And then there are the orbs......

About the spirits in this house - people are always asking me if there are ghosts or spirits here, because of the age of the house. Statistically, if your house is more than thirty four years old, someone has died in it. So, since ours is hundreds of years old, and has sheltered dozens of families, it stands to reason that people have passed on here. We know definitely that babies were born here (although none of ours).

After Charles died, many many small electrical events were laid at his feet - light bulbs which blew over and over, the barn light suddenly coming on when no one was in the barn, etc. Once, Girlfriend Lynda and I were on the porch talking about him and the porch light over her head flashed on and off several times.

Years ago, a friend's mother said something "touched her' on the shoulder while she was looking out the window. She said it was a very 'real' experience, and she was alone in the house when it happened.

Often, items that are hanging from the ceiling in the kitchen are found on the counter in the morning. It's a nine and a half foot ceiling - I'm five feet. Even if I was sleepwalking, I couldn't get up there without a ladder, and since I don't put things away when I am awake, I am sure if I was asleep when I used it, that ladder would be left out in the morning. So I am saying, it's not me.

I once found my eldest grandson, then about four, sitting on the steps talking to the air. I said, who are you talking to, baby? He looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "the people in the bubbles" and pointed randomly in the air. That's sort of cute, right? Until you have virtually the same conversation with his little brother, six years later.

Anyway, one day this summer some ghostbusters just stopped by and asked about 'activity' in the house. They specifically asked about orbs. I got orbs. Oh yes.

These orbs show up every time I take photos. WIth any camera. They show up in pictures taken with my camera, in friend's cameras and movie cameras and video cameras. They show up in pictures in the barn, in the dining room, in the living room and the kitchen. For instance, the two photos above were taken seconds apart with the same camera, from a focal point only inches apart. There's that orb again - and if you look closely you can see a stylized sort of 'eye' in it.

Even with this going on, I have never felt scary here, whatever is here is fine with me and we get along. I have offered a tactical truce about behavior though - I just asked loudly that if things are to be moved, I just don't want to SEE them. Or I will get the priest. Anyone else with an old house have these experiences?

Like I was saying, about the daily weirdness...

This is Old Jack Russell, the one with the brain damage. He stuck his head in a popcorn bag that was left on the sofa and just walked around with it on his head for ten minutes. He wasn't hysterical, he wasn't afraid, he was just....wearing a popcorn bag.

Deer In The Headlights

Every morning I wake up, do some mental sorting out - usually along the lines of remembering that I am alone now in the house, thinking of things I have to do like grocery shop and work related duties.  Before I could not do this because the minute my eyes would fly open, my dogs would be awake and to prevent having to clean up accidents, I would have jump into some clothes of any description, find shoes, tear down the stairs, snap leashes on their necks and then open the door barely in time to keep Ms Manchester from piddling on the floor in the hallway.  About a year ago I started putting all three dogs into crates at night, not sharing my bed with them, and we have ALL been sleeping better.  I have time to get properly (if you count striped pj bottoms and a sweatshirt) dressed, control the stampede down the stairs and there have been LOTS fewer accidents.  

This morning was no different - a little sniffling about the alone situation, happy dogs excited about another day here in heaven, and out the door to greet the day.   It's been raining for days but this morning the grass was lush and green, the sky was bright and all and all, it was a good way to wake up.

Because of the construction, we (me and the dog-tourage) go out the front door - Big American Bull Dog on a pink leash, Little Manchester on a Blue Leash, Old Jack Russell NOT on a leash.  The control of the dogs on the leashes is a fanciful ballet of high kicks and slipped discs.  OJR can not be on a leash because of his terrible accident as a puppy when he was kicked by one of the horses and survived a head injury which left him with short term memory loss and small seizures.  Don't feel bad for him - he wakes up every day in this Dog Heaven and says to himself HEY WE HAVE A BARN!  and it's all gravy from there.  But he can not wear a leash because even if we put the thinnest gossamer thread of a leash on him, the minute we attach it to his collar he falls over.  We don't know why, but it's not funny any more so we just try to keep track of him.  The other two - well, they have bad habits which involve chasing livestock or attacking animals larger than themselves and need the control til  they get to the fenced dog play yard.

As I have said, this morning we leave the front door without incident (by the time you get to the bottom of this post you will be wondering WHY at that very minute I did not KNOW something was WRONG - having Three Very Active Noses working)  and head to the dog play yard.  The goats are in their adjacent play yard, and there is some fence jousting and threats and intimidation on both sides but it never goes anywhere.  Big Yellow Horse and Big Brown Horse give a glance and head for the pasture.  Eldest Grandson catches the bus before I usually get out and he lets the chickens out (again, you are going to wonder why HE didn't alert us).  The Ugly White Rooster is on top of the chicken house crowing.  An idyllic morning.  Picture Perfect.  Quiet.  

Daughter-In-Law comes out on the lawn with Youngest Grandson ready for the bus.  He does his chicken count, DIL and I exchange bleary good mornings and lean over the fence watching the dogs and the goats and the horses and the chickens, and in general, accessing the very good life that God has given us.  Once Jeremy is on the bus, we go back in THE FRONT (again, completely clueless as to what is around us) DOOR and sit on the sofa and start to wonder why the traffic is going past the house sooooo sllllooowwwly.

In fact, I remark on it. "Look, that car is going past the house realllllly sloooowly."

DIL says, "Of course it is.  Our house looks like crazy people live here - with all the construction, with the bucket truck stuck in the porch like a permanent fixture,  I am sure there are people for whom a highlight of any given weekday morning is checking out the latest crazy crap that is going on here blah blah blah.... " My attention is momentarily diverted to the TV where they have just announced that the average woman eats 450 extra calories between Friday evening and Sunday night.  450?  That's like ten calories an hour.  Big deal.  

I am pulled back into conversation with DIL when she says something about having to pick up a trumpet for Youngest Grandson.  I say I thought he played the violin.  She says NOW he wants to play the trumpet so she has to go to Reading to pick this trumpet up and she wants to know if I can go with her because she doesn't know where she is going.  

I say, use your GPS.  She says, well, somehow a penny got down the cigarette lighter thingie and shorted it out and she can't plug the GPS I gave her for her birthday in.

I said, I thought MY SON YOUR HUSBAND fixed that.  She says, He did.  But it happened again.  Sigh.  

I have a business appointment at 11am so I can't go to Reading to pick up a trumpet, but I suggest that she go to my car (parked next to the front door because it was raining so hard when I got home the day before I just pulled it up on the lawn), plug my GPS in, and then it will be charged and she can take it with her when she leaves.

Another car crawls by the front of the house.  

DIL says that is a great idea and goes out the front door.  I go to get a cuppa tea.  Seconds later, she is back in and says....

"I don't know how to say this.  Get your shoes on and come outside."

Through the window I can see another car slowing down and then speeding up,  and the driver shaking his head.

I say, "No."

She says, "Get your camera, get your shoes on and come outside."  She sees me hesitating and knows I am going to need to know something, anything, that will help me walk the twenty four feet from my kitchen to the front door and out, to see the thing that requires shoes and a camera.

She says, "There is a dead deer stuck under your car."

Well, now.  It's not a horse, it's not a dog.  Thank God it's not a child.  Not pleasant.  But not a tragedy.  (For those of you NOT from this area, deer are like rats with antlers, wandering around roadways, killing innocent drivers, causing untold millions of dollars worth of property damage, spreading lymes disease, ruining crops.  Our native deer are three times the size of the ones our forefathers found when they came to this country, because most of them are cornfed scavengers.) 

We walk out together and sure enough, there is a deer stuck under my car.  Not just any deer.  The BIGGEST, HUGEST, MALE DEER I have ever seen.  In perfect condition.  With one two three OH MY GOD seven points! (how you measure antlers) A spread of about eighteen inches.  She says, "This wasn't here when you parked last night, was it?"  Just the first of many questions I will be asked about this situation which will give me insight into what people think I am capable of.

No.  It was not there when I parked my car last night.  And, NO, even though the bedroom where I sleep is under thirty feet from this scene, I didn't hear anything.  And furthermore, doesn't she think I would have MENTIONED it?  

Best guess, someone ELSE hit the poor thing and it was thrown or projected off the roadway into my car.  And even though like most things in life there are no answers, and since neither of us are really sure what we are supposed to do at this moment, we wander around it, look at it from a lot of different angles, talk a lot of speculation and take a lot of pictures.  We make our best guesses regarding the bloating of the corpse and turgidity and the time of death (DIL practically grew up in a funeral parlor and I watch a lot of court tv so we both can make pretty educated hunches).  We look for drag or hoof prints in my soggy lawn.  We count those antler points.  We wonder WHY the dogs didn't react to several hundred pounds of fresh roadkill virtually beneath their noses.  And then we start making the phone calls and sending the pictures. 

DIL calls My Son, sends him a picture to prove she's not hallucinating, and he says he is on his way.  (As wife, she trumps mother when it comes to giving news) She calls her brother-in-law, Hunter/Gatherer and sends him a picture.  She calls her father, also Hunter/Gatherer.  He doesn't have a phone that will accept pictures, but he runs around his workplace finding someone who can get an email - because you just can't have this happen without sending pictures.  So we send him a picture.  All these Hunter/Gathers have been sitting in tree blinds freezing their asses off for years to bag a specimen like this, and I have one thrown on to my lawn.  The irony escapes no one.

I call my appointment and leave a long, confusing and absurdly neurotic message about deer and my car and I can't move it and not being able to put time constraints on this situation so I will have to call them later to reschedule.  Patient And Amused Male Business Partner calls coincidentally to discuss something entirely different and when I explain I can't move the car because of the dead deer stuck under it,  he says, "Well, it's already dead.  Just back up.  You can't really hurt it now." This makes me gag for about three minutes and he hangs up, saying he will call back later - I told him I would send him the pictures so he can understand the situation better.

And then my phone rings and it's Wonderful Neighborwoman.  She says, "Rodeo, Did you shoot that thing?"

I say, "Noooooo."  We have a very intense conversation about when she went by,  that  she thought I shot it or that I hit it, or that something'd it.   That maybe the Crazy Cat Lady next door put it there.  That makes us both laugh.    

Meanwhile DIL is arranging to have the deer taken away, which is something I haven't even thought of.  I tell her I want the antlers.  I want them mounted.  I explain that God gave me the deer and I want those antlers over my fireplace, right above my rifle (which I have never used to shoot anything) and I want to be able to point at them and tell the story over and over for years...

She says "You are not keeping that deer.  You know what will happen.  That head will just go in the freezer and never come out."

Meanwhile, My Son Her Husband arrives at the very second that a flatbed truck with an earthmover pulls off the road just feet from the deer.  A skinny young man in a John Deere (!) hat asks, Hey, can I have that deer?

My Son says Yes.  I say No.  

My Son says, you don't want that deer.  No one will take it away if they can't have the head.  And you know what will happen, that head will go in the freezer and never come out.

You leave a couple of animal bodies in the freezer for a couple of months and your family never lets you forget it.

I feel genuinely sad as my son and this stranger drag the deer out from under the car and put it on the flat bed.  The stranger is beyond excited.  That cheers me a little.  I hope he makes up a huge hunter's lie about how he got this magnificent beast's head.  

All the excitement is over and DIL and I adjourn to the kitchen table and are astounded at how two hours have past.  Not only past, but we know this is not how most people have spent their morning.  As My Son was leaving he shook his head and said, "You have to stop doing this.  Things like this keep happening.  Really."  He wasn't blaming us, but the thought was not lost on us.  We start trying to figure out why we have one domestic episode after another.  We worry about what will happen tomorrow.  DIL distances herself a little by reminding me that until she and My Son took what is now approaching custodial care of me, they lived a very tame life.  She swears months would go by without anything happening.  I need to come clean with you all and tell you that I don't put one TENTH of the daily, unusual, crazy, unpredictable, bizarre things that happen here down in writing because frankly a lot of the times I am embarrassed because if I did, it would speak to the out of control, random direction my life takes ninety percent of the time and no one would let me hug their children or pet their dogs for fear of some cosmic intervention that would wreck havoc on the innocents in proximity to me.   I say to DIL, "While everyone is laughing, I am thinking I need some kind of Chi-cleaning or something.  Like an exorcism."

She says, "We need a Priest."

I say, "I was thinking of something more like an asian spiritual monk, someone who would smudge smoke over me and waft away the evil spirits."

DIL says, "Oh, no Rodeo.  You need a Priest.  They scare the shit out of Demons.  You don't want some asian spiritual monk that just makes friends with it."

Well, something to think about it.  I think I have to think about what this all means.  I used to think in terms of animals as totems or messengers.  What does it mean when a deer crashes itself into your car when you aren't even in it?

Nellie's Preggers!

Concerned about our HUGE family Carbon Foot Print (we own one gas truck, one diesel truck, four cars, two golf carts, a tractor, a bucket truck, one dirt bike, one street bike, three four wheelers) Daughter In Law and I decided to get some goats to take care of an out of control weed problem.  Well, and also, someone offered us two FREE goats. Nellie, a Nubian/Alpine mix doe and Nate, who looks all Nubian and seems sort of slow, mentally.   After we upgraded fencing and bought goat appropriate accessories at the Farm Tractor Store, the free goats cost us about 1100.00.  My Son was impressed with the efficiency with which the goats tore into vines and weeds and brush and said, We Need A Dozen More!  (more power, more power, faster, faster, better, better - our family mantra) so DIL and I stopped at the farm around the corner and asked about borrowing their buck.  Three days later, a GORGEOUS young woman named Jen pulls into the driveway in a pick-up truck.  DIL  and I look at each other and say, What's that smell?

She opens the back of the truck and Hawk jumps to the ground, large and in charge!  Before his feet hit the driveway, he was armed and ready for action, and without even a lead, walked purposefully toward the goat pen and let Nellie know he was there to service her.  He did this by peeing in his mouth and checking his equipment.  I think I dated a guy like that once.

Nellie was coy at first, but Hawk was persistent and remarkably patient and charming.  The more charming he got, the worse he smelled.  There was some action going on, but it was sort of... confusing, which led to to comments like, Did he get her?  Why is she walking like that?  Does that mean he got her?  And, of course, don't touch him, you'll get pee on you!  Hawk was literally DRIPPING with goat essence.  Which smells a lot like a pair of 'lambskin' gloves I bought in an import shop once.  Or, like the most potent fatty greasy musky lanolin hand lotion.  Because no one was sure he got her, he stayed the night.

In the morning I got the dogs out and you could smell him from the front door.  DIL's eldest sister was already here, leaning over the fence because news of backyard sexual shenanigans travels fast in her family.  I said "good morning" and held my breath against the odor, and she said, He got her, right in front of me!

Gorgeous Jen mentioned when she came to pick Hawk up that he was for sale, but I think we got what we needed.  In five months we will have two or three or maybe one little baby goat.  I'll keep you posted! (PS:  this is the business end of Hawk, registered Nubian Stud Muffin)

Be Afraid. Very Afraid.

This is Youngest Grandson hunting barn rats from the bucket truck with a pellet gun.  We try to provide a rich and varied cultural life for our children.  He also plays the violin and loves chickens.

I do plumbing and what I wear

My house is very old - the house under the house was built sometime before 1790, when the first deed was recorded.  My apologies to my friends in England, but originally my land was a grant from the King to William Penn.  The Penn Family was...ah hem...loyal to the King what with all the land gifting and after that little relationship hiccup we call the Revolution, the disgruntled newly autonomous Colonials took all the land and gave it to the people who had been squatting on it.  I am sure there was all sorts of outrageous justifications all around, because these same squatters had ousted the Lenni Lenape Indians who were here first.  The well documented currencies of exchange for these transactions are very interesting to me as a Realor (or Land Agent - which is what I think they call us in England).  For instance, the Squatters like my John Alford gave the Lenni Lenape small pox which drove them out, and then, in 1790,  gave the new Government of the United States $204.00 in newly minted dollars and any of the Penn Family that showed up on May 4 each year thereafter one black peppercorn.  I don't know what year the Penn Family opted not to collect the peppercorn, but I have one framed next to my front door in case they ever show up.  At any rate, eventually the house under the house became too small and somewhere around July 1876,  a state of the victorian farmhouse art was built on top of the one room stone home.  With 32 windows and lots of intricate gingerbread, ample porches and high high ceilings and warm golden pine flooring, it must have been quite a sight.  I have a map which shows that we were much larger (at 162 acres) than our mere 8 acres now.  If I ever win the lottery, I won't move - I will just buy all the houses I can see from my upstairs and return my view to what once was.

It's the best place I have ever lived, even though the source of most of my frustrations and adventures.  When Charles and I bought what I now call Blue Sky Farm twenty years ago, it was a hot mess.  Most of the plumbing had been installed during the Rural Electrication Period following WWII and we made it the first priority in decades of repairs.  Now, it all needs to be done again, and this time, just by me.

About three months ago, the shower drain upstairs just slowed down.  I would be taking a shower standing in several inches of my own soup and that water would stay there for hours.  The mold from this was outrageous! Not to mention the foot fungus.  

I tried plungers.  I tried a traditional cup shaped one, and one I found in the barn with a more aggressive bulb kind of thing.  Nothing but burping. I tried everything on the shelves at the grocery store - foaming things, burning things, gel things, foul smelling nasty things.  Blue, Green, Red.  Twin Bottles that ominously mix only in the drain, where the magic is supposed to happen.  All these potions and mixtures are supposed to dissolve grease, hair, and I guess flesh and bones.  If these didn't work - and they didn't - I was AGHAST at what might actually be causing the clog!  I mean, what the HELL could be down there?

I started a very thorough search for another effective method.  Which means simply that I started whining to everyone I know about the water and the clog and the slow drain and my soupy feet.  My Daughter In Law, tired of hearing about it and suspicious that somehow this was going to end up a project for her overworked Husband My Son, finally said, "Why don't you get one of those blaster things?"

WHAT BLASTER THING? 

 She said SHE had a clog in her shower drain and she went to Home Depot and bought a WEAPON which had cartridges and BLASTED the CLOG out with a HUGE AND TERRIFYING NOISE!

Now THAT's the ticket!

I went directly to Home Depot, described what I wanted to several working members of AARP wearing orange vests and no one knew what I was talking about.

I stopped at the office and whined at Patient but Amused Male Business Partner.  He said, I have one of those and it really works but the noise is AWFUL.  Patient but Amused Male Business Partner is hearing impaired so I could not imagine what that meant.  

I convinced him that he should get in his car right now and drive me to Home Depot and show me exactly what shelf, what pegboard fixture he got this miracle from.

We found it right away. It is about two feet long, oddly like a bicycle pump with a red knob and yellow handles.  The package had four cartridges that looked like bullets which Patient But Amused Male Business Partner explained were CO2 cartridges.  I felt comforted by their bullet like appearance.  Like - if it looks like a bullet, then it must be effective, right?  I also found BLACK FLEXIBLE TAPE to use on the kitchen faucet which was spraying water out the top right at my breast bone, through holes eaten in the metal tap by our water.  (note to self - get a water treatment system, don't BE a water treatment system) They also had a huge array of parts and crapdedoodle that I know I will eventually need as I rebuild my house piece by piece.

So I bring the shooter thingie and the tape home.  Grandsons and Sons are drawn to it as moths to a flame, until they find out that it is for opening drains.  Eldest grandson begs to be allowed to shoot just one cartridge, nana please, c'mon, let me shoot it just once to see what it does i won't point it at my brother.

I'm sort of curious about this huge noise it is supposed to make so I tentatively agree to the experiment, as long as it is on the lawn and not pointed at any one or thing.  At just this point I am distracted by some other near catastrophe and forget all about it, for a couple of days.

Meanwhile, the open package is sitting on the steps.  I walk past it every day.  I glance at the cartridges, a SPLATTER MAT thoughtfully included but not noted earlier.  Rubber Washer Things.  Multi page instruction manual with many many translations into foreign languages. Cautionary Alerts in BRIGHT ORANGE AND RED.  Circles with Crosses.  People missing eyes.  No, I made that up, but you get the drift.

So, of course, the thing now looms large in my imagination.  I actually dream about it, puncturing my ear drums and shattering the pipes in the dining room ceiling.  And every day I am standing in that water with my now stinky feet and moldy bathroom walls.

As often happens with me, the fog lifts one day and I mend the kitchen tap.  Well, I wrap the stretchy black tape around it and feel totally inappropriately proud of myself.  Now, you may be wondering why I just didn't get a whole new tap, but the kitchen is going to be gutted any day now (this would be comical if I hadn't been saying it to people for twenty years) and it doesn't make sense to buy a new one if I can literally put a bandaid on this one.  See video below  of how well this is working.  Daughter In Law said yesterday that it was going to blow.  Noooo it wouldn't.  I wasn't dressed for work.

With the faucet repair so successful, I decided to tackle the plunger blaster thingie.  I don't read the instructions - I can't find the english ones anyway.  I unscrew the top and insert a CO2 cartridge.  I screw the top back on.  So far, so good.

I ignore the splatter mat.  (I'm in the shower stall) I strip down.  Why get my clothes wet?  I put on a shower cap and safety goggles.  No picture.  Thank me.

I place the plunger blaster thingie over the drain.  I pull the handle.

A farty, slightly like a balloon losing air noise.  Some white foam.

That's it.

I simply can't believe that this worked and I still have my hearing.  I wonder what ails the rest of them - what were they doing that I didn't do?????  I run the water.  It goes right down.

Right. Down. The. Drain.

No noise.

Just to make sure, and because I now have a ridiculously high level of confidence about plumbing, I do it again.

I run the water.  EVEN BETTER.  Much congratulation of self.  Much ironic reflection of how proud C would have been, maybe.   Can't wait to tell Patient but Amused Male Business Partner.  

Maybe I will buy a new faucet and install it myself.  And I have that new chandelier in the dining room I could tackle.........

Life, Death, Toilets, Ice Makers and Motorcycle Axles

Don't know about you, but I hate mornings that start like this:  Reaching in to the toilet tank to pull up the rubber stopper thingie, getting wet to the elbow with water you aren't sure is bacteria free, flushing it, waiting for the tank to fill, replacing the crapper flapper thingie,  figuring out which is left and which is right to screw on the nut thingie,  washing the toliet bowl to free it from the remains of yesterday's use because no one had the energy to do this although the part was sitting on top of the tank all day because they were busy with OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS.  I mean, you would think that after THAT, the rest of the day would go pretty smoothly.  However, after you do THAT, you want a nice glass of ice tea, with crushed ice.  And that is when you discover that yet again, there is a motorcycle axle in the ice maker, thoughtfully wrapped in plastic.

Which is now wrapped around the crusher mechanism.  

This is not the first odd item to be stuck in my icemaker.  It's sort of a common situation at our house, but I have not heard others complain of anything similar.  It starts like this.  The freezer is crowded.  And disorganized.  People come to the freezer with a situation, like needing to freeze a motorcycle axle, or they are rooting through the freezer looking for the last fudge pop, or they need a place to put something that might spoil.  So the obvious solution is to put Whatever in the icemaker which is usually pretty empty.  These Whatevers have included but are not limited to: a dead parrot, a pound of hamburger meat and a buffalo penis.  I am actually happy to reduce this to ONE domestic episode when in reality, there have been dozens.  There was the dinner party when everyone's drink had little red flecks of flesh in them....you know, from the hamburger getting ground up into the ice bucket.....

But this time it's a motorcycle axle and I try to lift it out. I can't get my arm into a position where that works. I get a chair, jam it in the small place between the freezer door and the stove, climb on, wedge my head into the small opening between the icemaker and the top of the freezer so I can see that yes, my fingers didn't lie, it's a motorcycle axle, wrapped in plastic, on top of the ice cubes.  

OH there is the problem.  The action of the icemaker crusher thingie, like an axle itself, has snagged the plastic bag the axle is in.  SO, I reach for a steak knife (from the wedged chair) and start sawing away at any loose bit of the bag, thinking this will free it so I can lift it out.  But it won't budge.  I decide to move on from this til someone comes over to work on the addition.  I make ice tea with the ice from the trays - oh, I have ice TRAYS in the freezer because during the construction they cut the supply line to the ice maker, so I have to freeze cubes and then dump them in the ice maker for crushing.  

My phone buzzes.  Its a text from My Son.  The genius who put the axle in the freezer.  I am thinking it is some kind of apology.

No.  Earl is dead.

My Daughter-in-Law's Uncle Junior has died peacefully at home of the liver cancer he was diagnosed with two long weeks ago.  The minute the words were in the air, he started to fade. This has given his family time to organize his affairs and come in from all over:- Shug, ChaCha, and Suki in from the Carolinas.  A sister to Earl who is married to a Japanese Ballet Dancer has come in  from her home in the hills above Tokyo.  Other relatives from Oklahoma and Delaware.  His daughter Melissa put her life on hold and spent the last two weeks at his side. For two weeks, hushed voices, purposeful consideration of feelings, embraces, tears, laughter, memories.  Photo albums brought out and shared.  Communal meals with disaster-oles brought over by neighbors.  A switch to the time frames we have when everything else stops for a while, sort of like a snow day.  Some things fall to the side, the really important things come to the front.  Intensity.  Intimacy.  I am almost jealous of them because as a family they seem to navigate the toughest waters with grace and affection.  All of them emotional gymnasts, not afraid of the big feelings.  They don't flinch or look away when someone cries.  

So, I put the steak knife down.  Walk away from the axle.  Leave that for another day.  I'll buy ice when I am at the grocery store getting stuff to take over.  The stuff that sustains us during bad times:  wine, plastic ware, cheese, strawberries, paper napkins.  Ice.  Family.

 

Nola, Petey and Daisy on their summer Stay Cation.

And she couldn't even make it back to the sofa.  Next life, I want to be my dog.

Leeks

 After I used the bulb in soup I put the stems in an old jar.  The vascular system of the leek continued to pull water up and it swelled the different stems inside, and each morning when I come down, the protrusion is about half an inch higher.  Fog the cat keeps nibbling on them.   

I am posting this for Greentwinsmummy - over at the Simple Life blog, because I was startled to see that she and I - thousands of miles apart, bought leeks the same week.  

I was going to post this picture last night but I was distracted by Presidential Politics on Tv.  Sorry, Greentwinsmummy!  

Four minutes with the chickens...

They Laughed Til I Cried

My son is a genius.  No, seriously.  A bonafide, card carrying genius.  I should know to trust him, after 34 years. However, when someone hooks a chain up to your house and starts ripping things off, you get nervous.  When you are watching this video, make sure you notice the "pole vault sticks" that hold the roof up and away as it is wrenched from the building.  THAT's why you don't need plywood over the windows!  (despite my pleas)  He says, "You think.  Then you do.  You THINK, then you do."   

The videographer is Eldest Grandson - and yes, he's the giggler at the end.  The fun never ends for this father and son!

How I spent my summer Stay-Cation!

It wasn't the price of gas or the state of the economy.  It wasn't even the election.  I wish I could say it was a conscious decision.  But it wasn't any of those things.  It just happened.  I find myself accidentally trendy.  This summer I am having a Stay Cation.

The house is under construction,

Gas is expensive.

All my playmates are doing something else.

Work is soooooo slooooooooow.

I am a bad travel planner, much better at being a go-alonger than an initiator.  

So, I am not going out of town any time soon.  

One night I was watching a commercial for something called Joe's Crab Shack where you eat out of buckets.  They were showing all kinds of hip people laughing and eating out of buckets, drinking fun drinks and I was overcome with a longing for camaraderie, food in buckets, and general summer fun.  I looked up the nearest Joe's Crab Shack and it's in Wilmington.  If I could get one of my friends to go to dinner, I knew they wouldn't go to Wilmington just to eat out of a bucket.  Seldom do they share my complete vision.  Which led me to the question, Why Can't Chester County Have a Crab Shack?  We have thousands of restaurants, some even sell Seafood, or specialize in seafood, but nowhere can you eat from buckets.  I wanted to dress in shorts and colorful linen tops, feel the late afternoon breeze on my sunburned skin, have silly conversations with clever hip people, linger for hours over buckets of clams, lobsters and corn on the cob.  (In this fantasy I am thinner and more blonde. My blue eyes dance while I engage in clever repartee.)  I could not remember the last time I had fun.  I was tired from worry and work and worry about work.  I have spent weeks packing up all my things and moving them to the basement in 100 degree heat to accommodate the house construction. Imagine a summer highlight being spending $2000.00 on plastic bags, totes and shelving. When I got too hot and too exhausted to make the trip from the kitchen, out the front door, down the side of the house, in the basement of the addition, up a plank into the old basement carrying a rubbermaid tote with a 12 piece dish set I have not used for three years, I was drinking home brewed too strong ice tea and playing freecell for hours on end.  Then I would call some previous client that I thought might have a lead to some business which I hoped would save me from having to make the trek with the next box of ceramic mugs or dinner linens.  I only left the farm to go to  Lowes or Walmart and although they have buckets, there are no crabs or corn.   Every day I was being serious, hard working, woefully adult.  Setting goals  to prove my maturity. Killing my own buzz with Teutonic Task Angst.  

Suddenly it all became clear.  I would take a vacation from feeling like hell, and have some fun!  Simple!  

These might not be how you would choose to spend your stay cation, but any way you do it, make the commitment and cut the tether on your woes, and watch that balloon just drift away.  For me, it was a simple decision to just not worry so much for a short time.  Sort of just let go and say yes to some urges and whims.  Here is what I did:

1. I was quoted in The New York Times.  
   
2. I auditioned for a tv show.
   
3. I started a blog.
   
4. I took up smoking.  
   
5. I did a good deed.
   
6. I had a fine dinner with friends.
   
7. I was quoted in USA-Today and had my picture taken by one of their staff photographers.
   
8. I had Ghost Busters Over to the House.
   

When Charles died, my friend Lynda told me it was like he and I were playing tug of war and he just let go. I have spent some months holding on to my end of the rope, looking at the other end and wondering who was going to pick it up.  Maybe nobody.  I know that in my old life as a wife to Charles, I would not be talking to reporters and bagging work to go off and audition for tv shows.  This is not to say that I chaffed at my responsibilities and obligations.  They were what I was doing then.  I am doing something different now.  Now being different was not something I chose or planned for.  So I am thinking I might wing it for a while.  Maybe stay on Stay Cation for a while. 

By Way of Explanation: Itty Bitty Committee

I mention in my episodes an entity called The Itty Bitty Committee.  This is an imaginary group of critics and backbiters that live in my psyche.  They are the product of my upbringing and culture.  They were inserted through my ear canal at different developmental stages.  Picture either The Last Supper or a gaggle of Gods and Goddesses peering over the edge of Mt. Olympus.  

• Green Guilt Giant:  Environmentally Militant, it could be noble to have such a thing as one of your sensibilities if I didn't know this was just another way to manifest guilt about something.
• Frightened Adult: Wearing a beige sweater and skirt, FA is a hand ringing alarmist who is terrified of lead pencils and other sharp objects.  She is responsible for making me wear my seatbelt and never letting me get drunk.
• Naugahide Man:  He wears a dirty white undershirt, blue plaid boxer shorts and one of those baseball caps that holds two beer cans and a long straw and sits in a fake leather recliner at the left of the long table.  He hates everything I do. He knows nothing is going to work and that if someone likes me, they just haven't known me long enough.  He is single handedly responsible for keeping me from having a writing career twenty years ago.
• Librarian:  Has no other function other than muttering "Oh, really?"
• God Bothering Gospel Dependent Bible Banging Foot Dragger:  Morality Watch

Other members come forward every once in a while but these are the major players.  By the way, this group is not meant to be ever confused with The Itty Bitty Titty Committee - that is a lesbian movie about plastic surgery.  

When Balloons Go Wrong

When Balloons Go Wrong

It's Sunday and some people go to Church (like real Church, not Talbots) and Realtors run Open Houses.  This is an activity that I think the general public has a lot of shallow uninformed opinions about.  For instance, clients have told me that Realtors run Open Houses just for themselves, to pick up clients. Yes, we do. That is how we sell your house.  It is not true that we enjoy littering the landscape with signs and once we shove them into the ground next to that stop sign, we forget all about them.  Well, just because you go past the same spot ONCE a week on Sunday morning, and Every Time you DO, that sign is there, it doesn't mean that I haven't picked up it by 4:15 the previous Sunday, ridden around with it in the back of my car all week, and then pounded it back into the roadbed at 12:45 today.  

Think about it.  It's  Sunday.  Sunday you could be going to Church as I said before or Sunday you could be spending with your family, or doing laundry or mowing the lawn of your own house.  I work seven days a week even in a challenging market like this because I have to be always available.  But Sunday is also the day I could be driving my clients around to look at houses.  Or Sunday is the day I could be answering phones at my office. I could be doing that, but instead, I am sitting in a sparkling clean, cool house for sale waiting for buyers to show up. In order to get to the point where I am waiting for buyers though, I have to go through a certain number of steps.

I have to get balloons.

I do not know why balloons are a perquisite for selling houses, but Real Estate runs on five things:  Paper, Money, Food, Signs and Balloons.  If just one of these elements is missing, the national economy will tank.  I think MSNBC ought to launch an investigation into who forgot to put their balloons out in Florida. Wasn't me.  Anyhow, I can not hold an Open House without balloons and they must have helium and they must be filled up the morning of the Open House.  The tank I can use for free is at the office, a twenty mile one way trip and it just seems silly now to send eight dollars in gas dollars to drive down when I can get five balloons filled up for five dollars at the grocery store which is only 11 miles away.  If I start to think of the mammoth Paul Bunyan size carbon foot print this activity produces I get a headache. Once you get the balloons blown up, you have to transport them.  In your car.  Normally I have a plastic bag (I KNOW I KNOW IT JUST GETS WORSE AND WORSE) that I use and you can fit about five balloons in a contractor size clean up bag.  I have seen other realtors with nets and anchors and stuff in their cars.  You can not put six helium balloons into your car for transport without the Itty Bitty Committee in your head going absolutely nuts.  The bickering is relentless.  The Green Guilt Giant is pissed and flashing pictures of sea lions wearing collars of (YOUR COMPANY HERE) balloons on ice bergs.  The Traffic Cop is writing out a warning for obstruction of the rear view mirror.  The Mother is beating you up for not spending Sunday with your family baking casseroles and other memorable meals.  The Frightened Adult is wringing her hands and speaking in low tones of Accidents that Are Avoidable.  But, you know, you go ahead and do it anyway because on a good day you can only listen to about ten percent of what they say, anyway.

So this morning, I am already at the office for phone duty so I can blow up my balloons for free but I do not have a plastic bag and I anchor the five strings of my balloons around a bottle of Mother's Sealant and Wax I get from behind the passenger seat.  I bought the wax but apparently you have to apply it for your car to shine - you can't let the bottle fall out of the Pep Boys bag and roll under the seat of your car if you want a showroom shine.  Now that is an activity you could spend a Sunday afternoon on.  But, I secure the balloons and the wax snugly behind the passenger seat.  This is going to be fine.

Since I am obsessing about gas and the environment, and since the interior of my car is about 150 degrees because of the black leather and the August midday sun,  I open the sunroof.  I just saw on tv that UNDER 45 mph, you are getting better gas mileage with the windows down and the sunroof open.  If you are going OVER 45 mph, you are better off running the air and cutting the drag.  Once underway, I open the windows and appreciate the breeze.

Which toys playfully with the knot I tied around the wax bottle.  Coyly, the balloons rise over the back of the passenger seat and flirt with me in the rear view mirror.

Then, predictably, one pops through the sunroof.  At this point, I have pushed the button which closes the sunroof s-l-o-w-l-y and carefully. It  slowly mashes one of the balloons like a toddler's head in the opening.  One balloon is out flapping in the wind at 46 mph, one is caught by the window against the frame of the car, the rest are jammed behind the headrest of the passenger seat.  It is several miles before the one on the outside pops - I didn't pull over because...I was just struck that it might be interesting to see where this controlled event would take me. 

Well, of course, one place it took me was being pointed at by small children in passing mini vans.  Another place was a feeling of living on the edge...in a non -sky diving, no bungie cord sort of way. 

When I get to the first place I am putting out signs I take the pictures above.  Now I have a blog.  It seems silly not to share.   This morning I was talking to another agent about going with flags instead of balloons.  I am going to order them right now.  

Picture a Ferris Wheel

Horses love playing with their food. I feed our horses round bales of hay - if you are familiar with previous domestic episodes, you know the nature of those. Anyway, the citizens of our barn love unwrapping the hay from the bale - much like playful kittens with a toliet paper roll. Once they get it unrolled, they roll in it, pee in it, poop in it and make it inedible. I've been so thrilled at the cost difference between the round and square bales, this hasn't really bothered me until lately, when the effects of this long hot dry summer have impacted the cost of the bales negatively. Now, like all problems, there is a solution to this situation and it involves tools, a trip to the Farm/Tractor Store and lifting something awkward and heavy all by myself. It's called a round bale feeder and looks (when put together) a lot like an eight foot in diameter ferris wheel made out of 16 gauge tubular steel (about as thick as your wrist) welded together that slips over the top of the bale. The idea is that the horses will put their heads through the spaces in the feeder (where the seats would be if it were truly a ferris wheel), eat but be unable to stand on the bale and crush it, strew it and mess it up. This saves you money and hay and according to the people who make bale feeders, enough money to pay for the bale feeder in two or three bales. Oh, the other reason I didn't buy a bale feeder before was because the guy who sells me the hay said I didn't need one. Of course. 

SO last night, C. and I went to pick up the feeder which comes in three convenient (if you are 5'10" man) sections, each weighting about 80 lbs. These sections fit easily into the back of the truck and in no time we are on our way to Bob Evan's to get a nice meal. (It makes us feel good to eat there because it's the reverse of eating at Pizza Hut - instead of being the oldest we are usually the youngest in the restaurant). To C.'s credit, he did ask if I would need help getting the bale feeder out of the truck when we got home and I said, Oh, no! I don't think so! I'll just drag it out. Actually that was pretty simple. Once I drove the truck into the pasture, I was able to flip those sections right out on to the ground pretty close to where I thought the feeder would end up. 

I'm excited to notice that the feeder actually has the hardware required to put it together - 6 carriage bolts and nuts- already in the holes. All I have to do is undo them, slide the next section into place and do them back up. Easy! 

The first five go fine. They were only finger tightened. The sixth and last bolt has paint spilled on the threads and the nut is now fouled with the paint. I need a tool. 

I know everyone has a thing, a permanent short cut in their brain which causes them to make the same mistakes over and over. Mine is an infantile need to avoid using the actual tool best designed for a job and make something that is completely inappropriate work. It starts like this in my brain: "I could use a tool for this. The tools are in the tool room. All the way over there. BUT I have a high heel, a roll of duct tape, a bottle opener, a dog leash, a tire iron, a bungee cord and a burned out halogen bulb within reach. Perhaps one of those will work?" I try using the dog leash to improve my grip on the nut. I jam the bottle opener against the carriage bolt to keep it from rolling. I use a piece of duct tape on the dog leash to make it tighter around the nut. I pound the whole mess with the high heel just because I'm frustrated and can't reach the tire iron. I can't think of anything to use the halogen bulb for. Whew! The bolt and nut are finally free after 30 minutes. At least I didn't have to take five minutes and walk to the tool room for a wrench or pliers! 

Now it's time to put the feeder together. The first two sections go together easily: in fact after the first section, I'm proud of my short learning curve - I get the idea it's better to put both bolts through the holes and then tighten them, rather than one at a time.. I am so good at this! 

In fact, my brain is really cooking now. It occurs to me that if I STAND THE FEEDER UP, I WON'T HAVE TO SIT IN THE PEED IN, POOPED IN HAY TO DO THE LAST NUT!!!! It's fairly easy to rock it into position on its edge. Now it really does look like a ferris wheel! Whew! It's eight feet in diameter. I'm....five feet. The last section with the loose bolt is now three feet over my head. But, hey it's round and I can just roll it over until the section is within easy reach. I get it rolling and of course, down the hill it goes. 

It comes to rest against a tree finally, and it doesn't really look all that banged up. For some reason it doesn't roll back up the hill as easily (with the one part still not fastened) as it rolled down, so after about three tries I figure out that I better get that one last bolt done. It's the fouled bolt and there are no dog leashes, high heels, duct tape or bottle openers within reach! Heck, I can't even SEE the halogen bulb if I wanted it. I use a stick from the tree to poke out most of the paint and then manage to get the nut on the bolt, most of the way up. I roll the feeder back up the hill. 

Once in position, all I have to do is flip it back down and I'm ready to go. Now, it is an immutable law of physics that a five foot person with a reach of about five foot six inches can not get to a point on an eight foot circle where you can become a human fulcrum and pull it over. I wedge the thing against the fence, sprint for the truck for that bungee cord and before you can say "you could have had C. do this really easily last night and all it would have cost you is kissing him tenderly in appreciation" I've got it that bungee cord up and over the top. One yank and (although all 180lbs narrowly miss hitting me in the head) it's over! It's even over a pile of hay!

I let the horses out of their stalls and eagerly wait for them to see it and use it. The first four walk past it toward the field where the grass is, never even noticing the new toy. Number five, Mr. Doc-who-has-issues, braces himself against the barn wall and screams at it as if he's just seen a shark in the pasture.  After a few days, I am sure he will take right to it.