What started off as a mild, low-key, sort-some-tools-and-hardware project in the garage this morning turned into a knock-down, full-scale, rip-some-lumber cleanup this afternoon with B's participation.
Good news: cut up a lot of leftover tenant crapola for the trash, brought tires up to DPW for recycling, really cleaned up the space. It's like a new garage!!
Bad news: sore and achy. And lots of hardware still to sort. I am my father's daughter - loathe to throw away anything that "might come in handy someday." But it's good to get it done. I am tired of buying home improvement supplies and then finding the same thing in a box or storage bin somewhere. Now I know: I have 4 regular hammers plus a tack hammer and rubber hammer; about 18 billion screwdrivers, 5 putty knives, 17 rolls of duct tape, and so forth.
I wish there was a way for us to compile "tool kits" for households in need. The stuff is used but excellent quality - and good tools is one area to which my usual cheapness does not extend. Really, you get what you pay for with tools. Cheap price = subpar performance and quick breakage (B is very hard on tools). I, on the other hand, have had the same wood-handled, probably antique flat-blade screwdriver since 1978, and it is perfect for my hand.
hmm, well, ok. What is new? B has been home since Thursday. We have finally cleared out all of the "sumac" bed behind the house. I have a new, err, appreciation (not really the right word - maybe grudging respect) for the sumac. See, it grows into a tree, and when you cut the tree down, it gets really pissed off, and sends out roots in every direction, and THEY each try to grow into trees. (Think of the scene in Fantasia when Mickey whacks the broom and little brooms sprout - or the knockoff scene in Itchy and Scratchy with the bloodstream nanohatchets.)
Nevertheless, we are gonna fight the entropy of the universe by planting grass seed there tomorrow, and I will eventually price the evergreens I want (Chamaecyparis obtusa) for the hedge against the adjoining shed. Then: the Mediterranean garden (all delicious herbs); the Japanese rock garden (I've collected the rocks already!) and the water feature.
A brick terrace surrounded with a mix of flowering shrubs and perennials. Coffee every morning. A fire pit with s'mores evenings. I have about a ton of biomass to burn.
Mountain Lakes NJ was a planned community designed by engineer Lewis Van Duyne and built by developer Melvin Hapgood. See http://www.mtnlakes.org/History/. The community is referenced in an article about an otherwise ostentatious home in Montclair NJ designed by architect and prez of the NJAIA Seth A. Leeb that appeared in the New York Times on July 6, 2008. Leeb apparently has done a lot of work in Mt. Lakes.
(A 7,000-SF luxury home listed at $3.5 million on the site of a teardown is NOT a green endeavor, no matter what sort of spin the architect and builder are using to get some buzz for the property.)
I wonder if anyone has written about this community as a planned development? It's easy to envision the utopian world if you can start with a blank slate: creating healthy and vibrant communities from what exists is a great deal more challenging! And the utopian fantasy is well-traveled ground in academe. Still....
I helped B engineer his temporary escape from the hospital today, in order to make it to another important (and very hard-to-get) doctor's appointment (at a much more prestigious medical institution). The medical staff at the first hospital was, um, displeased. Nursing Supervisor Ratchett called me on my cell phone to bitch me out (cue Wicked Witch of West music here), and then the hospital doc chewed B a new one upon his return.
But all is resolved and they let him stay another night so that he can have a 24-hour drip of basically antacid medication. He has (if I understand the report and the Internot) a stomach ulcer and a condition in his esophagus in which the cells change into a different kind of cell, probably from continued acid reflux. They haven't talked about treatment, but it will probably involve medication. Mayo Clinic advertises surgical treatments, yuck.
The good news is that he probably doesn't have the very dangerous and demobilizing foot condition that we went to see the other doc about. THAT has to be a tremendous relief.
Back to regularly scheduled programming.
I never grill - unless B is away. Alas, he is "away" at the moment - tucked into a bed on an upper floor of Salem Hospital. Not to worry, gentle readers: he was light-headed and had low blood pressure, and is being kept just for monitoring. I will post an update tomorrow when we know what (if anything) is going on.
So that took up 4-10 pm more or less - and then I left and came home and grilled the most fabulous hamburger sandwich ever. Of course, I was starved, lunch having been served at 12 noon and having been, let us say, modest in scope (turkey salad, with the leftover rice from last night, with grapes, celery, and deli turkey) - but still. About 3.5 min on the front side, 2.5-3 on the reverse - and it was unbelievable - medium well, but almost medium rare. Ketchup and pickle, on the last roll we had. I needed nothing else.
On a more positive note: Dad came over this afternoon to do some chain-sawing. Scary but productive. That pile of dead trees will be gone in no time! MORE ROOM FOR POTATOES. My mini-potato farm is the lushest thing up in the garden.
I don't think my lifestyle is any different right now than it's been anytime in the past several years, but I really feel the (media-induced) Zeitgeist of hard economic times: bad and probably getting worse.
Somehow, we've taken to scavenging again. In addition to B's craigslist addiction, we've collected the following items from hither and yon (walking every day is not only good exercise, it's primo scavenging time):
1. Aeropostale sweatpants, navy. A bit faded, good for yardwork.
2. Wooden chair, white. Good for the porch or extra people for dinner.
3. Wooden chair, cane. Possibly for the sewing area.
4. Half a roll of black electrical tape. We needed some anyway.
I feel a little bad about the sweatpants, because I suspect they belonged to one of my landscaper neighbors, but they sat there on the sidewalk for several days and through a couple of downpours, so I figure, finders-keepers.
One of my friends is doing an updated "living off the land" thing with her kids, and she has a lot of innovative (read labor-saving) ideas. I'm intrigued, but too tied up with other projects this summer to do it. Maybe next year. Supposedly 40% of the produce consumed in this country during WW2 was grown in Victory Gardens. I find that statistic highly suspect, but something like it would really turn Big Agriculture on its ass. Not a bad thing.
For the past several weeks, we've been observing a pair of little birds (chickadees, perhaps?) who had established a home in a hole in our hydrangea tree. After I scared off a squirrel that was (aggressively) hanging out in "their" tree, they seemed to get more trusting - perching close to us in the yard, maybe even showing up when B whistled their song. (I may be totally anthropomorphizing here.)
It was interesting to watch them bring worms back - and to listen to the hungry cries from the tree trunk.
Today they are gone, and there doesn't seem to be anybird in the nest. What happened, I wonder??
I miss them and I hope they are ok.