Hi there! Thanks for stopping by Homestead Lane. Can you believe it's been since last March that we chatted? My how time does fly. Lots going on, and I'd love to tell you about it, but it's going to have to wait. I really need to get something off my chest. Do you have a minute? I need to write myself through something so pretend you're my most trusted confidant, get yourself a glass of wine, or a cup of tea, or a beer, whatever you fancy, and thanks for listening.
You see, I've got a bit of writers block. I'm feeling uninspired. I had a burst of excitement a few weeks ago when I wrote a short story as a response to a question on a writing grant I was applying for, and it felt so good, but really other than that, it's been the desert in my head. In the words of the brilliant Liz Lemon, Bergh.
Look over there in the bio line underneath my picture. Laura Ingalls Wilder meets Carrie Bradshaw who is reading Thoreau. These days it's more like Snoopy meets Roseanne Barr reading Cathy comics.
I sit down to write something just for me, not for the wonderful, brilliant clients I have (which incidentally, I have no problem writing for) and nothing comes. I can't just jump into writing my book. I need a warm up. So I sit at this blog and think of something purposeful to write about, and I can't. I don't feel it. Fortheloveofgod I'm writing an entry on how I don't have anything to write about.
Sylvia has a brilliant book called Stuck by Oliver Jeffers. It's about a boy who gets his kite stuck in a tree. He throws his shoe up to dislodge it, but the shoe gets stuck as well. Then he throws another item to get the shoe unstuck and that gets stuck too. It continues like this, him throwing items to get the previous stuck item unstuck, yet resulting in all the items stuck in a tree, including a curious whale in the wrong place at the wrong time.
I'm Stuck. My book is in a tree, and I throw so many things at it - adventure: the more I experience, the more I will be inspired to write; exercise: getting my adrenaline running and blood moving will help; work: flexing my fingers and exercising my brain for freelance writing will help, being in a positive place about work helps me be positive about writing in general; socializing: being out there, in the world, with friends, that will help; reading: other writers words will help me – but so far, my book is still in that tree.
People, friends, neighbors always ask, "How's the book going?" because I'm Sarah the Writer. And I answer, "It's good. I've bookmarked one day per week that's totally devoted to writing, just for me. And I'm applying for a big, huge writing grant, so hopefully I'll get it. I'm really hopeful."And then they'll say, "I can't wait to read it." And I'll jokingly answer, "Me too!"
But it's true. I can't wait until it's done. It's the longest, most painful, torturous labor I've ever endured. Because I'm stuck. There's a baby stuck in this birth canal. Ladies, imagine the pain here.... am I right?! I've barely used that day I set aside just to write for me. And then, the aforementioned grant was cancelled for this year. It was a big, humongous, motivating grant. I'm applying for lots of little grants, and am still just as hopeful that I'll get them too, this one was just big and life-changing.
I haven't lost hope. I'm just stuck.
I turned 38 in September and I promised myself that this was the year the book would be finished. Not published or edited or on bookshelves. Just finished. It seemed like an achievable goal at the time. Now a month and some change later, not another page has been written, and I'm letting that small voice of doubt creep into my head. What's going to shake this feeling of uninspiration? What can I do about it? Because we all know, unhappiness starts and ends here, right at my feet. (hmmmm... maybe a manicure....) I need to shake it. I need to be inspired. I have the power to do both these things.
Here's how the book ends, in case you're wondering. At the very moment the boy runs out of things to throw at the tree, his kite falls out. He's overjoyed because he totally forgot about his kite. He spends the rest of the day enjoying his kite.
Tuesday, November 3, 2015
Tuesday, March 17, 2015
Mother Hen
Hi! Thanks for stopping by Homestead Lane.
This past weekend Homestead Lane welcomed seven baby chicks! Having never been the owner of anything more than fish, a hamster that I froze to death accidentally on my cold back porch as a youngster, and a beagle, I was a bit nervous about owning and raising farm animals. However, I took one look at Sweet Sylvia and realized that after four years of raising the queen of drama, I could probably handle some chicks. These chicks wouldn't keep me up all night, or scream "NO! I DON'T WANT TO!" or ask why a million times, or throw themselves down in the middle of the grocery store because they couldn't get a toy. Yeah, I think I can handle some chicks.
So, we got two Productions Reds,
two Welsummers,
two Gold Sexlinks,
and one beautiful Cuckoo Maran - who was immediately named Henrietta Finley (see the inspiration for my forthcoming novel here.)
Sweet Sylvia named one Crystal, I'm guessing after one her beloved pony toys. Another was named Ariel, and one of the Production Reds - the ones who will lay the most - was named Chicken McNugget. The rest have yet to show is their chickenalities, so their names will be forthcoming.
In advance of getting these chickens I have been pouring over BackyardChickens.com soaking in all the information I can about raising chickens, because, of course like any expecting mother I'm nervous as hell about these fragile little peeps being under my care and supervision. Mostly, everything seemed easy. The brooder (the little tub with a heat lamp where the chicks live for the first 5 weeks) has to be the right temperature. Keep their water and feed always full. Change their box every day or two. Work to imprint the chickens, which is how they connect a sound to the first big thing they see and that's who they think is the mother hen. Oh! I'd be Mother Hen! I loved the sound of that. So very sweet. They'd follow me around while I gave them treats. How cute. Yes, that I could do. Oh, and make sure their vents are open to avoid pasty butt. Uhm, what?! Pasty butt?
Yes. Pasty butt. The situation where the chicks pooper get plugged up with their poop, which then blocks their poop from coming out, which could kill them. Oh dear god! I didn't want my little chicks to die of a clogged pooper. BackyardChickens suggested checking them every few hours the first two weeks, including overnight. Our chicks came to us a few days old, so I was going to have to give them attention like newborns?! No. Sorry chicks, but no. Mama already played that game with a newborn, re-played that game at one year old, played it again recently at four years old, and am just to a point where overnight sleep is somewhat normal. I'm NOT getting up every few hours to check your little chicken butt.
However, this morning after Silas and Sylvia said good morning to our little flock Silas informed me that Henrietta had a clogged vent. Ha! Ha! was of course my first response. I knew he was joking because when I first informed him about checking our chicks vents he laughed and said, "have fun!" To which I responded, "I will do anything for our sweet baby chicks including checking their vents." Thinking, like any parent-to-be, that my chicken would never have that. He looked at me with all seriousness this morning and assured me he was not joking. There was a pasty butt situation.
Oh Henrietta! Mama's coming! I donned surgical gloves, got a warm, wet rag, a warm water bath in a bowl, vegetable oil and sat next to our little chicken brooder and informed Henrietta that there would be a small procedure this morning. I used my Mother Hen voice and discussed with Henrietta that she was going to be our most beautiful hen and we needed her but to be free and clear at all times. I held her in my hands, dipped her little backside in the warm bath water and proceeded to free the clumped-up shit from her little chicken fluff. She was not a fan of her chicken enema. I couldn't blame her. Not a great way to start your day. And, furthermore, I couldn't believe I was sitting with a week old chicken trying to pry her poop from her feathers, soothing her with my newfound Mama Hen voice. But here we were, bonding. Mother and chicken.
You'll be happy to know we solved the pasty butt problem, wiped her vent with vegetable oil, as suggested, and Henrietta is as good as new. I sat with my chick, dipped her in a warm bath, dissolved poop from her little chicken butt, and then whipped her down with vegetable oil. Who am I?! Oh, yes, Mother Hen.
To my surprise when I put Henrietta back in the brooder all the other chicks started pecking at her butt, curious what her exotic vegetable oil scent was all about. She stood with her beak in a corner while the others pecked at her like a kid on the playground getting picked on. "You get away from my Henrietta! Any of you couldn't have had pasty butt. How would you feel? Any don't think you're escaping this! You're all getting checked!" And just like a Mother Hen I picked up each chick and checked their vents for pasty butt. And just like little kids, they all ran and hid from their examination.
So I've become a mother again. Accidentally, without giving it much thought, I went and had seven new little babies. Sigh. You can find my new baby registry at your local Town & Country supply store. I think I'm going to like this second mother hood though. Proud moments like when we move them to their coop, their first free range hunt and peck adventure, when they lay their first eggs. And headaches like unidentifiable sickness, lost chickens, and cross-my-fingers that it doesn't happen, but hopefully not losing one to a predator. I shall cast that last one from my mind. We've protected their coop like Fort Knox, fortifying it with everything but an ADT alarm system. But that's another story for another time. I have to go feed my little flock a treat now. They had a tough morning.
This past weekend Homestead Lane welcomed seven baby chicks! Having never been the owner of anything more than fish, a hamster that I froze to death accidentally on my cold back porch as a youngster, and a beagle, I was a bit nervous about owning and raising farm animals. However, I took one look at Sweet Sylvia and realized that after four years of raising the queen of drama, I could probably handle some chicks. These chicks wouldn't keep me up all night, or scream "NO! I DON'T WANT TO!" or ask why a million times, or throw themselves down in the middle of the grocery store because they couldn't get a toy. Yeah, I think I can handle some chicks.
So, we got two Productions Reds,
two Welsummers,
two Gold Sexlinks,
and one beautiful Cuckoo Maran - who was immediately named Henrietta Finley (see the inspiration for my forthcoming novel here.)
Sweet Sylvia named one Crystal, I'm guessing after one her beloved pony toys. Another was named Ariel, and one of the Production Reds - the ones who will lay the most - was named Chicken McNugget. The rest have yet to show is their chickenalities, so their names will be forthcoming.
In advance of getting these chickens I have been pouring over BackyardChickens.com soaking in all the information I can about raising chickens, because, of course like any expecting mother I'm nervous as hell about these fragile little peeps being under my care and supervision. Mostly, everything seemed easy. The brooder (the little tub with a heat lamp where the chicks live for the first 5 weeks) has to be the right temperature. Keep their water and feed always full. Change their box every day or two. Work to imprint the chickens, which is how they connect a sound to the first big thing they see and that's who they think is the mother hen. Oh! I'd be Mother Hen! I loved the sound of that. So very sweet. They'd follow me around while I gave them treats. How cute. Yes, that I could do. Oh, and make sure their vents are open to avoid pasty butt. Uhm, what?! Pasty butt?
Yes. Pasty butt. The situation where the chicks pooper get plugged up with their poop, which then blocks their poop from coming out, which could kill them. Oh dear god! I didn't want my little chicks to die of a clogged pooper. BackyardChickens suggested checking them every few hours the first two weeks, including overnight. Our chicks came to us a few days old, so I was going to have to give them attention like newborns?! No. Sorry chicks, but no. Mama already played that game with a newborn, re-played that game at one year old, played it again recently at four years old, and am just to a point where overnight sleep is somewhat normal. I'm NOT getting up every few hours to check your little chicken butt.
However, this morning after Silas and Sylvia said good morning to our little flock Silas informed me that Henrietta had a clogged vent. Ha! Ha! was of course my first response. I knew he was joking because when I first informed him about checking our chicks vents he laughed and said, "have fun!" To which I responded, "I will do anything for our sweet baby chicks including checking their vents." Thinking, like any parent-to-be, that my chicken would never have that. He looked at me with all seriousness this morning and assured me he was not joking. There was a pasty butt situation.
Oh Henrietta! Mama's coming! I donned surgical gloves, got a warm, wet rag, a warm water bath in a bowl, vegetable oil and sat next to our little chicken brooder and informed Henrietta that there would be a small procedure this morning. I used my Mother Hen voice and discussed with Henrietta that she was going to be our most beautiful hen and we needed her but to be free and clear at all times. I held her in my hands, dipped her little backside in the warm bath water and proceeded to free the clumped-up shit from her little chicken fluff. She was not a fan of her chicken enema. I couldn't blame her. Not a great way to start your day. And, furthermore, I couldn't believe I was sitting with a week old chicken trying to pry her poop from her feathers, soothing her with my newfound Mama Hen voice. But here we were, bonding. Mother and chicken.
You'll be happy to know we solved the pasty butt problem, wiped her vent with vegetable oil, as suggested, and Henrietta is as good as new. I sat with my chick, dipped her in a warm bath, dissolved poop from her little chicken butt, and then whipped her down with vegetable oil. Who am I?! Oh, yes, Mother Hen.
To my surprise when I put Henrietta back in the brooder all the other chicks started pecking at her butt, curious what her exotic vegetable oil scent was all about. She stood with her beak in a corner while the others pecked at her like a kid on the playground getting picked on. "You get away from my Henrietta! Any of you couldn't have had pasty butt. How would you feel? Any don't think you're escaping this! You're all getting checked!" And just like a Mother Hen I picked up each chick and checked their vents for pasty butt. And just like little kids, they all ran and hid from their examination.
So I've become a mother again. Accidentally, without giving it much thought, I went and had seven new little babies. Sigh. You can find my new baby registry at your local Town & Country supply store. I think I'm going to like this second mother hood though. Proud moments like when we move them to their coop, their first free range hunt and peck adventure, when they lay their first eggs. And headaches like unidentifiable sickness, lost chickens, and cross-my-fingers that it doesn't happen, but hopefully not losing one to a predator. I shall cast that last one from my mind. We've protected their coop like Fort Knox, fortifying it with everything but an ADT alarm system. But that's another story for another time. I have to go feed my little flock a treat now. They had a tough morning.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Work In Progress.
Hi there. Thanks for stopping by Homestead Lane.
Spring has absolutely arrived, and I am head over heels in love with it. The air smells SO GOOD outside. I think once I wrote about how the color green smells. To me, green smells like spring - fresh, wet, dewy, sweet, floral, grassy. This heavenly perfume has encompassed the whole island, and I want to bathe in it every morning and dab it behind my ears to wear all day long. The birds are singing the happiest songs entitled "I Love Homestead Lane in the Springtime." And we are outside working all day long, which brings me to my post today.
There are projects galore around Homestead Lane. Got a few hours? Want a working vacation? Just want to get some dirt under your fingernails? Come on over! We'd love for you to help. Currently, just outside projects include, building a chicken coop, raised beds for a garden, a fence for the garden, transplanting fruit trees and blueberry bushes, and I haven't even gotten started on the shade garden I'd like to plant, a walkway from the drive to the front porch, and a palate deck around our outdoor tub. We're Busy! (see this video: Busy. )
In my past life, i.e. the life I lived in a city, on dry land, my projects list was much less demanding and on a quite smaller scale. Plant tulip bulbs. Weed and replant the two foot by two foot flower box in front of my house. Plant a windowsill herb garden. In my current life I'm building a muthereffing chicken coop. It's hard work and I love it. And I'm learning so much about myself. An astrologer once told me that my whole job in this life was to work on myself. She neglected to mention, however, that working about myself meant working with a shovel, a hammer, nails, wood. But that's just it, right? Working on ourselves requires tools, much learning, time and getting dirty.
In the past few weeks that our outside work has ramped up intensely thanks to the springtime weather I've learned that I'm totally clumsy. Oh no wait. I already knew that. Well, being around sharp tools has reminded me of my clumsiness. No breaks yet. Just cuts and scrapes and bruises. Battle scars that I wear with pride.
I've learned that I LOVE digging. Like really putting my foot on a shovel, pushing it in to the earth, digging. There is something so incredibly satisfying about it. Silas has done this for years because A - He's male. He inherently likes digging, and B. He's lived on Homestead Lane on and off for almost 10 years. To him, digging a hole is just something that has to be done to get to another step in a project. Last weekend when we started our chicken coop we decided step one was digging a ditch around the perimeter of the planned coop area to lay down some protective wire or rock to keep burrowing predators out. After he stated that digging the ditch "Is a back-breaking job that's kind of mind-numbing and takes a while," I anxiously volunteered. I dug a seven foot by five foot ditch under the warm sunshine and loved every minute of it. And I should state, our land is chocked full of rocks and roots. So every few inches I'd have to hack away at a roots, show it who is boss, or wedge a mid-sized boulder out of the dirt before going any deeper. I just kept smiling and happily heaving dirt from the earth into a pile asking myself, "why do I love this? It's a job prisoners do as punishment." This past weekend I got after it again and dug four huge holes that would become the foundation for our coop. Roots. Rocks. Loved it. Got dirt in my hair. Wiped it on my face. Loved it. Then, In a moment of total clarity, the sun shone through the clouds, the heavens sang, a fountain of water shot up behind me and I smiled and realized, "I love Josh." Oh no wait. That's a scene from Clueless. I realized I love hard work, because I've never really worked hard. Sure, writing a novel is hard work. Raising a child is hard work. Creating an advertising campaign is hard work. But manual labor, working outside, shoveling, that's hard work of a much different kind, and I haven't really ever done it. I don't know that I actually knew I could do it. In my previous life I might have thought of doing a large scale backyard project, like "oooh, I'd love to have a butterfly garden!" But then I would have researched it, realized I'd have to map out a planting plan, buy a bunch of different plants, prepare a space for it, rake, dig, fertilize, plant, etc., and then just crossed it off my list because it was too hard, involved too much time and effort and patience (which you all know I don't have), and the aspirational thought would have stayed that - a thought. In this life, if I want to be an active part of it, I really have no choice. Well, I do. I could not partake in the life that's happening around me because it's hard, or I could. And I chose, could. And that means I've learned that I actually can do it. I can shovel deep holes. I can do hard work! Who knew?!
I've learned that I could use some work in the coachability department. I don't take coaching very well, which may explain why I never really played sports. When someone tries to show me how to do something that I already feel I am excelling at, I roll my eyes and let them know that yeah yeah, I've got it, thank you, and you can take your "help" and shove it. Well this ridiculous, childish behavior that I actually thought I'd left behind reared it's ugly head just yesterday when I was hammering down the subfloor of our chicken coop. (Yes, I did just use the word "subfloor"!!) I volunteered to do this job because again, it sounded as fun as shoveling dirt, and because I wanted to be a part of building our coop. Silas, the most patient man on planet Earth, showed me how he wanted it done - he being the experienced carpenter and all - and I got to work. He left me to do my thing, assuming that I could handle hammering a nail into a board, and continued sawing more boards. I haven't quite worked my way up to electric saws yet. (See: clumsiness ) I did it just like he showed me. Dulled the end of the nail so it wouldn't split the board. Tapped it in the wood a few times to set it, then gave it heavy, muscled hits with the hammer. I would hit it correctly a few times straight up and down, then without fail, hit it so that it went crooked. I'd straighten it out again with a few taps, hit it a few more times, then crooked. Repeat. I tried sitting at different angles while hammering. Still the same problem. Hammer. Hammer. Crooked. So I choked up on the handle. Ah ha! There. A strong hit to the nail, and with only ten or twelve whacks, it was in. I heard Silas approaching and couldn't wait for him to see how good I was at hammering. Here I was, his gal, his urban lady turned farm girl, happily hammering away in work pants. He would think it was so cute. He presented me with a different hammer. A Stiletto Titanium Hammer. The Ferrari of hammers, he informed me. It was much lighter than the hammer I had been using. I choked up on the handle and gave it a couple of whacks, careful to show him that I was doing exactly what he'd shown me. Wack. Wack. Sideways. Ugh! And this is where the coachable moment happens:
"Why do keep hitting it sideways?"
"Lower your grip a little."
Quickly cutting him off. "Yeah, I tried that, but it didn't work and slowed me down. This seems to be my grip. Do you want me to do it slow or fast?"
"Well, I guess I'd like you to do it right."
Um, excuuuse me? I was doing it right! I was doing it MY way. That is the right way.
"So, try using your wrist instead of hammering with your whole arm. It helps you control the movement better."
Oh sure, right. And he knows because he's, like, built whole houses and a huge workshop and a bathroom addition, and is a carpenter and totally works with wood and hammers and nails, and shit, He's right, of course. Doing it his way I easily hammer in the nail with nine thumps and none of them go sideways. It's much easier and feels better too. I smile sweetly at him. He is wearing his most patient smile with just a hint of "I told ya so," though he's so sweet he'd never verbally say it.
"Thanks for teaching me how to hammer." Totally ready to eat a handful of nails and hammer the stubbornness right out of myself.
Homestead Lane will learn me. It will. I'm working harder, working stronger, living better, living fuller, and am happier than I've ever been. And I think those things make me open to learning. My stubborn, know-it-all, prideful ways are just generations of DNA. That can be rewritten.
Much like Homestead Lane, I'm a work-in-progress.
Spring has absolutely arrived, and I am head over heels in love with it. The air smells SO GOOD outside. I think once I wrote about how the color green smells. To me, green smells like spring - fresh, wet, dewy, sweet, floral, grassy. This heavenly perfume has encompassed the whole island, and I want to bathe in it every morning and dab it behind my ears to wear all day long. The birds are singing the happiest songs entitled "I Love Homestead Lane in the Springtime." And we are outside working all day long, which brings me to my post today.
There are projects galore around Homestead Lane. Got a few hours? Want a working vacation? Just want to get some dirt under your fingernails? Come on over! We'd love for you to help. Currently, just outside projects include, building a chicken coop, raised beds for a garden, a fence for the garden, transplanting fruit trees and blueberry bushes, and I haven't even gotten started on the shade garden I'd like to plant, a walkway from the drive to the front porch, and a palate deck around our outdoor tub. We're Busy! (see this video: Busy. )
In my past life, i.e. the life I lived in a city, on dry land, my projects list was much less demanding and on a quite smaller scale. Plant tulip bulbs. Weed and replant the two foot by two foot flower box in front of my house. Plant a windowsill herb garden. In my current life I'm building a muthereffing chicken coop. It's hard work and I love it. And I'm learning so much about myself. An astrologer once told me that my whole job in this life was to work on myself. She neglected to mention, however, that working about myself meant working with a shovel, a hammer, nails, wood. But that's just it, right? Working on ourselves requires tools, much learning, time and getting dirty.
In the past few weeks that our outside work has ramped up intensely thanks to the springtime weather I've learned that I'm totally clumsy. Oh no wait. I already knew that. Well, being around sharp tools has reminded me of my clumsiness. No breaks yet. Just cuts and scrapes and bruises. Battle scars that I wear with pride.
I've learned that I LOVE digging. Like really putting my foot on a shovel, pushing it in to the earth, digging. There is something so incredibly satisfying about it. Silas has done this for years because A - He's male. He inherently likes digging, and B. He's lived on Homestead Lane on and off for almost 10 years. To him, digging a hole is just something that has to be done to get to another step in a project. Last weekend when we started our chicken coop we decided step one was digging a ditch around the perimeter of the planned coop area to lay down some protective wire or rock to keep burrowing predators out. After he stated that digging the ditch "Is a back-breaking job that's kind of mind-numbing and takes a while," I anxiously volunteered. I dug a seven foot by five foot ditch under the warm sunshine and loved every minute of it. And I should state, our land is chocked full of rocks and roots. So every few inches I'd have to hack away at a roots, show it who is boss, or wedge a mid-sized boulder out of the dirt before going any deeper. I just kept smiling and happily heaving dirt from the earth into a pile asking myself, "why do I love this? It's a job prisoners do as punishment." This past weekend I got after it again and dug four huge holes that would become the foundation for our coop. Roots. Rocks. Loved it. Got dirt in my hair. Wiped it on my face. Loved it. Then, In a moment of total clarity, the sun shone through the clouds, the heavens sang, a fountain of water shot up behind me and I smiled and realized, "I love Josh." Oh no wait. That's a scene from Clueless. I realized I love hard work, because I've never really worked hard. Sure, writing a novel is hard work. Raising a child is hard work. Creating an advertising campaign is hard work. But manual labor, working outside, shoveling, that's hard work of a much different kind, and I haven't really ever done it. I don't know that I actually knew I could do it. In my previous life I might have thought of doing a large scale backyard project, like "oooh, I'd love to have a butterfly garden!" But then I would have researched it, realized I'd have to map out a planting plan, buy a bunch of different plants, prepare a space for it, rake, dig, fertilize, plant, etc., and then just crossed it off my list because it was too hard, involved too much time and effort and patience (which you all know I don't have), and the aspirational thought would have stayed that - a thought. In this life, if I want to be an active part of it, I really have no choice. Well, I do. I could not partake in the life that's happening around me because it's hard, or I could. And I chose, could. And that means I've learned that I actually can do it. I can shovel deep holes. I can do hard work! Who knew?!
I've learned that I could use some work in the coachability department. I don't take coaching very well, which may explain why I never really played sports. When someone tries to show me how to do something that I already feel I am excelling at, I roll my eyes and let them know that yeah yeah, I've got it, thank you, and you can take your "help" and shove it. Well this ridiculous, childish behavior that I actually thought I'd left behind reared it's ugly head just yesterday when I was hammering down the subfloor of our chicken coop. (Yes, I did just use the word "subfloor"!!) I volunteered to do this job because again, it sounded as fun as shoveling dirt, and because I wanted to be a part of building our coop. Silas, the most patient man on planet Earth, showed me how he wanted it done - he being the experienced carpenter and all - and I got to work. He left me to do my thing, assuming that I could handle hammering a nail into a board, and continued sawing more boards. I haven't quite worked my way up to electric saws yet. (See: clumsiness ) I did it just like he showed me. Dulled the end of the nail so it wouldn't split the board. Tapped it in the wood a few times to set it, then gave it heavy, muscled hits with the hammer. I would hit it correctly a few times straight up and down, then without fail, hit it so that it went crooked. I'd straighten it out again with a few taps, hit it a few more times, then crooked. Repeat. I tried sitting at different angles while hammering. Still the same problem. Hammer. Hammer. Crooked. So I choked up on the handle. Ah ha! There. A strong hit to the nail, and with only ten or twelve whacks, it was in. I heard Silas approaching and couldn't wait for him to see how good I was at hammering. Here I was, his gal, his urban lady turned farm girl, happily hammering away in work pants. He would think it was so cute. He presented me with a different hammer. A Stiletto Titanium Hammer. The Ferrari of hammers, he informed me. It was much lighter than the hammer I had been using. I choked up on the handle and gave it a couple of whacks, careful to show him that I was doing exactly what he'd shown me. Wack. Wack. Sideways. Ugh! And this is where the coachable moment happens:
"Why do keep hitting it sideways?"
"Lower your grip a little."
Quickly cutting him off. "Yeah, I tried that, but it didn't work and slowed me down. This seems to be my grip. Do you want me to do it slow or fast?"
"Well, I guess I'd like you to do it right."
Um, excuuuse me? I was doing it right! I was doing it MY way. That is the right way.
"So, try using your wrist instead of hammering with your whole arm. It helps you control the movement better."
Oh sure, right. And he knows because he's, like, built whole houses and a huge workshop and a bathroom addition, and is a carpenter and totally works with wood and hammers and nails, and shit, He's right, of course. Doing it his way I easily hammer in the nail with nine thumps and none of them go sideways. It's much easier and feels better too. I smile sweetly at him. He is wearing his most patient smile with just a hint of "I told ya so," though he's so sweet he'd never verbally say it.
"Thanks for teaching me how to hammer." Totally ready to eat a handful of nails and hammer the stubbornness right out of myself.
Homestead Lane will learn me. It will. I'm working harder, working stronger, living better, living fuller, and am happier than I've ever been. And I think those things make me open to learning. My stubborn, know-it-all, prideful ways are just generations of DNA. That can be rewritten.
Much like Homestead Lane, I'm a work-in-progress.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
The Childhood of My Dreams
Hi there! Thanks for stopping by Homestead Lane. Things have been so busy here that I haven't had any time to write.
Silas and I (read: definitely 95% Silas) have been sanding and refinishing floors and building a room in the Cozy Cabin.
Por Que?
We have a new inhabitant: Sweet Sylvia. My daughter. The beautiful pink fancy part of my heart. She has been living with her Dad in Denver for the past almost 6 months, and is now back to live with us for all time on Homestead Lane. To say that I'm happy would be a gross understatement. Assume I smile, really really big, every day. Even when she's being a whiny four year old. But that's not why I'm writing. I'm just catching you up.
It's been such a pleasure to watch Sweet Sylvia exist in the dreamy wooded perfection of Homestead Lane. I've know since I moved here, and every day that I walk around the property, that I'm so lucky to live in such incredible natural beauty. But, I haven't really seen it from the height of a four year-old or stopped to think how amazing it must be to live in a magical forest, which is, of course, where she thinks she lives. And why wouldn't she? There are towers like castles of cedar and spruce and sequoia all around her, ferns as big as boulders that she can hide under, excitingly scary and beautifully mysterious barred owls that call to each other from the tree tops while watching over her, birds that have the happiest tweets to wake her up in the morning and sing to her all day long, frogs that release an almost defining croak at night. When the sun comes out it filters through the trees and makes the dew on the grass sparkle like crystals. And this doesn't even hold a candle to all the fairies and gnomes she is sure that are living around us in the trees and under mushrooms.
I remember reading one time that it's important to touch your skin to the earth every day. For Sylvia this is not a problem. On a daily basis she communes with nature, getting her hands in everything she can; picking up worms, inspecting beetles, poking at slugs. She would never dream of avoiding the muddy sloppiness of the rain-soaked property. She heads right for it, opting not to take the dry path. She's planting seed starters, growing tadpoles from the pond in a jar in our living space, checking the hoop house for slugs, leveling space for a new garden, and soon taking care of baby chicks. She gets to ride on the tractor with Silas.
And that's just here on the property. We live on an island and have a 12-ft boat that allows us the opportunity to fish, throw crab pots, run to neighboring island. We get minus tides during the afternoon so we can dig for clams. Storms roll in driftwood for beach forts. There are two beaches loaded with agates. We take sunset beach walks. We ride the ferry to school every day. The discovery and adventure is endless.
But this is the best bit: she gets to leave the cabin and tell me "I'll be right back Mama," and I don't worry one bit about where she's going. She'll get dirty, probably fall down, definitely get into some mischief, but it's of the best kind. There's so much safety in her existence here. It's much like my own childhood where I left the house after breakfast, maybe came back for lunch unless a friends mom was offering spaghetti o's and meatballs and Ruffles chips, which were not allowed at my house, and then had to be begged to come in for dinner and bath at the end of the day. My mom never worried about where I was, who I was with, or what I would get up to. It was a much safer world in the early 80s. There aren't many places in our world where that is still possible, and luckily we live on a sleepy little island where it is. At some point she'll be a teenager and mobile and be able to leave with the same parting message, get on her bike and really put some distance between us. Heck, she may be able to jump in her own boat and sail to a neighboring island. And for the most part, save for the innate worrisome mother gene, I'll feel the same safety for her.
If I could rewind and re-live my childhood here, I would. This place is magic. It's open. It's free. It's full of possibility. It's the childhood of my dreams. I'm happy that Sweet Sylvia gets it. There are years of climbing trees and broken arms, tree houses, forts, hiding in the forest, making gardens, digging clams, throwing crab pots. The list is endless.
This is all not to say that children not living on an island or a farm or in the woods somewhere are not having fulfilling childhoods. Quite the opposite. I have some extraordinary friends raising their children amidst the urban jungles of Manhattan, Chicago, San Francisco - all which provide adventures of an entirely different sort. It's about tapping into the curiosity and sense of adventure of our children and growing it wherever we are. I just happen to be doing that in a place that also makes me feel like a child too.
Silas and I (read: definitely 95% Silas) have been sanding and refinishing floors and building a room in the Cozy Cabin.
Por Que?
We have a new inhabitant: Sweet Sylvia. My daughter. The beautiful pink fancy part of my heart. She has been living with her Dad in Denver for the past almost 6 months, and is now back to live with us for all time on Homestead Lane. To say that I'm happy would be a gross understatement. Assume I smile, really really big, every day. Even when she's being a whiny four year old. But that's not why I'm writing. I'm just catching you up.
It's been such a pleasure to watch Sweet Sylvia exist in the dreamy wooded perfection of Homestead Lane. I've know since I moved here, and every day that I walk around the property, that I'm so lucky to live in such incredible natural beauty. But, I haven't really seen it from the height of a four year-old or stopped to think how amazing it must be to live in a magical forest, which is, of course, where she thinks she lives. And why wouldn't she? There are towers like castles of cedar and spruce and sequoia all around her, ferns as big as boulders that she can hide under, excitingly scary and beautifully mysterious barred owls that call to each other from the tree tops while watching over her, birds that have the happiest tweets to wake her up in the morning and sing to her all day long, frogs that release an almost defining croak at night. When the sun comes out it filters through the trees and makes the dew on the grass sparkle like crystals. And this doesn't even hold a candle to all the fairies and gnomes she is sure that are living around us in the trees and under mushrooms.
I remember reading one time that it's important to touch your skin to the earth every day. For Sylvia this is not a problem. On a daily basis she communes with nature, getting her hands in everything she can; picking up worms, inspecting beetles, poking at slugs. She would never dream of avoiding the muddy sloppiness of the rain-soaked property. She heads right for it, opting not to take the dry path. She's planting seed starters, growing tadpoles from the pond in a jar in our living space, checking the hoop house for slugs, leveling space for a new garden, and soon taking care of baby chicks. She gets to ride on the tractor with Silas.
And that's just here on the property. We live on an island and have a 12-ft boat that allows us the opportunity to fish, throw crab pots, run to neighboring island. We get minus tides during the afternoon so we can dig for clams. Storms roll in driftwood for beach forts. There are two beaches loaded with agates. We take sunset beach walks. We ride the ferry to school every day. The discovery and adventure is endless.
But this is the best bit: she gets to leave the cabin and tell me "I'll be right back Mama," and I don't worry one bit about where she's going. She'll get dirty, probably fall down, definitely get into some mischief, but it's of the best kind. There's so much safety in her existence here. It's much like my own childhood where I left the house after breakfast, maybe came back for lunch unless a friends mom was offering spaghetti o's and meatballs and Ruffles chips, which were not allowed at my house, and then had to be begged to come in for dinner and bath at the end of the day. My mom never worried about where I was, who I was with, or what I would get up to. It was a much safer world in the early 80s. There aren't many places in our world where that is still possible, and luckily we live on a sleepy little island where it is. At some point she'll be a teenager and mobile and be able to leave with the same parting message, get on her bike and really put some distance between us. Heck, she may be able to jump in her own boat and sail to a neighboring island. And for the most part, save for the innate worrisome mother gene, I'll feel the same safety for her.
If I could rewind and re-live my childhood here, I would. This place is magic. It's open. It's free. It's full of possibility. It's the childhood of my dreams. I'm happy that Sweet Sylvia gets it. There are years of climbing trees and broken arms, tree houses, forts, hiding in the forest, making gardens, digging clams, throwing crab pots. The list is endless.
This is all not to say that children not living on an island or a farm or in the woods somewhere are not having fulfilling childhoods. Quite the opposite. I have some extraordinary friends raising their children amidst the urban jungles of Manhattan, Chicago, San Francisco - all which provide adventures of an entirely different sort. It's about tapping into the curiosity and sense of adventure of our children and growing it wherever we are. I just happen to be doing that in a place that also makes me feel like a child too.
Sunday, January 11, 2015
The Standard/Not-So-Standard Day
Hello! Thanks for stopping by Homestead Lane. Great to see you again.
Do you wonder what a day is like for a person that is a freelancer writer/ homesteader living on a tiny island? You do? Oh good! I'm going to tell you, because recently I've been having days where I take a minute to reflect on the day I'm in the middle of having, and thinking "what a crazy amazing weird day. I am so dammed lucky."
I guess first of all I should say that no two days are alike. For that I'm extremely lucky. That notion, plus a Chemex brewed cup of single origin coffee, is what gets me out of bed every morning. I can't wait to see what I'll get up to, or how I'll get my clothes dirty, which lucky me, I do! Every day.
So here's how a day starts.
Wake up at 7:45a.m. because I have a call with my freelance clients in Boulder. I love these freelance clients so I don't mind getting up a wee bit early. [Yes, since Sylvia isn't living with us at the moment, it's early.] Since I'm the first one out of bed - usually it's Silas - I like to imitate his morning routine. So, I do a few laps around the cabin, which is a cozy 400 square feet, picking up things here and there, opening the front door and sweeping off the inside front run. (He likes the start the day with a clean rug.) I stand at the kitchen sink and stretch while looking out the big picture window at the trees and the weather - green and gray. Then I pick out which Slow Loris shirt I want to wear. On Guemes Island, Slow Loris is standard issue, a uniform, a testament that you live here.
I put the kettle on to boil water for coffee, grind the coffee, which sadly, isn't local. It comes from Boulder. There's a shortage of good coffee around these parts. Except, actually, for my neighbor, Gary, down the road who roasts small-batch coffee, and claims it's the best cup of coffee I'll ever have. I've yet to test that theory because he's busy propagating goats these days.
I get on the call with my super-duper awesome clients in Boulder and we talk through some projects that I'll bang out in the next three days. Admittedly, right now I'm that person, working at home, kinda in pajamas.
And here's where my day gets really interesting.
After the call I abandon my business-self and jump into my homesteading-self. Costume change! On go the insulated Carhartts - yes, I do own a pair. Silas and I are going to load some wood. Our friends from Anacortes won a cord of wood at The Woodchoppers Ball* and gave some of it to us. It's been sitting at the Community Center for a few weeks, so it needs to be moved over to our property. We bump down the road in the little red island truck, which I love doing, and toss a cord of wood into the back of the truck. A cord is about this much:
*The Woodchoppers Ball is an annual event held on the island on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. There's a potluck, open mic, a band and dancing, and the culminating event is the woodchucking competition. Contestants chuck as much wood as they can, as far as they can, out the back of a truck in 29 seconds - because it's the 29th annual Ball - and the winner gets a rick of wood. It's a highly coveted prize as most people out here on Guemes Island heat their homes with wood-burning stoves. Long, wet, cold winters need lots of wood.
Do you wonder what a day is like for a person that is a freelancer writer/ homesteader living on a tiny island? You do? Oh good! I'm going to tell you, because recently I've been having days where I take a minute to reflect on the day I'm in the middle of having, and thinking "what a crazy amazing weird day. I am so dammed lucky."
I guess first of all I should say that no two days are alike. For that I'm extremely lucky. That notion, plus a Chemex brewed cup of single origin coffee, is what gets me out of bed every morning. I can't wait to see what I'll get up to, or how I'll get my clothes dirty, which lucky me, I do! Every day.
So here's how a day starts.
Wake up at 7:45a.m. because I have a call with my freelance clients in Boulder. I love these freelance clients so I don't mind getting up a wee bit early. [Yes, since Sylvia isn't living with us at the moment, it's early.] Since I'm the first one out of bed - usually it's Silas - I like to imitate his morning routine. So, I do a few laps around the cabin, which is a cozy 400 square feet, picking up things here and there, opening the front door and sweeping off the inside front run. (He likes the start the day with a clean rug.) I stand at the kitchen sink and stretch while looking out the big picture window at the trees and the weather - green and gray. Then I pick out which Slow Loris shirt I want to wear. On Guemes Island, Slow Loris is standard issue, a uniform, a testament that you live here.
I put the kettle on to boil water for coffee, grind the coffee, which sadly, isn't local. It comes from Boulder. There's a shortage of good coffee around these parts. Except, actually, for my neighbor, Gary, down the road who roasts small-batch coffee, and claims it's the best cup of coffee I'll ever have. I've yet to test that theory because he's busy propagating goats these days.
I get on the call with my super-duper awesome clients in Boulder and we talk through some projects that I'll bang out in the next three days. Admittedly, right now I'm that person, working at home, kinda in pajamas.
And here's where my day gets really interesting.
After the call I abandon my business-self and jump into my homesteading-self. Costume change! On go the insulated Carhartts - yes, I do own a pair. Silas and I are going to load some wood. Our friends from Anacortes won a cord of wood at The Woodchoppers Ball* and gave some of it to us. It's been sitting at the Community Center for a few weeks, so it needs to be moved over to our property. We bump down the road in the little red island truck, which I love doing, and toss a cord of wood into the back of the truck. A cord is about this much:
I'm smiling the whole time because I'm outside throwing wood into an old truck. It doesn't get any better or any more real than that sometimes. We bounce back home and unload the wood and stack it, assembly-line-style. I throw it to Silas, he stacks it up. He probably laughs at me because I'm smiling like an idiot while doing a task that is kind-of a pain in the butt. I love it, though. I really, truly, love it. It's my arm workout for the day.
We check on the brushfire that was burning the night before to see if it made progress or needs to be re-started. We're burning a bunch of brush and a stump from a section of land we're clearing to plant a garden and orchard and house a chicken coop in the spring. Making brushfires is so awesome. Growing up in a small town, rather than on a farm, I never got to start fires, much less make huge brush fires. So, when there's talk of clearing brush or cutting down trees I'm the first one to volunteer my help. It's mid-winter, so it's just a mudhole where we've cleared. Lucky me, a few days prior I spent 4 hours in the rain slugging through the mud pulling branches and rolling tree trunks to the fire. Crossfit training. The fire needs to be restarted, so Silas does that while I change my clothes yet again, because I have to go to town. That's what we call it when we have to leave the island on the ferry and go to Anacortes or Mt. Vernon. I scramble because I realize the ferry is at 10:15 a.m., not 10:30 a.m. It's the same ferry schedule M-F, so I don't know how I haven't managed to memorize it yet, but I haven't. Island time.
Then comes one of my favorite parts of each day.
Then comes one of my favorite parts of each day.
I get to the ferry dock just as it's pulling up. Phew. I'm walking on, so there's no stressing that I won't make it on the boat. (We keep one car on the island, and one car parked on the Anacortes side so we don't have to constantly drive across, which costs a bit more than walking on.) I notice how much the shoreline has changed in the last week due to the coastal storms and the weather we've been having too. The island lost power last weekend because of a wind storm. There's a ton of new driftwood and the tide is at flood level. There are a few other people waiting to walk on too, and they're talking about the driftwood, so I join in their conversation. "Storm really did some redecorating, eh?"
We shoot the shit for a few more minutes as we're walking on the ferry. I wave at a few islanders in their cars and comment on Carol, the ferry worker's, new hair color.
I get my town errands run, then hole up at the library to work for a few hours.
Hit the 4:30 ferry just in time to see the sunset. I try to always ride outside on the car deck instead of inside where passengers can sit unless it's stormy weather. There hasn't been a time in the last 9 months that I haven't savored every minute of the ferry ride. Whether it's a beautiful sunny day, mild temperatures and calm winds, or a cloudy day with a soft mist, or a clear, cold day I enjoy the elements. This particular day it's glorious. Cold, but glorious. That's the deal we have with Mother Nature in the winter. It can be sunny, but it'll be cold. The warm-ish weather comes with the clouds. It's just plain awesome that I ride a ferry to get from my house to the grocery store.
When I get home Silas and I cook dinner. One of my favorite parts of living on our tiny island is that there's no take out or pizza delivery - though I've heard a rumor that a pizza place in town will deliver a pizza to the ferry. Anyway, the point is cooking or making every meal is a part of my day now and I'm actually not as bad a cook as I thought I was. I constantly burn myself, because I'm a klutz, but I can improvise a recipe here and there, which is something I used to fear.
And that's my day. There probably won't be another one like it.
One day I brewed beer. Another day I shoveled wood chips into a wheel barrow and hauled them around the property covering the rain-saturated paths between our cabin and the other two on the property so we can walk between them without getting too sloppy. There's a day that was totally devoted to writing. Another day we cleared brush again and made another huge brush fire. Today I wrote, watched a friend's baby, then sanded the floors in the cabin with a hand-sander.
Hit the 4:30 ferry just in time to see the sunset. I try to always ride outside on the car deck instead of inside where passengers can sit unless it's stormy weather. There hasn't been a time in the last 9 months that I haven't savored every minute of the ferry ride. Whether it's a beautiful sunny day, mild temperatures and calm winds, or a cloudy day with a soft mist, or a clear, cold day I enjoy the elements. This particular day it's glorious. Cold, but glorious. That's the deal we have with Mother Nature in the winter. It can be sunny, but it'll be cold. The warm-ish weather comes with the clouds. It's just plain awesome that I ride a ferry to get from my house to the grocery store.
When I get home Silas and I cook dinner. One of my favorite parts of living on our tiny island is that there's no take out or pizza delivery - though I've heard a rumor that a pizza place in town will deliver a pizza to the ferry. Anyway, the point is cooking or making every meal is a part of my day now and I'm actually not as bad a cook as I thought I was. I constantly burn myself, because I'm a klutz, but I can improvise a recipe here and there, which is something I used to fear.
And that's my day. There probably won't be another one like it.
One day I brewed beer. Another day I shoveled wood chips into a wheel barrow and hauled them around the property covering the rain-saturated paths between our cabin and the other two on the property so we can walk between them without getting too sloppy. There's a day that was totally devoted to writing. Another day we cleared brush again and made another huge brush fire. Today I wrote, watched a friend's baby, then sanded the floors in the cabin with a hand-sander.
I love how the standard of the island is to expect the unexpected and roll with it because chances are it won't be just a standard day.
*The Woodchoppers Ball is an annual event held on the island on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. There's a potluck, open mic, a band and dancing, and the culminating event is the woodchucking competition. Contestants chuck as much wood as they can, as far as they can, out the back of a truck in 29 seconds - because it's the 29th annual Ball - and the winner gets a rick of wood. It's a highly coveted prize as most people out here on Guemes Island heat their homes with wood-burning stoves. Long, wet, cold winters need lots of wood.
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Water Water Everywhere. We've Got a Bunch to Spare
Hi There. Thanks for stopping by Homestead Lane. It's been a bit since we last visited, but alas, it was a busy holiday season. Quite enjoyable, mind you, but very busy.
Living in the Pacific Northwest, one expects rain. Though it rains more total inches in New York State than it does here, I'd be lying if I didn't say, it's one soggy winter. Guemes Island isn't the soggiest area in Washington State. No, that award goes to the Olympic Rainforest at 12-14 FEET of rain per year. I can't even imagine that, actually. Every single day it dumps rain. You just never really feel dry until you've laid on a human-sized cookie sheet, baking in the sun for the 30 consecutive days of July. Thankfully here on Guemes it's 29-inches, and that's what keeps it deliciously green and lush around here. That two and a half feet does leave a soggy mark; a splashy, splashy, muddy mark, though. Where there's more grass than pavement, it tends to feel like walking on a sponge rather than solid earth.
Here on Homestead Lane, after a half dozen good rains we start seeing glimpses of the formation of the River Si - named after it's discoverer, my dear, hunky housemate, Silas. It starts at the north end of our cabin, snakes under the stairs, and the runs down around a grove of trees, around the corner and creates a nice little stream that runs into what will be our garden, creating a great mosh pit, or mud wrestling arena. So I'm told, historically it starts running about this time of year and really doesn't dry up until late June. The levels just raise and lower a few inches. We don't stock it with fish, but we might start offering stand-up paddle boarding.
Starts here
And winds down here
There's a fun part of having a mostly temperate winter, with mostly just rain. Once in a while you get not just a sprinkle, or a steady rain, you get downpours! And everyone talks about it and compares carnage. "Well I've got it all over my yard! Standing water. It's wreaking havoc on my kale." "Did you see the ferry dock? Can't even find the parking lot!" In the last 24 hours, it's rained almost two inches. That's a lot, even for our water table, which is pretty high. Water is standing everywhere, in fields, driveways, parking lots and nearly over the main roads. The River Si is flowing. The drainage ditch on Guemes Island road is ready for rafting. Gutters are making waterfalls. Islanders and weather forecaster are calling it biblical proportions, which I feel like might be overstepping it a bit, but hey, we do need our excitement here in the land of two seasons - wet and dry. Here's what Weather.com says:
Living in the Pacific Northwest, one expects rain. Though it rains more total inches in New York State than it does here, I'd be lying if I didn't say, it's one soggy winter. Guemes Island isn't the soggiest area in Washington State. No, that award goes to the Olympic Rainforest at 12-14 FEET of rain per year. I can't even imagine that, actually. Every single day it dumps rain. You just never really feel dry until you've laid on a human-sized cookie sheet, baking in the sun for the 30 consecutive days of July. Thankfully here on Guemes it's 29-inches, and that's what keeps it deliciously green and lush around here. That two and a half feet does leave a soggy mark; a splashy, splashy, muddy mark, though. Where there's more grass than pavement, it tends to feel like walking on a sponge rather than solid earth.
Here on Homestead Lane, after a half dozen good rains we start seeing glimpses of the formation of the River Si - named after it's discoverer, my dear, hunky housemate, Silas. It starts at the north end of our cabin, snakes under the stairs, and the runs down around a grove of trees, around the corner and creates a nice little stream that runs into what will be our garden, creating a great mosh pit, or mud wrestling arena. So I'm told, historically it starts running about this time of year and really doesn't dry up until late June. The levels just raise and lower a few inches. We don't stock it with fish, but we might start offering stand-up paddle boarding.
Starts here
And winds down here
There's a fun part of having a mostly temperate winter, with mostly just rain. Once in a while you get not just a sprinkle, or a steady rain, you get downpours! And everyone talks about it and compares carnage. "Well I've got it all over my yard! Standing water. It's wreaking havoc on my kale." "Did you see the ferry dock? Can't even find the parking lot!" In the last 24 hours, it's rained almost two inches. That's a lot, even for our water table, which is pretty high. Water is standing everywhere, in fields, driveways, parking lots and nearly over the main roads. The River Si is flowing. The drainage ditch on Guemes Island road is ready for rafting. Gutters are making waterfalls. Islanders and weather forecaster are calling it biblical proportions, which I feel like might be overstepping it a bit, but hey, we do need our excitement here in the land of two seasons - wet and dry. Here's what Weather.com says:
- RAIN IS FORECASTED TO CONTINUE OVER THE AREA. RAINFALL RATES WILL SIGNIFICANTLY DECREASE LATER THIS MORNING. ANOTHER TWO INCHES OF RAIN IS POSSIBLE IN THE MOUNTAINS IN ADDITION TO THE 4 TO NEARLY 9 INCHES THAT HAS FALLEN ON THE SOUTHWEST SLOPES OF THE OLYMPICS AND 1.5 TO 4.5 INCHES THAT HAS FALLEN ON THE WEST SLOPES OF THE CENTRAL AND SOUTHERN CASCADES. THE ADDITIONAL RAINFALL THIS MORNING WILL KEEP THE THREAT OF RIVER FLOODING GOING THROUGH LATE TONIGHT.
- That's not just a little sprinkle of rain. That's like somebody turning the bathroom shower on full blast for 24 hours straight. We're right in the middle of the two mountain ranges so we get it all. A nice pool of sloppiness. It's one of the many make or break points of being, not only a Pacific Northwesterner, but an islander. Can you hack it in the sogginess and the mud and the puddles. Can you put on your boots - you've got good boots, right? - and tromp around in the slog with a smile? Well, I guess technically, it doesn't have to be a smile. We are in the moody PNW after all. But, can you do it with strength and steadfastness, and maybe even a little bit of style, knowing that this swampy, soggy, mushy stuff isn't going anywhere? Of course I can. I've already stuck my hand in a septic tank. I think I can handle a bit of wetness. But ask me again in a few months.
Tuesday, December 2, 2014
Shit Happens.
Hello. Thanks for stopping by Homestead Lane.
When last we met I was worried about the septic system, thinking I clogged it up by flushing my lady corks down the toilet. I was frustrated by the assimilation process of living a homesteading lifestyle and pooping outside in an outhouse. I stomped around for a day thinking I had caused us to enter Operation Outhouse. I brewed and boiled over my lack of experience. To some it may have resembled a pity party. I like to call it venting.
When we reached Day Four, we, the residents of Homestead Lane, were standing at the brink of an event none of us wanted to happen. We had consulted the septic repair man and taking his professional advice, because he knows his shit, the next step in troubleshooting the septic situation was to sift through the septic tank to find the filter and figure out what was blocking said filter. Ahem.... as if we all didn't know what it was. But nevertheless, here we were - me, Silas (the man friend), and Aaron (man friend's brother and our neighbor) - toiletteless, cold and annoyed. One of us had to stick something in the pool of shit and find that filter, and I wasn't about to let either one of them find it with a week's worth of my tampons jamming things up, so, deep breathe, I volunteered.
I would do it. End of discussion. When either one of them caused the back up then they could do it, but this time all signs pointed to me, so I would do it. And immediately after I volunteered, they boys deduced that fishing around with a stick wouldn't do any good. It would have to be an arm. Ok. I would suffer the smell and the indignity and the personal pain of sticking my arm down into the septic tank and fishing around for the filter. Into a utility glove went my hand. Into a plastic grocery bag went my gloved hand. And into an extra strength garbage bag went my gloved, bagged hand. And around my wrist went duct tape. Several wraps.
I tucked my hair up under my wool beanie and marched over to the septic tank, a parade of onlookers behind me - namely Silas, Aaron, and lucky me, his sister and brother-in-law visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday had just shown up. This was it; my chance to show everyone that I was serious about homesteading it on Homestead Lane. I would show them all that I was no pansy. I looked around at my audience who was looking back at me with sympathy and surprise. Then, much like a farmer who is castrating cows, I didn't think about it, I just did it. I got down on the cold, wet earth and lowered my wrapped arm into the shit soup.
When last we met I was worried about the septic system, thinking I clogged it up by flushing my lady corks down the toilet. I was frustrated by the assimilation process of living a homesteading lifestyle and pooping outside in an outhouse. I stomped around for a day thinking I had caused us to enter Operation Outhouse. I brewed and boiled over my lack of experience. To some it may have resembled a pity party. I like to call it venting.
When we reached Day Four, we, the residents of Homestead Lane, were standing at the brink of an event none of us wanted to happen. We had consulted the septic repair man and taking his professional advice, because he knows his shit, the next step in troubleshooting the septic situation was to sift through the septic tank to find the filter and figure out what was blocking said filter. Ahem.... as if we all didn't know what it was. But nevertheless, here we were - me, Silas (the man friend), and Aaron (man friend's brother and our neighbor) - toiletteless, cold and annoyed. One of us had to stick something in the pool of shit and find that filter, and I wasn't about to let either one of them find it with a week's worth of my tampons jamming things up, so, deep breathe, I volunteered.
I would do it. End of discussion. When either one of them caused the back up then they could do it, but this time all signs pointed to me, so I would do it. And immediately after I volunteered, they boys deduced that fishing around with a stick wouldn't do any good. It would have to be an arm. Ok. I would suffer the smell and the indignity and the personal pain of sticking my arm down into the septic tank and fishing around for the filter. Into a utility glove went my hand. Into a plastic grocery bag went my gloved hand. And into an extra strength garbage bag went my gloved, bagged hand. And around my wrist went duct tape. Several wraps.
I tucked my hair up under my wool beanie and marched over to the septic tank, a parade of onlookers behind me - namely Silas, Aaron, and lucky me, his sister and brother-in-law visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday had just shown up. This was it; my chance to show everyone that I was serious about homesteading it on Homestead Lane. I would show them all that I was no pansy. I looked around at my audience who was looking back at me with sympathy and surprise. Then, much like a farmer who is castrating cows, I didn't think about it, I just did it. I got down on the cold, wet earth and lowered my wrapped arm into the shit soup.
I quickly found that my arm wasn't long enough to do any productive exploring, so I had to really tip myself further into the tank to be useful. My arm waded around unfamiliar territory while I breathed in and out of my mouth and tried my hardest to think of sunny beaches and gardens of fragrant flowers and anything that sounded and smelled better and felt better than the situation I was in, but all I could smell was feces and all I could hear was the click of Aaron's phone as he took pictures. And then a long tuft of hair fell out of my beanie and grazed the side of the septic tank, and then my gloved hand broke through the plastic bag, and then shit poured into the garbage bag, just one layer from my skin, and then I'd been stirring the shit soup long enough to prove my toughness and it was done. Game over. No filter found.
I stood without victory but with a shitload of pride. Literally. I had done a dirty job that Silas assumed he would just do because he was a guy and I was a gal and why would I want to stick my hand in a septic tank. I smiled and nodded my head as I looked at my approving audience. Then I immediately ripped off the bags around my arm and sprinted to the shower, hoping that someone had installed a decontamination chamber in our bathroom.
The next day the septic tank repair man came and informed us that it was not the filter that was causing the problem, it was a malfunctioning hose. The filter was fine. Shit happened. I rose above it. I think I'm gonna make it.
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