Character Building

First and most important - We have chicks!  Two beautiful little dark grey ones so far with one more on the way (it's just now pipping).  We're not too sure about the status of the 4th egg but we're hoping the peeping from the other chicks will be the necessary encouragement it needs.

We spent the day yesterday sanding.  Sanding and sanding and sanding.  And vacuuming.  And sweeping.  And dusting.  While we worked I thought about this old house (the one I'm living in - not the TV show).  It's not the house I would choose, given a reasonable selection - but I can see promise in it. 

In an effort to look at the bright side I decided that all these things that aren't perfect with it are really just character and they add to it's charm.  Much like a character actor in a movie.  You know - the actor that has a patch over one eye, has missing teeth and walks with a limp?  That actor will never be the leading man - the seemingly perfect person who get the part on looks alone.  A character actor can still win an Oscar.. so can this house!

Instead of a patch over one eye it has a hump in the floor.  Instead of missing teeth, it has cracks in the plaster.  Instead of a limp, it has a piece of tin nailed to the floor for reasons I will NEVER understand.  It also has crooked walls, creepy sounds in the middle night, broken windows and cobwebs.  My house oozes character.  But I like it and it has such huge potential!  (That's the Pollyanna in me coming out).

Just as a reminder.. Here is the floor before we began sanding, complete with black goo:

Here they are after:

We still have one more pass to do with the fine grain sand paper - then we have to put the finish on them - but it's looking good I think.

There's a possum in the chicken coop!

Every night I tuck the chickens in.  Just after dusk I go out and look in the coop, identify the occupants and tell them goodnight.

"There's Carmen and Buttercup and Pepper. Goodnight ladies and gentleman.  Sleep well"  it's a little bit ritualistic but it works for us.

Then I firmly secure their door.

Last night was a little different, I went out, opened the top and looked in.  Buttercup made a run for it, dashing out the door before I could fasten it closed.  She apparently wanted to take advantage of every last bit of daylight and was not really ready for bed.  I grumbled under my breath and rather than chase her decided to just try again in a bit.

Time got away from me and I didn't get back out there until about 9:00.  WELL after dark.  I opened the lid, there sat Buttercup on the perch.  But no Carmen and no Pepper.  I stood on my tippy toes and looked down at the floor of the coop and there was the biggest, ugliest possum I had ever seen and a whole lot of black feathers.  I didn't know what to do.  I didn't want to leave Buttercup alone in the coop with that monster but I had to get help.  I very quickly reasoned that if Buttercup had been okay up until then, she would probably be okay for another minute, minute and a half.  It was a risk I would have to take.

I closed the lid and went running into the house yelling:

"Peter!  There's a possum in the chicken coop!!" 

He ran out there and quickly and efficiently removed the dreaded vermin.  It has since met with a terrible accident.  I am not even a little sad by this.

Anyway - Pepper was quickly located.  He had escaped and ended up in a nearby over-flow ditch that contained about 18 inches of water.  He was wet, had a nasty wound on his leg and was sporting a disheveled, half-plucked look.  Poor boy.  He's in the kitchen in sick bay conveniently located near Salt in the maternity ward.  Today he tried to get out of his box and into hers.  I think he's feeling better.

Carmen was harder to find.  There were very few of her feathers in the coop so we assumed she had escaped and was in hiding.  Chickens don't generally come when you call them and Carmen was no different.  We called and clucked (ineffectually), we searched through the woods, around the houses and Peter finally found her huddled in a snow drift by the north barn, frightened, but completely unharmed.

The status of our fourth chicken is promising.  I think we are very close to having chicks, Salt is starting to behave strangely.  Her chicks should be hatching any day.  She gets hungry, but she stays quite agitated, like she needs to be sitting on her eggs and not taking the time to eat.  She eats and complains and eats and complains.  See?

This chick gets around!

Peter and I headed south to Portland this past weekend.

Getting out of here was a bit of a challenge. The temperature: 19 degrees. The weather, horrendous, south, all the way to Chehalis (that's about 200 miles) was being hit by a winter storm that had trees falling across the roads, snow piling in drifts over the highway and water swamping towns and houses.
To complicate matters even more, we have a chicken that is happily sitting on eggs and would be at risk out in the weather, all alone.

We did the only thing we COULD do.. we packed Salt, the chicken, and her 4 chicks-in-the-making into the car and took her with us. Seriously, we took Salt on a road trip. Fortunately, despite the storm raging around us, the trip was quite uneventful and Salt was a great traveler. Our friends in Portland that we stayed with were quite surprised by the extra house guest but were really good sports. She's really no trouble. Salt enjoyed having her meals on their outside deck.



We are about 3 days away from chicks. I'm just on pins and needles.

While in Portland Peter went off to his seminar and I hung out with our hosts. I've known these lovely people since 1990.  We met in a prenatal aerobics class when we were expecting our first childen. We both had boys. We became fast friends. Then a few years later we both had girls. Then a few years later they had a boy and I got a dog.

I was the first to the hospital when their third child was born on a blustery Thanksgiving day. Since I wasn't having three children I informed my friend that she had to share this baby with me. He became "my George." When I got to the hospital he was all swaddled and adorable. I looked at his footprints on his birth certificate and said to his father, "oh.. it's a shame they didn't get all of his toes in the footprint." He looked at me and very seriously informed me that his child was born with only 4 toes on each foot. I was quite saddened by this. I never mentioned it again but often wondered how this happened, what ramifications would missing toes have and if he had other health issues. My friends never spoke of it either.

7 months later the kids were playing in a wading pool and my George was barefoot. And he had all of his toes! I exclaimed "He has all his toes!!" My George's mother looked at me like I had lost my mind. Because, of course, she had no idea that her husband had ever played that practical joke on me and in fact, he had forgotten it as well. We laugh about it to this day.

I was very lucky to be able to attend one of My George's basketball games Saturday. Here he is getting ready to throw a free throw.


His team lost by two points. But he played magnificently - especially since he has all his toes!

Brrrrrr.. it's cold around here!

Current temperature is 16.  That's nearly balmy.  Last night it was just 7 degrees.  We have about a foot of snow on the ground and these days, before we even have coffee, we get up and shovel the driveway.  Talk about good times!

Despite the utter chaos we live in, I've managed to dig up my moon boots.  Remember those?  I've had mine since the late 70's.  I recently found out the manufacturer still makes them, in a retro pattern even.  They sell for about $170.00.  Yikes.  I'm sure I didn't pay more than $20.00 for these.

Saturday we were out shoveling snow and I had something in the toe of my boot. I took my boot off, adjusted my sock, because I thought it was bunched up under my toes, and put the boot back on. It was better for awhile but then it bunched up again and was quite annoying. 

I leisurely got back to shoveling snow (I'm not lazy - I'm just pragmatic) and resigned myself to putting up with my bunched up sock. It continued to be annoying that day and in the days since.  

While I was messing with my boots, Peter was shoveling snow into a long row with the intention of using the tractor to push it all over to the side.  The problem was, we couldn't find the tractor key.  Our house is in such disarray since we move stuff from here to there and back again on a regular basis, finding anything can be challenging.  After three days of intermittent searching, we just couldn't find the stupid key.

Yesterday Peter went to the tractor dealer and got two extra keys for the tractor. He brought them home and I said to him "Now.. if your luck works like mine, we'll find the missing key very soon."

I had to run outside 10 minutes later .. LITERALLY.. so I slipped off my slippers and slid into my moon boots, sockless.  That lump was STILL in my boot, making it apparent it wasn't a bunched up sock at all. I took the boot off, turned it upside down and the missing tractor key fell out.

I laughed so hard I nearly cried.  My boots are much more comfortable now.

Things are looking brighter

Things are looking brighter in our little farmhouse. 

We still have the floors to finish.  All the old flooring is gone, all the tack strips are gone, all the staples and random nails are gone.  Goo is not gone.  I've removed all the wall paper that's going to come off without dynamite.  I'm ready to apply the skim coat and paint.

We have a small problem with the floors.  We have a hump.  A fine floor hump it is too.  It runs the length of dining room.  Peter has to crawl under the house and check out the joists, investigate the cause.  Then we have to figure out what to do about it.

Floors may be on hold - but general house progress is not.

The light fixture in the dining room was a bad hold-over from the 70's.  My house would be considered a bungalow, I think, and the 70's style is just wrong.  Replacing that smoked glass fixture has been on my mind since long before we moved into this house. As it turns out, I stumbled upon a fixture that I felt was just perfect.  It matched the style and era that belongs here and I really liked it.  Peter said he liked it just fine - but I think he was humoring me.  He does that sometimes.  I've asked him not to because it will give me a false sense of entitlement. He said that's not going to stop him.

I also found curtain rods with matching curtain tie backs.  My living room has windows on three walls - my dining room has two windows - the new computer room has two windows (that need to be replaced).  That's a lotta windows.  So now I have curtain rods, but I don't have curtains.  

I'm still looking for a light fixture for the living room, paint colors, windows, doors and more.  If you have use for an old light fixture - give me a holler.

bored with floors...

I admit it.  I'm bored.  I'm bored with floors.  I finally got the linoleum off the dining room floor.  There is still a nice layer of goo left behind that needs to be removed.  It was nice to see that the workers who put the goo down did a sloppy job.  It made the removal easier - in spots anyway.

Today we moved to the third and final room of this part of the flooring project (behind the door to the right of the wood stove).  My enthusiasm is waning.  I couldn't focus.  My hands hurt, my tools malfunctioned, My mood was discouraged.  After removing the carpet and making a feeble attempt at pulling up tack strips I did the only thing reasonable.  I took a nap.  It was a very nice nap too.  I curled up on the floor over a heat vent (one of my favorite places to nap) and slept.

When I woke I still lacked the staple and tack strip removal urge so I started picking at the wallpaper.  Much like the wallpaper in the batchelor pad, it was applied directly to the sheet rock.  I learned from my earlier experience that trying to remove it is useless.  My goal was just to remove the loose stuff.  I did pretty well.  I am quite puzzled though - there are places where there is wall paper on wall paper.  On wallpaper.  Three layers of wallpaper.  Just in places.  And it's all the same print.  I don't get it.

I'm just floored.

I've spent two days on the floor.  Not in a good way either. 

Shortly after we moved into the farm house, we peeked under the shag carpet and discovered glorious original fir flooring.  It had never been finished - apparently almost immediately covered up with carpeting after installation.  It was like a gift.

We decided to wait to bring my furniture from storage until we got the floors done.  I mean, what sense would it be to bring in all my stuff just to have to store it somewhere while we work on the floors?  That means the floors are on the fast track. 

Yesterday I spent the day removing the carpet in the living room.  The results were quite encouraging.

Of course, they still need sanding and several coats of finish on them.  Sharon was a happy camper.

Then came the horror.  Today I moved to the dining room.  Under the same ugly shag was the same beautiful hard wood, but between the two was this 80 year old linoleum.

Here is the worst part:  I liked it.  It reminded me of my Grandma Scheidel's kitchen in California. 

My granparents had a farm just outside of Sacramento.  The kitchen was the center of daily life.  You entered and exited the house through the kitchen.  You did not go elsewhere in the house (like the parlor) unless you had a very good reason for doing so.  I think I only went into the parlor once in my entire life. The kitchen was  a large square room.  It was always warm and inviting and smelled good.  There was a wood-fired oven that heated the room and cooked the food.  There was a big farm sink and a table smack dab in the middle that was large enough to hold every hungry soul in the county.  I remember my grandmother sitting at the table snapping peas while my grandfather napped in the chaise lounge in the corner.  Such wonderful memories. 

Unfortunately my old lino was terribly worn in most places and was not salvageable.  I believe I'm going to try to save a square of it and make some art from it.

After an entire day of crawling around on my hands and knees scraping - this is where the dining room stands:

I don't think it's even a quarter done.  I still have furniture to move, carpeting to pull up and one or two bedrooms and a hallway to de-carpet before we can get to sanding and finishing. 

Someday I hope to get back to my goat shop mission.  But there are priorities. 

Like mother like son & daughter-in-law

My son and his wife have been visiting for the last few days.  We've gone sight seeing and shopping and eating and drinking.  Yesterday I left them to their own devices.

They had a great time.  They went to Canada and visited a goat farm, they had lunch, they shopped and came back with....  wait for it... Roving.  Yeah..  that fiber stuff I obsess about.  It seems my enthusiasm and passion is contagious.  Here is Kyle using his new drop spindle.

Here is Mary using my loom (and eating breakfast):

Needless to say, while the kids have been here, moving and settling in have been mostly put on hold.  I've unpacked a few things and sorted through stuff.  I peaked under that wallpaper and much to my horror I found that the wallpaper has been applied directly to the sheet rock.  I know what that means.  I wonder what would happen if I just saved myself a whole lot of time, effort and frustration and just took a belt sander to the wall.