry is in, bread is rising, and the 89 cent bunch of onion sets are in place in the ground now. I figure I'll get at least 89 cents worth of onions out of them. I ran the soaker hose around the area and have run it for a while, but I really should set up a sprinkler to give it a good drenching. It's very dry now, fires in the region. I can smell the smoke when I walk outside, it's a complex smell, a mix of trees and grass. Straight grass fires smell a lot different than forest fires.

SRS