THE CRITTERS OF SPRING

The next bunch of posts are continuations of NINE DAYS OFF, which started in May around Memorial Day 2018. So you will be taken back to late spring and Summer, which was a real bear this year. To prove it, I present the bear below.

The wooly bear caterpillar is  a predictor of the weather, or so say the old-timers. If, in fall, the black sections, usually at both head and tail, are particularly large with a small area of orange in the middle, it indicates an early freeze followed by a lot of cold, then turning to a mid-winter warm-up followed by a frigid late winter. If it is nearly all black, you'll not remove your long underwear ever, including during bathing. So it was in 2015. Go back if you want to see what Cold looks like.

I didn't believe this when I first arrived, but I'm sold now. And the bear above is a perfect example. This was taken in April, which was cold enough to have two small snowstorms last year. This bear predicts a very hot summer followed by an early winter and practically no fall. And though our summer was a bit hot, never topping 93, the humidity was high enough (70% and higher for four months) to make everyone miserable, especially me. I HATE the heat, and high humidity makes me sluggish and cranky, especially when it interrupts my Farm Restoration Schedule. And this was NOT a year for delays.

My five-year balloon note to the Izbicki Family was due on November eighth, and though they certainly didn't want the house back, neither did they want to be stiffed for over sixty thousand bucks. So I had a LOT of work to do through the summer to insure a decent appraisal and keep any inspectors happy.

And yes, the wooly bear is not necessarily a predictor of humidity, but it did warn me. And it was right.

This is also what convinced me to finish the flying beam system in the attic before the real heat set in and to move the remaining summer operations inside.

My hummingbird feeder outside the kitchen window. Usually frequented by a few female ruby-throats and one dominant male that drives virtually all the others off, I found it different this spring.

A few girl birds check it out, keeping a wary eye for the male.

 A few more join them.

A whole gaggle of girl birds show up, and to my ultimate surprise, after a confrontation or two, the male is driven away by the females. Maybe this really WILL be the Year of the Woman!

The girl birds settle in.

Holy hell! There's an awful lot of them! And they choose to share rather than compete.

Some squabbling occurs when there's not enough spaces, but no single bird takes over. Hmmmm….

I decide to pull the other feeder from the attic and load it with sugar water, putting it in front of the living room window twenty feet away. I never did this before, as the male simply took over both feeders to where the ants and yellowjackets were the only one besides HIM to get any sugar water. Typical male. Both feeders are inundated with girl birds. The males stay the hell away.

I ain't NEVER seed this befoah!

And it would continue all summer.

The dwawgs, when not sleeping in cool dirt outside, take refuge in the fireplace, cleaned out specifically so they can enjoy the brick hearth. Marley takes it over, being the hottest-natured.

They continue to bring me treats. Apparently I'm not eating enough.

This young possum might have made a good meal, but I'm just not that crazy about stewed possum. I keep thinking about Pogo. Also about how disgusting possums really are. I fed it to something in the woods.

 

Speckle claims the Dog Deck.

Marley, satisfied that Dad has enough to eat with her Possum Offering, digs a hole in the moist dirt and occupies it.

                            BEEN A WHILE, ADN'T IT?

                                                                             

Norwich harbor on the Thames River looking south to the Thermos Factory in the distance. This is the deepest harbor on the east coast, over three hundred feet deep near New London eight miles downriver. Or so they say. I haven't measured it. We are all waiting for things to look like this again, green trees and no ice. This river NEVER freezes, though. Too deep.

I've been perty damn busy this year with improvements as well as refinancing the Farm. I lost my insurance, took four months to find other insurance, came down with a rouser of a head cold that went to bronchitis and two months later is still infecting one half of my head. It's okay, it's the half I don't use. Just last week I got laid off from my job of the past fifteen months. So now I have no excuse for not posting what I did last year.
To my chagrin, I have so many pictures that were taken at different times and that also need to be posted chronologically by the job that it will take me days just to upload them in the proper order.
So bear with me. Those that still read this thing, anyway. All one of you.

HALLOWEEN MESSAGE FROM SAMARA MORGAN

Well, I managed to crawl my way out of the attic where this cretinous 'human' keeps me. It wouldn't be so bad up there but for this nearly invisible old lady that talks about stamp collecting and fabrics. Can't see her all that good, but she does go on. At least it's dry up there. In most places, anyway.

It's nice to get some fresh air, anyway. And that horrid well is gone. Nothing but bad memories there.

I'd wish you all a Happy Halloween, but as you know, that's not my style. I do like the climbing nightshade in this front garden, though. Keeps the moles at bay, along with anyone else who comes in contact with it. Who would plant such a toxic thing? Maybe the 'human' isn't so bad after all. At least he grew a couple of pumpakins and surrounded me with dying flowers. That's nice. I hear he's going to let them freeze all the way down. Cool.

Stupid fuzzbag of a dog doesn't even know I'm here.

A TOUCH OF AUTUMN BEFORE THE BIGGEST POSTS OF THE YEAR

This was written the first week in October, when it was pouring every other day (just drizzles every third day now), and the temps were still in the eighties. Autumn has finally descended, and the colors were vibrant for about a week before the most recent noreaster took the leaves down.

So let's go back a few weeks.

It’s been raining here since late August, with soakers drenching New England seven and eight inches at a time. All from storms with colorful names like Florence and Michael. Might be a Delores or Minerva in there somewhere, I don’t remember. It’s the wettest it’s ever been since I’ve been up here. We look up when the sun occasionally shines and say, “What’s that bright thing up there?”

This on top of the most humid summer anyone can remember. Eighty per cent humidity was the norm, coupled with high eighties of July, August, and most of September. I had mold growing on my lawn mower gas canister, for chrissakes.

I’ve sprung a couple of leaks in the roof, one above a previously restored ceiling, and though I am (hope to be) close to closing on the refinance of this place, I won’t get a new roof for a few weeks at the earliest. But it’s gotta happen soon.

So, before I can post the finished stuff, I thought I’d do a little Octobering.

 

I’ve written very little to add to this blog in the past few months, and that’s because I’ve been scrambling to refinance this beast, else I lose it.

That will not happen. The refi is almost complete, and when it is, and all the papers signed, I will be allowed to live here in the house that the bank owns, rather than the family from whom I bought it.

Actually that’s bullshit. It will be MINE. I’ll give you all the details of both the refinance (not enough to bore you but enough o thrill you into considering doing this yourselves before the Corporate Government decides to grab everything you think you own, including the rights you used to have) in the next post.

Okay, enough of that.

I’ll also have, as usual, a long post showing what I did to the Standish House this summer, both to get it further down the Road to Total Restoration, but also to make it appraise for enough so I could get the house refinanced. Trust me, it was tough, but it was very much worth it.

I hope to post more often now that I’m almost out from under Damocles’ Sword.

So.

 Hows about a ghost story?

 

A G-G-G-GHOST??!!!!!!

 

I tole you about the strange thing I saw at Captain Grant’s Inn when I was scoping this area for homes back in 2012. A normal-looking guy walked before me at this very fine bed and breakfast that I hope you will check out while in the area (Hey Carol and Ted!)  . He disappeared as he walked around a corner, and I mean DISAPPEARED. Turns out people come to Captain Grant’s specifically to see ghosts. Who knew? Not me. I went for the great price, fantastic ambiance of a 1754 house, and for the breakfast.

The breakfast!

Droooool drooooooool….

Sorry (wipes chin).

I also tole you of the feeling of a female presence I encountered the first time I entered the house on that same trip. The feeling was strongest in the attic and I’ve always thought there is a benevolent presence of the female persuasion in this house.

And people, I am the biggest skeptic in the world. I should be from Missouri; it’s the ‘Show Me’ state.

But I’m from Arkansas, and we HATE Missouri.

In the same story, I related that I asked Jim Izbicki, the youngest of the four siblings that sold me this place, if there were any ghosts. This was before I’d bought the place. He assured me that there were none.

But as soon as I moved in, he came over and asked me if I’d seen the spook yet.

DAMN!

He, without prompting, related a sighting of a filmy vapor at the foot of the bed in the room in which I sleep, and he was sure it was female. I told him of my feeling, and we agreed there must be something here after three hundred years.

All this was reported in a couple of previous posts entitled ‘A G-G-G-GHOST?’

This brings us full circle to the present day.

 

PART 3

 

I’d been living here at Standish Farm for just under a year when I had my first encounter with the strange sounds. I’ve been restoring homes for a long, long time, and I’m familiar with the sounds old homes make, especially when temperatures change. The wood expands, pops and cracks, and creaks and groans that might be mistaken for some lost relative looking for a drink can be explained by simple physics.

What happens here at the Standish House, however, cannot be explained by simple physics. Complex physics of a variety we don’t yet understand? Possibly. Probably. I don’t believe in ghosts, even if I have seen one. If that’s what it was.

My living room is very, very comfortable, and I like to sit and watch movies or read from the same position Granny did before me. Bertha Izbicki, the matriarch of this house since 1938, is still known as Granny to her kids, especially when talking about her to the younger set (such as me, nearly 60 years old). Her chair is in the same corner as mine in the living room and she put her teevee in the opposite corner, where mine is.

 

I don’t watch teevee; I have a small flat screen in the kitchen that gets two PBS stations, and that’s it. I haven’t watched cable or satellite since 2005, and network? Early nineties.

But I like movies, and so have a mid-sized flat screen in the living room.

I very much like to read, though, and do it often. When I read, I have no other sound going on in the background. Maybe that’s why I sometimes hear what I hear.

It also extremely quiet up here on this windswept ridge, especially at night.

Four years ago, in late spring, I was sitting in my comfy chair reading, my smallest pup Cheerio curled up in her bed on the table next to me. A full blooded shit-zoo, she’s just big enough to get a job as a potato bug, but controls both the Giant Pup Speckle (her baby) and Marley, the quiet one. She sleeps on the table because she likes to be close to me as well as on the same level.

As I was reading this particular night, the unmistakable sound of a tennis ball falling to the wood floor directly in front of me was heard. It bounced, then bounced again, then dribbled across the floor as I listened. It’s an extremely familiar sound in this house. Cheerio, the Ball Playing Dog of the household, awoke, pricked up her ears, and lifted her head, eyes following the sound of the ball as it rolled across the room in shorter and shorter bounces, as tennis balls do before coming to rest.

I leaned forward and looked at the floor.

There was no tennis ball. I knew there was no tennis ball, because I made sure to PUT UP the tennis balls in the house after Evening Playtime. If I leave a tennis ball around, Cheerio is likely to find it, pick it up, and initiate a sleepy game that distracts me and she’s not really into anyway. So there is a net bag in the mud room filled with tennis balls of different degrees of filth and dismemberment.

She likes the new, fuzzy ones best, and I only keep the naked, raggedy, or halfway torn-up ones around for times when I cannot FIND the fuzzy ones.

I stood up, looking for the nonexistent ball, and Cheerio jumped down and sniffed around, unable to find it.

“That was weird,” I said.

The exact same thing happened a few weeks later. Mirror image, carbon copy. Same sound, same reaction from Cheerio. Except this time the other dogs came in from the bedroom to check it out.

Now it wasn’t weird, it was interesting.

The sound wasn’t unknown to me; I often bounce the ball along the floor to get Cheerio into the game, and she takes it from there. Our ball-playing seldom lasts more than ten minutes before she gets bored (she’s not obsessive, nor is she a pup anymore at age eight), and I don’t leave balls lying about the house for fear of stepping on one and falling to my death (I am not a pup anymore, either).

So I have a house that records sounds and plays them back. I’ve heard a number of examples.

Dog feet tromping across the floor, complete with rattling knickknacks (before I reinforced the floors).

Growls and sneezes when the dogs aren’t in the house.

It almost always seems to center around the dogs.

I think it’s interesting that the dogs are as involved with this phenomenon as they are.

I have had no visual expressions or sightings, no vapors, no filmy images, no wails from the attic.

At least, I hadn’t until earlier this month.

And like my ghost sighting at Captain Grant’s Inn (go back and read it), I suffered a typical case of temporary amnesia directly after the incident. In fact, I didn’t think about it at all for three days. Then it came back to me like a hot kiss at the end of a wet fist.

Sorry, that was Nick Danger, Third eye. A quote.

The temporary amnesia I suffered has been experienced by a number of others I know, and is a repeated phenomenon in the circles of those who research such things. Ghosts, UFOs, skunk apes, and other forms of impossibilia are often forgotten directly after sighting, only to be remembered all at once in the very near future. I think it’s a coping mechanism of the human mind, meant to keep from having one’s head explode.

This next encounter did the same thing; I forgot about it until late the next afternoon.

Again, it happened while I was sitting in my comfy chair.

“No! Not the COMFY CHAIR!!!”

The Spanish Inquisition can be SO cruel. Or so I expect.

 

“NOBODY EXPECTS THE….”

Aww, YOU know.

Anyway, I was sitting in my chair, surrounded by the myriad pillows that support my terrible injuries, when a small black sphere the size of a ping pong ball zipped silently across the room. Sporting a neat little hole in its center, it left a streak of black behind it and also seemed to follow another dark line as it traveled quickly across the room.

It was silent and was gone in the blink of an eye.

It took a few seconds for my mind to register just what I had seen, then I sat up in wide-eyed wonder.

“What the hell was THAT?” I said loudly. Only Cheerio lifted her sleepy head for a second before laying it back down. The two Big Dogs never stirred, though the trajectory of the thing, tilted slightly downward, looked to hit them straight on.

If it did, they never felt a thing.

I swore I’d remember this, the first visible ‘spooky thing’ I’ve seen in the house, but within minutes, it had slipped from my memory, only to come suddenly back many hours later.

I’ll let you know if it returns.

And, due to popular demand down at Barb’s Place, I have again placed Samara Morgan out in the front yard, though sans well. Too much trouble to build, and besides, I never do the same trick twice. She’s standing on the front stoop, surrounded by a small pile of pumpkins and a lot of dead geraniums. Reaching out to passerby to ask for help. Or latch on…

Dead geraniums?

 

Are they REALLY dead????

 

BWAAA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!

 

NINE DAYS OFF

So I have been left in the lurch (what the hell does that mean? What's a lurch, other than a tall butler that lives with the Addams Family?) by my mean old boss Steve. HE is off to Maine for a week of fun and sun and worrying about shutting down his business for a week while his wife forces him to take some well-deserved time off. I jest about him being mean; he's a great guy and a pleasure to work with/for.

But I am also forced to take time off.

From my job.

You didn't think I would take time off from THE FARM, didja?

I took a day off this January (it was fifty degrees!) and felt terrible every minute I wasn't working on the Farm. Haven't taken another. I have no idea how to relax, mostly because I have to get this thing to a certain level of restoration before I refinance it later this year.

THEN maybe I can take a day off. It'll still take me forever to learn to relax.

So.

For the past two months, I made my plan, got the materials together, gathered and milled the wood I needed, bought paint, and found all my interior restoration equipment, put up two years ago when I finished the kitchen ceiling.

I planned for this Nine Days, knowing that I'd be doing it at the hottingest part of the year. So I made sure to be able to beat the heat by again setting up in the cellar. Last year I spent a number of evenings there, having made a small sitting area with chair and lights and table so I could listen to radio or old cassette tapes from the stereo upstairs, piped into the cellar by the magic of Speakers B. Yes, I have those (cassette tapes, I mean)! Don't smirk! It's seventy down there when its ninety five outside. And it was just that for a week and a half until just after Independence Day this year. I was more ready than last year. I put one of my seldom-used 24" flat screen TeeVees down there, hooked it into my giant rooftop antenna, and BOING! I get two PBS stations. All I can handle.

Then it got cool and I haven't been down there to watch. Don't worry, I will. Most of July and all of August (not to mention the first half of September, a summer month up here)

But not this week!

I be working!

I'll post a few times, rather than saving it up for eight months like last time.

I spent some time this spring building doors for the garage. I want some measure of security as well as some curb appeal. I lightly sanded some eighteenth century white pine floorboards with up and down saw kerfs and a nice chocolate patina (no, they HAD those, I didn't sand them with them!), then made vertical doors from them. Those sat in the garage for a few months until I got tired of them not doing their job, then I put them to work. I liked them so much that I decided the cinder blocks at either side were a sore sight in comparison, so on the Fourth of July (and the following eighth), I did something about it.

This is the reason I had to hide the cinderblocks. They were likely red at one time, but red fades to orange, my most unfavoritest color. First task; pressure wash the moss on the roof! Or off the roof. Half done in this pic. Trust me, I finished, and it looks magnificent.

This is the side facing the street. I do my large makeup work in there; doors and windows, big pieces of wood that need cutting, and all my sanding. My smaller machine shop is too crowded with...machines. That shop also gets over a hundred twenty in the afternoon, and this one is shaded. Yes, I planted trees on the south side of the machine shop, but give them time. Sheesh!

The first real task was to pressure wash the cinderblock. This was done the day before; notice most of the orange is gone. I should have primed it, but I'm lazy and cheap. Mostly cheap.

Now you can see why I had to do something with the cinderblock. Doors, YA! Walls, NEIN! The doors are not complete, and though they lock from the inside, they will, by winter, have interior battens to keep out the wind, as well as an exterior latch/lock and an astragal. That's the piece between the doors that makes them a single unit when closed. Look it up.

Even before I pressure washed the walls, I had to dig a drainage trench to divert water that has flooded my dirt floor garage since before I moved here. I will eventually put a Zurn-type drain in, but the trench will do for now.

Because I work alone, I must use certain techniques to compensate for my preferred lack of yucky human companionship. This is one; a Third Hand. Holds the lintel trim board in place as I nail the other end.

Don't forget to glue the back of the lintel trim board! I'm only nailing to the wood frame, and most of the trim rests on the cinderblock. no, I didn't backprime it. You'll see why. I framed the opening for this set of doors in November of 2013; it was one of the first tasks I did after getting heat, water, and my furniture into the house proper. Took me long enough to do this!

 

The board was slightly warped, so I used one masonry screw to bring it tight to the wall. It's countersunk, and I'll fill it with Durham's Water Putty (a great product, and I highly recommend it) and color it in with ineldible India ink later. Ingullible. Inedible. That's it. Inedible. I know, I've tried. Tastes terrible. Turns your tongue brown for a month. EEEEewwwww.

Cutting a large rabbet (or is it a dado? I think it is) with a circular saw. This allows the side trim to ride over the strap hinges. Oh My!

Strap hinges. It's the square part I need to ride over. Well, the trim, anyway. And pardon the dangling preposition, and those that climb about on their own, as well. The white stuff is silicone, which is an excellent adhesive. I used masonry screw to attach the pressure-treated 2x10s to the cinderblock back in 2013, and despite modern PT lumber's tendency to cup, it did no such thing. Silicone holds it in place very well.

Knock out the wood with a straight claw hammer and clean it up with chisel. Learned this technique in '77 as an apprentice carpenter to Mike Foerster. He instilled me with my  love of craftsmanship. Hey Mike! Give me a call! Haven't seen him since 1979...

BTW, all this white pine, which was likely milled in the 1740s and was prolly three of four hundred years old THEN, was already sanded and coated with an oil-based clear coat thinned 2:1 with paint thinner so it would soak in, repel water, and not look shiny. One coat did it.

Ugly, in't it?

Finally trimmed out. Just needs one more thing…

Tools for the job. I junked the crappy towel for a better one I'd been saving for such an occasion, and the results showed that this was a better choice. I've had that hawk (called a hock in England) for thirty years.

California Stucco is a pleasure to work with. Though it's only made of lime, sand, and Portland cement, it costs fifty dollars per 94 lb. bag. Took a bag to do 1 side. Worth it, though. It was 93 degrees and eighty per cent humidity on Independence Day in Preston Connecticut. I'm sure there were thousands sweltering ten miles away on the beaches of New London, Stonington, and Misquamicut RI. You can have that. I'd rather be in the shade, splattered with cold water and stucco, and doing something useful. Besides, I gots red hair and fair skin. Me and The Fat Old Sun don't get along so good. That Fat Old Sun was westering heavily, and I ached liked I'd just emerged from Dead Dog #2 (the most dangerous and challenging cave in Austin Texas), so I cleaned up and called it a day until the next weekend, when I'd finish the other side.

Meet my little fren'. Thirty inches wide, it blows a hurricane. Five bucks at The Annual New London Unitarian Church Tag Sale. Hey, Sher! This fan's for you!

I've seen a lot of critters around my house, but this domestic turkey was a new one on me at coffee on the following Sunday morning. Took the pic through the screen. Some of my neighbors keep chickens, and I suppose this must be an addition to those. It strutted around the front yard, paying no attention to the seeds scattered at the foot of the bird feeder. The dogs went apeshit, screaming and barking and calling 911. But the thing was very comfortable, and didn't seem fazed at the dogs' uproar. Eventually even THEY quieted down, apparently getting used to it (or realizing their barking did nothing to intimidate it). It paced and gobbled, clucked and warbled. I went out to see if it would come to me, and it did. I beat a hasty retreat back into the house. I have no treats for such a thing, and trust not a bird in the world. Especially one this size. Birds bite. A small dark rectangle can barely be seen on its breast; a homing device, perhaps. It was gone in about an hour.

That's better. I'll paint the hinges a flat black and the stucco a cream. Prolly use a dark brown for the scallopy wood above. When I have time....HA HA HA HA ha ha ha !!!!!!! Ohhh, my.....

NEXT POST:

TRIMMING OUT THE KITCHEN, DEMOING THE BATHROOM, AND PAINTING THE BEDROOM AN UPPER BATHROOM WALLS. AND MAYBE SOME BATHROOM WAINSCOT...

VERY, VERY SOON.

ALMOST DONE WITH THE FIRST PUSH....OF THE BIG PUSH

If any of my two readers are still alive after trying to read the longest post of this epic (one hasn't even gotten out of the snow pics yet), I have good news. This post will be short and sweet. Okay, shortER and sweetER. It is also a sign that I'm not cracking yet. Don't worry, that'll come later in the year. But I survived last year's usury, debt (so far), doubts, and double-digit minus-temps.

And if you read the last post you know that I AM MOVING AHEAD. And that at full steam. The last post was very long, but everything you saw that was NOT snow took place in the last two weeks of April and the first two weeks of May, and I'm not letting up one bit on the gas.

Every day I get home and go into the yard to do the minimal of what is needed to keep the property from looking unkempt; but only after I go into the attic and put my series of four fans to work. Two have been at it all day, each in a north or south window, one bringing in air, one taking it out. I then turn on my two most powerful floor fans to aid in taking out what built up during the day, usually pointed to the peak of the roof where the heat molecules like to gather, muttering, figuring new ways to kill me. This is, of course, unnecessary, as the old ways they've used since I was in Texas still work perty well.

But SO DO I!

I left you with one half of the East kneewall built, and I will continue in this vein, but don't worry, I won't riterate the technical aspects. Just the broken bones, bloody stumps, and monsterous nervous breakdowns that follow.

But first, it's PLAGUE TIME!!!

Every year I have had to deal with different plagues, usually animal in origin.

I'd list them chronologically, but it all seems to meld together these days.

Flies, squirrels in the feeders, and moles are always around. No plague there.

But. Fisher cats and skunks the first year. Blackflies the second year (clouds of tiny gnats that bite you as you choke on them, their bites swelling into huge itching mounds that itch and ooze for weeks; think of clouds of flying chiggers), along with ARMIES of mice. The mice are a seasonal constant, but were really bad in 2015. 2016 saw the plague of the Worst Sort; yellowjackets and white-faced hornets. Go back into the archives if you've forgotten; I haven't. I am deathly allergic to both and keep three epi-pens within reach at all times. Last year it was fleas (FLEAS! I haven't had fleas in DECADES!) and mosquitoes. I had a hundred mosquitoes in the house every morning, and nearly wore out my favorite $4.00 tennis-racket-type electrocutor each A.M. I smeared the sheers with their guts when they wouldn't fly into the electro-grid. The house smelled of burnt mosquitoes all summer. I had swatters, I had deet on myself INSIDE. I hung bug zappers in the house, including one by the dog door, where I knew they were getting in.

Anyone wonder why I like the cold months? My editor knows. He refused to publish my Old House Doctor colulumn titled "Fucking Bugs and Why You Should be Happy to Kill Them" until I changed the title.

This year, the blackflies (along with everything else, due to the harsh winter in March and the first half of April), have been bad, but not overwhelming. Yes, I need to wash my kitchen sheers. The bloodstains are disconcerting. When the little gnats won't fly into the tennis racket, I merely smoosh the aginst the widow. There's always blood, showing that they were successful in biting either me or the dogs.

The dogs are their own plague, especially this year, as it rains constantly and they smell more than usual, which, even without rain, is quite prodigious.

But I have to thank the pups for the partial elimination of my first plague of the year.

I came home from work last week to find that SpecklePup, who always rushes inside through the dog door when I come through the gate, stood in the yard, apprehensive.

"Oh, Hell," I muttered. This is what she does when she knows she's done something bad, like eating Netflix DVDs (a favorite afternoon snack if she can get them) or a first edition Charles Dickens 1874. I don't HAVE one of those, but if I did, I'd find it in her shit later in the week, still wondering why she was reticent about coming into the house on Tuesday.

But upon entering my mudroom, my eyes went wide.

What good puppies I have! They must be worried that I'm not eating enough!

I'm sure it was Marley, the akita, that killed this full-grown mama groundhog. Several live under the floorboards of the 1860 barn, and I saw this very one snooping around the front yard the week before, heading for the bird feeder.

I'm sure it was one like it (or possibly this very specimen) that destroyed my garden last year, eating my newly-producing tomaters right down to the ground. Luckily I had not removed the suckers, so the fruiting nightshades produced later that summer. Later like AUGUST.

My only question is how the ten-pound rodent got into the fenced back yard? I had just repaired the ground-level electric fence earlier in the week. I'll have to check thr integrity of the fence when I weedeat this next weekend.

It was pregnant and had titties so big that I'm sure she was featured in JUGS; The Groundhog Edition.

Stop going "AWWWwwwww, poor thing."

They'r RODENTS. They have FLEAS (I did spray where she lay after I removed her to the pond, where she would be recycled into a hawk or coyote or shoggoth or something).

No babies from this momma.

However, later in the week, I found another, a young 'un the size of a squirrel, on my kitchen floor. That's how I know I have a plague. ONE groundhog in the house is interesting. TWO is one too many, and is a PLAGUE.

I petted Marley (who was reluctant to come in), telling her what a good dog she is.
She already knows.


Then there are the stinkbugs.
They always show up in spring, but this year they are doing it in HORDES. I had one in my Cape Cod the other night, and nearly swallowed it. I had to brush my teeth and gargle bleach. Yeccch.
Two nights back I had a barn swallow come it through the dog door; it flittled around the kitchen as the dogs jumped and yipped at it. I chased it down, covered it with a dishtowel and carefully took it outside, where it flew into the night.
I lubs my puppybirds.
Three minutes later it was back in the house, and this time I just grabbed the little boofer and after tossing it into the night, I slid the plywood piece into the dog door. I soon heard it bumping against it, trying to get back in.
I only wisht I had Tippi Hedren here; she knows how to handle such things after starring in "The Birds."

The only other plague this year so far has been the return of the ruby-throated hummingbirds, they are HARDLY a plague.

They do drink a lot, even more than me. That's a LOT.

Back ito the attic!!!



This, the west side othe attic, has been a dumping ground for my Art Boxes for five years. I used to live in a house that I decorated with macabre 'found-art' dioramas, and I packed the pieces carefully when I moved, fully intending on displaying them here.

But this house is authentic Colonial, and I like it to be as austerely decorated as I have it now. Sure, I have some Pirate memorabilia and a few mineral specimens as well as scattered strange art, but not CLUTTERED like before. Besides the contrast of architectural styles, I have no A/C, so dust is a constant challenge, what with the windows open and smelly dogs bringing in more dust.

I suppose I'll have to open a "STRANGEST THINGS IN THE WORLD" shop in the barn once I have that finished so I can unload some of that crap.

In the meantime, I moved the boxes behind the proposed kneewall and cut holes in the flooring to expose the girts. On these girts I attached raised 2x6 blocks upon which the flying beams would rest, and on theose beams, uprights would raise the rafters become more supportive as well as less sway-backed.
Yah, it's like in the last post.

It's amazing how much room I made once the old room beyond the chimney was dismantled.

Keep in mind that the beadboard (stacked to the left of the window) was not only not structural, but it was the sheathing of the only 'finished' feature of the attic. This room is also where SHE lives, and I had no idea how SHE would react if I removed not only the walls of the room, but the Granny Boots so carefully hung in the corner.

So I told her what I was going to do and removed the doorway to the left of the chimney, then the nailers, then the beadboard. I used the keeper for the door latch (the door had been removed before I got the house) and screwed it into the barge rafter at the end of the wall, the one that makes the gable end. On this old keeper I hung the granny boots. They can barely be seen to the left of the window.

So far, no visitations, noises, or complaints.

And the attic! It's opening up to reveal the possibilities of creating another room up there in the future. That is, if I want one, and right now, I don't. But it feels really good to open  the space  and support the roof the way it should have been years ago.



A CONTINENT of boxes and junk lays beyond the chimney to the right.



 The flying beams set on the girt blocks. I didn't need to span as wide a space as on the east side, where I had to span the kitchen with a single fifteen-foot beam, so I used 2x6 headers as well as a stretch of 4x4 over a seven and a half foot span. The els, made from 2x4, hold the beams upright on the girt blocks.

A little workbench; I am old and have lots of injuries that manifest themselves as screams from sitting down on the floor and getting up again. This table will hopefully lead to less screaming.

The remaining junk stashed behind the flying beam. The door to the right goes from the kitchen to the porch, and will not be put back into its original position again. I will find another place for it, as the attic heat will destroy it. No, the guitar case is empty. I would not subject my guitfiddles to the attic heat.

East beadboard with turn-of-the-century wallpaper, ready to be removed. I'll do it carefully and reuse it when I sheathe the new kneewalls.

The closet, showing some water stains. Nice workmanship on the door.

I have no idea why the closet door was painted. Nothing else was.

Samara Morgan, the granny boots, and a couple of Lovecraft-inspired Styrofoam gravestones from my old Halloween Party Days decorate the north gable end.

 

Memorial Day Weekend was progged to be rainy, cold, and cloudy, which made me happy to work ten hours a day up there until the kneewalls were finished. Actually, I only worked up there for three hours on Friday; I have to mow the lawn SOMETIME, and it had to be before the Saturday rain.. Beadboard walls, closet, and framing came down. Now you see them... oh, now you don't!

 

The eight-inch wide beadboard stacked against the chimney, rebuilt in the last thirty years. I'll clean it of wallpaper and use it to sheathe the walls later. The beadboard, not the chimney! For chrissakes...Some is a bit short, but I'll find a use for it. Note the hooks from inside the closet. I have better ones in my collection, but these are from here, so I'll clean them up with a wire wheel and repaint them for use around the house. And I DO hang things around here. It's a farm thing.

Also note the twelve-foot flying beam lurking behind the chimney; it wants to mount those blocks! Oh, I haven't installed the next set of blocks in this pic. But it smells the block below the beam on which it sits. I can see it wiggle in anticipation!!!

The taller beadboard leaning on the north gable wall, which, except for where I have to remove a few boards to install a set of blocks on the end girt, will remain beadboarded for now. I imagine the granny boots are looking wistfully at the removed boards; Granny Izbicki liked to sit up in this room and sew. The really great thing is that with every task up here, I can see this will become a very fine suite of two spaces; one for sleeping and another for hanging out. It'll take a few years, but I'll add a wood stove, insulation, install more beadboard, raise the ceilings (the crossbraces on the rafters are very old, as is the beadboard), and put in a few light tubes to add illumination. A couple of interior A/C units (or a mini-split system) will make it habitable year round. Then all of my nonexistent friends can come to stay over. No they won't.

Tallest beadboard. All will be denailed and stacked behind the kneewalls. The flying beam continues to wiggle; it can SMELL the new blocks, though they haven't yet been installed.

FINALLY! It took almost all of Sunday, but I got the last flying beam in. Not true; I also built the last garage door, weedeated (weedate?) the backyard, and went shopping for my ten-minute feast on Monday.The short run between the chimney girts is less than sixty inches, so I used 2x6 instead of 2x8. Even butted some end grain (oh my!) on one side. Screws and glue, my friends, screws and glue.

Completely exhausted. I thought installing the uprights would take a half a day, it took all of Monday. I straightened the roof to a large degree, though the third rafter down the line was already an inch and a half higher than the others. It shows on examination of the roof from outside as well, though I never noticed it until I stood out there to admire my work (whatever I did can't be seen, but it sure can be felt. Especially in my limbs). The roof is rechristened Tighty McTightface. Like the British research vessel Boaty McBoatface. Sort of. Let that be a lesson; never let the public name ANYTHING.

East rafter supports, with a very proud flying beam  in the background. And a VERY tired restoration tech. I've been at this for four weekends in a row and few cool days during the week as well. It had to be done before the heat sets in, though. And there is still one more thing to do; I have to put supports under two rafters on either side of the staircase, and before I jack them, I need to add a separate support for the rafter above the staircase. This will be dadoed into the rafters on either side and held there by the new supports.

But as far as this spring is concerned, this nightmare of a job is DONE! As is the removal of the barn wall!

Now I can finish out the woodwork and countertops in the kitchen and tackle the bathroom. All this before I jump up on the roof and die trying to strip it.

Ah, well, it's been a weird life.

Interesting bit of 1940s memorabilia found under the strips of linoleum in the closet. Colorfast stuff, them old papers. Prolly radioactive Federal Dye Number Thirteen.

 A happy, smiling wife in her slavery apron, proudly showing her achievement, a clean dish. Good for you, Mom! Now go scrub the floor, Dad needs to have a brace of martinis. But not before some (rather personal) bathtime with Junior. "Not again, Dad!" he squeals. By the look on Dad's face, you'd better not argue, kid.

Apparently naked kids and  enslaved women sold soap then. Hmmmmn. Still do!

Wartime news featuring that fun-loving monarch The Shah of Iran. He's quite the playboy at this age! Just wait until he comes of age with the western Powers supporting his tyranny! Oh, what fun he'll have with all those American Dollars!

Isn't this what Memorial Day is all about?

THESE are the people we're fighting for nowadays (apparently then, too!). Or, at least, for the corporations that own them.

And you. And me.

 Brooklyn Dodgers at work in Shibe Park / Connie Mack Stadium . Little did they know who was to become a legend there in a few years. They'd have freaked. And that they'd Go West, Young Man in twenty more would positively kill them..

Now HERE'S something useful! Something to keep podiatrists wealthy and women limping for decades!

Ugly shoes, as well.

Okay, that's enough of my negative political diatribe.

Next time:

I have no idea. After this last month, I need some sleep.

It will likely be Kitchen Woodwork and Room Painting. That's FUN stuff, and I'm ready for it.