Dear Everybody,
After the frenzy of the summer, I have been trying to slow down and catch my breath. It’s easy to burn out when you live at work, and I was definitely getting frayed around the edges by the last update.
It hasn’t all been watching TV and playing video games, though. I made an effort to bring in as much of the harvest here as I could; the garden and orchard are modest and have their issues, but I managed to preserve most of the tomatoes, and after converting nearly all of the William’s Pride apples to applesauce (they don’t keep well), I brought in the Golden Delicious and Jonathan apples. Those do keep, particularly in the chilly mudroom, and I’ve been enjoying the Golden Delicious for fresh eating and the Jonathan for cooking. I suspect they’ll last me through January, if I’m lucky, or perhaps longer. The aronia yielded six gallons of berries with ease; I handed off a five-gallon bucket to Kathyrn Jane and kept the rest for myself. And while the potato harvest was lackluster and the deer ate my lettuce and rutabagas, the parsnips came through with their usual vigor. I even have a few carrots that managed to make up for a late sowing.
Rue was generous enough to drop off a young buck deer he had accidentally hit with his truck, and we dressed it late one Sunday evening. It might have been small, but it filled the empty space in the chest freezer handily, and it’s very tender for venison. I’m in good shape for meat for a while.
The temperature dropped sharply just before Thanksgiving, putting a thick layer of ice on any standing water and a crust on the ground. I was grateful for the rejuvenated woodstove, which starts up more easily and is generally more responsive to the controls. As I hoped, it doesn’t leak exhaust into the living room, though it did take quite a while to burn off whatever was in the new paint on the chimney pipe. It’ll burn hotter than before, using the oak that it couldn’t burn last year. And it’s just downright cozy sitting beside it on cold evenings.
Artie wasn’t so sure. Having decided that he wants to be an indoor cat with occasional forays outside, he was deeply unnerved by the woodstove. It flickered. It ticked and pinged. Something was alive in there, and it was dangerous, and why was I just sitting there?
Two weeks later he was sprawled in front of it, soaking up the warmth. The dragon in the box isn’t so bad after all, I guess.
I pulled out potatoes and a few parsnips, roasted a delicata squash Jenny grew, marinated one of the best cuts of venison, stewed some apples with a handful of aronia berries, and had a fantastic farm-to-table feast for Thanksgiving. It felt good to get back to the tradition of the old harvest festivals, celebrating what the land provides. I think I’m going to make that a habit from now on.
I took a day to drive up to Washington and meet up with my other uncle, who accompanied me to my great-grandmother’s house in Olympia. We raided the garage there and extracted the old dining room table from this house, which had been sent away when it was decided that no one was using it here. Fortunately, it had ended up in storage again, and no one objected when I trucked it and its chairs back home. It’s a round table with a satisfyingly sturdy pedestal, made of black-lacquered oak, with the ability to take two additional leaves (I have one). It comes with five low-backed semicircular chairs that are surprisingly roomy. It needs some restoration, between the worn paint and a few places that were gnawed by dogs in the past, but that sort of thing is right up my alley. By the time I can clear the other table and temporary shelves out of the dining room, I should have it ready to take its traditional place in front of the south windows.
December came, and brought… mid-50s and rain. Lots and lots of rain. One of the storm systems from the south Pacific was aimed directly at us, and dropped over a foot of rain in the space of 4-5 days. The ground was still fairly dry, so I didn’t see much flooding, but the warmth and humidity were very strange. It tapered off, we got a few days of reasonable early-winter weather, and then another storm rolled in. The soil didn’t soak up the second foot of rain quite so readily, and the creeks briefly topped their banks—the brand-new culvert got quite the shakedown, running at about 80% capacity. The older culvert up at the top of the property was totally overwhelmed, and turned the edge of the upper parking area into a shallow marsh. But nothing terrible came of it, and things have settled into a more seasonable damp, cold routine. The forecast says I might even get a little snow this weekend.
For those of you waiting for pictures of the shiny new bridge… there isn’t one. Last thing I heard, the contractor was trying to figure out how to source the materials. Having really counted on the ability to bring the vehicles down to the house this winter, I find myself in the same awkward position I was in a year ago, carting everything 250 feet along the driveway and up the curve to the upper parking area. I erected the shelter from my Burning Man gear to protect the Accord, but the truck will have to make do with the hemlock tree. And it’s stalled some major projects like the dump runs to clear out the garage, though I’ve been finding the energy to take up dozens of boxes of books on a handcart just to get them out and away. I suspect anyone else would be calling the contractor for daily updates by this point, but I’ve just had it. Maybe I’ll get a second (third?) wind in January, but just thinking about the bridge makes me exhausted right now.
The Accord is still running fine, and I replaced the climate control module (after a memorable morning where I couldn’t drive a quarter mile without the windshield icing over). It needs some maintenance work I can’t do, but it’s stable for now. The truck managed to lose the backlight for the instrument panel and (more concerning) its taillights; I fear damage from mice, though it may just be fuses that blew when the tow connector came loose and dragged on the wet highway. I finally got hold of the mechanic who did the initial work on it, and he’ll take a look at it this week.
Back to the book boxes… Kathyrn Jane worked out an arrangement by which she can take the extra books from this place. All of them. She’ll sift through them, put aside the ones she wants, donate the rest of the usable ones to the library, and dispose of those which are no longer useful (we encountered things like a 25-year old pocket dictionary and books on elder care from before the modern internet). All I have to do is box them and get them to her. I doubt I could express my overwhelming gratitude at having her take this logistical burden off my hands; for her part, she’s in heaven, on the receiving end of a bibliophile’s treasure chest. I don’t know who feels more fortunate.
Jenny has been puttering along as usual, though she tripped on a curb just before Thanksgiving and had a pretty bad fall. It banged up her shoulder and knee; she’s mending all right, and getting more range of motion in her shoulder all the time, but it made sleeping on a flat bed difficult. I grabbed my initiative and called around about getting a hospital bed, something she has said for a while would suit her better than the little half-bunk that got moved out of here. I discovered that the Lions Club has a program for exactly that, and they delivered one and help me set it up for free. Jenny was very pleased with it, and the ability to incline her head and shoulders made it much easier to get a good night’s sleep. So that’s a bit of progress.
I got the rest of the kitchen painted, but I haven’t managed to re-tile the floor yet, so the refrigerator and probationary washing machine are still in the garage. Kathyrn Jane and I boxed up enough books in my bedroom to really change the place, as I was able to pull out two empty bookshelves to give myself more breathing room. Rue came over and helped with the office, boxing up the last of the books and whatever else was on the shelves, then pulling the tall shelves away from the wall and dusting/scrubbing everything. The place is about halfway cleaned now, and while it still smells funky, the fumes dissipate quickly when it’s aired out with a fan. Once I can scrub the rest, wire a few outlets, and paint it from top to bottom, I have high hopes that it will be safe to move things into once again.
For its part, the living room is, well, livable. KJ called it “cozy”. It’s still got some clutter around the edges that doesn’t have a home yet, but it’s starting to take on its new character, I think: enough books to feel homelike, seating and rugs which invite people to settle in, and enough room to move around. The beams and archways give it an airy feeling that is unusual for a wood-paneled mountain cabin. And I finally got the casement window mounted, with Conrad’s help. It opens, closes, and latches, for the first time in living memory. It’s a small victory, but I’ll take it.
Artie and Cricket have thawed to the point where they touch noses when I open the door to the kitchen in the morning. There is still a fair amount of friction, but some of the pouncing and hissing is play-acting now. So for all the times I’ve had to scold them for picking on each other, there are increasingly longer stretches of relative peace. I’m glad; there’s a childlike delight in Artie’s adoption of chirpy toys, cardboard scratchers, laps, indoor toilet facilities, and comfy chair cushions that makes me feel like he deserves all the luxuries I can provide. Just wait until the catnip mice show up at Christmas…
So, as I finish up my decorations and start baking in earnest, I hope you have a safe and happy end to your year, full of warmth and twinkling lights and good smells. I’ll be back at the end of March to let you know how the cold season goes. If you would like to cast any year-end gifts this direction, my Ko-fi page is always available, and I have a wish list of things that would make life easier. Regardless, the newsletter will always be free, and my inbox is always open. Take care!
—Sam