Dear Everybody,
Once again, I feel like I have made very little progress… until I sift through the photos I’ve taken over the last three months, and look around, and realize how it looked last summer. I haven’t done as much as I would have liked, but I continue to make lasting changes here.
Shortly after the last update, I called Darlene’s handyman Bruce and asked whether he could paint the house this year. I hadn’t expected anything to happen immediately—late March is really the tail end of winter here, and the weather is notoriously unpredictable. But we got a fair spell, and he worked fast, stripping the shingles off of the south wall of the garage and replacing them with the same siding used on all the buildings except the walls of the house proper. I had to act as assistant for the big panels, but he did a great job, and now it’s all set for sun, rain, and the wandering tendrils of the black grape.
Then the weather continued to be pleasant, and he just… kept going. There were several minor repairs needed to replace rotten pieces, and everything needed to be pressure-washed. That brought its own challenges; the south wall of the house is very tall, and while ladder hooks and ingenuity got him up to both sides of the Lift (the raised roof on the east side), I ended up buying a new ladder to handle the top peaks. It’s a fiberglass brute, requiring two people to carry and position it, but it should provide access for every task along the roofline, even on the slopes. I’ll be clearing out some junk on the north wall of the Annex and mounting storage hooks under the eaves there—out of the sun and weather, I expect it will outlive me.
I researched paint, and found that the brand I wanted was carried by Home Depot in Salem. A trip out there (an hour’s drive) revealed that they only sort of carry that line; I could special-order it, but they had no provision for specifying the base, and I could just see myself ordering $600 in paint that couldn’t be mixed to the color I wanted. Frustrated, I sat in the parking lot and called a paint store nearby. Sure, they could order it, they knew how to specify the right base, and it wouldn’t cost loads more. So that’s how I ended up making multiple trips to Salem to get house paint, and I am very grateful to the folks at Salem Paint Company for making it as pleasant as possible.
Bruce primed the new siding, then got down to business with his airless sprayer. The old, dry wood soaked up paint like a sponge, and even with another few buckets of paint we came up just barely short. The freestanding wall of the garage will be fine until I paint the Shippen, and everything else has a handsome coat of the same dark brown it had decades ago. I asked him to leave the lower windows to me so that I can tend to the window putty, so it’s still not quite finished, but all of the buildings look much better and they aren’t at high risk of rot anymore. I gave Bruce a hefty bonus in appreciation, and even with that and over $2,000 in paint, the project came to less than half what I might have paid a professional company. Even better, we got it done so early that I was able to re-mount the trellises and put the grapevines in place before they did more than break bud for the season, and none of the garden beds had plants to trample yet.
Still on my list for this summer is to replace the old dry window putty (as much as possible), replace a bunch of cracked panes which objected to pressure-washing and scraping, and paint the window frames and trim. The single-pane windows should go pretty quickly, but there are something like fourteen mullioned windows on the south side of the garage, workroom, and Annex which will take a while. I’m hoping to at least get the old putty out and slap a coat of primer on to protect the wood this winter, and replace the Annex pane that argued with a ladder early on. The rest can wait for a few months.
I spent a day vacuuming about two gallons of dust out of my bedroom, and after painstakingly cleaning the old exposed bedsprings (which were a relic from my grandparents), I gave into an impulse and moved the springs, the platform, and the old pineapple-post frame out to storage (and, in the bedsprings’ case, metal recycling). A couple of hours in the workroom gave me four sturdy 14” risers. Finally I pulled the black Mission frame out of the Annex, where it had been waiting since I moved here from California, and set it up on the risers. I had wanted to loft my bed somewhat, but I miscalculated a little on the tall side, putting the mattress at waist height. Fortunately, Darlene had given me a set of wooden bed steps that someone had made for an elderly pet, and I commandeered the old step-stool for the other side. I now have a lofted bed, a little nest underneath it, and steps on either side. I haven’t fallen out yet, and the cats seems to really like it.
I finally made a burn pile out of all the old box bushes from the north side of the house, building it small so that I could carefully add fuel over time rather than making one huge, eyebrow-singeing bonfire. Boxwood is incredibly flammable, and I had initially planned on hauling it all away to green waste, but there was enough to fill the truck at least twice over. So I made a morning of it, and added in all of the various prunings and brush piles and miscellaneous dead branches within easy walking distance of the front lawn. I wish I could have done the same with the pile in the near pasture which has been there for a couple of years, but May was hectic enough that it slid off the end of my to-do list. It’ll be there in October, I’m sure, and I’ll try to consolidate all the nearby piles for that one as well. I’ve been stacking up prunings from the apple trees, dead wood from the elderberry, and bits of rotten boards for a while.
I’ve managed to keep up on the mowing, mostly, as it was a fairly dry spring. Every year I get the brambles and couch grass subdued, the easier it is for following years, and I’m really beginning to see the results as several areas become easier to maintain. The garden is starting to look less like it’s been hacked out of a muddy briar patch, and the driveway looks downright civilized. The foxgloves are having a second good year along the upper driveway, building up their population as I continue to pull out the bracken fern that had smothered everything. I worked over the flower bed in front of the picture window again, planting the tulips that had been languishing in big pots for years; I buried them inside one-gallon pots which should keep them mostly safe from voles. I put in calendulas there, and I have some sunflower seedlings almost ready to plant out. And I finished digging up almost all of the daffodils from the yard between the Annex, the Shippen, and the workroom, in preparation for getting that area graded later this summer. I found places to put all of the bulbs except the last wheelbarrow load, which is still languishing out front; I should take some time to clean them and store them in paper bags until fall.
Conrad and my cousin Kirsten came out day before yesterday to plant five Douglas fir seedlings alongside the existing ones, in a space I set aside for them next to the front lawn. They seem to grow at a reasonable pace there, not too fast, and I can keep an eye on them easily. The larger ones are a couple of years away from becoming good Christmas trees, which seems to take five years or so; I’m trimming them lightly to encourage good form. I’ve done a lot of pruning in my life, but Christmas trees are a new one for me, and it’s a distinct skill to produce something full without the density of a hedge. If it goes well, I’ll probably continue the practice, though I’d like to set some room aside somewhere a little less central than the front lawn… I have plans to make that particular spot into a flowerbed.
The vegetable garden is also doing well, for the most part. The strawberries have been ripening slowly, teasingly, and a day or two ago I was finally able to harvest a large double-handful. This variety gets red and flavorful quickly, but takes significantly longer to get sweet, so I’m learning patience. I’ve had other things to tend to—I put this year’s garlic scapes into brine this week, the lettuce is big enough to steal leaves from, the napa cabbage is increasing in size every day, and the broccoli plants have heads starting to peek out of their centers. The catnip is about to top five feet. I’ve been harvesting armloads of seasonal herbs like cleavers, speedwell, and Mexican hedge-nettle, and I’ve started processing batches of tea (Ivan chai) from the fireweed out near the mailbox. Many crops are still small, and I’m crossing my fingers that enough of my beans, cucumbers, and summer squash survive to give me a good harvest. This summer has been pleasant and sunny so far, if drier than I like, and everything has responded well.
I finally, finally tackled the office (formerly Fa’s room). I’m able to work in there without a respirator, as long as the windows are open with a low fan on. I pulled up the old sheet flooring, which was a composite similar to Masonite but not as rigid, and it had warped and worn poorly. As I removed it, and later when I schlepped it out of the house to its new task smothering a clump of comfrey, I confirmed that it was a large source of the musty fumes which have made the place uninhabitable for me over the last couple of years. Good riddance. Much to my surprise, there was a tightly-fitted red cedar floor under it in good condition; I wasn’t about to leave that exposed, as I grew up with softwood floors and I know they don’t take traffic well. But it made the process of cutting and laying the new tempered Masonite much easier and more pleasant. I need to spend a day nailing down the new panels, then I can proceed to figuring out the new wiring. That will be the hard and fiddly part—after that, painting should be a breeze.
I have not made any more progress with replacing the fences here, and the weeds are growing up enough to make access less simple. Likewise, I haven’t touched the Shippen. I had hoped to have at least chickens next year, and enough of a fence around the garden to keep the deer and raccoons out. That’s not out of the question yet; I’m about to announce a schedule for work parties in late July and early August, focusing on the Shippen. It seems like a good group project, and once I get done with the office I hope to refocus on fencing. Again, I’m being ambitious, but every inch of progress helps, and if it gets bumped to next year I’ll have far less to finish.
This may be complicated by my duties as Jenny’s caregiver; she needs some home repairs, and it has become clear that we have to get her essential papers organized. As usual, summer is a crunch and a juggling act. At least my home life is rather less stressful than it was three years ago.
The photo album is full of flowers this time, if you need something to brighten your day. Also cats. They have been their usual feline selves, catching small (and not so small) furry things, snoozing, running around like they’ve lost their minds, and (in Cricket’s case) bossing me around. Artie has discovered the joy of singing opera in an acoustically live room, and I can hear him practicing in the office sometimes. He’s also getting more accustomed to visitors, which is good. Sometimes he even hangs around to see what they’re doing.
If you’d like to help me with the cost of flea meds and vet visits, you can drop a tip in the jar at my ko-fi page. I appreciate the help I’ve gotten so far; those flea dabs are not cheap, and not optional.
I’ll have more to report in the next update, which will come at the fall equinox in September. Until then, I hope life treats you well, and your own projects go smoothly.
—Sam
